Is your Low Energy Actually "Burnout" (aka “Adrenal Fatigue”)?

Mar 2

Does just hearing the word "burnout" make you feel tired?

This topic is suuuper near and dear to my heart. I struggled with burnout for years; I honestly still struggle today with some of the trickle-down effects.

Burnout for me looked like: chronic fatigue (which I'm still working on), exacerbated digestive issues, panic attacks, anxiety, isolation, extreme mood swings, and infections/illness like abscess' in my mouth, and scarlet fever.

I straight up crashed and burned.

It started with the lifestyle I adopted while in university. I was in a competitive design program where pulling all-nighters, and being stressed 24/7 was glamourized.

For four + years, I was pulling all-nighters, going for days with only sleeping 3 hours a night, not eating well, living on Monster’s (the thought now makes me cringe), forcing myself to exercise at a kickboxing gym a few times a week, stressing over being perfect in my work - all while trying to navigate university, new friends, and what little social life I did have.

After university, as I got into the workspace, it didn't stop. I was working a full-time job at an architecture firm, moved to a new city, started at a new boxing gym (where I went at least 5x a week to "make my membership worth it"), and was taking 2x continuing ed courses.

I felt lost. I felt like I couldn't slow down, because I was terrified of what would happen if I did.

Well my friend, the alternative to that was burnout. It’s taken time for me to change my lifestyle and my belief systems, so that my HPA axis dysfunction could recalibrate.

If you resonate with any of this, you’re in the right spot.

In this article, we’ll be exploring what "burnout" really is, and cover four underlying causes that could be contributing to it.

The intention is that you will be able to connect the dots, and know better where to start in supporting yourself.

So, what is Burnout?

"Burnout" is often referred to as "adrenal fatigue." The terms used interchangeably to explain the same thing - exhaustion.

The problem with calling it "adrenal fatigue" is that it's not necessarily that the adrenals are unable to function or do their job properly. It is important to know that there is a cascade of adaptations that happen when the body is faced with chronic stress, that lead to this state of burnout.

But, I digress!

Burnout occurs when the body is unable to adapt to chronic stress. Typically with chronic stress, the body will move through phases. The first one being the 'alarm' stage, where the body goes through the normal fight-flight-or-freeze response to a stressor. In the case of chronic stress, the body begins to adapt and compensate, attempting to bring the body's physiology back to it's normal levels.

Chronic stress eventually leaves the body unable to adapt and compensate — leading to exhaustion.

Some of the Common Symptoms of Burnout are:

Feeling unrefreshed after 8 hours of sleep; extreme fatigue

Need for coffee/stimulants in order to function
Low energy in the afternoon
Getting a second wind late at night - causing a “wired but tired” feeling the makes it difficult to fall asleep
Waking in the middle of the night with a pounding heart
Having a poor immunity - where you catch everything/anything that’s going around
An inability to handle stress
Anxiety
Depression
Brain fog
Memory issues
Dizziness when standing up from a sitting or lying down position
Shakiness or irritability when they get hungry or skip meals
Inability to recover from exercise

Any of that sound like you?

Here are Four Things that Could be Contributing to your Burnout:

1. perceived stress

This is probably one of the greatest causes of burnout.

Perceived stress is anything that causes stress or anxiety for you emotionally or psychologically. It can be things like: relational, financial, or familial stress, a job that isn't serving you, trauma, social stress, etc.

While the human body is designed to be able to handle acute stressors as a normal part of our human experience - it's not equipped to handle the chronic stressors that we experience day-in and day-out in our modern world.

If you perceive any of the causes mentioned above as a threat (whether consciously, or subconsciously), your body will kick the stress-response into gear, and it'll affect the function of your HPA axis!

Actively removing, or getting support to reduce or work through perceived stressors is a really important aspect of healing from HPA axis dysfunction, and burnout.

On top of that, having practices in place that build stress resilience are great to have in your toolkit. Things like:

breath work
meditation
movement
time in nature
journaling
calling a friend

2. circadian rhythm disruption

Any disruption or change to our sleep-wake cycle, can trigger the HPA axis.

Things that can disrupt our natural circadian rhythm are:

too little light during the day, and too much light at night (especially blue light)
not sleeping enough, or lacking sleep quality
shift work
caffeine and stimulant intake
jetlag

It's really important if you're experiencing burnout, to prioritize getting both sleeping long enough, and getting a good quality sleep.

A few quick tips to help with this:

try to stick to a consistent sleep schedule as much as possible (if you are a shift worker, try at least sticking to the same shift schedule - this may help your body adapt better); ideally get to bed before midnight, and sleep 7-9 hours
when you wake up, try to get some natural light onto your face; exposure to natural light helps balance our natural sleep-wake cycle
try to turn off technology at least 30-60 minutes before bed (blue light from these devices hinders our ability to produce melatonin)
create a "bedtime" routine, where you wind down for 30-60 minutes before bed, to signal to the body that it’s time to sleep
try to get your caffeine in before noon

3. glycemic dysregulation

Yes, blood sugar levels do play a role here.

If you experience hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), it affects your HPA axis. If your body registers that your blood sugar levels are dipping too low, it'll activate the stress response, so that our stress hormone cortisol can increase blood sugar levels.

Often, cortisol will dip in the evenings. It can be especially helpful with regards to blood sugar and its relation to the HPA axis and cortisol, to eat some healthy complex-carbohydrates in the evening!!

A few pointers for keeping your blood sugar balanced:

avoid intermittent fasting if you presume that you're struggling with burnout/adrenal fatigue/HPA axis dysfunction
eat within 1-2 hours of waking up, preferably a meal with protein
have protein, fat, and fiber at every meal
eat every 3-4 hours (make sure you're eating enough at every meal so that you're satiated!); eat when you feel hungry

4. inflammation

Inflammation always seems to have a place when it comes to gut health, doesn't it?

Cortisol, our stress hormone, is naturally anti-inflammatory. When there is acute or chronic inflammation, the HPA axis will be triggered.

Chronic inflammation (even low-grade chronic inflammation), can lead to chronically elevated cortisol, which can contribute to HPA axis dysfunction and burnout.

Some things that can contribute to acute and chronic inflammation are:

allergies + intolerances (food)
gut infections
toxicity, chemicals + heavy metals
disease (cardiovascular, diabetes, arthritis, etc.)

These are Some Other Things that can be Stressful on the Body:

over-exercising
a lack of physical activity
gut pathogens + dysbiosis
parasitic, bacterial, fungal overgrowths, bacterial overgrowth in the wrong place (SIBO)
chronic infections (things like mycoplasma, tick-borne infections, viral infections)
food sensitivities (especially gluten and dairy)
environmental toxins (endocrine-disrupting chemicals like BPA, phthalates, parabens)
toxic chemicals (like pesticides, herbicides, insecticides)
heavy metals (like mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic)
mold toxicity
EMF’s (like wifi, cellphones, cellphone towers, smart meters)
nutritional deficiencies (due to poor diet, low HCl or digestive enzymes, GI infections, etc.)

So far, you've learnt what burnout is, what four of the main contributors are, as well as some additional stressors.

So what do you do?

start with actively reducing the stressors you can - look at your to-do list, seek out support, ask for help, reduce inflammatory foods, etc.
prioritize sleep (see above for those tips on how to get a good night's sleep!)
keep your blood sugar balanced throughout the day