Insight | Busyness as avoidance: when overworking hides something you'd rather not feel

Constant busyness often isn't about having too much to do. The experts in this article say it can be a way of not feeling something. If that is what's happening, a better calendar won't fix it. What helps is pausing long enough to notice what you're running from, and setting boundaries so you can say no, or say yes to rest.

Somatic psychologist Dr. Scott Lyons states it most directly: "Busyness is often an avoidance strategy." He says it keeps people out of contact with their own pain, vulnerability or unprocessed emotions. He traces the pattern to childhood. Many people learned to earn love through performance and absorbed the belief that they are valuable only when they are doing something.

Lyons also describes the biology. Constant doing delivers small dopamine rewards, and stillness makes the nervous system panic because it feels unsafe. Over time this brings poor sleep, constant tension and disconnection from joy. He calls it a nervous-system problem, not a productivity problem.

Physician Gabor Maté sees the same pattern in people who can't say no. In his clinical experience, patients who later developed autoimmune disease tended to put other people's emotional needs ahead of their own, repress healthy anger and feel responsible for how others feel. He explains the link through psychoneuroimmunology, which treats the nervous, hormonal, immune and emotional systems as one. In his view, suppressing healthy anger weakens the body's boundary too. He says children trade authenticity for attachment when they have to. He counts work and busyness as possible addictions, and he asks why the pain, not why the addiction.

Psychiatrist Dr. Pooja Lakshmin connects burnout and people-pleasing to a lack of internal boundaries. For her, a boundary isn't a wall. It's a space between stimulus and response where you can choose yes, no or negotiate. "The pause is the boundary." Her warning signs are constant irritability, resenting a lack of thanks and daydreaming about escape. She treats guilt as something to tolerate, not obey.

Jonathan Fields, founder of Good Life Project, frames burnout as misalignment. People keep doing work that doesn't nourish them and never deal with the growing conflict. His own immune system gave out after years of 100-hour weeks as a securities lawyer.

The experts disagree in three places. The first is what's being avoided. Lyons and Maté point inward, to old pain and fear of losing acceptance. Fields focuses more on a mismatch with the work itself and on the vanished boundary between home and work. Those views lead to different first steps: healing an old pattern or redesigning the work.

The second is how much biology to claim. Maté makes the boldest claim. Lyons emphasizes dopamine and the nervous system. Fields says plainly he isn't a doctor and treats the body as a warning sign rather than a cause. Lakshmin stays with psychology and behavior.

The third is where to start. Lakshmin advises against starting with family. Maté's first case was Mel Robbins's relationship with her mother.

To act on this, start with the pause the experts recommend. Sit for a few minutes daily with no phone. When the urge to do something hits, ask what you're running from. Work through Maté's weekly questions about where you can't say no, and where you aren't saying yes. Review your calendar for dread, cut low-value work and protect free time.

Remember that not all busyness is avoidance. Real outside pressures exist, and some work genuinely drains you. This isn't about blaming parents or yourself. Anyone with physical symptoms should see a doctor, and Fields urges professional help for mental illness or serious emotional struggle.