When Achievement Becomes Exhaustion: The Other Side of Depression

In the treatment of depression, one of the foundational practices we often lean into is something called Behavioural Activation. It’s based on the idea that when we’re feeling low, our tendency is to withdraw, and that withdrawal feeds the depression. So, we gently encourage a balance of activities that bring either a sense of pleasure or achievement, or ideally both.

But here’s something the literature also points out, and that I see often in the real world: depression doesn’t just come from doing too little. It can also arise from doing too much, especially if that “too much” is focused only on achievement, productivity, and striving.

That overachieving drive, when unchecked, can become its own kind of withdrawal. Not from activity, but from rest. From joy. From softness. From just being.

It’s like breathing in deeply over and over without ever letting the breath out. At first, it might feel powerful. Energizing, even. But, eventually, it’s suffocating.

An image that came to me while reflecting on this is the ocean. Think of a wave: it rises in power and majesty, but only because it will also fall. The ocean doesn't resist the fall. It needs it. If the ocean clung only to the climb, never yielding to the fall, its energy would become violent and unsustainable. It would destroy itself.

There is deep wisdom in the rhythms of nature and of life itself.

Surrender, rest, and letting go are not passive. They are essential. Even the most powerful forces in nature honour the pause. If we are always striving, always climbing, always doing, without ever softening, yielding, or resting, our systems collapse. We burn out. We break down. And sometimes, we break open.

The fall is not failure.

It is grace. It is the humility that keeps our strength from turning into self-destruction. We are not machines built for constant output, we are living beings built for rhythm. For expansion and contraction. For effort and ease. For the inhale and the exhale.

Health is found in this dance.

So if you’re someone who leans hard into achievement, perhaps it’s time to honour the wisdom of the fall. To exhale. To rest. Not as a reward for your productivity, but as a sacred, life-sustaining part of it.