You wake up almost as tired as when you fall asleep, four hours ago. After hitting the snooze button twice, you stumble to the kitchen and chug a quart of coffee. It doesn’t help. Getting your kids off to school feels like climbing Mount Everest; driving to the job you once loved, and now dread. It’s not that you aren’t a caring, compassionate person; it’s just that you’ve reached had enough and reached your limit.
If this sounds familiar, you may think you’re depressed. But you might be dealing with a subtly different problem: burnout. Scientists differentiate the two, and it’s a crucial distinction. If you confuse burnout with depression and address it only with antidepressants or therapy, you’ll overlook the behavioural changes you must make to restore your depleted physical and hormonal reserves. It’s time to chill out.
The Biology of Burnout
Burnout, is prolonged stress with negative consequences. One of these is adrenal fatigue, which comes from overstimulating the hormones that fuel high-energy behaviour.
Initially, it feels fabulous—you can work like Hercules, compensating for exhaustion with adrenaline, caffeine, or straight-up willpower. But eventually your high-activity hormones run low. You slow down while trying to speed up. Illness, memory loss, and accidents replace achievement.
Some of the progress of symptoms:
1. Driven
You’re working flat-out, in a nonstop blur of accomplishment. You feel you can go on like this forever! You can’t!
2. Dragging
You’re sucking up sugar and caffeine to fight fatigue, maybe popping over-the-counter sleep aids to help you “sleep faster,” and feeling unpleasantly chubby.
3. Losing It
You’re definitely tired, visibly plump or alarmingly thin, and perpetually grumpy. You lie awake at night, thoughts racing, longing for sleep. At work and at home, you’ve developed a charming habit of biting people’s heads off.
4. Hitting the Wall
You’re racked by aches and pains, gaining (or losing) weight, prone to temper tantrums or crying jags, hard-pressed to remember things like computer passwords or your children’s names.
5. Burned Out
By now you may have a serious illness (heart disease, an autoimmune disorder) or have been in an accident. To stay marginally functional, you depend on the medications you are taking drugs.
How to Chill Out
Chill Principle 1: Become a Grazer
Since burnout often includes weight gain, many people try to eat less as stress levels climb. Yet going hungry can itself be very stressful. And feeding a body infrequently creates the alarm state that encourages fat storage.
The solution: Eat more. I don’t mean doughnuts and coffee, change to low-calorie green food that you eat throughout the entire day. Adding food with lots of antioxidants, water, fibre, and other nutrients can calm you and help your body relax. In addition, take daily omega-3 supplements such as fish oil, to reduce inflammation, the physiological part of the “flame” that’s burning you out.
Chill Principle 2: Sleep as If Your Life Depends on It
Some people feel superior when they work around the clock. Sleep makes you smarter, better-looking, more creative.
Make better choices, to let yourself be supported, get some help with the kids, say ‘No’ to friends, say NO, to situations which affect your sleep.
For “driven” patients, having six to eight hours of sleep each night, with naps as needed. For “dragging” patients: eight hours a night, with one period of relaxation during the day (sitting somewhere quiet, even in a restroom stall, for 10 to 15 minutes).
If you’re “losing it,” you need eight hours of sleep plus two 10- to 15-minute relaxation breaks. “Hitting the wall” means eight to nine hours each night, plus two breaks. And once you’re “burned out,” you need eight to ten hours of sleep, plus three 15- to 30-minute naps or retreats.
Chill Principle 3: Exercise for Fun
Almost no one ever tells you to exercise less, but if you’re burned out, you should. Some exercise helps prevent burnout, but too much, at the wrong time, only turns up the heat.
If you’re “driven,” aim for an hour of vigorous exercise three to five times per week. “Dragging” people should limit hard exercise to one hour three times a week, or one to three sessions of moderate activity like light yoga. If you’re “losing it,” do three gentle hours a week. “Hitting the wall” calls for 30 gentle minutes one to three times a week. If you’re totally “burned out,” roll over in bed occasionally until you’re stronger.
The key to gauging how much you should exercise, ask yourself, Is this fun? If running isn’t fun, walk. If walking isn’t fun, sit. If even that feels wearisome, take a nap. Your body-mind fun barometer is sophisticated and accurate. Use it.
Chill Principle 4: Unplug stress, Plug in relax
Make a list of all the people with whom you regularly interact. Next, list environments you inhabit—your office, your car, rooms in your home. Finally, list your usual activities, now imagine each item separately while noticing how your body reacts. Tension, jaw-clenching, churning or heat. Muscle relaxation, spontaneous smiles, and sighs of relief show you’re chilling.
You should unplug from stressors every few hours and plug into relaxing instead. Detach from your sick child, even for a few minutes, to call a healthy friend. Stop doing paperwork and read a novel for 20 minutes. Leave all technology and reconnect with nature—petting puppies, walking in the park—whenever possible.
Chill Principle 5: Practice Peace
Choosing peace doesn’t just happen; it’s a skill that takes regular practice to master. Choose and use such a practice, whether it’s prayer or simply clearing your mind. Devoting even five minutes a day to telling yourself I am all right in this moment builds new neural pathways, relaxing your nervous system.
Today, lie down for 10 minutes and just breathe. Unplug from the chaos of life long enough to connect with whatever calms you. Tonight, choose to sleep; finishing that project or supervising that homework isn’t worth your health, and you’ll do it faster when you’re rested, anyway.
Claim the time it takes to be happy. Everything you value will benefit as you learn to keep your cool.
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