Are You Burnt Out?
How many of the following can you check off?
✔️You feel tired, yet wired.
✔️Using caffeine to improve energy.
✔️You have a difficult time staying asleep between 1 and 4 in the morning.
✔️Common stressors now seem unmanageable.
✔️Decreased problem solving ability.
✔️You’re SO fatigued!
✔️Headaches.
✔️Pain.
✔️Detachment from work.
✔️Struggling to calm down before bedtime.
✔️Difficulty falling or staying asleep.
✔️Anxiety or nervousness.
✔️Memory issues.
✔️Sugar cravings.
✔️Weight gain in the belly.
✔️High blood pressure.
✔️Indigestion, or loose stool alternating with constipation.
✔️Irregular menstrual cycles.
Burnout is a late-stress state that is predicted by low salivary cortisol in the morning. What is cortisol you ask?
Cortisol is the hormone that governs your capacity to deal with stress, and is released by the adrenal glands in response to stressful situations. In addition, it governs hunger cravings, digestion, blood pressure, sleep/wake patterns, and physical activity. Cortisol does it’s job by raising your glucose , and storing the excess in your liver. Glucose gives you energy!
Cortisol also keeps us alive.
Raises blood sugar
Increases Blood Pressure
Modulates inflammation
Stress enters your body through certain parts of the brain, and you respond through a hormonally controlled system called the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which sets out a chain reaction of fear and response, with the end response being the release of that ever important cortisol. Stress is unavoidable, and not always a bad thing. Under normal circumstances, when you’re under stress, your body will release a small surge of cortisol, which is beneficial, protective, and ideally, infrequent. Once you respond to the situation, your cortisol should return to normal levels. Problems arise when that surge of cortisol gets stuck in the on position. When your stress response is doing more harm than good.
So let’s talk about when that system gets stuck in the ON position, and you have steady, HIGH levels of cortisol.
If this goes on for too long, you will deplete your cortisol, contributing to adrenal exhaustion, fatigue or BURNOUT! The signs of this are listed below.
Cortisol often starts out high and over time becomes low. OR you could have both high and low cortisol throughout the day, but whether your cortisol is high or low, there are a few things you can do today!
👉🏼Focus on lifestyle changes that help you manage the stress in your life
👉🏼Optimize nutrition, focusing on reducing processed & refined foods, sugar and caffeine that are central nervous system stimulants, and increasing consumption of nutrient dense whole foods.
👉🏼Prioritize exercise
👉🏼Evaluate your mindset, is it a closed or open mindset? Instead of “this is too much” think “let’s take it one step at a time!”. Instead of “I messed up” think “what did his experience teach me?”. It takes time to re-train our brain, but its so worth it.
If this is something that you could use some guidance on, let’s chat! Nutrition is an important tool in stress management that cant be overlooked! Book a discovery call today and let’s see if were a good fit for one another!