By Annie Wright, LMFT · Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist (#95719)Clinically reviewed May 2026

WOMEN IN TECH • May 23, 2026

Last reviewed: June 2026 by Annie Wright, LMFT

It’s 2:17 a.m. Priya’s phone vibrates sharply against the nightstand. The PagerDuty alert blares through the darkness of her apartment, the sound cutting through the stillness like a siren. Her heart races before her eyes even open. 112 beats per minute, already. She silences the alert with practiced ease, a muscle memory honed over two years of nights like this. The apartment remains dark; her partner sleeps soundly beside her, unaware of the storm inside her body. Priya opens her laptop, her mind already detaching from everything but the incident channel. Forty minutes later, the incident is resolved. She lies back down at 3:04 a.m., but sleep eludes her. She doesn’t understand why anymore.

This isn’t just a productivity problem or a matter of willpower. It’s a nervous system under structural siege.

For women in tech, especially those in Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), DevOps, and platform engineering roles, on-call rotations are a ubiquitous part of the job. But the cost of this “always on” state is rarely acknowledged. The PagerDuty alert isn’t just an interruption; it’s a biological event that rewires the nervous system, conditioning it to anticipate threat around the clock. For women who carry the invisible burden of childhood hypervigilance or trauma, the on-call architecture doesn’t just add stress. It amplifies a pre-existing wound.

This guide is for the women who recognize the sound of that alert in their sleep, who have tried to ignore the creeping exhaustion but feel their bodies pushing back. Here, we name the polyvagal science behind chronic interruption, identify the specific clinical costs of on-call burnout for driven women in tech, and map a path toward recovery that honors both career ambitions and nervous system health.

The 2 a.m. That Changes Everything

Priya’s experience is far from unique. Across tech hubs worldwide, women in SRE and DevOps roles wake to the same piercing alert, their bodies responding before their minds can catch up. The PagerDuty alert at 2 a.m. is more than a call to action; it’s a biological trigger that hijacks the autonomic nervous system. Each alert conditions the body to anticipate threat, even in the absence of an actual incident. The result is a nervous system locked in a state of hypervigilance, primed to respond at any moment.

What happens after the incident resolves is just as critical. The body struggles to downshift from sympathetic activation, leaving Priya awake and restless in the early morning hours. This chronic interruption of sleep architecture is a hallmark of on-call burnout. It’s not about a single night of lost sleep. It’s about the cumulative effect of repeated disruptions that erode the nervous system’s capacity for rest and restoration.

Priya’s dissociation during the incident. The mental distancing from everything outside the incident channel. Is a protective response. It’s a way to survive the pressure without being overwhelmed. But this coping strategy comes at a cost: a growing sense of disconnection from her own body and life. When she lies back down at 3:04 a.m., she’s not just physically awake; she’s neurologically trapped in a state of anticipatory threat.

These experiences are often misunderstood as personal failings or productivity issues. But framing on-call burnout as a nervous system condition shifts the lens. It’s not about resilience or grit. It’s about how the body and brain respond to a structural reality that demands constant readiness.

If you recognize this pattern in yourself or your team, you’re not alone. This guide will help you understand what’s happening beneath the surface and what it truly costs. So you can begin to reclaim your nervous system, your nights, and your career.

What Is On-Call Burnout?

On-call burnout is a specific clinical pattern distinct from general tech burnout or workplace exhaustion. While burnout broadly involves emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy, on-call burnout centers on the anticipatory threat state created by the on-call rotation itself.

Think of the phone as a threat object. It’s not just a device; it’s a symbol of unpredictability and potential crisis. The nervous system learns to monitor it constantly, even when no alert is active. This creates a chronic state of vigilance that disrupts sleep architecture and alters the relationship to time. Evenings, weekends, vacations. All become permeated by the possibility of interruption.

For women in tech, this experience is often intensified by gendered workplace dynamics. Research and industry observations show that women disproportionately carry heavier on-call loads in mixed-gender teams. This is partly due to seniority gaps. Fewer women in senior IC roles means women often fill the less visible but no less demanding on-call shifts. Additionally, caregiving responsibilities outside work intersect with on-call demands, amplifying stress and reducing recovery opportunities.

This means on-call burnout is not just about feeling tired. It’s a nervous system condition that rewires how safety and threat are perceived. The phone becomes a source of stress rather than connection. Weekends don’t feel restful because the alert might come. Vacations are shadowed by the “just in case” mindset. This creates a cycle that’s hard to break without intentional intervention.

Understanding on-call burnout requires a neurobiological framework, which we’ll explore deeply in the next section. For now, it’s important to recognize that this isn’t a personal failure or a sign of weakness. It’s a structural condition embedded in the on-call architecture and workplace culture.

If you want to learn more about how burnout manifests for women in tech broadly, including the intersections with impostor syndrome and systemic barriers, explore our comprehensive Burnout Complete Guide and Glass Ceiling Trauma Response resources. These offer rich context for understanding the broader landscape of women’s mental health in technology.

For women seeking support tailored to these experiences, our therapy for women in tech and executive coaching for women in tech programs provide clinically informed approaches that honor the unique challenges of on-call burnout.

The Neurobiology of Chronic Anticipatory Threat

On-call burnout isn’t just about feeling tired or overwhelmed after a long shift. It’s fundamentally a neurobiological condition shaped by chronic anticipatory threat. A state where the nervous system remains on high alert, ready to respond to the next PagerDuty alert even when none has sounded yet. Understanding this requires us to dive into the autonomic nervous system and how it governs our body’s response to stress.

Stephen Porges, PhD, a neuroscientist and professor emeritus, developed Polyvagal Theory, which offers a precise framework for understanding how our nervous system toggles between states of safety and threat. According to this theory, our autonomic nervous system has three primary states:

• Ventral vagal state: This is the “safe and social” mode where we feel calm, connected, and able to engage with others. It supports rest, digestion, and recovery.
• Sympathetic state: The classic fight-or-flight response. Heart rate increases, muscles tense, and the body prepares to respond to immediate danger.
• Dorsal vagal state: A shutdown or freeze response, where the body conserves energy, heart rate slows, and dissociation or numbness can occur.

When you’re on call, your nervous system is repeatedly pushed into sympathetic activation, or worse, oscillates unpredictably between sympathetic arousal and dorsal vagal shutdown. The PagerDuty alert becomes a neuroception. An unconscious detection of threat. That keeps your body primed for action, even if the alert never comes. Over time, this chronic state of readiness rewires your autonomic nervous system, making it harder to access the ventral vagal state of calm and safety.

This persistent activation leads to what researchers call allostatic load. The physiological cost of chronic stress adaptation. Rachel Yehuda, PhD, a leading expert on trauma and stress neurobiology, explains that allostatic load accumulates as the body repeatedly recalibrates its stress response systems, particularly the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which regulates cortisol and other stress hormones. Prolonged allostatic load can disrupt immune function, impair memory, and increase vulnerability to mood disorders.

One of the most insidious effects of on-call work is its disruption of sleep architecture. Gupta et al. (2021) in Industrial Health highlight that the unpredictability of on-call duties causes both anticipatory anxiety and frequent sleep interruptions. Even the mere possibility of an alert can fragment sleep cycles, reducing the proportion of restorative deep and REM sleep. Unlike total sleep deprivation, interrupted sleep specifically impairs cognitive functions critical to engineers: memory, logic, reaction time, and problem-solving. This means that after a night disturbed by alerts, an engineer’s ability to perform complex tasks is compromised in ways that compound over time.

The sleep disruption is not just about feeling groggy. It’s a neurobiological injury that affects the brain’s ability to regulate emotion and maintain executive function. This creates a vicious cycle: poor sleep heightens sympathetic activation, which in turn makes it harder to fall and stay asleep.

In the context of women in tech, these neurobiological effects are layered on top of pre-existing vulnerabilities. Many women bring a history of childhood hypervigilance, sometimes rooted in early attachment disruptions or trauma, which already sensitizes the nervous system to threat. The on-call rotation acts as a chronic trigger, reinforcing a nervous system conditioned to expect unpredictability and danger.

The result is a nervous system that stays stuck in sympathetic activation or cycles through freeze responses, unable to relax even during off-hours. This is why the symptoms of on-call burnout go beyond exhaustion and irritability to include dissociation, physical illness, and an inability to fully engage in personal life.

Understanding this neurobiology is crucial for shifting how we approach recovery. It’s not about willpower or time management; it’s about rewiring the nervous system through targeted clinical interventions that address autonomic regulation and sleep repair.

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How On-Call Burnout Shows Up in Driven Women in Tech

The clinical presentation of on-call burnout in women engineers and site reliability engineers (SREs) is often subtle, yet deeply disruptive. It’s not just about feeling tired or stressed; it’s about a fundamental shift in how the nervous system responds to the rhythms of work and life.

Consider Nadia, an L6 SRE at a Series D startup. She recently transitioned from an individual contributor role to owning on-call rotations as an engineering manager. With this change, her pager load has doubled, and the social pressure to not complain. Because “this is just part of the job”. Weighs heavily on her.

Nadia’s dermatologist asks if she’s under stress during a routine visit. She says no. But the truth is, Nadia doesn’t know what “not stressed” feels like anymore. Sunday afternoons bring a sinking feeling in her stomach, a physical illness she can’t shake. She takes her laptop on vacation “just in case,” and Saturdays have lost their joy because the alert might come at any moment. Her personal life has unconsciously been structured around her on-call window, and she’s constantly monitoring her phone, even when off duty.

This presentation is common: women who once thrived on challenge and problem-solving find themselves trapped in a state of chronic vigilance. They no longer experience the ventral vagal state of calm and connection. Instead, their nervous systems are conditioned to expect threat, making it impossible to fully relax or be present.

The consequences extend beyond mental health. Chronic sympathetic activation can lead to physical symptoms such as headaches, gastrointestinal issues, and skin conditions. All stress-related manifestations that Nadia’s dermatologist is beginning to recognize.

For women in tech, the gendered dynamics of on-call work exacerbate these effects. In my work with clients in tech, what I see consistently is that women often carry a disproportionate share of on-call load in mixed teams, partly due to seniority gaps and partly because women volunteer or absorb these duties as a strategy to increase visibility and career capital. Yet this visibility comes at the cost of health and well-being.

This means that on-call burnout is not just an individual experience but a systemic issue rooted in team structures and organizational culture. Women like Nadia may feel isolated in their suffering because the industry narrative often frames on-call as a necessary, if unpleasant, part of the job. Something to endure rather than a source of clinical injury.

Addressing this requires both clinical insight and organizational awareness. From a clinical standpoint, recognizing the unique presentation of on-call burnout in women is the first step toward effective intervention. This includes validating the physical symptoms, acknowledging the anticipatory anxiety, and helping women reclaim their nervous system’s capacity for safety.

From an organizational perspective, it means acknowledging the gendered distribution of on-call duties and the hidden costs borne by women engineers. It means creating space for honest conversations about mental health without stigma or penalty.

If you’re a woman in tech navigating these challenges, know that your experience is real and shared by many. Recovery is possible, but it starts with understanding the neurobiological roots of your symptoms and seeking support that addresses the whole person. Body, mind, and system.

For more on how burnout uniquely impacts women in tech and strategies for recovery, explore our Burnout Complete Guide for Women in Tech and learn about therapy tailored for women in tech.

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On-Call and Attachment: Why the Alert Feels Like More Than an Alert

For many women in tech, the PagerDuty alert is more than just a work notification, it triggers a deep, embodied response rooted in early attachment experiences. On-call work mirrors the dynamics of anxious attachment: unpredictable signals demanding immediate attention, where any delay or failure to respond feels costly. This unpredictable, high-stakes environment can replicate the nervous system conditioning formed in childhood when caregivers were emotionally volatile, inconsistent, or unavailable.

Women who grew up with unpredictable parents, whether due to addiction, untreated mental illness, narcissism, or chronic illness, often carry a nervous system finely tuned to anticipate threat. The on-call rotation doesn’t create this hypervigilance; it validates and perpetuates it. The alert is not just a call for technical troubleshooting; it becomes a trigger that the body interprets as a threat to safety and connection.

This dynamic is why two women on the same on-call rotation can have vastly different physiological and emotional responses. One may manage the alerts with relative ease, while the other experiences a chronic state of nervous system activation that feels indistinguishable from trauma. For the latter, the nervous system’s neuroception, the subconscious detection of safety or threat described by Stephen Porges,cannot differentiate between “the parent might explode” and “PagerDuty might fire.”

This attachment-informed lens is crucial for understanding why on-call burnout in women in tech is not simply about workload or time management. It’s about how the nervous system encodes experiences of unpredictability and threat, and how these are reactivated repeatedly by the architecture of on-call work. The alert becomes a relational echo, a reminder of early experiences where safety was never guaranteed.

This insight also reframes the clinical approach. Healing from on-call burnout requires more than cognitive strategies or productivity hacks. It demands somatic therapies that address the nervous system’s conditioned response and trauma-informed approaches that recognize the layered history beneath the present stress.

For women navigating this intersection, therapy that integrates polyvagal-informed techniques and attachment repair can offer a pathway to reclaiming safety in the body. This work supports rebuilding the ventral vagal state, the autonomic nervous system’s social engagement system, enabling a regulated nervous system that can tolerate unpredictability without being hijacked by it.

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Both/And: Your Company Needs You On-Call AND Your Body Is Telling You the Truth

The reality of on-call burnout is a both/and situation. On one hand, on-call rotation is a necessary function in tech. Systems need 24/7 coverage; incidents happen unpredictably; and the reliability of digital infrastructure depends on engineers being available. This is not a matter of individual resistance or unwillingness, it’s a structural reality of the industry.

On the other hand, the way on-call is structured, distributed, and compensated often causes real, measurable neurobiological harm. The industry frequently ignores or minimizes this harm, treating it as an occupational hazard rather than a systemic problem requiring intervention. Both truths coexist: the work is necessary, and the cost to the nervous system is profound.

This duality requires a shift in how we approach recovery and resilience. The goal isn’t to reject on-call work outright, that’s often not feasible or desirable, but to build a recovery architecture that runs parallel to it, supporting the nervous system and allowing women to sustain their careers without chronic physiological damage.

This means recognizing and naming the physical sensations and autonomic states that on-call work triggers. It means developing tools to track the body’s response cycle and intervene before the nervous system becomes overwhelmed. It means clinical interventions that go beyond talk therapy to include somatic work, sleep restoration, and trauma processing.

Priya’s experience illustrates this well. As a senior SRE at a Bay Area hyperscaler with four years of primary on-call coverage, she has become intimately familiar with the physical toll of this work. In therapy, her clinician asks her to notice what happens in her body thirty minutes before her on-call window begins. Priya hadn’t paid attention to this before.

She discovers that her jaw clenches, her shoulders rise, and her breathing becomes shallow. These are subtle signs of sympathetic nervous system activation, a preparatory state of fight or flight. She’s been living in this state for two years without naming it or understanding its impact.

This somatic awareness is a critical first step. Once she can identify the bodily signals, Priya can begin to practice regulation techniques and negotiate boundaries from a place of nervous system calm rather than reactive fear.

Negotiating on-call rotation boundaries is a key structural intervention that complements clinical work. But it’s important to recognize the gendered dynamics at play here. What the evidence suggests. And what I see consistently in my work with women in tech. Is that women who negotiate can face social penalties, including being perceived as less cooperative or less likeable, which can affect career advancement. This is especially true in male-dominated tech environments where on-call work is often valorized.

Understanding this, women can prepare for negotiation from a position of strength: a regulated nervous system, clear somatic tracking, and clinical support to buffer the social cost of asking for change. When negotiation happens from a calm, grounded place, it’s more effective and less likely to trigger defensive backlash.

This is why clinical interventions for on-call burnout often include executive coaching alongside therapy. Coaching can help women develop strategies for navigating workplace dynamics, advocating for themselves, and setting boundaries without triggering the “social cost” penalties described in research.

For women interested in exploring these approaches, resources like executive coaching for women in tech executives and therapy for women in tech provide integrated support that addresses both the internal nervous system work and the external career navigation.

Ultimately, the both/and framework honors the complexity of on-call burnout. It refuses the false choice between career and health. Instead, it invites women to hold the necessity of on-call work alongside a deep listening to their bodies’ truth, and to build recovery practices that make sustainable on-call work possible.

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For more on the neurobiology underlying these experiences, and clinical strategies for recovery, see our burnout complete guide for women in tech and explore the intersection of trauma and career in glass ceiling trauma response for women in tech. These resources offer further depth on the nervous system under siege and pathways toward healing.

The Systemic Lens: Why On-Call Is a Structural Problem, Not a Personal Weakness

When we talk about on-call burnout for women in tech, it’s essential to zoom out from individual experience and see the structural forces at play. This is not about personal failure or a lack of resilience. The reality is that on-call systems, as currently designed and deployed in many tech organizations, embed inequities that disproportionately harm women, especially women of color, and those navigating caregiving roles or other social expectations.

One of the starkest systemic issues is the gender disparity in on-call distribution. Research and industry reports consistently show that women in tech teams often carry a heavier on-call burden relative to their representation, especially in senior roles. This happens for several intertwined reasons. First, the seniority gap means fewer women occupy the most senior individual contributor (IC) roles, which paradoxically can increase their exposure to more frequent or higher-severity incidents because teams rely heavily on those senior ICs to resolve critical problems. Second, women often volunteer or are assigned on-call shifts as a strategy to gain visibility or demonstrate commitment in environments where they already face structural barriers to recognition and promotion. This dynamic can lead to women absorbing more stressful or unpredictable on-call hours, compounding their neurobiological load.

The invisible labor of on-call duty is another systemic concern. On-call coverage often happens outside regular business hours, yet the compensation and recognition rarely match the intensity of the physiological and psychological toll. Nominal bonuses or token acknowledgments don’t reflect the chronic sleep interruption, hypervigilance, and anticipatory anxiety baked into the on-call experience. This disconnect is not just unfair; it fuels a cycle where women feel compelled to overperform silently, carrying the “burden of competence” without adequate support or validation.

Moreover, organizational cultures that lack diversity in leadership frequently produce on-call rotations that disregard the nuanced needs of women engineers. Teams with fewer women in senior roles tend to perpetuate on-call scheduling practices that overlook caregiving responsibilities or the disproportionate impact of night-time alerts on women’s health. The absence of systemic accountability means on-call debt, unacknowledged stress and exhaustion, remains invisible in performance reviews and career development conversations. Women may be praised for “handling it,” but the cost to their nervous system and overall well-being is rarely addressed.

This structural lens also reveals how the social cost of negotiation creates barriers for women seeking to adjust their on-call responsibilities. Research from Bowles, Babcock, and Lai (2007) highlights that women who negotiate are more likely to face backlash than men, experiencing a decline in evaluators’ willingness to work with them. This social penalty can discourage women from advocating for boundaries or accommodations that could mitigate burnout, leaving them trapped in cycles of chronic stress.

The systemic nature of on-call burnout means it can’t be resolved solely through individual effort or self-care. It requires organizational commitment to equitable scheduling, transparent compensation, and cultural shifts that recognize the neurobiological realities of chronic anticipatory threat. Only by naming these systemic failures can we begin to dismantle the structures that perpetuate harm and create pathways for sustainable participation of women in tech on-call roles.

What Healing Actually Looks Like

Healing from on-call burnout is a process that demands clinical precision and respect for the nervous system’s complexity. It’s not about quick fixes or platitudes; it’s about rebuilding safety and regulation in a body conditioned to expect threat. Here are the core components of a recovery architecture tailored for women in tech facing on-call burnout.

Somatic Tracking of the Pager-Body Response Cycle
The first step is cultivating somatic awareness, learning to notice the subtle physical signals that arise in anticipation of an on-call window or alert. Priya’s therapist asks her to observe what happens in her body 30 minutes before her shift starts: jaw clenching, shoulder tension, shallow breathing. Naming these sensations is critical because the nervous system can only begin to shift when its patterns are acknowledged rather than ignored or suppressed. Somatic tracking can be practiced through mindfulness-based therapies, somatic experiencing, or polyvagal-informed approaches that emphasize body awareness and regulation.

Repairing Sleep Architecture
Disrupted sleep is a hallmark of on-call burnout, but clinical intervention goes far beyond standard sleep hygiene advice. Women in on-call roles often experience fragmented sleep, difficulty returning to sleep after a call, and anticipatory anxiety that fractures rest even when the phone is silent. Consulting with a sleep specialist trained in circadian rhythm disorders and trauma-informed care can help restore restorative sleep cycles. Techniques may include cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), controlled exposure to light, and structured wind-down routines that recalibrate the nervous system’s expectations around rest.

Trauma-Processing for Accumulated Incidents
Each PagerDuty alert is a microtrauma that, over time, accumulates into a chronic stress burden. Trauma-informed therapy modalities such as EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), sensorimotor psychotherapy, or polyvagal therapy can help process the emotional and physiological imprint of these repeated disruptions. This work addresses not only the acute stress of incidents but also the underlying attachment wounds and anticipatory threat states that amplify the nervous system’s response.

Graduated Exposure to the Phone as Threat Object
The phone itself becomes a source of anxiety, a conditioned stimulus signaling potential disruption. Healing requires rebuilding a relationship with this device that is not governed by hypervigilance. Graduated exposure therapy involves controlled, incremental re-engagement with the phone’s notifications in contexts where the woman is off-call, combined with safety cues and self-soothing strategies. This helps desensitize the nervous system’s threat response and reclaim autonomy over the phone’s presence.

Negotiating On-Call Boundaries from a Regulated State
Negotiation is a structural intervention that complements clinical healing. Women who approach on-call discussions from a regulated nervous system state, rather than from fear or freeze, are more likely to set sustainable boundaries and advocate effectively for themselves. This may involve preparing with a therapist or coach to build nervous system regulation skills before initiating conversations with managers or teams. When women negotiate from a place of calm and clarity, they reduce the risk of social backlash and increase the chance of meaningful accommodations.

Therapy and Coaching Tailored to On-Call Burnout
Therapeutic support for on-call burnout must integrate neurobiological understanding with feminist clinical perspectives. Therapy focuses on dismantling identity fusion with work performance, addressing the “superautonomous self-sufficiency” and “fawn” responses that women often develop in tech environments. Coaching can support career navigation, helping women articulate their needs and envision roles or team structures that honor their well-being without requiring exit from the field.

Knowing When to Escalate or Reconsider
Healing also involves discerning when to escalate conversations about workload or when to reconsider role fit. Some women find sustainable adjustments within their current teams; others may need to explore transitions to roles with different on-call demands or organizational cultures. This is not a failure but a strategic decision grounded in self-knowledge and nervous system health.

For a broader map of the terrain, this piece sits inside the Women in Tech Resource Hub, alongside deeper writing on burnout for women in tech, glass-ceiling trauma responses, imposter syndrome in tech, Silicon Valley executive loneliness, the difference between impostor syndrome and a toxic workplace, and complex PTSD. If you are looking for direct support, you can also read more about therapy for women in tech, executive coaching for women in tech, and the weekly Strong & Stable newsletter.

ring of autonomic nervous system balance, and a pervasive sense of threat that extends beyond work hours into personal time. Unlike general burnout, on-call burnout is uniquely tied to the unpredictability and immediacy of alerts, creating a feedback loop that conditions the nervous system to expect crisis at any moment.

Understanding this distinction is crucial for women in tech who are navigating the demands of on-call rotations. It reframes the experience from a personal shortcoming to a neurobiological response to a specific work environment. This perspective opens the door to targeted strategies that address the root causes rather than just the symptoms.

One clinical insight I often share with clients is that the nervous system does not differentiate between physical and psychological threat. The PagerDuty alert, though a digital signal, triggers the same cascade of autonomic responses as a physical danger. This means that even in the absence of a true emergency, the body prepares for fight-or-flight, releasing cortisol and adrenaline, increasing heart rate, and inhibiting restorative processes like digestion and deep sleep.

Over time, this repeated activation leads to allostatic load. The wear and tear on the body caused by chronic stress. Women who entered tech with histories of childhood hypervigilance or trauma may find this load disproportionately heavy. Their nervous systems are primed to respond to threat cues, so the on-call architecture acts like a persistent amplifier, deepening dysregulation and increasing vulnerability to anxiety, depression, and physical health problems.

For example, I’ve worked with women engineers who describe a creeping sense of dread that begins hours before their on-call shift starts. This anticipatory anxiety is not simply “worry about work”; it is a nervous system preparing for imminent threat, often manifesting as gastrointestinal distress, muscle tension, or headaches. After the shift ends, the body may remain in a heightened state, making it difficult to relax or engage fully with loved ones.

Clinically, this pattern aligns with what trauma-informed therapists recognize as a chronic state of hyperarousal. Unlike acute trauma responses, which are episodic, on-call burnout creates a baseline of nervous system activation that never fully resets. This is why traditional advice to “disconnect” or “unplug” often falls short. The nervous system has been conditioned to anticipate interruption, making true relaxation elusive.

What can be done within this reality? First, it’s important to acknowledge that recovery is not about eliminating on-call duties altogether. For many, that’s not feasible or desirable. Instead, recovery involves building what I call a “recovery architecture” that supports nervous system regulation alongside professional responsibilities.

This might include clinical approaches like somatic experiencing or polyvagal-informed therapy, which help retrain the nervous system to recognize safety cues and downshift from chronic sympathetic activation. It also involves practical workplace strategies such as negotiating on-call schedules to allow for predictable recovery periods, creating peer support groups for shared processing, and advocating for organizational changes that distribute on-call load more equitably.

If you want to explore how these principles apply to your experience, my therapy offerings for women in tech provide a safe space to unpack these patterns and develop personalized tools. Additionally, my nerve health resources for tech leaders offer insights on how leadership can create environments that honor nervous system health.

Finally, it’s vital to understand that on-call burnout is a systemic issue, not an individual failure. The industry’s reliance on unpredictable alerts without sufficient support structures is a structural problem. Recognizing this can empower women engineers to advocate for themselves and their teams without shame or guilt. For a deeper dive into the systemic aspects, see my article on systemic approaches to tech burnout.

In the next section, we’ll explore how on-call burnout uniquely presents in women who are deeply committed to their roles, often masking distress beneath a veneer of competence and control. Understanding these presentations is key to identifying burnout early and intervening effectively.

References

Peer-Reviewed Research (Vancouver)

1. Porges SW. Polyvagal Theory: Current Status, Clinical Applications, and Future Directions. Clin Neuropsychiatry. 2025;22(3):169-184. doi:10.36131/cnfioritieditore20250301. PMID: 40735382.

Books & Cultural Sources (Chicago Author-Date)

• Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider. Penguin Classics, 1984.

About the Author

Annie Wright, LMFT

LMFT · Relational Trauma Specialist · W.W. Norton Author

Helping ambitious women finally feel as good as their résumé looks.

Annie Wright is a licensed psychotherapist (LMFT #95719) and trauma-informed executive coach with over 15,000 clinical hours. She works with driven, ambitious women. Including Silicon Valley leaders, physicians, and entrepreneurs. In repairing the psychological foundations beneath their impressive lives. Annie is the founder and former CEO of Evergreen Counseling, a multimillion-dollar trauma-informed therapy center she built, scaled, and successfully exited. A regular contributor to Psychology Today, her expert commentary has appeared in Forbes, Business Insider, Inc., NBC, and The Information. She is currently writing her first book with W.W. Norton.

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