I’ve been building software for over a decade.
Last week, I shipped two apps and a data scraper on my own, without writing a single line of code. What would normally take a full team three to four months was done in a matter of days.
Since then, I’ve found myself spending more time on it than I expected, moving quickly, following ideas as they come, using AI tools in a way that feels both incredibly efficient and strangely absorbing.
The capability is extraordinary, and the speed can feel almost addictive in its own quiet way.
And yet, there is a subtle tension that is harder to name.
Not from a technical or intellectual perspective, but from a physical one.
What I am beginning to notice, both in myself and in the people I work with, is not just an increase in pace, but a gradual loss of the ability to return to baseline.
Over the past 18 months, I’ve been working closely with founders, executives, and high performers through re:center, our nervous system regulation lodge in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica, on the Nicoya Peninsula.
We measure autonomic nervous system function at intake and exit, tracking what actually changes over time. Across more than 500 individuals, a consistent pattern has started to emerge.
What I am seeing is not just stress in the traditional sense, but a deeper and more persistent form of dysregulation.
At the same time, we are entering a new phase of work shaped by AI, where there are very few natural limits or stopping points.
And while this will likely increase demand for the kind of work we do at re:center, it also raises a more fundamental question.
What happens when the pace of output continues to accelerate, but the human system underneath it does not?
First, understand what your nervous system actually does
To understand why this is happening, it helps to look at what your nervous system is actually doing.
Most people think of the nervous system as the thing that makes you feel stressed. In reality, it is the system that regulates almost everything your body relies on to function well.
The autonomic nervous system governs heart rate, digestion, immune function, hormonal balance, sleep, emotional regulation, and your ability to think clearly under pressure.
It operates through two primary states.
The first is sympathetic activation, often described as fight or flight. In this state, heart rate increases, blood flow shifts toward the muscles, and attention narrows. It is designed to help you respond quickly in situations that require action.
The second is parasympathetic recovery, sometimes referred to as rest and digest. Here, the body slows down, repair processes begin, hormones regulate, and the system returns to balance.
Sustainable performance depends on moving between these two states over time. Periods of activation need to be followed by genuine recovery.
This is not a wellness idea. It is a basic biological requirement.
When activation continues without enough recovery, the body begins to treat that heightened state as normal. Over time, it becomes more difficult to access recovery at all.
This is where the ability to come back down begins to break.
Sleep is often the first thing to change. Then energy levels, hormonal balance, immune function, and mental clarity begin to shift. Each layer affects the next.
By the time most people recognise something is wrong, the pattern has already been building for some time.
What they experience as burnout is only the surface. The underlying physiology tells a much deeper story.
What 500 nervous systems taught me
The people who come to re:center are not new to performance or optimization.
They are founders, executives, and operators who have already spent years trying to understand how to function at a high level without burning out. Many arrive with structured routines, tracking tools, and a clear sense of what should, in theory, be working. Some have invested heavily in advanced recovery protocols, from sleep tracking to more intensive interventions, all in an effort to improve how they feel and perform.
And yet, over time, a similar pattern began to emerge.
Across more than 500 individuals, I kept seeing the same thing. Not a lack of discipline or awareness, but a system that no longer seemed able to recover properly.
It took me a while to fully understand what that meant.
At first, it is easy to assume burnout is simply the result of doing too much. Too many hours, too much pressure, too much responsibility.
But what became clear is that the issue runs deeper than that.
It is not just about how much you are doing, but whether your system is able to recover from it, whether it still knows how to come back down.
Because when recovery is no longer happening, even a reasonable workload begins to feel unsustainable.
And this is where many high performers get stuck. They continue to optimize, adding new tools, new routines, new inputs, trying to fix the way they feel without realising that the underlying state of their nervous system has already shifted.
Cold exposure, supplementation, and other interventions can support recovery, but they rely on a system that is still capable of regulating itself. When that foundation is compromised, the tools do not work in the way they are expected to.
Regulation is not something you add on top.
It is the foundation everything else depends on.
Why AI changes this completely
The number that stopped me cold: 72 hours
There is one detail that has stayed with me, both from research and from what we see in practice, and it is how quickly the system begins to shift when given the right conditions.
Recent studies looking at reduced technology stimulation have shown measurable changes in the brain’s reward and self-regulation centres in as little as 72 hours. Not weeks or months, but three days, which is striking not because it is long, but because of how little time is required for something to begin shifting.
We see a version of this consistently at re:center, where guests often arrive feeling mentally saturated and physically tired, yet still unable to fully switch off, as if both the mind and body are continuing to run without settling.
Then, somewhere around the third day, something begins to change.
It is rarely dramatic, and is usually described in simple terms, as a sense of quiet, a little more space between thoughts, or a reduced urgency to check, respond, or stay mentally engaged.
What matters is that this is not simply a change in mindset, but a biological process beginning to reverse, as the system, given enough space, starts to move back toward baseline.
As the days continue, that shift becomes easier to recognise, with many people noticing by the fifth day that they are no longer reaching for their phone as often, and by the seventh, describing a deeper sense of ease and presence rather than a constant need to process what comes next.
This is not about disconnecting for the sake of it, but about restoring the system’s ability to regulate itself.
And what becomes clear through this is that the capacity to come back down is not lost, only interrupted, and can return when the right conditions are in place.
The category of burnout we don't have a name for yet
What is beginning to emerge does not fit neatly into how burnout is usually understood.
Traditionally, burnout has been associated with doing too much over a sustained period of time, where the volume of work eventually exceeds the capacity to keep up. But what is becoming more visible now feels different, not because the demands have disappeared, but because the nature of engagement has changed.
It is less about how much is being done, and more about the absence of any real pause within it, so that even when the workload itself is manageable, the system remains continuously engaged.
When that happens, recovery does not fully take place.
At first, this is easy to miss. People continue to function, to produce, and to respond, but something in the background begins to shift, often subtly. Sleep becomes lighter, attention more fragmented, and the ability to feel settled or fully at rest starts to fade.
It is not exhaustion in the traditional sense, but a kind of ongoing activation without resolution.
And over time, that unresolved activation begins to affect the system more deeply, as the body gradually loses its ability to return to baseline, with hormonal regulation becoming less stable, immune function beginning to weaken, and cognitive clarity, the very thing people are often trying to protect, becoming harder to maintain.
At that point, the issue is no longer about productivity, but about capacity, because no amount of output, however efficient, can compensate for a system that no longer knows how to regulate itself.
What the Blue Zones quietly get right
The Nicoya Peninsula, where re:center is based, is one of the regions often referred to as a Blue Zone, places where people tend to live longer and experience lower rates of chronic disease.
There are many factors that contribute to this, and it would be too simple to reduce it to any single one. What these environments tend to share, though, is a way of living where effort and recovery are not treated as separate states, but as part of the same rhythm.
Daily life unfolds differently. Time is spent outdoors, social connection is consistent rather than occasional, food is simple and unprocessed, and rest is not something earned at the end of exhaustion, but something that is quietly built into the day.
What is striking is not that these communities are actively trying to support their nervous systems, but that they have never moved far enough away from these conditions to need to.
In contrast, much of modern life has been structured in a way that steadily removes that rhythm, and with the acceleration of AI, that distance is only increasing.
Which makes the question less about whether technology is good or bad, and more about whether the way we are using it allows the system underneath to keep up.
Because the principles themselves are not complex. They are easy to recognise, but harder to maintain.
Time in nature, periods without constant input, space between effort and response, and rhythms that allow the system to move between activation and recovery.
These are not additions, but requirements.
And while environments like this can accelerate the process, they are not the only way to begin. What matters is recognising that the ability to come back down is not optional, but fundamental to how the system functions.
If you want to explore this more directly
For those who feel ready to address this at a deeper level, there are structured ways to work with the nervous system more intentionally, through immersions ranging from a few days to longer, more in-depth stays.
Our re:wire Protocol is a 14-day programme focused on meaningful autonomic nervous system recovery, with HRV measured at intake and exit, alongside a guided integration period to support what is built during the stay.
This work is not about optimisation in the traditional sense, but about restoring the system’s ability to regulate itself.
The nature we were promised
The original vision of AI was not wrong.
Humans back in nature, with machines handling what does not require our attention, creating more space for what actually matters.
But we built the leverage before we built the capacity to use it wisely. We placed near limitless output into systems that have not learned how to recover.
What this creates is not just more work, but a loss of the ability to come back down.
And without that, even a reasonable pace becomes difficult to sustain.
I am not anti-technology. I use it every day. But I am pro-biology, and right now, biology is struggling to keep pace.
Because while AI will continue to accelerate, the human system still depends on something much slower.
Rhythm. Space. Recovery.
Not as an add-on, but as a requirement.
The question is no longer what is possible.
It is what is sustainable.
And for many of the founders I work with, that limit is no longer external.
Not the market.
Not the team.
Not the capital.
The body itself, which has been asked to operate for too long without enough time to reset..
And unlike a funding round or a hiring decision, this is not something you can delegate your way out of.
