Avoiding Burnout, The Active Way

This is Dr. Claudine Holt. She’s double board-certified, in Occupational & Environmental Medicine, and Lifestyle Medicine.

In short: preventative medicine in all parts of our life.

Hopefully, you are reading this bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to take on another exciting day in this wonderful, beautiful world!

On the other hand, it’s possible that you’re reading this semi-focussed, looking for a crumb of dopamine as much as you are looking for information.

If you’ve ever had the “What a week!” / “It’s only Tuesday” moment, this one’s for you.

What does Dr. Holt want us to know?

You can recover from burnout without guilt

Sometimes, we overreach ourselves. Sometimes, life overreaches us! Sometimes it’s not that we overcommitted—it’s just that we were taking each day as it comes, but sometimes several days gang up on us at once.

Sometimes, even, we can feel exhausted when it seems like we haven’t done anything.

Note: if you feel exhausted and it seems like you haven’t done anything, then be aware: you are exhausted for a reason!

What that reason might be may vary, but contrary to popular belief, energy does not just vanish. It went somewhere.

This goes double if you have any chronic illness(es), even if you’re not aware of having had a flare-up, chances are you were just exceptionally busy (on a cellular level).

And it’s easy to think that “mere” cellular activity shouldn’t be exhausting, but that is 100% of where our energy transactions happen—whether or not we are consciously aware of them!

See also: Eat To Beat Chronic Fatigue ← yes, this also covers when you are too exhausted to shop and cook like a TV chef

Dr. Holt specializes in working with burned out medical professionals (and also specifically specializes in working with women), but there are lessons for everyone in her advice. For example:

Fiction: ”Medicine is my calling–it’s who I am.”

Fact: You are more than medicine! Remember that your career is just one aspect of your life. Don’t forget to create your big-picture vision and tend the garden of the other areas of your life too.

~ Dr. Claudine Holt

Read more: Dr. Claudine Holt | Burnout: Fact vs Fiction

This same thing can go for whatever part of your identity frequently follows “I’m a…”, and is somewhere that you put a lot of your energy; it could equally be a non-professional job like “homemaker”, or a relational status like “husband”, or a cultural identifier like “Christian”, or a hobby like “gardener” (assuming that is not also your profession, in which case, same item, different category).

Indeed, a lot of women especially get hit by “the triple burden” of professional work, housework, and childcare. And it’s not even necessarily that we resent any of those things or feel like they’re a burden; we (hopefully) love our professions, homes, children. But, here’s the thing:

No amount of love will add extra hours to the day.

So what does she recommend doing about it, when sometimes we’re juggling things that can’t be dropped?

Start simple, but start!

Dr. Holt recommends to start with a smile (yes even if, and sometimes especially when, the circumstances do not feel like they merit it), and deploy some CBT tools:

Two Hacks to Quickly Rise Above Burnout (Or Any Circumstance)

We’ve expanded on this topic here:

How To Manage Chronic Stress

With a more level head on, it becomes easier to take on the next step, which creating healthy boundaries—and that doesn’t just mean with other people!

It also means slaying our own perfectionism and imposter syndrome—both things that will have us chasing our tails 36 hours per day if we let them.

See also:

• Perfectionism, And How To Make Yours Work For You
• Imposter Syndrome (And Why Almost Everyone Has It)

❝Burnout is the culture of our times. A culture that expects us to do more and think our way out of everything. A culture that asks for more than the body can bear. Unfortunately, even though the situation might not be of our creation, burnout culture is our inheritance.

An inheritance we can either perpetuate—or change—depending on what we embody.❞

Source: The Embodied MD on Burnout with Dr Claudine Holt

That “embodiment” is partly our choices and actions that we bring and own just as we bring and own our body—and it’s partly our relationship with our body itself, and learning to love it, and work with it to achieve wonderful things, instead of just getting through the day.

Which yes, does also mean making space for good diet, exercise, sleep and so forth, per:

These Top Five Things Make The Biggest Difference To Health

Want to know more?

You might like to check out Dr. Holt’s website:

The Embodied M.D. | Burnout Coach

…where she also offers resources such as a blog and a podcast.

Enjoy!

At 10almonds we give a lot of health information, so you may wonder: how much do we (the 10almonds team) put into practice? Is it even possible to do all these things? Do we have an 80:20 rule going on?

So, here’s what someone who thinks, reads, and writes about health all day, does for her health—and how it ties in with what you read here at 10almonds.

Hi, it’s me, a member of the 10almonds team and regular writer here, and I’m going to do the rest of this article in the first-person, since it’s using me as an example!

^{(PS: yes, the thumbnail is a digital impression of my appearance, though I would correct it that my hair is much longer, and my eyes are more gray; I must admit though it captured my smile, not to mention my collarbones-that-you-could-sit-on)}

Dietary habits

Before we get to foods, let’s talk intermittent fasting. I practise 16:8 intermittent fasting… Approximately. That is to say, I’m mostly not religious about it, but I will generally breakfast around 12 noon, and have finished eating dinner before 8pm, with no food outside of those hours.

See also: Intermittent Fasting: What’s the truth?

Importantly, while I feel free to be a little flexible around start and finish times, I do very consciously decide “I am now fasting” and “I will now break the fast”.

Note my imperfection: it would be ideal to have the eating period earlier in the day, and have a bigger breakfast and small dinner. However, that doesn’t really work for me (leisurely evening meal is an important daily event in this household), so this is how I do it instead.

Foods!

It gets an exclamation mark because a thing about me is that I do love foods.

Breakfast: a typical breakfast for me these past months is a couple of ounces of mixed nuts with about 1oz of goji berries.

The mixed nuts are in equal proportions: almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, cashews. Why those four? Simple, it’s because that’s what Aldi sells as “mixed nuts” and they are the cheapest nuts around, as well as containing absolute nutritional heavyweights almonds and walnuts in generous portions.

Often, but not always, I’ll have some dates with it, or dried apricots, or prunes.

I go through phases; sometimes I’ll enjoy overnight oats as my breakfast for a month or two at a time. I really just follow my gut in this regard.

See for example: Spiced Pear & Pecan Polyphenol Porridge

Lunch: I don’t really lunch per se, but between breakfast and dinner I’ll usually snack on a 3–5 organic carrots (I literally just cut the tops off and otherwise eat them like Bugs Bunny—peeling them would be extra work just to lose fiber). Note my imperfection: I don’t buy all of my vegetables organic, but I do for the ones where it makes the biggest difference.

If I’m feeling like it, I may lunch on a selection of herbs sabzi khordan style (see: Invigorating Sabzi Khordan), though I’m vegan so for simplicity I just skip the cheeses that are also traditional with that dish. On the other hand, for protein and fat I’ll usually add a cup of beans (usually black beans or kidney beans), seasoned with garlic and black pepper in an olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing (that I make myself, so it’s just those ingredients). See also: Kidney Beans vs Black Beans – Which Is Healthier?

Dinner: this is my main sit-down meal of the day, and it’s enjoyed in a leisurely fashion (say, 40 minutes average with a normal distribution bell curve running between 20 and 60 minutes) with my son who lives with me. I mention all of this, because of the importance of relaxed mindful eating. In the instances of it being nearer the 20 minutes end, it’s not because of rushing, but rather because of a lighter meal some days.

See also: How To Get More Nutrition From The Same Food

Regular recurrences in the menu include:

• Hearty Healthy Ragù
• Cashew & Chickpea Balti
• Super-Nutritious Shchi

I’ll often snack on something probiotic (e.g. kimchi) while I’m cooking.

See also: Make Friends With Your Gut! (You Can Thank Us Later)

In terms of what’s not in my diet: as mentioned, I’m vegan, so animal products are out. I don’t drink alcohol or use other recreational drugs, and I mostly drink decaffeinated coffee, but I’ll have a caffeinated one if I’m out somewhere. I’m not a puritan when it comes to sugar, but also, I simply don’t like it and I know well its health effects, so it doesn’t really form part of my diet except insofar as it’s in some ready-made condiments I may sometimes use (e.g. sriracha, teriyaki sauce). I’m also not a puritan when it comes to wheat, but it’s not something I consume daily. Usually on a weekly basis I’ll have a wholegrain pasta dish, and a dish with some kind of wholegrain flatbread.

See also:

• How To Reduce Or Quit Alcohol
• Is Sugar The New Smoking?
• Grains: Bread Of Life, Or Cereal Killer?

Exercise!

First, some things that are lifestyle factors:

• I do not own a car, and I dislike riding in cars, buses, etc. So, I walk everywhere, unless it’s far enough that I must take the train, and even then I usually stand between carriages rather than sitting down.
• I have a standing desk setup, that hasn’t been lowered even once since I got it. I highly recommend it, as someone who spends a lot of time at my desk.
• You may imagine that I spend a lot of time reading; if it’s books (as opposed to scientific papers etc, which I read at my desk), then I’ll most of the time read them while perched like a gargoyle in a sitting squat (Slav squat, Asian squat, resting squat, deep squat, etc) on a balance ball. Yes, it is comfortable once you’re used to it!

About that latter, see also: The Most Anti Aging Exercise

In terms of “actual” exercise, I get 150–300 minutes “moderate exercise” per week, which is mostly composed of: 

• Most days I walk into town to get groceries; it’s a 40-minute round trip on foot
• On days I don’t do that, even if I do walk to a more local shop, I spend at least 20 minutes on my treadmill.

See also: The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less, & Move More

Strength and mobility training, for me, comes mostly in what has been called “exercise snacking”, that is to say, I intersperse my working day with brief breaks to do Pilates exercises. I have theme days (lower body, core, upper body) and on average one rest day (from Pilates exercises) per week, though honestly, that’s usually more likely because of time constraints than anything else, because a deadline is looming.

See also: Four Habits That Drastically Improve Mobility

You may be wondering about HIIT: when I’m feeling extra-serious about it, I use my exercise bike for this, but I’ll be honest, I don’t love the bike, so on a daily basis, I’m much more likely to do HIIT by blasting out a hundred or so Hindu squats, resting, and repeating.

See also: How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body)

Supplements

First I’ll mention, I do have HRT, of which the hormones I have are bioidentical estradiol gel in the morning, and a progesterone pessary in the evening. They may not be for everybody, but they’ve made a world of difference to me.

See also: HRT: A Tale Of Two Approaches

In terms of what one usually means when one says supplements, many I use intermittently (which is good in some cases, as otherwise the body may stop using them so well, or other problems can arise), but regular features include:

• Magnesium glycinate, malate, & citrate (See: Which Magnesium? (And: When?))
• Active vitamers of vitamins B9 and B12 (See: Which B Vitamins? It Makes A Difference!)
• Liposomal vitamin C (I actually get enough for general purposes in my diet, but as a vegan I don’t get dietary collagen, so this helps collagen synthesis)
• L-theanine (bedtime only) (See: L-Theanine: What’s The Tea?)
• Lion’s mane mushroom (See: What does lion’s mane mushroom actually do, anyway?)
• Quercetin (See: Fight Inflammation & Protect Your Brain, With Quercetin)
• Fisetin (weekends only) (See: Fisetin: The Anti-Aging Assassin)

Why weekends only for Fisetin? See: The Drug & Supplement Combo That Reverses Aging ← the supplement is fisetin, which outperforms quercetin in this role, and/but it only needs be taken for two days every two weeks, as a sort of “clearing out” of senescent cells. There is no need to take it every day, because if you just cleared out your senescent cells, then guess what, they’re not there now. Also, while sensescent cells are a major cause of aging, on a lower level they do have some anti-tumor effects, so it can be good to let some live a least for a while now and again. In short, cellular sensescence can help prevent tumors on a daily level, but it doesn’t hurt that capacity to have a clearing-out every couple of weeks; so says the science (linked above). Note my imperfection: I take it at weekends instead of for two days every two weeks (as is standard in studies, like those linked above), because it is simpler than remembering to count the weeks.

Cognitive exercise

Lest we forget, exercising our mind is also important! In my case:

• I’m blessed to have work that’s quite cognitively stimulating; our topics here at 10almonds are interesting. If it weren’t for that, I’d still be reading and writing a lot.
• I play chess, though these days I don’t play competitively anymore, and play rather for the social aspect, but this too is important in avoiding cognitive decline.
• I am one of those people who compulsively learns languages, and uses them a lot. This is very beneficial, as language ability is maintained in a few small areas of the brain, and it’s very much “use it or lose it”. Now, while I may not need my French or Russian or Arabic to keep the lights on in this part of the brain or that, the fact that I am pushing my limits every day is the important part. It’s not about how much I know—it’s about how much I engage those parts of my brain on a daily basis. Thus, even if you speak only one language right now, learning even just one more, and learning even only a little bit, you will gain the brain benefits—because you’re engaging it regularly in a new way, and that forces the brain to wire new synapses and also to maintain volume in those parts.

See also: How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk

And about language-learning specifically: An Underrated Tool Against Alzheimer’s ←this also shows how you don’t have to be extreme about language learning like I admittedly am.

How’s all this working out for me?

I can say: it works! My general health is better now than it was decades ago. I’ve personally focused a lot on reducing inflammation, and that really pays dividends when it comes to the rest of health. I didn’t talk about it above, but focusing on my sleep regularity and quality has helped a lot too.

In terms of measurable results, I recently had a general wellness checkup done by means of a comprehensive panel of 14 blood tests, and various physical metrics (BMI, body fat %, blood pressure, etc), and per those, I could not be in better health; it was as though I had cheated and written in all the best answers. I say this not to brag (you don’t know me, after all), but rather to say: it can be done!

Even without extreme resources, and without an abundance of free time, etc, it can be done!

Caveat: if you have some currently incurable chronic disease, there may be some limits. For example, if you have Type 1 Diabetes, probably your HbA1c* is going to be a little off even if you do everything right.

*HbA1c = glycated hemoglobin, a very accurate measure of what your blood glucose has been on average for the past 2–3 months—why 2–3 months? Because that’s the approximate lifespan of a red blood cell, and we’re measuring how much hemoglobin (in the red blood cells) has been glycated (because of blood glucose).

In summary

The stuff we write about at 10almonds can be implemented, on a modest budget and while juggling responsibilities (work, family, classes, etc).

I’m not saying that my lifestyle should be everyone’s template, but it’s at least an example of one that can work.

• Maybe you hate walking and love swimming.
• Maybe you have no wish to give up fish and eggs, say (both of which are fine/good in moderation healthwise).
• Maybe you have different priorities with supplements.
• Maybe you find language-learning uninteresting but take singing lessons.
• And so on.

In the absolute fewest words, the real template is:

1. Decide your health priorities (what matters most for you)
2. Look them up on 10almonds
3. Put the things into action in a way that works for you!

Take care!