Welcome to the Peak Revival podcast.

My name is Vesna Herster.

I'm your host and on this podcast I'm

going to talk about how to go from

burnt out to peak performance especially

if you're a high performing woman.

And today I'm going to talk about what

is the five step plan to go from burnt

out to feeling like your best self.

So even if you're exhausted and

overstretched and overwhelmed how to

get back to feeling like your best.

What is burnout?

Burnout is a result of chronic stress

that has not been successfully managed.

And where, before they saw burnout

just happening in the corporate

business environment, and now they can

see that burnout extends beyond that

because you could be a burnt out mum.

And there's a lot of, Drivers for

this is a lot of psychological

drivers that drivers towards burnout.

Now, I understand burnout very well.

I hit burnout when I started my first

practice and I worked really hard and

I put a lot of pressure on myself.

I had a lot of expectations and

eventually I started to feel exhausted

and overstretched to the point

where didn't love my work anymore.

found everything a struggle.

I didn't have the passion and

joy in my life that I once did.

And so it was a bit of a slow process.

So no matter where you are kind of

in that, right, if you're feeling

the symptoms of burnout, so a lot of

people say to me, well, I don't think

I'm burnt out, but I'm really tired.

And the end stage of burnout looks like.

some people become bedridden, right?

They're really, really exhausted

that they can't get out of

bed and they get very sick.

They get a lot of colds and flus

and so it keeps them bedridden.

But there's a lot of stages

before that happens and it's

waking up tired all the time.

It's feeling tired throughout the day

and then you can't sleep at nighttime.

Maybe it takes days for you

to get through your emails

or your text messages.

You feel like you're behind

on everything, even though it

feels like you're, you know,

burning the candle at both ends.

you're kind of antisocial.

You prefer to stay in.

You don't want to go out and

socialize because you want to

try and conserve your energy.

And there's also a loss of passion

in your work, in your business

that really distinguishes burnout.

Basically what happens, chronic

stress that is not being managed

means that stress hormones have been

in the system or in a chronically

high state for a long time and they

create imbalances and deficiencies.

And I like to explain it like this.

Cortisol, which is your

main stress hormone.

has this way of kind of hijacking

all the other responses in the body.

So if you think about, you know, when

you're driving on the road and like

a fire truck comes or a police car,

paramedic or ambulance, whatever it is,

you have to move to the side, right?

And give them way.

And that's kind of the same

effect of cortisol, right?

Cortisol just pushes everything

out of and it takes what it

needs to get the job done.

Because when you're in a chronic

state of stress, your body thinks

that you're in a life threatening

situation, that you're in mortal danger.

Right?

And so it's not important for you

to digest your food and absorb your

nutrients, have proper sleep and

regulate your reproductive system

or detoxify or anything like that.

Right?

So those systems and those areas and

those functions become compromised and

our stress could be built up over time.

So I look at chronic stress or anything

over three months, and that can create

too much of a disruption due to the

cortisol and stress hormones on other

hormones and systems in the body.

And it could be that you're a

perfectionist at your work, that you're

trying to prove yourself you know,

you're holding onto bad relationships.

There are, there are a number of

things that can create a lot of

stress in our body, which then

it causes us to feel burnt out.

So there are lab tests that you can

do to have, like, I always recommend

to have a check up, to have a look

at where your hormones are at.

We look at cortisol levels.

We also look at thyroid levels.

We look at nutrient levels to see

where the imbalances are because

they will need to be corrected.

And there will be some there after

a period of time of chronic stress.

Okay, but let's get into the

five step plan to go from burnt

out to feeling like your best.

Step one is to acknowledge that

the symptoms that you're feeling

are not normal and if you've

been feeling them for over three

months, then there's definitely

an impact to the system, right?

So one of the hardest things that I

see, particularly for successful women

is to acknowledge that what they're

feeling is burnt out and they may

not be at the end stage of burnout,

but they're in that stage where.

They're tired all the time, but they're

pushing themselves to get stuff done.

They're really anxious and

things are setting them off.

They're unable to switch their

mind off after work and it's

draining system even more.

So acknowledging that your

symptoms are a part of a bigger

picture and acknowledging that

you are heading into burnout.

And the second thing is to ask

yourself a bit of a tough question.

So there are psychological triggers

or psychological markers for

predisposition for going into burnout.

So one of my CEO clients, she

said to me one day, she runs

a very successful business.

She has two children and she was

always busy and she was burnt

out and she had a lot of other

complications from the burnout.

And she said to me, what

am I trying to prove?

Am I trying to prove

myself through my work?

What am I doing?

Because she felt like a workaholic,

And one of the drivers for burnout is

this motivation to prove ourselves,

to prove our worth, whether it be

in our business, whether it be in

our career, but even in mothering.

Okay.

So it's not just within your work, right?

Your work could be your mothering.

Okay.

So the tough question to ask

yourself is what motivates your work?

What motivates you to push so

hard and ignore the cues that

your body needs extra rest, right?

What motivates you to,

ignore all of those cues?

That's step one.

Step two is a sleep overhaul.

So I see a lot of women who,

you know, don't like to go to

bed on time or have late nights.

They end up working late.

So if they're, running a business,

they end up, you know, working and then

taking care of the kids and then staying

up late at night to finish off work.

The problem here is that you're not going

to get that recovery time, the recovery

time that your body needs in order

for you to be performing at your best.

So there's one thing about

putting in the hours of work.

It's the quality and the productivity.

And again, I see women who

are still quite productive.

But it's taking a toll

on their body, right?

And the sleep time is when

we get the recovery time.

It's when our body goes into repair

mode to correct the imbalances

that perhaps were created during

the day or during the month during

the last six months or 12 months.

So making sure that you don't sacrifice

your sleep, making sure that you're

having a sleep routine, you're

in bed before 10 PM every night.

winding down before bed and not having

any late nights, not even on the weekend.

Right?

So I kind of look at this

as a treatment plan, right?

So instead of taking a supplement,

you get yourself to bed.

That is your supplement, right?

That is what is actually going to

kickstart healing in your body.

Step number three is a nutrition do over.

So stop as best you can

eating out, getting Uber Eats.

When we're stressed, we are definitely

going to go for things that help us

to, you know, give us more energy like

coffee or sugar, alcohol when we want

to kind of end the day, reward ourselves

for the day, eating out because we're

too busy to cook at home or socializing

and catching up with friends, but

doing Uber Eats or any of those things.

When you're in burnout, there is such

a need for nutrition to repair the

imbalances that have been created

from the burnout, which you're not

going to get from poor quality food.

And research has shown that just

cooking at home, just that alone has

a protective effect against burnout.

So we're not going to get the

nutrition if we're not cooking at home.

We're much better off, you know,

making the time and making it

as simple as possible for you

to be able to cook at home.

But that does have a protective effect.

Step number four is to quieten the mind.

when we look at chronic stress,

the biggest part of it is

this chronic mental chatter.

So I speak to clients and

CEO and business owners.

They find that they catastrophize

their problems, that they

can't let it go, right?

And they, they think about so many

different things or overanalyzing

situations and it creates an anxiety.

It creates Chronic mental stress now that

trips up our fight or flight response,

part of our stress response system.

So the very fact of what we feel

like we're doing is You know,

helping ourselves resolve situations

by thinking about it, trying to

find a solution, overthinking it.

But that very act of overthinking

is actually driving more

stress hormones in the body.

And it's moving you further away from

where you actually want to get to.

So the whole idea of this burnout

recovery plan, this five step plan, is

to reduce stress hormones in the body.

So you can do that without you

know, running away from your

life or putting your life on

hold or stopping anything, right?

Because for most people, we can't just

exit our businesses or our work, right?

We have responsibilities.

And so there is a way that you can

get back to your best, but you need

to reduce those stress hormones.

So, you know, your sleep and nutrition

and quieting the mind, all of these

things are really important to bring

that stress hormone back down the

cortisol and allow the body to do

what it does, which is recover.

So if you find yourself during the

day, like I normally would ask,

how many hours of the day would you

find that your mind is at a quiet

peace or even in a flow, right?

You're really, uh, can be engaged in

your work without any distractions.

You can work on one piece of task

without getting distracted by emails,

phones, meetings, whatever it is, and

you could work solidly without being

distracted or do you find that your mind

has a lot of mental chatter going on.

And the difference is that the longer

that mental chatter is there, the

more it's going to kind of release

and trigger this cortisol, which

then has a downstream effect, right?

Affecting our digestive system, our

other hormones, our thyroid and more.

So the best you can try to maintain

or try to trust that when you have

mental clarity, you will be able to.

handle everything that your

business and life throws at you.

But in that place of mental chatter

and chronic mental stress, we really

don't think clearly we are not rational.

Cortisol drops our IQ for one and makes

us very kind of hyper vigilant and gives

us like myopic or tunnel vision in a

sense of we really zone in on a problem.

So we're not really

seeing a bigger picture.

So it's from a clear state

of mind that we do our best

to make our best decisions.

So if you can trust that, then you'll be

able to let go a lot of that thinking.

And step number five is a system reset.

Because as I said, Burnout

does break down key systems,

our gut, our detox pathways.

It affects our hormones, particularly

our thyroid hormone for women.

And that needs to be reset in order,

you know, for you to feel your best.

And one of the best places

to start is gut health.

Because we know that gut health

affects our mental health.

A lot of our serotonin is produced

in our gut, which affects our

mood, the quality of our sleep,

and how well we can handle things.

So just to rehash the five step plan

from going from burnout to feeling like

your best is number one, acknowledge that

you are showing the symptoms of burnout

and ask yourself what is motivating you?

What motivates your work or what

motivates you to push so hard?

Number two is a sleep overhaul.

Really have sleep discipline.

Get in bed by 10 p.

m.

Do not sacrifice that,

even on the weekends.

Step number three is a nutrition do over.

If all you do right now to begin is

cook your meals at home and don't

have things in a packet, That will

have a protective effect on your body.

Step number four is to quiet the mind.

The mind, the mental chatter

drives so much of our stress.

80 percent of our stress is

mental and emotional stress.

Okay.

If we can get a handle on this piece,

we can feel a hell of a lot better.

Okay.

And step number five is a system reset.

So start looking at repairing gut

function, improving gut health

in order for you to have better

hormones for mental health.

And those are the five steps.

I think they're pretty easy to

follow, and let me know how you go.