Are you burned out? Here’s how to start healing

Burnout is a state of chronic stress, overwhelm, fatigue and feeling overall like you just need a break in nearly every area of your life. Do you: 

• Feel like you’re constantly in “go, go, go” mode? 

• Have the sense that you are always burning the candle at both ends? 

• Have concerns that you literally can’t handle one more thing? 

Eventually this pressure may start to show up as both physical and emotional symptoms, including: 

• Heart palpitations

• High blood pressure

• Headaches

• Gastrointestinal issues

• Disrupted sleep

• Fatigue

• Anxiety and depression

• Issues with concentration

• Irritability

• Decreased productivity - a feeling of “spinning your wheels”

• Loss of appetite or overeating

• Constant illnesses due to lower immune function 

• Hormonal symptoms (irregular or missing periods, heavy and/or painful periods, PMS, low libido)

• Muscle tension

• Headaches or migraines

Most of the women I work with are all too familiar with this state, and it needs no further definition because “when you know, you know.” Recognizing and healing from burnout takes a full mind and body approach. 

When looking holistically at the mind and body, it is difficult to separate what is burnout related to work versus home, family or other burnout. There’s even a debate as to whether burnout could be classified as a mental health diagnosis. 

What causes burnout? 

There’s no one cause of burnout, it tends to vary on an individual basis. Burnout has many different factors and it’s cumulative over time. When you're experiencing it, you know you didn’t become burned out overnight. 

I often see women with chronic, unrelenting stress without having strategies in place to balance out stress and recover from it. This is commonly known as “burning the candle at both ends.” Chronic stress without recovery can lead to Hypothalamic, Pituitary, Adrenal (HPA) axis dysregulation. 

Symptoms of burnout are each like small alarm bells alerting us that something is out of balance. Some people, women in particular, get really good at ignoring the alarm bells and “pushing through” until the warnings become louder and impossible to ignore. 

Not all “stress” is bad, there can be positive and negative stress. When you think back to the past five to 10 years of your life, have there been stressful events and/or transitions? 

Have you: 

• Been a student? 

• Started a new job or launched a new business?

• Started or ended a relationship?

• Been raising a family?

• Moved to a new place (or moved from place to place)?

• Been immersed in the collective stress and grief of a global pandemic? 

• Been discriminated against or harassed? 

• Lost a loved one?

• Had a scary diagnosis or dealt with chronic health issues? 

• Been in an accident? 

Stressful and traumatic life events have been shown to be associated with burnout. Reflecting on recent and even past events can help identify some of the causes of burnout as well as help create a path to ending burnout. 

Stress response

Your body’s stress response system is constantly working to get to a state of homeostasis (balance). The brain (hypothalamus and pituitary) sends signals to your endocrine system, including your adrenal glands. This is what is known as the HPA axis (hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal axis). These signals lead to the release of cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine – the “stress hormones” that help get us ready to jump into action – fight or flight. 

These neurotransmitters and hormones are essential for basic survival and help protect us from harm and they are also needed for many bodily functions such as keeping blood sugar/insulin balanced. Eventually, the adrenals send an “all clear” signal back to the brain, letting our body know it’s safe to rest. 

However, sometimes our HPA systems get stuck in fight or flight mode or we ignore the signals our bodies are sending us because we have trained ourselves to “push through.” Trauma and illness can also keep our bodies in this loop. This creates a new setpoint in the body and we keep taking on more and more stress, our systems becoming less responsive as a result. This creates a sensation of being “wired, but tired” and generally out of balance. 

The ideal nervous system response is regulation after a stressor – the HPA system resets and gets back into parasympathetic mode. But if you often feel like you’re running from a bear throughout your day while responding to messages, emails, darting around frantically from work to school to events, trying to fit in five minutes to toss food into your mouth … your nervous system is dysregulated. It’s not properly resetting. 

What to do about burnout

The good news is you CAN heal from burnout! But it takes a proactive approach. Here are some tips to support yourself so your body can heal and get back into balance and you can prevent future burnout: 

• Start small. Choose one small habit that feels do-able to you today. Once you build that habit, add in more when you’re ready. Burnout can make self-care strategies feel like yet another thing on your to-do list which means they might not get done.
  

• When you’re perpetually burned out, something has to give. Work on saying,, “No,” and stop overscheduling and overcommitting yourself. It’s vital to give yourself room to breathe.
  

• Perform a “time audit” for at least one typical weekday and one weekend day. Write down anything and everything you do throughout the day. Do you find that you’re spending a lot of time participating in activities that are draining? When you know how you’re spending your time, it becomes easier to place a time limit on activities that do not feel nourishing.
  

• Schedule time each day and a longer amount of time each week for intentional rest. Our minds and bodies need time to come down from work, caring for others, travel, etc. Allow yourself some breathing room. This means having actual space in your schedule for downtime, not just “days off” where you still end up filling the whole day with tasks and to-do lists. This does not need to be a whole day, but can be something as simple as enjoying a warm cup of coffee or tea while looking out the window first thing in the morning.
  

• Create boundaries around work, especially if you do work from home. Have set hours and “clock out” at the end of each day. Keep your work area separate from the places you relax, if possible.
  

• Consider working with a professional such as a mental health therapist or EMDR professional to help you work through trauma and stress. I also love QNRT and hypnotherapy for helping to move through underlying obstacles you may not even be consciously aware of.
  

• Keep your blood sugar stable to help keep your mood and energy balanced. Strive for a good balance of protein, healthy fats, fiber and carbohydrates.
  

• Practice mindfulness daily. Deep breathing, meditation, prayer, quiet reflection – these are some of the best ways to train the brain to have a more balanced response to stress. If this feels overwhelming, set reminders on your phone a few times each day to do deep belly breathing. Or bring deep breathing into other daily activities such as washing dishes, prepping food, etc.
  

• Optimize your sleep. Our brains and nervous systems need restorative sleep in order to recover from the stress of the day and to detoxify. Without a proper reset, your brain and body will remain in a cycle of depletion.
  
  Create a “winding down routine” that helps signal your brain and body that it’s time to go to bed. Two - three hours before bedtime, begin to decrease light exposure, avoid screens, read, stretch, shower or take a bath, do deep breathing, prayer or meditation, etc.
  

• Take care of your gut health by increasing fiber, fermented foods and probiotics. Slow down your pace of eating to properly focus on your food and the process.
  

• Discuss with your healthcare provider getting tested to find out if you are deficient in any essential vitamins or minerals. We need iron, vitamin D, magnesium, zinc and more to achieve balance in our bodies. If you are deficient in any nutrients, focus on getting them from food sources, but supplement if necessary (discuss individual needs with your healthcare provider). Remember, one of the most vital sources of vitamin D is spending time outdoors getting natural light.
  

• Pay attention to your body and brain’s response to caffeine. Cut down or cut it out if caffeine is making you more anxious.
  

• The vagus nerve is the only cranial nerve that travels to all our organs. It helps to keep our bodies in a calm (parasympathetic) state and compensates for being in fight or flight mode. You can help to tone your vagus nerve through cold water (splashing on the face, cold end to your shower, cold plunges, etc.), gargling, singing/chanting (kirtan), deep breathing, yoga and movement. 

Movement is especially important for helping to defeat burnout. It diffuses tension and helps to rest the nervous system. Animals do this instinctively; if something, such as a predator, frightens them, they run away and, once they get to safety, they literally shake it off. 

As humans, we’ve become experts at pushing through these signals and staying chronically in stress mode, rarely or ever shaking it off. 

When you feel yourself getting stressed or reactive, after a tense conversation or intense meeting, for example, do your nervous system a favor, get up and move around to diffuse that tension to help get it unstuck. 

Taking proactive steps to help stop, heal from and prevent further burnout is incredibly important for your physical and mental health. For anyone who feels overwhelmed and like they’re drowning, even making a few small tweaks to actions and adding minor habits to your routine can increase productivity, help you feel more energetic and give you a hopeful, healthful outlook on the future. 

If you need support and assistance in healing from burnout, I can help. If you’re located in Minnesota, schedule your free consultation to discuss how to get through burnout and get back on the path to optimal mental and physical health.