{"id":107632,"date":"2025-08-30T23:52:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T23:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/107632\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T23:52:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T23:52:13","slug":"reading-retreats-the-salve-for-modern-womens-burnout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/107632\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading retreats the salve for modern women’s burnout"},"content":{"rendered":"

The trope of the tired modern woman exhausted by the relentless family-work-life juggle is oft-cited.<\/p>\n

But more and more women, regardless of whether they are mothers or not, are calling a timeout on the pressures of life and are heading to women-only reading retreats.<\/p>\n

Established as weekend getaways in regional towns, all meals and activities are taken care of, allowing guests to simply kick back and read.<\/p>\n

Often held at the beach or in picturesque locations, these retreats are designed to be dreamy and idyllic, and help an increasing number of women reporting symptoms of burnout.<\/p>\n

Timeout<\/p>\n

Anneli McKinnon’s life is centred on books.<\/p>\n

She is a member of two book clubs<\/a> on Gippsland’s Bass Coast, works at a local library, and hosts a monthly book dinner where guests can discuss their favourite titles over a meal.<\/p>\n

Her latest venture is a women’s spring reading retreat on the Walkerville coastline near Wilsons Promontory.<\/p>\n

It is aimed at uniting women in a neutral space where they can read, relax and be completely taken care of all weekend.<\/p>\n

“I always think it would be so nice to have a whole day just to read a book and we all know that does not happen at home,” she said.\"Image<\/p>\n

Reading retreat host Anneli McKinnon says literature is a wonderful unifier. (ABC Gippsland: Madeleine Stuchbery)<\/p>\n

Ms McKinnon said women often got distracted at home, or felt guilty for taking time to sit and relax.<\/p>\n

She said by heading away on a reading retreat, participants could unburden themselves of expectations or work, and could invest time in themselves.<\/p>\n

Being in a bush environment is also a key part of the retreat, providing space for women to connect with nature, with other women, and with themselves.<\/p>\n

“There’s something about reading and talking about books that takes you to deeper levels quicker,” Ms McKinnon said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“You enter through a book, rather than if you just started with chit chat.<\/p>\n

“Reading fiction is a great thing for your brain, for creating and fostering empathy, that’s been proven.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A regular women-only book retreat is held at Walkerville South in Victoria.\u00a0 (ABC News: Kathy Lord)<\/p>\n

Burning out<\/p>\n

The Women’s Ambition Report, published by Women’s Agenda, found 72 per cent of the 2,000 women surveyed in 2025 experienced burnout \u2014 a form of emotional exhaustion \u2014 in the past 12 months.<\/p>\n

The burnt-out millennials who walked away from work<\/a><\/p>\n

With burnout at unprecedented levels who doesn’t dream of stepping away from it all and embracing a career break. But can it solve the problem?<\/p>\n

Symptoms can include low energy, motivation or mood; feeling isolated or trapped; disengagement from work; procrastination; decreased life satisfaction; disrupted sleep; and physical symptoms such as headaches and body pain.<\/p>\n

Women’s Agenda co-founder Angela Priestley said 61 per cent of the women who reported symptoms of burnout thought it stemmed from balancing home life and a career.<\/p>\n

“The key thing that comes up over and over again, and we’ve done this for 10 years now, is the leading ambition for women \u2014 around 30-35 per cent \u2014 is to earn more,” Ms Priestley said.<\/p>\n

“I think we need to look at the societal structures that are creating the pressure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“You can go on a retreat, you might go to a spa for a day or something, and that can be good \u2026 but that’s not going to change the underlying reason behind what may have led to burnout.”<\/p>\n

A place to pause<\/p>\n

Crystal Wells runs a series of reading retreats for women across regional Victoria, including in the noted book town, Clunes.<\/p>\n

She said while a weekend off may not be the silver bullet to resolve broader societal pressures, carving out time for oneself could be a good tool to mitigate stress.<\/p>\n

\"Woman<\/p>\n

Women are seeking respite from their busy modern lives at reading retreats across Australia.\u00a0 (Supplied: Crystal Wells)<\/p>\n

“This myth of the superwoman, who pursues this high-powered career and is a perfect mum, and devotes her supposed downtime to self-improvement and all these things \u2026 a light has shone on that being a bit of a myth,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Maybe more people are feeling more comfortable to discuss the fact this isn’t something that’s achievable, that pushing ourselves to the nth degree in every aspect of our lives is not actually going to result in a high quality of life for us, as women.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The trope of the tired modern woman exhausted by the relentless family-work-life juggle is oft-cited. But more and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,77112,5677,137,77107,77110,77113,77109,77111,77108],"class_list":["post-107632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-book-clubs","tag-burnout","tag-health","tag-reading-retreat","tag-reading-retreats-for-women","tag-the-benefits-of-book-clubs","tag-the-superwoman-myth","tag-women-turn-to-reading-to-deal-with-burnout","tag-womens-burnout"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}