Burned Out By Tuesday?

Today’s almonds have been activated by:

In A Rush?

Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Whether it’s a hectic schedule or just flagging energy levels, burnout can strike anyone, at any age

  • Today’s main feature looks at how to recognize burnout as a function of metabolism as much as it is a function of culture, and address both sides of that.

  • Our featured expert, Dr. Claudine Holt, “The Embodied MD” has specific actionable advice that we can take to make things better, outside and in.

• How’s your hydration looking? For most people, at any given time, it’s not great. But it doesn’t have to be that way!

  • Today's sponsor NativePath is offering a 365-day money-back guarantee on their range of electrolyte and amino acid drink mixes, which are great for your kidneys, bladder, and pelvic floor muscles.

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

A Word To The Wise

Watch and Learn

The Lies That Depression Tells Us

Prefer text? The above video will take you to a 10almonds page with a text-overview, as well as the video!

Tuesday’s Expert Insights

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.

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:

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)

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!

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Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free

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• Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR) For Trauma

• Exercise with Type 1 Diabetes: How To Exercise Without Scary Lows Or Frustrating Highs (book)

This Or That?

Vote on Which is Healthier

Yesterday we asked you to choose between goji berries and blueberries—both are great, but ultimately we picked the goji berries (click here to read about why) as did 82% of you!

Now for today’s choice:

Click on whichever you think is better for you!

Bonus (Sponsored) Recommendation

Personalized ED treatments, straight to your door. Hims has helped thousands of men get support for ED, and they’re ready to support you with custom solutions made with clinically proven ingredients. Take their free assessment to see if a prescription is right for you.

A Quick Question

We’ll then talk about this on Friday!

One-Minute Book Review

The Power of When: Discover Your Chronotype--and Learn the Best Time to Eat Lunch, Ask for a Raise, Have Sex, Write a Novel, Take Your Meds, and More – by Dr. Michael Breus

There’s a lot more to one’s circadian rhythm than just when one wakes and sleeps. This book goes into that quite deeply!

For example, those items in the subtitle? You could do them all at the same time, but it probably wouldn’t be optimal (although honestly, that does sound like quite a good life!). Rather, there are distinct times of day that we’re going to be better at certain things, and there are distinct times of day when certain things are going to be better for us.

Of course, some items are not so simple as a one-size fits all, so Dr. Breus outlines for us how to figure out our own chronotype (within four main schemas), and how to make that work for us as well as possible.

They style is easy-reading pop-science, with frequent summaries, bullet-points, quizzes, and so forth, making it easy to understand, learn, and apply.

Bottom line: if you feel like your sleep could use a do-over, then this book can help you get it into order—and the rest of your daily activities too!

Click here to check out The Power of When, and optimize your health!

Penny For Your Thoughts?

Wishing you positive change that’s as good as a rest,

The 10almonds Team