Burnout

• Burnout: A condition that strikes anyone from all walks of life, all ages – including infants and children (who can be BORN in burnout). Burnout occurs when the person is pushing themselves to the LIMIT of their capabilities. Then – a major collapse of energy occurs.  And then, this person is no longer able to cope with life as they did previously.   This collapse can be quick and sudden, or it can come on very slowly and insidiously.  Most people don’t do anything about it until they collapse, despite warning signs – not sleeping, using stimulants, having lots of and increasing amounts of bad days, etc.
• What causes burnout? Stress! Any kind of stress can do it, if you have a rugged constitution, it might take you longer then if you have a more “delicate” nature.
• You must have adequate energy reserves in order to ensure our ability to deal with stress. Otherwise you go into burnout.
• Stress affects physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health and, if unaddressed, contributes greatly to burnout.
• The MAIN sign is exhaustion on arising. Not occasional fatigue in the morning.  This person is chronically exhausted almost every single day on rising.  You wake up just as tired as you were when you went to sleep.
• Complaining about fatigue and exhaustion? More than likely in burnout.
• The longer you sleep the worse you feel? More than likely in burnout.
• Can’t handle things the way you used to? More than likely in burnout.
• Burnout is utter exhaustion. It is in a whole different category than fatigue.
• Unusual weight changes – either up or down are a sure sign of burnout.
• The greater the need to eat…. The greater is your need for energy. It is like taking a drug, looking for a fix or a pickup.  When you eat, you are looking for an energy charge from the nutrients that you ingest. I guess that’s why hummingbirds really go for the sugar and people really go for sugar.  I get it at a whole different level.
• Excessive talking is a sign of hyperactivity and exhaustion. This is how some burned out people keep going – talking keeps them stimulated.  If they didn’t talk, they might calm down and then maybe collapse. Hyperactivity is not only in children – it occurs in any age.  Seeing moods and hyped- up behaviors continually is a sure sign that the energy-producing glands are on the brink of collapse. Hyperactivity is way more noticeable in children because they are younger and more active anyway. Hyperactive children are given stimulants – Ritalin or other amphetamines (legal street drugs).  These drugs wouldn’t benefit a hyperactive person unless they were exhausted because the amphetamines actually calm the person down.  A hyperactive adult is not getting as much done as they think they are, it is motion without substance.  It is motion with scatteredness.  It is flitting from one thing to another and completing nothing.  This is not a true expression of what energy actually is, it is an expression of excitability. Infants can be born in burnout if the mom was in burnout.  It expresses as failure to thrive, eating disorders, sensory integration disorders, behavioral challenges and children in burnout are quite susceptible to acquiring diabetes as they grow older.
• Believe it or not, little children are quite able to sense discord and disharmony in the family and it affects them greatly. This can also contribute or even cause burnout.
• Asthma is a state of burnout, a state of “giving up”. A difficulty in breathing is a difficulty in existing.  A good question to ask is: Is there emotional rejection in the child who has asthma?
• Stress seriously depletes the body’s reservoir of Zinc. Copper starts building up in the tissues because Zinc and copper regulate each other. Excessive copper leads to depressing both adrenal and thyroid activity. This is when burnout starts.
• A lot of people attribute burnout to aging. Age has nothing to do with energy, you can be old at 30 or young at 90. Old at 30 is burnout.  Young at 90 is energy.
• Feel like life is passing you by? You might be in burnout.
• Don’t look forward to anything? Can’t make commitments to anything? Stressed out that you can’t produce well at work? You might be in burnout.
• A stressful event that happened in the past can easily be attributed to the burnout that is happening to you now.
• Loss of spontaneity, mood swings and mood changes, bursting into anger for little to no reason is a sign of burnout.
• The need for chronic stimulation – coffee, tea, cigarettes, alcohol, food, drama, legal or illegal drugs, exercise, social media, news channels, relationship hopping, creating arguments, frequent snacking and eating simple carbs like sugar and pastries are all efforts to artificially shore up chronic, low energy levels.
• You cannot tolerate stimulant drugs if you have a high Natural So, if you take drugs or addicted to drugs, you are probably in burnout.
• Sugar and starch are high energy foods and easily digestible. People in burnout have a hard time digesting real wholesome foods, so they gravitate to foods in refined states.  It is actually a biological imperative because of the body’s inability to produce adequate energy levels.
• If you lose your taste for beef, you are most likely in burnout or are going into burnout. Meat doesn’t provide high energy quickly. Instead, the person turns to sugars and starches because these give quicker available energy than proteins or fats.  Because these foods have high calories, you feel full and lose your desire to eat other proteins.  Also, there is a reversal of the normal ratios between sodium and potassium.  This reversal results in a decrease in hydrochloric acid (HCL), which helps you digest proteins.  As a result, you become bloated, your stomach can’t empty itself and meat sits heavy in / on your stomach. The end result?  You start disliking protein – especially animal protein.  Then what happens is because you have poor protein absorption, your endocrine glands (which actually do produce your natural energy), your adrenals and thyroid suffer even more and you go further into burnout.  You become what’s known as an obligatory vegetarian – you prefer vegetarianism because there is little else you can eat without your body becoming distressed.  You have to eat something and that something is a heavy carbohydrate diet – even to some becoming fruitarians (fruit is the diet now.)  The only problem is that fruits have a high ratio of copper to zinc and this is why you, the burnout victim, crave them. Copper stimulates sodium and provides a temporary lift to your adrenal glands. BUT…. Excess copper interferes with blood sugar levels and the end result is hypoglycemia.
• Thyrotoxicosis – bulging of the eyeballs – looking frightened. This is because your thyroid is not producing adequate amounts of normal thyroid hormones, it produces a defective version of thyroxine and is toxic to the body.
• The body’s first defense against stress is a rise in cholesterol. It is the body’s natural defense to regulate the stress hormones that are saturating the body.  Cholesterol lowering medications do nothing to address the issue of the stress and burnout in your body.
• When you are really exhausted, initially, your calcium and magnesium levels drop, trying to put the brakes on the stress hormones that are flooding your body. In response to the calcium and magnesium dropping, your sodium and potassium rise up to try and stabilize the body.  Medicine and reducing salt do nothing to address high sodium levels.  This is an adaptation to a stress response.
• Unrelenting stress reveals even further radical changes to your body’s chemistry. Your calcium magnesium levels start to rise and your sodium and potassium drop. The more extreme the state of adrenal exhaustion the higher the level of calcium and magnesium.
• Increased calcium levels lead to decreased Thyroid activity.

Rosemary Slade, PLLC, OTR, NC is a practicing occupational therapist and nutritional consultant. She can be reached on this website.  This article is not in any manner, shape or form intended to be considered or construed as medical advice or providing a medical diagnosis. This article is for entertainment purposes only. Please see your medical doctor for medical diagnoses.