What I am hearing when checking in with people at the moment is that they are limping to the end of the year, or that they well and truly hit the wall weeks ago. There is no doubt about it, our need to mount and maintain a stress response was called upon this year. Prolonged stress does not come without it's problems, particularly as we get older.

Burnout is a real thing. The World Health Organisation revised it's definition of burnout mid last year stating that burnout is a “syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed”.

The three symptoms included in their list are:
• feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion
• mental distance from one’s job or feeling negative towards one’s career
• reduced professional productivity

Burnout is often referred to as being triggered by work. In my clinical experience it is not uncommon to see people experiencing burnout because of prolonged stress in their personal life too. Burnout can be caused by parenting fatigue, carers burnout or long term relationship conflict. Long term, ongoing stressors negatively impact your ability to mount and maintain a healthy stress response.

Signs that a person is experiencing burnout include -
• Reduced motivation in your personal life
• Chronically low energy levels and poor performance
• Missed opportunities or promotions at work
• Feeling disengaged from those around you
• Strained personal and professional relationships

If you are reading this and ticking some of the boxes then it is a good idea to speak with your doctor or naturopath about running some investigations to take a look at the true state of your adrenal glands. We can test hormones such as dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEAS), adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and morning and evening cortisol to get a clear idea of how your stress response is pitched. Then we know what supplementation of herbs or nutrients is required to support your nervous system and stress response.

What you would use to treat a person with adrenal hypofunction, that is sometimes referred to as adrenal exhaustion, is going to be very different to someone that is producing excessively high levels of cortisol and DHEAS. Whether you have low or high adrenal hormone production, everyone will benefit from a good quality methylated B vitamin complex and magmesium glycinate to assist with energy production, healthy neurotransmitter production, good adaptation to stress, calming the nervous system and relaxing skeletal muscle.

The other thing to do is:
Prioritise sleep to help your adrenal glands regenerate overnight
Eat food that is nourishing, i.e. plant foods
Aim for protein at each meal and snack time
Try not to overdo the alcohol over the break. That will just deplete you further.

Finally, consider treating the break as a good time to reset, re-energise and re-imagine what next year will be like for you. That is certainly what I will be doing!