NATUROPATHIC DOCTOR IN ONTARIO
My Personal Burnout Experience
Panic attacks, Anxiety, Recovery
Anxiety Burnout
It happened to me too. I burned out. I’m shocked. Despite all of my knowledge of the issue and all of my healthy habits, I was unable to prevent the burnout that so many of my patients are confronted with. How did I get there? What was the cascade and trigger? In retrospect there were events that I could have been prevented, and there are some that were unavoidable.
My burnout was in the form of panic attacks and a lot of somatic symptoms. This is what I call an “anxiety burnout”.
Traditional Burnout Vs. Anxiety Burnout
In a traditional burnout, the symptoms include:
Emotional Symptoms of Traditional Burnout:
- Chronic Fatigue: Feeling tired all the time, even after resting.
- Irritability: Becoming easily frustrated or annoyed.
- Feelings of Ineffectiveness: A sense that you’re not accomplishing anything, even when you’re working hard.
- Depersonalization: Feeling disconnected from work, colleagues, or even yourself, sometimes with a negative or cynical outlook.
- Lack of Motivation: Difficulty finding enthusiasm for tasks you used to enjoy.
- Dread of Work: An ongoing sense of dread about your job or responsibilities.
Physical Symptoms of Traditional Burnout:
- Frequent Illness: A weakened immune system, leading to more frequent colds or other illnesses.
- Sleep Disturbances: Trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or feeling unrested even after a full night’s sleep.
- Headaches or Muscle Pain: Tension headaches, back pain, or other unexplained aches and pains.
- Appetite Changes: Either eating too much or not enough, sometimes due to stress.
In an anxiety burnout you are trapped in a fight-flight-freeze response. Your heart is racing and palpitating, your temperature control is dysregulated (and can include fever and chills, as well as body tremors), and your senses are heightened.
Key Features of Anxiety Burnout
- Constant Worry: You’re consistently overwhelmed with anxious thoughts or fears, even about everyday tasks or situations. This persistent worrying can drain your energy and focus.
- Hypervigilance: You’re on high alert, constantly anticipating potential problems or threats, which can lead to emotional and physical exhaustion.
- Inability to Relax: Even when you’re not actively working or engaging in stressful situations, you find it difficult to relax or feel at ease, often ruminating on what could go wrong.
- Irritability and Frustration: Due to the emotional toll of anxiety, you might find yourself snapping at others or feeling easily agitated, even over small issues.
- Feeling Stuck or Overwhelmed: You may feel like you can’t get out of a cycle of worry and stress. Everything may feel like it’s piling up, and you don’t know where to start.
- Physical Symptoms: Along with emotional burnout, anxiety burnout can also bring on physical symptoms like headaches, muscle tension, stomach problems (IBS and diarrhea), and sleep disturbances.
- Reduced Coping Capacity: You may find yourself less able to handle stress than usual. What used to be manageable feels overwhelming, and you’re less resilient in the face of challenges.
- Loss of Interest or Joy: The anxiety can drain the ability to enjoy activities or pursue goals that once brought satisfaction, leading to emotional numbness or detachment.
To my surprise, this type of anxiety burnout was just as incapacitating as traditional burnout. After the initial panic attack, my body had to sweat out days of stress hormones (complete with fever, chills, and feelings of dread). It very much felt like my brain had been initially squeezed by the panic attack and that my mind had to recover as if from a concussion (complete with visual symptoms, sensitivity to light, sound, high need for rest and sleep). It felt like years of bottled up emotions had to physically be purged out of my body. I couldn’t leave my bedroom without experiencing loss of vision (as occurs when fainting), body tremors and fear. It was messed up! Burnout is not the right term for this, but I don’t belief western medicine has the right terminology for this manifestation of emotional release.
How Did I Get Here?
Part of the issue was my belief that I could push through anything. That I’m “tough”. I am the mom (like so many others) that does all of the things, and I like that about myself. But the reality is that we are modeling behaviour for our children. So if we want our kids (and daughters in particular) to prioritize self-care and more balance in their lives, we need to do so as well.
There were factors that just happen to pile up in my life in the months before my breakdown that I could not have anticipated, nor avoided.
Life stresses out of my control:
- Renovations
- Partner stressed out about new job etc
- International move
- Kids adapting to an international move
- Adapting to a new (less friendly) culture
- Adapting to newness in general (where to buy the grocery staples required for my naturopathic diet, where to buy the grocery staples for my kids’ diet)
- Sudden illness and death of a parent, and the uncertainty and international travel and expense related to that
- Unexpected business bills/financial strain
Stresses within my control:
- Drinking more caffeine that I could tolerate (in order to cope with the many tasks)
- Intermittent fasting
- Running (cardio exercise vs a more yin-boosting exercise like slow strength training and yoga)
- Feeling overly responsible for the grief of others and trying to take care of more people than I had capacity to
I was feeling great, sleeping well, exercising well, getting all of the things done. Everyone was saying how hard it all must be, but I felt good! Then boom! Seemingly out of nowhere (from my perspective) enter the panic attacks and anxiety loop.
How To Manage In the Depths Of An Anxiety Burnout
- REST. Rest physically (lie in your bed and make it as comfy as possible), as well as mentally. TV might be too much for your brain at this fragile time.
- Meditation. Even our own thoughts zipping around our minds can be a lot. Meditation is the practice of calming and focusing the mind. And when we are torn open in a burnout or by grief, it is a time when the mind is most receptive to repatterning.
- Distraction. When things were really intense for me, I wasn’t yet up for meditating. I just had to keep my mind distracted in order to avoid the darkness. At this time I needed distraction. For me, this came in the form of a light show like Grace & Frankie, and by listening to Agatha Raisin audiobooks. It’s okay to give your mind a break until your body has calmed down enough to start to do the work of resetting.
- Let go of responsibility. Relying on others to do the work might be uncomfortable for those of us who “do all the things” (and who are therefore more prone to anxiety burnout), but to come out of the darkness we need that time and that ease to do so. People will be disappointed, because they are used to you always being there, always doing that, but it’s more important to recover so that you can once again be functional. And in the end this may be better for everyone. Your kids will learn that they should do the tasks that they are able to do on their own, your partner will contribute more as an act of caring for you, your work team will adapt. Get comfortable with boundaries and with identifying with someone who is like a bird who coasts when they can, versus a squirrel who is always working but only recovers 30% of their nuts.
How To Bring Yourself Out Of Anxiety Burnout
You need to balance TWO things to bring yourself out of an anxiety burnout:
- Giving your body and mind the rest that it needs so that your nervous system can come out of the fight-flight-freeze mode
- Slow and progressive exposure to triggering stimuli. It’s like a progressive return to everyday functioning. Allow yourself to dip your toe into the sensation/symptoms of the anxiety/panic attack, knowing that your body is just discharging the last remnants of stress response, and proceeding gently anyway. But only within your tolerance. Reminding yourself that you are sensitive, but resilient. It is real life desensitization.
How To Maintain Yourself To Prevent Recurrence of Anxiety Burnout
The way that we rebalance our lives after a burnout to prevent recurrence varies for everyone. And for some people the trigger that precipitated the burnout was a one-time event, and there is nothing to restructure in their lives at all.
The way that I re-shuffled my life was to direct some of the time I spend on building my business to self care. A lot of this work was “squirrel work” anyway. Work I felt I needed to do, but that didn’t tangibly improve outcomes. I adopted the way of being of a bird that coasts when given the opportunity. This way now the majority of my time working is seeing patients, which has direct benefit to both me and the patient. That unpaid work time is now spent working on myself. This is when I meditate, walk in the forest, see my therapist (including EMDR), strength train (I lost 10lbs in the anxiety depths), do yoga, listen to self-help audiobooks and podcasts to process grief and fear and better manage conflict (a stressor for my personality type), and do my contemplative self exploration through journaling. I tried to start doing tai chi, but it just didn’t stick. I hope to one day be able to commit to a tai chi practice.
Daily Commitments For Recovery/Repatterning
- Meditation
- Yoga
- Walk in nature
- Exercise
- Journalling (gratitude if nothing comes up)
- Talk (therapist, friend, therapy podcast)
- Leisure reading/audiobook
- Creative time (painting, crafting, etc)
- Connect with friends/family
In retrospect I’m actually glad this happened. This crack in my framework has allowed me to access baggage that needed to be dealt with but that was previously buried. I always tried to be as healthy as possible (within reason), but now I am including my mental health in that equation. I am a meditator now, for real. I really really try as hard as I can to improve my meditation practice, and I do so daily. I am putting in the work to drop my mental blocks to improve my relationships and my connections with others. For some people this may be an intense and quick process, but I move emotionally slowly by nature, so for me this will be a baby step by baby step process and I am just fine with this.
Your Doctor: Meet Dr. Sarah
Dr. Sarah Goulding is a licensed naturopathic doctor in Ottawa Ontario and has a BSc in neuroscience and biology from Dalhousie University (2004), and did her 4-year naturopathic training at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine (2010). She’s since accumulated over a decade of clinical experience, and refined her practice to focus on women’s health and digestion. She is licensed and registered as a Naturopathic Doctor in Ontario by The College of Naturopaths of Ontario (CONO) and is a member of the Canadian Association of Naturopathic Doctors (CAND) and the Ontario Association of Naturopathic Doctors (OAND).
Dr. Sarah Goulding blends science and compassion, and acts as a personal health researcher to help you navigate your health. Tools that she uses include nutrition, supplements and botanicals, bioidentical hormones, and lifestyle modifications. The closer you get to the root cause, the gentler the therapies needed to resolve the issue.
