BURNOUT & CHRONIC STRESS
You function. But you feel nothing.
Burnout is not a diagnosis. That does not make it imaginary. It is a feeling your brain and body are producing for a reason, and we treat it at that level, under physician supervision, with integration built in rather than bolted on.
70%Average symptom-score drop
6Infusions over 2–3 weeks
5,000+Infusions performed since 2022
Symptom-score data based on AlphaOmega Wellness treatment records, 2022–2026, using PHQ-9 and GAD-7. Individual results vary.
IF THIS SOUNDS FAMILIAR
You are hitting every deadline and feeling almost none of it.
You answer the emails. You make the meetings. Nobody at work would guess. And somewhere in the last two years the volume got turned down on everything, including the parts you used to like.
You would not call yourself depressed. You would not call a crisis line. You have told yourself it is a busy season for long enough that the phrase has stopped meaning anything.
The three parts of it
Exhaustion. Not tired. Depleted, and sleep does not fix it.
Distance. Cynicism about work you used to care about.
Reduced efficacy. The sense that nothing you do lands.
WHAT CHRONIC STRESS DOES
Your nervous system does not check boxes
Stress is supposed to spike and then end. When it does not end, the brain adapts to the version of life it is being handed. In animal studies, weeks of unrelenting stress shrink the branching of neurons in the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus, the regions that run focus, planning and mood.
Fewer connections means less of the machinery that lets you shift gears, feel pleasure and recover from a hard day. It is not that you got weaker. Something changed while you kept working through it.
The World Health Organization calls burn-out an occupational phenomenon rather than a medical condition. Your nervous system did not read that.
THE MECHANISM
Why rest stopped working
Rest works when the system is intact. A week off gives an intact nervous system time to reset. When the wiring itself has thinned out, time away does not rebuild it, which is why the weekend stopped touching this a while ago.
Ketamine acts on glutamate and the NMDA receptors, which triggers BDNF and opens a window where the brain forms new connections more readily than usual. In the animal research that regrowth shows up within about a day of a single dose, which is why the effect gets described as repair rather than maintenance, and why we pair it with integration instead of treating the infusion as the whole thing.
The protocol step by step is on the IV ketamine therapy page.
Burnout rarely arrives alone. If it is sitting with depression or anxiety, and it usually is, we treat them in the same course rather than asking you to pick one. In one review of the literature, up to 90 percent of people who met criteria for burnout also met provisional criteria for depression.
In crisis right now? Call or text 988. Veterans can press 1. When you are safe, we are here.
QUESTIONS PEOPLE ACTUALLY ASK
Burnout and IV ketamine
Is burnout even a real thing?
The World Health Organization put burn-out in the ICD-11 as an occupational phenomenon, and said plainly that it is not a medical condition. So it is not a diagnosis. What you are feeling is still real, and it overlaps heavily with conditions that have been studied and that respond to treatment.
I am still functioning. Am I making too much of this?
No. Most people who come to us for this are functioning. They are holding down demanding jobs and families and they are running on empty while they do it. Waiting until you cannot function is not a requirement and it is not a good plan.
What if it really is just my job?
Sometimes it is. Ketamine does not change your calendar or your boss. If the load is the whole story we will tell you that at the consult rather than take your money. What it can do is give a nervous system that has been stuck in the on position a chance to reset, so the changes you do make actually land.
Can I do this without anyone at work knowing?
Yes. We are a private self-pay practice and we do not bill insurance, which means there is no claim going anywhere. What you tell us stays in this office.
Can I keep seeing my therapist?
Please do. The people who get the most out of this are the ones doing the work between infusions. We will coordinate with your therapist if you want us to.
Does insurance cover it?
No. IV ketamine for mood conditions is used off label, so this is self-pay. There is no claim and no surprise bill. The full breakdown is on the cost page.
GET STARTED
Find out if this is a fit
A free consult, about thirty minutes, with our team rather than a call center. We will tell you honestly whether IV ketamine is a fit, and cover pricing, HSA and FSA, and Affirm on the call.
Medically reviewed by Dr. Dee Bonney, MD, board-certified emergency medicine physician, and Megan Bonney, PMHNP-C, board-certified psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. AlphaOmega Wellness is physician-led and family-owned, in Greenwood, Indiana. Meet the team.