Burnout, Self-Care
Does your life feel like it’s flat-lined?
Does it seem like everything you used to be enthusiastic about is now as joyful as a dead fish?
Are you wondering what’s going on?
And more importantly, how can you rediscover your zest for life and start to feel like yourself again?
8 Signs Of Apathy
First, let’s take a look at 8 common signs of apathy. Knowledge is power, and I want you to regain yours.
Here they are:
- Your productivity is way down
- You’re disinterested in your activities
- You’ve lost your passion and motivation
- You feel indifferent to your goals
- You’re uninterested in self-care
- You feel flat and lifeless
- You can’t muster up the energy to emotionally respond to either positive or negative events
- You no longer feel excitement, sadness, or anger
You see how some of these signs overlap with each other? Apathy symptoms tend to cluster around a general lack of emotion and energy about, well, anything. It’s a general feeling of “meh”.
Apathy can also be a sign of burnout – which has been recognized as an official medical diagnosis by the World Health Organization. In other words, it can be serious.
If you’re really in the throes of apathy, you can find it difficult to succeed at work, keep healthy relationships, and maintain good physical and emotional health. And if you’ve experienced sudden or inexplicable apathy, this could be a sign of an underlying mental or physical health problem.
6 Ways To Break Free From Apathy And Enjoy Your Life (Again)
Now that I’ve given you some common signs of apathy, let’s take a look at six ways you can shake it off and start to feel like yourself again.
#1 Switch up your routine. Make small changes to your usual routine. Shake things up a bit. Go in a little earlier to work. Say hi to a new person. Your goal is to get out of a rut you may be in.
#2 Create an uplifting mood. Is there somewhere you feel particularly good, maybe in nature or a certain room in your home? Spend extra time there, soaking up the positive environment.
#3 Find the positive aspects in your life. Perhaps it’s your child’s smile, or the scent of rain when you sit on your porch during a storm. Sit down with a piece of paper and a pen. For five minutes, write down anything that’s positive in your life. Keep writing; don’t stop until the time’s up.
#4 Reframe your thoughts. When you find yourself mired in negative thoughts and beliefs reframe them into more positive statements. For example, you may be down on yourself because of your apathy, and feel like it will last forever. Try “I’m feeling out of sorts right now, but it’s temporary. It will pass.”
#5 Remind yourself of past joys. You haven’t always been apathetic. What do you recall that you felt joyful about in the past? Write it down. Remind yourself of the circumstances and range of your feelings.
#6 Get my complimentary “From Burnout To Balance: A Simple 10-Minute Daily Self-Care Practice.” This practice has been shown to:
- Increase mindfulness, well-being, self-confidence, and personal power
- Increase your ability to concentrate
- Cultivate a greater resilience to stress, a positive mindset, and a sense of hopefulness and calm
- Decrease stress and stress-related symptoms like frustration, mood swings, feelings of overwhelm or lack of control, anxiety, depression, low energy, headaches, body aches and pains, muscle tension, chest pain and rapid heartbeat, insomnia, and frequent colds and infections
- Reduce or even stop worrying
I created this daily self-care practice because I’ve experienced apathy as part of burnout. I know the toll it can take, and I’m here to support you.
So, make sure to click here now to get my From Burnout To Balance: A Simple 10-Minute Daily Self-Care Practice. It’s FREE!
Set Yourself Free From Apathy’s Grip
Being mired in apathy feels like your life has flat-lined.
So let’s jump start your enthusiasm.
Let’s get your passion sparked.
I want you to wake up in the morning feeling eager to enjoy your life again. Full of smiles and happiness.
It is possible. Start by applying the 6 techniques above. Then, for an added boost, sign up for my free From Burnout to Balance 7-Day Self-Love Challenge to really get your juices flowing!
Each day during these 7 days I’m going to challenge you to take 15 minutes for yourself – with me – to look at what’s really going on beneath the signs of burnout. I’ll give you simple strategies for how to turn things around so you can get on the path towards balance and enjoying your life (again).
If you’re ready to break out of the burnout cycle and desire to be…
- Relaxed and confident, knowing you’re tending to the most important priorities
- Energized, clear and focused
- Calm, easy-going and peaceful
- Sleeping like a baby and waking up rested
- Engaged, inspired and passionate about your life
Join me by clicking here to sign up for my next From Burnout to Balance 7-Day Self-Love Challenge. It’s Free!
Burnout, Self-Care
When you’re depressed, you feel like you’ve lost something but at first you aren’t sure what’s lost.
Then one day you realize, what you lost is yourself.
People suffering from depression often say they don’t recognize themselves anymore.
You remember once feeling happy and energetic, but it feels like those emotions occurred in a far-off, never-to-be revisited galaxy. You used to laugh and joke but now you just want to burrow under the covers and not come out.
Having depression is like being trapped in an emotional purgatory version of a twilight zone.
But here’s the thing: burnout is very similar yet it’s important to understand the difference.
Let me explain.
Depression And Burnout Mimic Each Other
Burnout is a state of physical and emotional exhaustion combined with cynicism, along with feeling detached from important people and activities. You feel like a failure.
You get burned out when you experience physical, mental, or emotional stress over a prolonged period of time, as compared to depression when you experience feelings like hopelessness and worthlessness.
Burnout has been difficult to separate from depression because its symptoms coincide with symptoms of depression. For example, emotional exhaustion is the core of burnout. It reflects a combination of the unrelenting sadness and fatigue common to depression.
But that’s not all.
Work-related risk factors for burnout are predictors of depression. And individual risk factors for depression – such as past depressive episodes – are predictors of burnout.
Overall, burnout resembles a classic depressive process that’s unfolding in reaction to unresolvable stress.
Certain symptoms that are considered to be typical for burnout also occur in depression. These include:
- extreme exhaustion;
- feeling down; and,
- reduced performance.
Precisely because the symptoms are so similar, you could be diagnosed with burnout even though you really have depression. So, I want you to be very careful not to self-diagnose burnout too quickly and end up with unsuitable treatment.
For instance, if you really have depression that’s been mis-identified as burnout, you might be advised to take a longer vacation or time off work. If you were burned out, taking time off could help. But if you’ve got depression, you might need more robust help such as a therapist or even medication – especially if it’s severe.
Why It’s Crucial To Understand The Difference
Despite the strong links between burnout and depression, it’s important to understand how depression is different.
In depression’s early stages, you feel mildly sad, occasionally hopeless, and experience feelings of guilt and worthlessness as a result. At its worst, you may feel trapped, severely depressed, and think the world would be better off without you.
I can’t stress enough, if you’re experiencing suicidal thoughts, seek help from emergency services by dialing 911, or seek out a mental health professional.
Also, it’s important to understand that stages of depression are different spots on a continuum. You can be depressed enough to suck the joy from your life without having thoughts of harming yourself. You need to be aware that there is light at the end of the tunnel. A good mental health professional can provide you with helpful resources.
There are also a variety of natural treatments for your depression. Let’s take a look at some of my favorites.
6 Ways To Ease Depression Naturally
- Set a schedule: because depression can strip away the structure from your life, with one day melting into the next, setting a gentle daily schedule can help you get back on track.
- Set goals: when you’re depressed, you may feel like you can’t accomplish anything. That makes you feel worse about yourself. To push back, set daily goals for yourself. Start with small ones that you can succeed at.
- Exercise: exercise boosts your body’s natural feel-good chemicals, called endorphins. Regular exercise also seems to encourage the brain to rewire itself in positive ways. Even walking a few times a week can help.
- Eat healthy: though there’s no magic diet that fixes depression, eating whole, unprocessed foods and limiting or eliminating processed carbohydrates and sugars will help.
- Vitamin B6. Vitamin B6 is needed to produce the feel-good chemicals serotonin and dopamine. Although deficiency of vitamin B6 is rare, if you’re taking oral contraceptives, hormone replacement therapy, or drugs for tuberculosis you may be at greater risk for a deficiency.
- Magnesium: Most people do not get enough magnesium in their diets. Good sources of magnesium include legumes, nuts, whole grains, and green vegetables. Like vitamin B6, magnesium is needed for serotonin production.
Sign up for my complimentary “From Burnout To Balance: A Simple 10-Minute Daily Self-Care Practice”: This practice has been shown to:
- Increase mindfulness, well-being, self-confidence, and personal power
- Increase your ability to concentrate
- Cultivate a greater resilience to stress, a positive mindset, and a sense of hopefulness and calm
- Decrease stress and stress-related symptoms like frustration, mood swings, feelings of overwhelm or lack of control, anxiety, depression, low energy, headaches, body aches and pains, muscle tension, chest pain and rapid heartbeat, insomnia, and frequent colds and infections
- Reduce or even stop worrying
You have a lot of choices to care for yourself!
Whether Depressed Or Burned Out, Show Yourself Some Love
No matter if you know you’re burned out or depressed, showing yourself some love is one key to bringing yourself back to health and happiness. It is more than possible to wake up in the morning eager for the day, excited about what’s to come, and brimming with energy.
So, let’s get you started with my free From Burnout to Balance 7-Day Self-Love Challenge. There is a WAY OUT of the Burnout Cycle. How? It starts by you taking care of yourself.
Now, I get that this may be asking a lot of yourself. (It was for me!) Which is why, each day for 7 days, I’m going to challenge you to take 15 minutes for yourself – with me – to look at what’s really going on beneath the signs of burnout.
We’ll look at the habits and behaviors that are negatively impacting your health. I’ll give you simple strategies for how to turn this all around so you can get on the path towards balance and enjoying your life (again).
If you’re ready to break out of the burnout cycle and desire to be…
- Relaxed and confident, knowing you’re tending to the most important priorities
- Energized, clear and focused
- Calm, easy-going and peaceful
- Sleeping like a baby and waking up rested
- Engaged, inspired and passionate about your life
Join me by clicking here to sign up for my next From Burnout to Balance 7-Day Self-Love Challenge. It’s Free!
And day by day, re-fall a little more in love with the happy wife, mom, sister, and daughter you truly are.
Burnout, Self-Care
You wake up with your heart pounding out of your chest. You’re shaky and feel like you’re going to jump out of your skin. Constantly on edge, you can’t settle yourself. You’re a nervous wreck, overwhelmed with all the commitments you’ve made, and the most annoying thing is that the anxiety is preventing you from fulfilling upon your promises.
Each day there’s another blast of anxiety. It’s become as much a part of your life as shallow breathing. And the only way you know how to stop the nerve-wracking jumpiness is to take a Xanax. After all, wasn’t that what it was prescribed for? But you really don’t like taking medication and each day you resist until you can no longer function without it.
I get it! This was what my anxiety looked like… and it wasn’t pretty.
And here’s the important point: my anxiety was a symptom of burnout, and I didn’t know this until it was too late… until I hit full-blown burnout. Burnout is a serious condition which has the potential to wreck your health and well-being. Don’t let this happen to you!
The Link Between Anxiety And Burnout
Anxiety, if you don’t tend to it, can lead to burnout because it weakens your body’s ability to function as well as its designed to. Burnout can trigger or amplify anxiety. Before burnout, I occasionally felt a low level of anxiety. Very rarely would I have a medium level of anxiety (when I went to the dentist). When I was in burnout, my ability to handle stress was compromised and this triggered high levels of anxiety.
How To Identify Serious Anxiety Symptoms
Anxiety is a very normal – and usually temporary – response to stressful life events like moving, changing jobs, or having financial troubles. However, sometimes anxiety runs amok and starts to take over your life.
Early on, you may experience mild symptoms of tension, worry, and edginess. These symptoms are easy to dismiss as nothing serious.
But if you continue to ignore them, you can move closer to burnout and your anxiety may become so serious that it interferes with your ability to get your work done. Anxiety may also cause problems in your personal life.
Signs of serious anxiety include:
Excessive worry: one of the most common symptoms of prolonged anxiety disorder is excessive worry that’s way out of proportion to the events that trigger it.
Feeling agitated: when you feel anxious, part of your sympathetic nervous system goes into overdrive and kicks off a cascade of effects throughout your body. This is when you experience your pulse racing, your palms sweating, and your hands shaking. Your brain believes you’re in danger, and it’s preparing your body to react to the threat.
Tense muscles: muscle tension is strongly linked to anxiety, but the exact nature of the relationship is not well understood. However, treating muscle tension has been shown to help reduce symptoms of worry.
Panic attacks: panic attacks produce an intense, overwhelming sensation of fear that can debilitate you. Your extreme fear is usually accompanied by a rapid heartbeat, sweating, shaking, shortness of breath, chest tightness, nausea and fear of dying or losing control.
Here’s the bottom line:
When you’re experiencing anxiety, caring for yourself isn’t an option; it’s a necessity. Particularly if you know you’re close to or in full burnout.
So let’s take a look at some ways you can reduce your anxiety.
4 Ways To Reduce Anxiety Naturally
Fortunately, there are a variety of natural ways to nurture yourself and help reduce your anxiety.
Here are some of my favorites:
- Emotional Freedom Technique, also known as EFT or tapping: Tapping is a set of techniques that use your body’s energy meridian points. You stimulate these points by tapping on them with your fingertips – literally tapping into your body’s own energy and healing power.
- Meditation: Mindfulness meditation strengthens your ability to regulate your emotional responses to perceived threats, in direct contrast to anxiety which is when your responses run out of control.
- Exercise: Exercise produces endorphins, which are chemicals in your brain that act as natural painkillers. It takes only about five minutes of aerobic exercise to start stimulating the anti-anxiety effects.
- Essential Oils: Essential oils are scented liquids that are derived from plants, flowers, and fruits. Research suggests that aromatherapy using essential oils may help promote relaxation and relieve anxiety. Bergamot orange, chamomile, and lavender are particularly good for anxiety.
These are just a few examples of natural ways to reduce your anxiety. You can get more helpful tips about burnout when you sign up for my email list.
It’s Time To Show Your Anxiety The Door
Serious anxiety and burnout are health conditions to be taken seriously.
If your anxiety has progressed far enough that you believe you’re suffering from burnout, or are teetering on the edge of full-blown burnout, it’s time to stop it in its tracks.
Fundamentally, anxiety and burnout are injuries to your health. As with most injuries, continuing the same patterns that caused them to occur in the first place will only make them worse, just like an athlete who continues to race through a hairline fracture. So if you’ve been pushing through your symptoms, let’s get you back on the path of well-being.
In addition to the techniques I’ve given you in this post, get my complimentary gift “From Burnout To Balance: A Simple 10-Minute Daily Self-Care Practice.”
This practice has been shown to:
-
- Increase mindfulness, well-being, self-confidence, and personal power
- Increase your ability to concentrate
- Cultivate a greater resilience to stress, a positive mindset, and a sense of hopefulness and calm
- Decrease stress and stress-related symptoms like frustration, mood swings, feelings of overwhelm or lack of control, anxiety, depression, low energy, headaches, body aches and pains, muscle tension, chest pain and rapid heartbeat, insomnia, and frequent colds and infections
- Reduce or even stop worrying
This may sound too simple – how can 10 minutes a day change your anxiety? Yet it can…. one daily practice, for a few minutes, could change your life.
I’m here to support you in reducing your anxiety and breaking free from burnout. Your next step is to: >> Click here and download my free gift, “From Burnout To Balance: A Simple 10-Minute Daily Self-Care Practice.”
Burnout, Self-Care
You’re finally out for dinner with friends at the new restaurant everyone’s raving about. They talked you into coming even though you tried to beg off because you haven’t had much of an appetite lately.
Besides, you have a million things still to do – as usual. You feel guilty for even taking time for yourself. But you’ll make it a quick night out then get back to your lengthy to-do list. Maybe even get caught up a little bit.
You check your watch, wondering how long you have to stay to be polite before you can rush back to work. Your stress level zooms upward as you contemplate yet another late night without enough time to get done what you’d planned.
When your food arrives, it looks delicious. But you take a few bites, then move the rest around with your fork, hoping your friends won’t notice you’re not really eating.
You know you should be hungry, especially with as little as you eat nowadays. Maybe it’s not healthy to have no appetite. But you’re losing weight and that’s good, right? Maybe this is the way to shed those last few pounds.
There’s just one catch:
When you’re so stressed you’ve lost your appetite, you’re experiencing one of the symptoms of burnout. And your instinct is correct: it’s not healthy. Especially if you’re at the point where you’re losing weight.
Let me explain.
Why Losing Your Appetite Is A Sign Of Burnout
When you go flat out through your life, constantly pushing yourself to do more, feeling stressed at tasks left undone yet piling more of them onto your “must do” list, you’re setting yourself up for burnout.
I know; we women have been conditioned to put everyone and everything else first. It’s not your fault that stress has become second nature to you.
And that’s where the big problem comes in.
Stress and burnout are closely linked. Too much stress that goes on unaddressed for too long nearly always lands you in full-on burnout. But why does it also take away your appetite?
Stress puts your body into fight or flight mode that causes various changes to your digestive system. Digestion is suppressed and your stomach stops breaking down food.
The fight or flight response is helpful if you’re in danger, but becomes a problem when stress triggers it over and over again.
When you experience prolonged stress, you can experience stomach and digestive issues, including loss of appetite because of elevated levels of cortisol, your body’s stress hormone. Increased cortisol often boosts the production of stomach acids, which speed up digestion and create a sensation of fullness. This full sensation halts signals to the brain that initiate hunger.
Fortunately, there’s a simple yet paradoxical solution to help you lower your stress, regain your healthy appetite, and support you to come back from burnout: eat stress-lowering food.
How To Lower Stress, Get Your Appetite Back, And Get Off The Burnout Path
Food can help tame your stress in several ways. Some foods boost levels of the brain-calming chemical serotonin, which helps you feel happy and optimistic. Others can reduce levels of the stress hormones, cortisol and adrenaline, to stop them from taking a toll on your body.
Now let’s dive in to which specific foods will help you lower your stress and bring you back from burnout.
- Carbohydrates: All carbs prompt your brain to make serotonin. I recommend you eat complex carbs such as whole-grain breads, pastas, and cereals including oatmeal. Complex carbohydrates take longer to digest than processed ones, resulting in a steadier supply of serotonin for your body. You may find it especially helpful to eat complex carbs before bedtime.
- Vitamin C: Studies suggest this vitamin can curb levels of stress hormones while strengthening your immune system. In one study, people’s blood pressure and levels of cortisol returned to normal more quickly when they consumed vitamin C before a stressful task or event. So eat an orange or, even better, a green bell pepper which is one of the foods highest in vitamin C.
- Magnesium: If you’re low in magnesium, you may get headaches and feel fatigued, which compound the effects of stress. Just one cup of spinach helps you regain your magnesium levels. If you don’t like spinach, other green leafy vegetables are good magnesium sources, as are cooked soybeans or a fillet of salmon.
- Omega 3 Fatty Acids: Omega 3 fatty acids can prevent surges in stress hormones. As a bonus, they also may help protect against heart disease, depression, and premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Aim to eat at least 3.5 ounces of fatty fish such as tuna or salmon at least twice a week.
- Black Tea: This one is a little surprising! But in a study that compared people who drank 4 cups of black tea daily for 6 weeks with people who drank another beverage, tea drinkers reported feeling calmer and had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol after stressful situations.
- Healthy Fats: Consuming healthy fats daily may protect you against the inflammatory effects of chronic stress – they’re one of the most potent anti-inflammatory ingredients in a quality diet. As a bonus, healthy fats help lower your cholesterol, ease inflammation of your heart arteries, and make getting diabetes less likely. Excellent sources of healthy fats include pistachios, walnuts, or almonds. Just don’t eat too many since they’re high in calories.
- Raw Vegetables: Crunchy raw vegetables are great stress relievers not necessarily for their nutrients, but because munching celery or carrot sticks helps release your clenched jaw, thus warding off tension.
- Warm Milk: There’s a reason drinking a glass of warm milk at bedtime is a time-honored remedy to help you sleep better. The calcium in milk provides a calming effect and soothes your stress. Give this remedy a try; you may be surprised at how effective it is.
I know this may be a lot to take in, but bear with me.
These tips work. I know because I’ve used most of them myself. I’ve seen how beneficial they are for the clients I’ve recommended them to. And if you want more, it’s easy. Simply sign up for my email list.
It’s Time To Get Back Your Healthy Appetite
Imagine being out for dinner with friends and actually enjoying yourself.
You can’t wait for your meal to arrive. You’re starving, and you know it’s going to taste heavenly.
The server puts your plate down in front of you. You lean over, smile, and inhale your food’s aroma. “Bon appetite!” you say to your dinner companions, before picking up your fork and digging in.
Though there are tasks still to be done, you’re not feeling stressed about them. This is your time to enjoy yourself; to nourish your body, and rejoice in your returned appetite.
You discovered you were teetering on the edge of burnout – maybe you had even gotten into full blown burnout before you realized it. But you committed to taking care of yourself; now, you’re experiencing the rewards.
If you’d like to have assistance with reclaiming your appetite and getting off the path to burnout, I’m here for you with a complimentary Break Free From Burnout session. In this 60-minute consultation you’ll:
- Get simple and practical tips for how to break free from your burnout symptoms
- Create a clear and compelling vision of the burnout-free life you want
- Tap into greater energy and inspiration
- Explore how having a partner on your journey will provide a shortcut to all that you desire.
>>> Click here now to schedule your complimentary session.
Burnout, Self-Care
Oh, no, not again. Not another cold. You just had one a little while ago. And…yes, that’s right, you had the flu right before that last cold.
Sometimes your bouts of illness all blend together; it seems like you barely get over one before the next one begins.
Your nightstand is beginning to look like a pharmacy, with countless vials of medicine and boxes of tissues crowding its top.
Although you feel awful, you push yourself hard to get through your day.
Your family needs you. You can’t afford to miss more work.
“What’s going on with me?” you wonder, “I never used to get sick so often.”
If you’ve been going full speed for awhile, feeling like you’re never caught up, and stressing about all the items left undone on your endless to-do list, there’s a good reason why you’re getting sick more often.
Your immune system could be compromised by stress.
Here’s why.
How Stress Degrades Your Immune System
Chronic stress can lower your immunity, leaving your immune system under-active and unable to fully protect you against infection and disease.
Catching colds easily is just one sign that can indicate low immunity. Others are:
- You get more than two colds per year.
- You suffer with a chronic infection.
- You get frequent cold sores.
- Your lymph glands are sometimes sore and swollen.
When your immune system is degraded, you’ll experience recurrent or chronic infections. And once your immunity is weakened a vicious circle is set up: a weakened immune system leads to infection, infection causes damage to your immune system, which further weakens your resistance to infection.
As well, chronic stress depletes your body of nutrients because it affects how you absorb and store certain key minerals and vitamins, leading to fatigue, low mood and muscle pain.
Left unaddressed, stress can easily lead to full-blown burnout – just like it did for me awhile back.
Trust me, you don’t want to let yourself go into complete burnout.
4 Ways To Nourish And Rebuild Your Immune System
Fortunately, there are steps you can start taking right away to nurture yourself and rebuild your immune system:
1)Wash your hands
The fastest and easiest way for bugs to flourish is for them to transfer from your hands to your mouth and nose. Don’t let germs get near your immune system! Wash your hands regularly. Avoid touching public surfaces like stair bannisters, escalator handrails, or – if you use public transit – the grab-poles in buses or light rail cars. And it’s not rude to decline to shake hands with or hug friends or colleagues who are sick!
2) Eat healthy foods
Though nowadays it seems like there are as many opinions about what healthy food is as there are stars in the sky, here are a few helpful rules of thumb:
- Choose whole foods, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, seeds, and nuts. If you can recognize an item as having grown from a plant or grazed in a field, that’s good!
- Eat fruits and vegetables of all colors to get the most nutritional value. You’ll sometimes see this called “Eat the rainbow”. Choose dark leafy greens; orange and yellow vegetable such as carrots, squash, and sweet potatoes; and red peppers and tomatoes.
- The brassica family of vegetables are particularly beneficial for your immune system. These include: broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbages, cauliflower, and kale, along with greens from mustard, radishes, and turnips, berries, and garlic.
- Refined sugars weaken your immunity by inhibiting the immune system cells that attack bacteria, so be sure to drastically limit your sugar intake – including alcohol.
3) Exercise
Exercise – even a regular walk – improves immune system health while releasing endorphins – your body’s natural “feel good” chemicals. Exercise also helps reduce the stress that’s affecting your immune system.
“People who exercise 30 to 45 minutes a day experience a 40% to 50% reduction in the number of days they get sick,” says Dr. David C. Nieman, director of the Appalachian State University Human Performance Lab at the North Carolina Research Campus.
He explains: Within minutes of starting your exercise routine, your body’s circulating levels of white blood cells, natural killer cells, and other sickness-fighting agents increase. And the more active you are, the more active your immune system tends to be.
4) Make time for self-care
For many of us women, taking time for ourselves can feel ridiculously self-indulgent. How is it even possible when you barely have time to get everything done for everyone else?
But the truism “You can’t pour from an empty cup” really comes into play. You can only wear yourself out and compromise your immune system for so long before your body will refuse to cooperate, and you’ll have no choice but to care for yourself first.
In fact, without nurturing yourself, you could experience the frightening effects of full blown burnout.
So, rather than let your self-care cup get empty, take time each day to play. Enjoy your hobbies. Book that spa appointment you’ve been putting off.
(Sign up for my email list to receive more helpful tips)
It’s Time To Rebuild Your Immune System
Here’s the thing: it’s hard to turn around a go-go-go lifestyle, even when perpetual sickness drags you down. Yet it’s essential to do, otherwise you’re headed to burnout. So many of us women were taught to put everyone else – and everything else – first… and that’s gotta change for you to be your healthiest self.
Getting sick more often is a wake-up call to nurture yourself. To make time for essential self-care; to acknowledge your worth by changing up your priorities to rebuild your immune system and experience better health.
If you feel like you’re having difficulty taking time for yourself, or you can’t stop your slide into burnout, sign up for a complimentary Break Free From Burnout Consultation with me. In this 60-minute consultation you’ll:
- Get simple and practical tips for how to break free from your burnout symptoms
- Create a clear and compelling vision of the burnout-free life you want
- Tap into greater energy and inspiration
- Explore how having a partner on your journey will provide a shortcut to all that you desire.
Remember, I’m here for you.
Burnout, Self-Care
It’s frightening, isn’t it?
Some days your heart feels like it’s going to pound its way out of your chest.
Other times you’re gulping for air as though you were being strangled. Then your stomach twists into knots so painful it hurts to eat.
Though you’re endlessly busy, at the back of your mind is the nagging thought that you ought to get your symptoms checked by a doctor.
Yes, please! If you’re experiencing worrisome physical symptoms, I urge you to get evaluated by a physician to rule out any potentially dangerous health problems.
And if you’ve been galloping flat out, sleeping for what seems like mere seconds, and the teenager at the drive-thru knows you by name, consider this: your physical symptoms could be signs of burnout.
Typically, the physical symptoms I describe in this post are experienced by people who are burned out. In fact, 65% of adults in the US report both stress and burnout symptoms because they are so closely related. So while you may believe you’re simply stressed, you can quickly move into burnout – with all of its heightened symptoms that take longer to recover from.
Stress-related anxiety is also closely linked to burnout – although stress can lead to burnout whether it initially creates anxiety, or only after you’re in full-on burnout.
Here’s an example:
Awhile back, before I let myself slide into full-on burnout, I sometimes felt a low level of anxiety. Rarely would my anxiety rise as high as a medium level. But when I was in full-on burnout, my ability to handle stress was compromised, which triggered high levels of anxiety.
Talk about a no-win situation.
Now that you know how burnout, stress, and anxiety can weave together, let’s dive into these seven physical symptoms of burnout so you can more readily identify them rather than dismissing them as just more stress than usual.
#1 Chest Pain
You may have been to the doctor already, who’s ruled out a biomedical condition such as heart disease.
However, here’s one reason why you still might be experiencing chest pain: your burnout-related stress throws you into what’s called the fight or flight response. This stress response includes tightening your body’s muscles to make them more resilient to damage. Your chest and rib cage muscles may be affected, resulting in chest pain.
#2 Heart Palpitations
You know that feeling when your heart’s fluttering like a wounded bird? Scary, isn’t it? And that’s not all. Heart palpitations can feel like your heart is:
- Skipping beats
- Beating too fast
- Pounding
- Flip-flopping
They can occur when you’re active or at rest. Heart palpitations are another way the fight or flight response can show up in your body, signifying you may be on the path to burnout.
#3 Shortness Of Breath
Shortness of breath can manifest a few different ways. You may feel like you can’t catch your breath at all. There may be tightness in your chest. Or, it may seem like you’re suffocating.
Studies have shown a strong association between anxiety and respiratory symptoms, including shortness of breath.
#4 Gastrointestinal Pain
Are you one of the many people who feels stress in your gut? There’s good reason: it’s caused by a part of the nervous system known informally as the brain-gut axis.
In a nutshell, your brain interacts with the rest of your body through the nervous system. And if you guessed this is another way the fight or flight response shows up, good! Your brain sends a signal to slow or even stop digestion during stressful events, often triggering abdominal pain and other gastrointestinal symptoms such as bloating and constipation.
#5 Dizziness
Anxiety-related dizziness can leave you feeling woozy. You may have a feeling of motion or spinning inside you, or feel like you’re swaying even though you are standing still.
A range of environments like grocery stores, crowded malls, or even wide open spaces may cause you to feel wobbly.
These symptoms are caused by legitimate physiologic changes within your brain when you’re anxious.
#6 Fainting
Fainting may have a variety of causes but the most common type of fainting spell happens because your body overreacts to triggers such as anxiety and stress. Your brain directs your blood pressure to drop and reduces the circulation to your brain, causing a lack of consciousness.
#7 Headaches
So many of us get headaches caused by anxiety and stress. It’s that feeling like there’s a clamp tightening down on your skull, and it’s caused by muscle contractions in your head and neck.
Your doctor may ask you which of these two types you have:
- Episodic tension headaches, which happen fewer than 15 days per month
- Chronic tension headaches, which happen more than 15 days a month
While taking ibuprofen is a short-term way to relieve your pain, it does nothing to relieve the root cause of your headache – which could very well be that you’re burned out.
Now that you see how your physical symptoms could be signaling you that you’re burned out, here are some of my recommendations for how to soothe them.
Self-Care Practices To Get Relief
You can take steps right now to get yourself back into balance.
- I’m a big proponent of practicing what’s called good sleep hygiene to improve your sleep. Without enough quality sleep, you’ll stay frazzled and burned out. Conversely, your body repairs and restores itself while you sleep, helping bring you back from burnout. Check out my tips on how to sleep better.
- Conduct a regular spiritual practice to nurture yourself. This could be meditation, praying, journaling – whatever is right for you. As the late Leonard Nimoy said:
“I’m touched by the idea that when we do things that are useful and helpful – collecting these shards of spirituality – that we may be helping to bring about a healing.” – Leonard Nimoy
- Eat healthy food. I know, fast food or tossing a packaged dinner into the microwave is so tempting when you’re busy! But I also know the toll unhealthy food takes on your overall health. Your body needs high quality food as fuel for adequate performance. Consider having a couple of simple go-to meals for when you’re busy; there’s no need to push yourself to make something complicated.
And for an additional way to support yourself, sign up to receive my complimentary “From Burnout To Balance: A Simple 10-Minute Daily Self-Care Practice.”
Are You Ready To Go From Burnout To Balance?
You know how frightening it is when stress and anxiety turn into the distressing physical symptoms of burnout.
It’s a relief when your doctor rules out obvious medical causes like heart disease.
Yet then you’re left with a feeling of “Now what?”
How can you get yourself back to feeling good again? How can you bring yourself back from burnout?
Using these practices will get you on your way.
But you don’t have to do this alone! Sign up for a complimentary “From Burnout to Balance” consultation with me. In this 60-minute consultation you’ll get simple and practical tips for how to break free from your burnout symptoms; create a clear and compelling vision of the burnout-free life you want; tap into greater energy and inspiration; and explore how having a partner on your journey will provide a shortcut to all that you desire. Together, we’ll get you on the path to wellness.
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