How to Deal with Autistic Burnout (I’ve Been There!)

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Googling “how to deal with autistic burnout,” eh? My friend, I’ve been there.

I’ve wrestled with autistic burnout countless times throughout my life, for anywhere from days to years at a time.

It’s such an exhausting and overwhelming and, at times, hopeless hole to find yourself in. And frankly, most common autistic traits give us the exact opposite of what we need to dig our way back out of it.

But…I have! Time and time again, I’ve forced myself to get brutally honest, reassessed my autistic tendencies and needs, and revamped my life to meet both my own needs and those of my loved ones.

So let’s talk about it, shall we? Here’s exactly how to deal with autistic burnout…at least for me.

Learn to recognize your personal signs of autistic burnout.

Everyone experiences different signs of autistic burnout.

My personal signs include extreme fatigue that doesn’t match my circumstances, feeling overwhelmed by simple routine tasks, increased irritability and difficulty coping with change, and a regression in social skills. But your signs could look very different!

A few common signs of autistic burnout include:

• Extreme fatigue
• Increased sensory sensitivities
• Difficulty with speech and language
• Loss of executive functioning skills
• Heightened anxiety
• More frequent and longer-lasting meltdowns
• Depression
• Irritability
• Physical pain
• Sleeping more or less than usual
• Difficulty with decision-making
• Reduced communication abilities
• Struggling with self-regulation
• Loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities
• Feeling overwhelmed by routine tasks
• Increased need for solitude
• Difficulty coping with changes in daily routine
• Feelings of hopelessness or despair
• Regression in skills (self-care, social skills, etc.)
• Emotional numbness or detachment

The first step in learning how to deal with autistic burnout is learning how to recognize it when it comes around!

Assess and mitigate your stress levels.

Identify the sources of stress in your life.

It’s easier to focus on an in-the-moment coping mechanism, like indulging in special interests or creating a more sensory-friendly environment. But the fact is that if you don’t address your current stress levels and causes of burnout, it’ll be almost impossible to correct it.

So ask yourself what your biggest pain points are!

You might experience ongoing stress from work, relationships, health concerns, being a parent (a big one for me!), or other static sources of chronic stress. You might also be facing temporarily stressful situations like planning for social events, navigating the holidays, or taking on big projects around the house.

Jot down a list of all the sources of stress in your life. As you continue to assess the situation over a few hours or days (as we tend to do), keep adding to your list as you identify additional sources.

Eliminate as many sources of stress as possible.

Once you have a list of everything driving up your stress levels, make an honest assessment of which items you can cut out altogether.

While I enjoyed volunteering at my daughter’s school and my church, I realized that it wasn’t sustainable for me to do both during a period of burnout. While I wanted to tackle a huge backyard landscaping project one summer, I decided it wasn’t a necessity I had to complete at that moment and so, pushed back the date.

If it’s not completely necessary, it may not be for you…at least during this season.

Simplify your nonnegotiable sources of stress.

A lot of our more chronic stress can’t be eliminated.

We all have to care for our physical health (which, I’ve found, holds strong ties to my mental health). Many of us need to bring in a steady paycheck. Still others need to be responsible parents.

In the areas where you can’t step down completely, decide what you can simplify.

I still need to exercise several times a week for the sake of my mental and physical health. But now is probably not the best time to tackle a complicated new workout program.

I still have to hold down my job, but I don’t have to take on extra projects that aren’t required right now. I still need to care for my daughter, but I can hand some of those responsibilities over to my husband, or send her to her grandparents’ house for a fun sleepover while I catch a break.

Decide what your very minimum requirements are in each nonnegotiable role you hold, and tell yourself that that is enough for now.

Set the scene for success.

Before you start practicing self-care and addressing the cause of autistic burnout, it’s helpful to adjust your environment to complement your autistic behaviors as much as possible. If you don’t adapt your environment, you’ll likely find that even the best-planned interventions can be swallowed up by sensory overload.

Reduce sensory input in the moment.

The fact is that most of us live with other (likely neurotypical) people and so, aren’t in control of our environment 100% of the time. That’s why it’s important to learn how to deal with sensory overload in the moment.

This could include stepping into a quiet room, turning off the lights, sitting in a cozy, body-hugging chair or weighted blanket, snuggly into soft, textured pillows, smelling your favorite scents, or anything else that helps to meet your sensory needs.

Reduce sensory input long term.

Once you’ve dealt with your in-the-moment, in-your-face sensory overload, it’s time to think longer term!

Creating a more sensory-friendly environment in as many places as possible will help you more quickly recover from autistic shutdown. This will mean minimizing sensory triggers, reducing visual clutter, and adapting your environment at home, at work, and other places to help you feel more calm and organized.

Again, living and working with neurotypical people will usually mean we can’t adapt our entire environment to become some autistic paradise. But we can create little pockets of space and maybe even entire rooms that help meet our sensory needs.

Lower your social expectations.

Social demands can be challenging for autistic people to navigate even when we’re not struggling with autistic burnout, let alone when we are. This is an area where you’ll want to show yourself some grace and strike a healthy balance between necessary social interactions and some strategic social withdrawal.

You’ll likely still run into social situations that demand your attendance, including work and school requirements. And you’ll want to hold onto any social interactions that fill your cup, like meeting your best friend to vent over coffee.

But other social demands? If they’re not necessary and make you feel worse rather than better, consider pressing pause.

I’ve turned down invitations to drinks after work, neighborhood parties, and even a few family gatherings that I knew would cause me stress I wasn’t equipped to handle during periods of autistic shutdown.

Schedule and prioritize regular self-care.

One of the most impactful actions I’ve found to help overcome autistic burnout has been to engage in regular self-care. I make it the first thing I do every morning and the last thing I do every night, and remind myself that even if all I accomplish that day is my own self-care, it’s been a successful day.

Rest, rest, rest.

Recognize and honor your body’s need to rest. This includes getting good sleep at night and taking regular breaks to rest during the day.

When I know I’m wrestling with autistic shutdown, I make it a point to go to bed early.

I announce my bedtime to my family so that they can support my going to bed at that time, rather than asking for snacks or help with homework five minutes prior.

Then I lay down in bed, put my phone away, and close my eyes, whether I’m quiiiiite tired yet or not. I read once that if you can’t sleep, laying quietly with your eyes closed is the next best thing for your health and darn it, that fact has stuck with me for years now.

During the day, I make time for regular breaks. That means that while my tendency is to do all the things, I remind myself instead that rest and recovery is more important than all of my other goals.

So after I help my daughter with her homework, I take a few minutes to relax on the couch. And after a block of back-to-back meetings at work, I make sure to take my lunch and spend it not checking more items off my to-do list.

Tell yourself that rest and recovery is the most productive thing you can do right now. Then tell yourself again.

Prioritize your physical health.

Physical health? Isn’t autistic burnout more of a mental health issue?!

I thought that for years…and paid the price for it when cutting exercise, eating junk, and drinking too much alcohol all exacerbated my autistic experience. Add a few physical health diagnoses to the mix and I was slammed with autistic fatigue for months at a time.

That’s why it’s so very important to take care of your physical health to overcome autistic burnout!

Drink plenty of water and eat healthy, whole foods to help your body feel strong and energetic. Plus, maintaining a healthy weight takes one more potential stressor off your plate.

And exercise! While navigating complex workout programs can cause autistic people more harmful stress than help, finding gentle physical activities can make a world of difference in squashing autistic fatigue.

Walking is my jam. I use it to get out of my house (and frankly, away from talkative family members and people in general), jam out to music, pray and self-talk myself through pressing issues, and work up a light sweat.

Some autistic people prefer stretching, yoga, or swimming. (Exercise and water?! Oh, yeah!)

Work with a therapist or support group to prioritize your mental health.

Autism spectrum disorder is, for the most part, a lonely diagnosis. The neurotypical people in our lives aren’t able to fully relate and we don’t run into a lot of openly autistic people in the wild.

That’s where support groups and therapists specializing in autism spectrum disorder can make a huge difference! Consider seeking out mental health support either locally or online to help both support and normalize your autistic experience.

Practice effective coping strategies.

There are lots and lots of effective coping strategies that can help you overcome autistic shutdown both in the moment and longer term when practiced regularly.

A few of my favorites include:

• Deep Breathing: Practice deep breathing exercises to help calm your nervous system.
• Quiet Space: Move to a quieter area to reduce sensory overload. I tend to step into my bedroom closet at home, or empty stairwells in public buildings.
• Use Calming Tools: Keep fidget toys, stress balls, or worry stones handy – whatever helps ground you best.
• Listen to Music: Sometimes this means listening to classical lo-fi for me, other times it means repeating my favorite songs over and over again.
• Grounding Techniques: Experiment with different grounding techniques and practice the ones you find most helpful.
• Visual Supports: Use visual aids or schedules to help you reconcile your current state and better anticipate what’s coming next.
• Self-Talk: I use this one all the time! Talk yourself through hard situations like you’re a friend, reassuring yourself that the situation is manageable and that you’re doing a great job. “You’ve got this!”
• Physical Comfort: Wrap yourself in a blanket or hoodie or use a weighted blanket to provide a sense of security.
• Physical Movement: Regularly engage in gentle physical activities like stretching or walking to help release built-up tension.

Keep a list handy of your most effective coping strategies so that you’re always ready to help counteract potential meltdowns and autistic shutdown.

And don’t be afraid to experiment with a new coping mechanism! I spent a few weeks researching and trying out new coping strategies last year, and ended up adding a few I really loved to my toolbox.

Log regular time in nature.

Is it the sunlight? The fresh air? The beauty? The slow pace of nature? I couldn’t tell you why spending time in nature helps me beat autistic shutdown, but it does.

Sometimes spending time in nature looks like a quiet walk at a local park. Sometimes it just looks like sitting on my back porch with my favorite iced coffee.

I put away screens and other distractions, take a deep breath, and simply exist there for a while. And when I come back inside, I feel more at peace. Magic!

Maintain your daily routine.

When you’re focused on self-care, it can be easy to fall out of your regular schedule and daily routine. Go easy on yourself, right?!

While that might make sense as a “rest” tactic for neurotypical people, it can actually be harmful for autistic people!

Maintaining a predictable daily routine helps autistic people to expend less energy navigating daily life. And when our normal daily activities take up less energy, we can save up that energy to help us navigate life’s unpredictable curveballs with lower stress levels.

So…don’t let go of that daily routine in your quest for rest! It’s serving you much more than you might realize.

Invest lots of time simply being your (autistic) self.

Spend as much time as possible unmasked.

Sometimes, you just have to mask. That’s life, right?

But the more time you can log unmasked, the more quickly you’ll be able to recover from autistic fatigue and burnout.

Look for opportunities at home and with trusted friends and family members where you can be yourself. Take advantage of time alone in your car while you run errands or drive to work.

When you have to be out and about and masking, take regular breaks away to unmask. When I was working in a traditional office setting, I’d schedule time alone in empty conference rooms and use my breaks and lunches to physically leave the building (and potential social situations) behind for a few minutes.

Make time for things that excite and make you happy.

A lot of autistic people emphasize spending time indulging in their special interests to beat burnout. And while that’s important (see the next point!), I’ve found it even more important to make time and space for the things that make me happy.

Stupid little things that have recently made me happy have included:

• Reading a geeky new adventure book with a glass of wine
• Buying a $10 pair of tie-free stretchy shoelaces
• Visiting an antique store
• Reorganizing my desk at work
• Blaring the same song over and over in my car and dancing to it

If there’s something you know excites and/or makes you happy, do that thing! If you recognize a moment of excitement or happiness, make room for it!

I’ve gone to bed unapologetically early to make time to read that book. I’ve driven a few extra loops around my neighborhood to play that song just two more times.

Rather than rushing through your day to knock more items off your to-do list, remind yourself that those moments of happiness are vital to your current state of health. In the long run, investing just a few extra minutes into personal time isn’t going to make or break your schedule, but it will make a huge impact on busting up autistic fatigue.

Prioritize spending time on your special interests.

But of course…indulging in our special interests will play a huge role in the recovery process!

This is one of my most effective relaxation techniques: taking a deep dive into the things that fire me up, the things I could talk about for hours. It almost feels as if my special interests create a safe space for my brain, a place where I don’t have to mask or stumble through social interactions, where I can geek out and be my self-iest self.

Schedule your special interests into your calendar regularly and treat those times as seriously as you would a work meeting or doctor’s appointment. After all, your mental health is just as important as all of your other obligations, if not more so!

Stim, stim, stim (when it’s safe for you and others).

“Stimming,” or self-stimulatory behavior, refers to the repetitive movements, sounds, or actions that those with autism spectrum disorder might engage in to self-soothe.

A few common types of stimming include:

• Hand-Flapping: Rapidly moving your hands back and forth.
• Rocking: Swaying your body back and forth while sitting or standing.
• Spinning: Twirling your body or other objects.
• Finger-Flicking: Moving your fingers in a repetitive motion.
• Echolalia: Repeating words, phrases, or sounds.
• Tapping: Repeatedly tapping your fingers or other objects.
• Pacing: Walking back and forth in a set pattern.
• Vocalizations: Making repetitive sounds or noises.
• Snapping Fingers: Making snapping sounds with your fingers.
• Chewing: Chewing on objects like clothing, pens, or other items.
• Head-Banging: Repeatedly hitting your head against a surface.
• Scratching: Repeatedly scratching yourself or other objects.

Stimming can be hugely helpful in alleviating built-up tension, self-soothing, or managing sensory overload…if and when it’s not hurting yourself or others. Obviously, stimming behaviors like hand-banging and scratching should be avoided whenever possible and hopefully replaced with safer behaviors.

But rocking, finger-flicking, singing and other vocalizations? Do iiiiit!

Stimming is a natural part of the autistic experience and can prove essential to the self-regulation and well-being of many autistic individuals. So whenever it’s appropriate and feels helpful to you, engage in stimming to feel more comfortable and more like yourself.

Create a brighter future.

The fact is that if we don’t set ourselves up for a healthy future, we’ll likely fall back into autistic shutdown at some point or another. That’s why it’s important to focus on making your life more sustainable long term.

Set healthy boundaries.

Without some carefully set boundaries, all of your efforts to dig yourself out of burnout will always be at risk of being trampled by others.

A few helpful boundaries might include:

• Personal Space: Clearly communicate your need for personal space and physical boundaries.
• Sensory Preferences: Inform others about your sensory sensitivities and request their support in either accommodating your sensory needs or resisting judgment or commentary when you take measures to adapt.
• Social Interactions: Set limits on social interactions, such as the amount of time you’ll attend a social event or the number of people you’ll interact with at a time.
• Communication Style: Communicate your preferences for receiving information, such as through written communication or clear, direct language.
• Time Management: Establish boundaries around your time, including setting aside time for rest and self-care without feeling guilty.
• Emotional Boundaries: Protect your emotional well-being by avoiding situations or people that cause undue stress or anxiety.
• Work-Life Balance: Determine the days and times you’ll work, as well as the days and times you won’t. Communicate to coworkers that you won’t be checking work emails or chats outside of your scheduled hours.
• Personal Interests: Respect your own interests and hobbies by setting aside time to engage in activities you enjoy and find relaxing.
• Social Media and Technology: Limit time spent on social media or technology to avoid sensory overload and help maintain your mental health.
• Saying No: Just say no to requests or activities you’re not comfortable with or that may overwhelm you.
• Physical Health: Set boundaries to prioritize your physical health, such as ensuring you get enough sleep, exercise, and maintain a healthy diet.

Setting healthy boundaries can help autistic people manage their daily lives more effectively while still maintaining their mental and physical well-being.

Experiment with energy accounting.

Energy accounting views energy as a limited resource you can budget for in the same way you would budget money.

To begin energy accounting, you’ll want to monitor how different activities, tasks, and interactions affect your energy levels throughout your day and week. Try to recognize which activities or environments are energy-draining (like social interactions or loud places) and which are energy-boosting (like special interests or quiet time).

With this knowledge, you can organize your daily routines and schedules to balance energy-draining activities with energy-boosting ones. This method helps establish limits on activities that consume a lot of energy to prevent autistic fatigue and potential burnout.

Overhaul your life to make it more sustainable.

If you don’t make your life more sustainable, chances are good you’ll slip back into autistic burnout again. That’s why it’s important to not only make in-the-moment adjustments, but also make a long-term shift that better aligns with your unique autistic behaviors and needs.

Here are just a few things I found I couldn’t sustain long-term:

• Volunteering in two different ways at my church
• Visiting my family in another state several times a year (despite their urging)
• Stressing over my “brand” at work
• Working a night shift
• Getting only 4-6 hours of sleep a night
• Pleasing everyone
• Taking on personal responsibility for what should be others‘ personal responsibilities

When you can eliminate some of your original causes of burnout, you’ll be more likely to live a more balanced life in the future.

And…well…that’s how to deal with autistic burnout!

Did I miss any tips you’ve found to be game-changers? Please, please, please share them in the comments!

And friend? You’ve got this.

It sucks. It’s debilitating and frustrating, I know.

But all of those autistic traits we have – determination, dedication, insane focus, powerful logic, creativity, and more – also empower us to do what we need to do to get to a better place. And you deserve to be in a better place!

So I’ll say it one more time for those in the back: You’ve got this.