# How to Beat Burnout: Use Play to Feel Like Yourself Again | Piera Gelardi | E519 Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/love-happiness-and-success-with-dr-lisa-marie-bobby-7046318/how-to-beat-burnout-use-play-to-feel-like-yourself-again-piera-gelardi-e519 Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/love-happiness-and-success-with-dr-lisa-marie-bobby-7046318/how-to-beat-burnout-use-play-to-feel-like-yourself-again-piera-gelardi-e519.md Podcast: [Love, Happiness and Success with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby](https://stenobird.com/podcast/love-happiness-and-success-with-dr-lisa-marie-bobby-7046318) Published: 2026-04-30T09:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/how-to-beat-burnout-use-play-to-feel-like-yourself-again-piera-gelardi-e519--71773264 Audio file: https://api.spreaker.com/download/episode/71773264/yap5965047949.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/love-happiness-and-success-with-dr-lisa-marie-bobby-7046318/episodes/how-to-beat-burnout-use-play-to-feel-like-yourself-again-piera-gelardi-e519 Duration seconds: 3459 ## Resource Burnout and stress don’t just drain energy, they drain connection. If you’re in burnout, it can spike stress & anxiety and create real conflict & repair work at home. And here’s the part most people miss: sometimes burnout isn’t solved by “pushing harder” or even taking a break. Sometimes it’s about play. Not childish, silly, or irresponsible play. But a playful mindset—curiosity, experimentation, levity—that changes how you experience your real life, in real time. In this conversation, I’m joined by Piera Gelardi to talk about burnout recovery through a lens most people never consider. Piera is a creative entrepreneur, artist, and the co-founder of Refinery29 and 29Rooms, and her work is all about helping people reconnect with joy, creativity, and aliveness. Together, we explore what happens when life gets so serious, so scheduled, and so responsibility-heavy that you lose touch with the parts of yourself that feel light, open, and fully alive. We talk about “play deprivation,” the difference between having fun and living playfully, and why recovery from burnout often has less to do with escaping your life and more to do with changing your relationship to it. You’ll hear why humor as a coping mechanism can be surprisingly healing, how playful curiosity can shift conflict, and why the quiet boredom in relationship can sometimes be a sign that something important has gone missing. This is a warm, honest conversation about stress, connection, resilience, and what helps people feel like themselves again. We also get practical. Piera shares simple ways to bring more play into ordinary life, from finding the funny in hard moments to remixing daily routines, noticing beauty, and experimenting with small changes that make life feel less heavy. As you listen, I’d love… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/love-happiness-and-success-with-dr-lisa-marie-bobby-7046318/episodes/how-to-beat-burnout-use-play-to-feel-like-yourself-again-piera-gelardi-e519/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/love-happiness-and-success-with-dr-lisa-marie-bobby-7046318/how-to-beat-burnout-use-play-to-feel-like-yourself-again-piera-gelardi-e519.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.