When Everything Hurts, What Do You Do? is a podcast about what happens when life collides with ambition. Because no matter how successful we are, none of us are immune to crisis: illness, heartbreak, burnout, or sudden career upheaval.
This show explores those moments as turning points that ripple through three dimensions of our lives: our work, our relationships, and our identity. Through conversations with psychologists, doctors, business leaders, and people navigating disruption right now, we look at the messy reality, not the polished LinkedIn version.
For people juggling big goals at work and at home, the stakes are high and the silence around these experiences even louder.
Because at the end of the day, we're all faced with the same question: when everything hurts, what do you do?
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
When Everything Hurts, What Do You Do? is a podcast about what happens when life collides with ambition. Because no matter how successful we are, none of us are immune to crisis: illness, heartbreak, burnout, or sudden career upheaval.
This show explores those moments as turning points that ripple through three dimensions of our lives: our work, our relationships, and our identity. Through conversations with psychologists, doctors, business leaders, and people navigating disruption right now, we look at the messy reality, not the polished LinkedIn version.
For people juggling big goals at work and at home, the stakes are high and the silence around these experiences even louder.
Because at the end of the day, we're all faced with the same question: when everything hurts, what do you do?
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Crisis doesn't always show up with sirens. It's often quieter than that. You're still showing up to work, still answering emails, still functioning. But inside, you're slowly coming apart. Maybe, without knowing.
Vincent Deary calls this "the trembling state." After a decade running an NHS fatigue clinic, he's identified patterns: the most capable people often break hardest. Rest becomes impossible. And telling exhausted teams to be more resilient makes things worse.
We discuss allostatic load, what happens when demand never lets up, why convalescence matters, and the ethics of staying with people in crisis. This isn't about optimization. It's about what breaks us and what it takes to rebuild.
Vincent Deary is a Professor of Applied Health Psychology at Northumbria University and author of the books 'How We Break' and 'How We Are'.
Episode Notes
Link to Vincent’s book “How We Break”
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/273528/how-we-break-by-deary-vincent/9780141979793
Book Review by The Guardian
Studies mentioned in the episode (for full sources from Vincents work, see the book ‘How We Break’):
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/09638288.2025.2512587
Content note: This episode discusses burnout, depression, anxiety, chronic illness, and relationship breakdown.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
What happens when crisis hits? How does it move through your life? Through work, relationships and identity?
This is is When Everything Hurts, What Do You Do?
In every episode, I explore crisis through those three dimensions, because when one part breaks, the rest moves.
I sit down with psychologists, doctors, business leaders, and people living through disruption right now.
Episode 1 drops next week with Vincent Deary, Professor of Applied Health Psychology and author of the books "How We Break" and "How We Are"
Because at the end of the day, we’re all faced with the same question: when everything hurts, what do you do?
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.