You Can Have It All: What Ambitious Women Need to Know About Burnout, Breathwork, and Women's Health

By Marina Kay | The Exhale Podcast | Episode 01

What if everything you have been told about success and health is missing half the picture?

That is the question I keep coming back to — and it is exactly what my dear friend Tamy Vo and I explored in the very first episode of my brand new podcast - The Exhale. Tammy is the founder of Volva, a marketplace for non-toxic feminine care products, and one of the most thoughtful women I know when it comes to supporting women's health from the inside out. She turned the mic on me for this first episode, and what followed was one of the most honest conversations I have had publicly about what it actually takes to build something meaningful without losing yourself in the process.

Here is what came up — and why I think it matters for you too.

Burnout Does Not Only Happen to Unhappy People

One of the most important things I shared in this episode is something most high-achieving women have never been told: passion is a risk factor for burnout.

We tend to think of burnout as something that happens in toxic workplaces or under impossible bosses. The reality is that some of the most burned-out women I have worked with are also the most driven, the most purpose-led, and the most genuinely excited about what they are building. I know because I was one of them.

When I was working at WeWork headquarters in New York, I was thriving on the outside — taking on stretch assignments, getting recognized, moving fast. On the inside, my body was telling a very different story. Heart palpitations. Chronic tension I could not shake. A mental load so heavy I could not switch off even when I wanted to.

The signs of burnout often show up in the body long before the mind registers them. Heart palpitations, disrupted sleep, jaw clenching, pelvic floor tension, and an inability to say no are not personality quirks. They are your body's alarm system — and most of us have learned to drive right past this check engine light.

The goal is not to eliminate stress. It is to make it purposeful, and to build a practice that helps you recover before depletion becomes your baseline.

Why Women's Health Is Its Own Category

Women of reproductive age were largely excluded from clinical research until just a few decades ago. That gap has left most of us navigating our health — our cycles, our hormones, our fertility, our cardiovascular risk — with information that was never designed with our biology in mind.

Women run on a 28-day hormonal cycle. Men run on 24 hours. These are not the same body, and they cannot be optimized the same way.

Understanding your cycle is not just a wellness trend. It is a practical leadership tool. When you know which phase of your cycle supports deep creative work, which supports bold decision-making, and which calls for rest and reflection, you stop fighting your biology and start working with it. I call this cycle syncing — and it is one of the most immediately actionable frameworks I teach inside Women Who Breathe.

I also shared something personal in this episode: for most of my twenties, I experienced really difficult menstrual cycles and I treated them as a liability — something getting in the way of my productivity and goals. Now, in my mid-thirties, I have completely reframed that. Those symptoms do not have to be permanent. Our cycles, when we finally understand them, are one of the most powerful tools we have in leadership.

Breathwork as a Body-Based Leadership Practice

Breathwork sits at the center of my work — and for good reason. When we are chronically stressed, we live almost entirely in our heads. The body carries the weight of that stress in silence: in the shoulders, the jaw, the hips, the gut.

Talk therapy is valuable. But talking is often not enough on its own. Stress and trauma live below the neck, and somatic practices like breathwork are one of the most direct ways to access and release what the body is holding.

Breathwork helps close what I like to call the open tabs — that constant mental background hum of everything you are tracking, managing, and holding for everyone else. Research on slow, paced breathing shows it activates the parasympathetic nervous system, reduces cortisol, and lowers heart rate within just a few minutes of practice.

The result is not just relaxation. It's clarity. The kind that helps you make better decisions, set cleaner boundaries, and show up more fully — at work and at home. I have watched this happen for hundreds of women in my community, and I lived it myself.

Fertility Is a Marker for Overall Health

This is one of the reframes I feel most passionate about sharing — and one I will come back to throughout this first season of the show.

Fertility is not just a future consideration for women who want children. It is a real-time signal of how your body is functioning right now. Hormonal health, ovarian reserve, cycle regularity — these are all windows into your overall physiological state.

I also raise something in this episode that I think is long overdue: sperm health matters just as much as egg health. New research published in 2025 in both Science Advances and Nature suggests that women's egg mitochondria may be more resilient with age than previously understood, while sperm DNA mutations accumulate significantly over time. The biological clock, it turns out, does not belong exclusively to women — and I think that reframe has the potential to take enormous pressure off of women going through the fertility journey.

This season includes a dedicated episode on fertility, ovarian reserve, PCOS, and egg freezing with one of my favorite women's health experts. If this topic is anywhere on your radar, that episode, releasing this June, is not one to miss.

You Do Not Have to Choose

Perhaps the most important thing I want you to take away from this first episode is this: the choice between ambition and wellbeing is a false one.

You can build a company, lead a team, leave a legacy — and also have great health, deep relationships, and a body that feels good to live in. These things are not in competition. They are deeply interdependent.

When I finally put my health at the center, everything else got better. My focus sharpened. My energy returned. My leadership deepened. The version of success I am building from that place feels nothing like the one I was white-knuckling my way toward in my corporate years.

That is what The Exhale is here to explore — one honest conversation at a time.

Listen to Episode 1: "From Burnout to Building a Life You Love" Now

The first episode of The Exhale is available now on Spotify. Search The Exhale with Marina Kay or click to listen.

If this resonated with you, follow the show on Spotify so you never miss an episode — and please share it with a woman in your life who needs to hear it.

Free breathwork practices: youtube.com/@womenwhobreathe

Join the community: womenwhobreathe.com

Follow on Instagram: @womenwhobreathe. @the.exhale.podcast

Marina Kay is an executive coach, breathwork facilitator, and founder of Women Who Breathe — a women's health and leadership community. She has spoken at MIT, Bain & Co, Pandora, NetSuite, and TikTok, and hosts monthly breathwork events in Austin alongside a growing international online community.