It is hard to know whether to exercise, how much to exercise and what kind of exercise might be helpful when you are recovering from Autistic Burnout.
There is no research on this particular subject and after years of working with people in Autistic Burnout I have met many people for whom it helps and many others for whom it makes things worse.
I recently put together an article to help you to figure out what might work for you.
I also wanted to provide some examples of experiences from the Autistic community so I asked the people in my mailing list community to fill in a brief survey.
19 people responded to my questions with their own experiences.
With permission, I’m sharing their anonymised responses here. I hope it helps you to see both the variety and complexity of experiences and gives you some ideas of how exercise might or might not help you in your recovery from Autistic Burnout.
Does Exercise Help or Hinder Recovery in Autistic Burnout?
The first question I asked was ‘Has exercise helped or hindered your burnout recovery?’. The chart above show that for 8 out of 19 people the answer was more complicated than that. 7 people said that exercise made their symptoms a lot better, 3, slightly better and 1 slightly worse.
The people who said ‘Other’ or ‘It’s more complicated‘ described exercise as neither simply helpful nor harmful, but highly dependent on type, intensity, and timing.
Several people noted that burnout itself caused physical issues such as stiffness from “sitting most of the day inside,” with gentle movement like “walking,” “stretching every day,” or “gentle yoga with mindful breathing” helping, while anything more intense could feel like “too much.”
One person shared that they “used to love running but it feels too much for me at the moment,” and questioned whether running to manage declining mental health may even have “actually contributed to causing the burnout.” Others emphasised that they “didn’t know how to do a small amount,” meaning exercise made things “mostly worse,” or that strength training might “help initially… but then make me feel more tired later.”
For some, exercise had to be “drastically reduced and new forms of movement… incorporated,” alongside “a great deal of learning how muscles work.” There was also a strong distinction between movement and exercise: “Light physical activity such as walking or making things with my hands help,” but for one person “exercise, understood as any physical activity done for the purpose of bodily fitness,” was actively aversive.
For several people, helpful movement was described as low-intensity, carefully paced, and sometimes essential to “release stored up sensory and emotional overload,” while overdoing it “sets me back in my recovery.’.
What Types of Exercise Help People Recover from Autistic Burnout?
My second question was ‘What (if any) type of exercise has improved your symptoms of Autistic Burnout?’. 8 People responded that it was a combination of 2 or more types of exercise. 3 people selected intense cardiovascular exercise, 2 light to moderate cardiovascular exercise, 3 gentle stretching or light resistance and 2 said intense strengthening had improved their symptoms.
When I asked ‘Which exercise(s) specifically have made your symptoms better’ these were the individual responses:
- Long walks.
- Walking at a moderate pace.
- Walking, swimming, yoga.
- Weight training resistance training body weight training cardio stretching and especially boxing mma and krav I have an amazing coach who understands neurodivergence and sensory overloads so he always comes up with some kind of exercise that helps with getting fit and strong and also helps with sensory overload release like ball slams and wall ball throws and exercises that improve my balance and he makes it a fun connected experience.
- Running (specifically on a treadmill).
- Any weight training
- Intense cardio exercise like elliptical or running is very helpful if I focus on turning my brain off. I like to close my eyes and take a “mental nap” on the elliptical and I find it so helpful.
- Exercising with resistance bands or heavy weights, i find that it makes my body release tension and feel lighter afterwards.
- Callisthenics and intense cardio ie, capoeira drills.
- I have an exercise bike at home – not having to leave the house was great. Going nice and slow. Walking did help but i’ve had severe RSD around it for about 2 years – giving myself permission to NOT walk (even though it’s so good for you, it’s free, blah blah) has been amazing.
- Rebounding and yoga.
- Working with yoga teachers with backgrounds in physiotherapy and anatomy. Re-learning household chores, gardening. Practicing posture and moving constantly.
- Yoga.
- Yoga, stretching, walking. the most important thing for me was learning to assess how much I can do on any given day, and how to recover when I slightly overdo it. so sometimes it’s gonna be 5 min of super gentle movement, other times 10-20 minutes of medium intensity whole body or targeted practice (like for back pain), sometimes an hour of yin yoga, and sometimes 5min of more intense “regular” workout (maybe even with 1kg weights). in the meantime I just do what I call “instinctive stretching” and 1-3 strengthening exercises whenever I feel like it. as for walking: getting to places is enough, I do on average 4.5k steps a day.
- Walking (because it’s not “exercise”, it’s taking a stroll and sightseeing).
- Yoga (easy).
What Types of Exercise Make Symptoms of Autistic Burnout Worse?
I asked ‘What (if any) type of exercise has made your symptoms of Autistic Burnout worse?’. 7 People found intense cardiovascular exercise made their symptoms worse, 1 selected light to moderate cardiovascular, 1 intense strengthening and 3 said that all of those types of exercise made their symptoms worse. 7 People said that none of these types of exercise made their symptoms of Autistic Burnout worse.
When asked to specify what type of exercise made their symptoms worse these were the individual responses:
- Running, lifting weights, cardio.
- At the beginning I was doing too much fast paced intense yoga. Not enough strength training. When you don’t understand hypermobility, polyvagal theory, proprioception not interoception, the chances of injury are very high. I would hurt my joints all the time. Post exertional malaise is always a problem.
- Maybe running. I think it might be the executive functioning of deciding what to wear depending on the weather, getting too hot/cold, timing myself, working out the route, etc etc. And I got a bit fixated on it.
- It’s not about specific exercises, but overdoing them by trying too much to get better faster. it happened when I tried to walk 6k steps a day, and after a few weeks I was so tired of it that I avoided walking anywhere, and would take walks only up to 15 minutes for a whole year. I went to a 3-day yoga retreat, and I loved it, but still, I barely practiced for half a year. also when I started practicing I was able to do 1.5h long vinyasa and classical yoga practices. haven’t been to a class like that in at least 2 years and my maximum for this intensity is 30min. and several months ago I tried a yogalates challenge that combined with other things at that moment in my life burned me out so quickly (I think I was ⅓ of the way, probably 10 practices in 2 weeks) that I did not have the energy to take a full hair+face+body shower (basically 40-60min of light cardio with very few and very small breaks) for about 2 months – I could do at most 2 of those components in one go.
- Slow yoga /yin yoga.
- Bike riding, intense hikes, running.
- Only if I over train and don’t eat correctly and don’t hydrate enough does exercise cause a burnout crash or flare.
- CrossFit.
- Anything higher intensity. I kept overdoing it, triggering pain, exhaustion and shame. I found it really hard to not do the amount or intensity I used to be able to do so was constantly overdoing it, trying to be ‘efficient’ or do ‘the best’ kind of exercise, or some ableist kind of denial I guess.
- Going on “mental health” walks.
The Complex, Individual and Nuanced Nature of Exercise in Autistic Burnout Recovery
My final question was a space to share their personal experiences of exercise. I have summarised their responses here:
Many people described exercise in Autistic Burnout as deeply impactful, but only when it is radically adapted to sensory, cognitive, and physiological realities. For some, movement is “the most important part of my recovery,” particularly where burnout is experienced as trauma held in the body: “so much trauma trapped in my muscles, nerves and fascia.” Exercise can help to “release that stored up sensory overload from the day,” whether through “slamming a ball against a wall,” “pushing against a weight,” “hitting the heavy bag,” or simply stretching — “crack[ing] apart that carapace of stress and anxiety and too much everything.”
Several people distinguished between different kinds of movement: stretching helps them “connect with my body and regulate emotionally,” while more intense exercise helps to “release tension” and alleviate the “heavy headache feeling” that often accompanies burnout. Others found that exercise only works if paired with rest — “I get the full benefits with a resting period after the exercise… the longer the rest, the better.”
At the same time, many highlighted how easily exercise can backfire without careful pacing. Burnout raises the “activation energy” required to start, and people described needing to go “low and slow,” drastically recalibrating expectations, and learning (sometimes over years) how to choose and modify exercises themselves. One person noted that while exercise helps enormously, “even on flare up and crash days when all I can do is a bit of stretching it all helps,” but only if it remains gentle and pressure-free. Others emphasised that “low effort consistently done wins out every time,” especially when eating, hydration, or energy are compromised.
Sensory and social factors were often decisive. Many found gyms, public pools, equipment, and exercising with others “very stressful,” preferring to exercise alone, at home, or outside. The sensory burden of exercise itself — sweating, changing clothes, showering, returning home “damp” — was described as actively aversive.
One person shared that discovering they were Autistic helped them realise they “wasn’t lazy,” but that there may be “something physiological that prevents me from experiencing the satisfaction others get from exercising.” For them, decades of societal pressure to “just start” or “find something you like” had only added shame and distress. Others adapted pragmatically: exercising at the end of the day so sweating could be immediately resolved, or using pre-made plans to reduce “cognitive load/choice paralysis.”
Supportive, neurodivergent-informed professionals made a significant difference. People described “game-changing” experiences with physiotherapists, osteopaths, exercise physiologists, or coaches who were “gentle and supportive,” helped “re-calibrate expectations,” and understood sensory needs while still supporting strength and fitness goals.
Being able to move in ways that felt safe and attuned, rather than performative or punitive, allowed exercise to become “a gift in helping me to heal from years and years of un-treated burnout sensory overload.” For a few, exercise even became a special interest, adding “a new cognitive dimension,” while for others it remained something approached cautiously, with fear of fixation, failure, or further depletion.
Overall, exercise in Autistic Burnout was not described as a universal solution, but as something that can be profoundly regulating, neutral, or harmful depending on how, where, with whom, and at what cost. What helped most was permission to adapt it fully, to prioritise sensory safety, autonomy, rest, and realism, and to recognise that movement, when it helps, is addressing not just fitness, but stress, overload, trauma, and the body’s need to breathe again.
If you would like more guidance on how to work out whether or not exercise might be helpful for you in your recovery from Autistic Burnout you might find this article helpful.
I am an Autistic Clinical Psychologist specialising in Autistic Burnout if you would like to know more about my work please check out my:
- Mailing list community for people who want to receive helpful information and resources about Autistic Burnout.
- Free short course on How to Break the Cycle of Autistic Burnout (link goes straight to registration page)
- Authenticity Basecamp: A 90 day support programme for people in the early stages of recovering from Autistic Burnout who want to get calmer, clearer and more supported.
- Authenticity: The Course and Community: For late-realised, high-masking Autistic adults who want to build more sustainable, authentic lives and break free of the cycle of Autistic Burnout for good.
