Burnout

Burnout

Seventy-hour workweeks. Crazy commutes. Piles of unpaid bills. Endless family demands.

Can’t we just jump off the world and let it spin without us for a while?

Life in the fast lane often comes with a built-in speeding ticket: burnout. It’s a state of mental and physical exhaustion that can lead to negative feelings about your job, your life and yourself. Reducing stress is key to dealing with burnout. And the natural remedies in this chapter, used with the approval of your doctor, may help relieve some of the symptoms of burnout, according to some health professionals.

See Your Medical Doctor When...

You experience any signs of depression for longer than two weeks, including pervasive sadness, insomnia, weight loss and/or a decline in appetite, inability to concentrate and thoughts of suicide.
You experience physical symptoms that persist, such as stomach upset, headaches and back pain.
You have distinct episodes of feeling panicky, including a racing heartbeat, unusual sweating and light-headedness.
You start using alcohol excessively or abusing drugs.

Flower Remedy/Essence Therapy

For anyone suffering from profound mental or physical exhaustion, the flower remedy Olive can be quite potent, says Patricia Kaminski, co-director of the Flower Essence Society, a Nevada City, California, organization that studies and promotes the therapeutic use of flower remedies/essences. “Burned-out people can also feel tiredness that comes and goes—it disappears when they’re happy but comes back when they have to do something they don’t want to do.” In such cases, when burnout stems from mental resistance to a particular situation or task, Kaminski recommends the remedy Hornbeam.

Regardless of what’s causing it, mental exhaustion also responds well to the essence of the Aloe Vera flower, according to Kaminski. “It heals mental burnout the same way the juice from the leaves heals burned skin.”

Flower remedies/essences are available in some health food stores and through mail order (refer to the resource list on page 635). For information on preparing and administering flower remedies/essences, see page 37.

Food Therapy

“When you’re really burned out, I suggest you get plenty of ginseng to give you more energy,” says Julian Whitaker, M.D., founder and president of the Whitaker Wellness Center in Newport Beach, California. “You can buy it as an herb and cook with it or drink it as a tea. Be sure to look for the standardized percentage of ginsenosides, the active ingredient. You’ll want something that’s over 10 percent ginsenosides.” Dr. Whitaker recommends using one to two teaspoons of dried ginseng in your cooking for at least one or two meals a day. It’s available in most health food stores.

Imagery

Imagine that you have fallen into a pit of quicksand. The more you struggle to get out, the more you’re sinking into it. So you remain perfectly still, says Dennis Gersten, M.D., a San Diego psychiatrist and publisher of Atlantis, a bi-monthly imagery newsletter. Now picture people or images, such as your messy desk, that are contributing to your sense of burnout. See these people or objects surrounding the pit of quicksand. Realize that they are unable or unwilling to help you. In fact, they are part of your problem. Imagine grabbing hold of a jungle vine and use it to pull yourself out of the pit.

When you’re out of danger, take a moment to talk to the people and images surrounding the pit. Express your anger or frustration or any other emotions that you feel.

Once you have done that, walk away and down a path until you come to a barrier blocking your way. This barrier is a symbol of burnout. It could be a wall, gate, fallen tree or other roadblock. Touch the image and tell it how you feel about it. Spend some time talking to the image and find out how it feels about you. Is it trying to protect you in some way? Now that you’ve listened to its concerns, see if the image will agree to allow you to climb over it or to transform itself into something more positive, something that will help you overcome your burnout.

Dr. Gersten recommends practicing this imagery once or twice a day, ten minutes each time.

Relaxation and Meditation

Frequent meditation is key to beating burnout, according to Alice Christensen, founder and executive director of the American Yoga Association. Christensen recommends spending 10 to 20 minutes meditating at your desk at work each day. And she also suggests meditating yourself to sleep at night while you’re lying in bed. The result, she says, will be bursts of creative energy that will help see you through the day.

For instructions on meditation techniques, see page 117; for yoga meditation, see page 153.

Sound Therapy

If burnout is hurting your creativity, listening to the right music may help return the spark, says Barbara Anne Scarantino in her book Music Power: Creative Living through the Joys of Music. Here are some of the pieces she suggests: Scheherazade by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, the soundtrack from Gone with the Wind by Max Steiner, Fresh Aire VI by Mannheim Steamroller, Chariots of Fire by Vangelis, Nutcracker Suite by Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky, Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin, the soundtrack to The Color Purple by Quincy Jones and music by the late German composer Richard Wagner. These are available from music stores.