What is Burnout?

Burnout tends to happen when we’re juggling so many things at once we feel we can no longer do any of them justice. It results in emotion, physical, and mental exhaustion due to long term stress. You can feel overwhelmed, emotionally numb or drained, and feel like you can not longer keep up with life’s constant demands. We can often cycle through periods of burnout throughout our lives, but if we don’t catch it and take care of ourselves it results in chronic anxiety and depression.

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Anxiety and Chronic Illness.

So what does anxiety have to do with chronic illness anyway? Literally everything. Remember our nervous system in fight or flight all the time? That long term perceived stress can have a massive impact on your physical health. When you perceive stress your body releases all sorts or hormones to help you deal with that stress. But when your body releases those hormones all day everyday for months or years at a time, your body can have a hard time keeping up with the large influx of stress hormones. Those hormones begin to wreak havoc on your body by causing wide spread inflammation. Studies show that chronic inflammation is often times the precursor to most diseases. So when we work on your stress and anxiety, we’ll also be taking into account your physical health. This approach truly helps to support your whole body and results in whole body healing!

Anxiety and the Nervous System.

Your nervous system has two states, rest and digest and fight or fight. Throughout the day you’re either in one of the other. The tricky part is that any form of perceived stress can push you into fight or flight. That work deadline? Fight or flight. That fight with your partner? Fight or flight. Juggling 18 things on your to-do list? Fight or flight. When we work together, not only will you learn skills to help your mind perceive stress differently, but we’ll also work on calming down that fight or flight response and help you stay in rest and digest more often!

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