Natural Medicine for Increased Energy

We’ve all heard the saying about burning a candle at both ends leads to burn out. Now imagine a multi-wicked candle burning from all ends, what do you get? A fire!

This is how our patients who experience burnout describe their situation to us. They come in complaining of feeling mentally, emotionally drained, they can’t get a break and keep catching colds easily, and struggle to turn off their thoughts at night.

We often ignore these symptoms, but it is an emergency! We lead our patients through easily-implemented habits to improving their energy and feeling great and motivated about life again, increase their immunity so to not catch every virus or bug that is going around, and finally to sleep through the night like a cozy baby.

Doesn’t this sound nice? When we have a plan for fire emergency preparedness, we not only restore ourselves, but we also prevent ourselves from becoming burned in the future.

Here are my top 3 emergency tips for burnout that you can do right now!

BREATHE. Put your hand on your belly and take a big slow breath of oxygen in through your nose, focusing on moving the hand that is over your belly. Oftentimes when we are stressed we stop breathing fully and deeply. When we don’t have enough oxygen our brain assumes that we must be suffocating and it raises the alarm (i.e. more stress and panic!) in the body to conserve energy and oxygen. Even 5 minutes can calm things down.  So if feeling stressed take some time to breath.  Anticipating something coming up and starting to get nervous, pause, breath, reset.  To avoid burnout, take a big slow inhale and blow out that flame!

MOVEMENT. Especially with seated work, or caregivers, there is a significant lack of exercise. Our prehistoric brains used to experience stress at the time of a physical threat, stimulating us to run away or fight the predator. Today, much of the stress we experience is mental and emotional. Combat this by going for a 5 minute walk. Bonus: practice deep breaths during this walk. Protip: during periods of burnout, we generally find that our patients feel more exhausted after strenuous exercise, so be sure to do something that is gentle and restorative.  Walk, tai chi, pilates, bicycle, rollerblade, so many options... 

SELF CARE. You might be on fire, but don’t forget you’re still a human too! Try dedicating 20 min to doing something for your own health and happiness.  Different times call for different measures.  When burned out we may have to say no a multitude of things for a time to care out time to recover.  Its not selfish or lazy to do things to recover our health - it is wisdom and giving the world a better more focused version of ourself.

Keep these activities so simple and easy that you’ll feel great about accomplishing them. Some examples include: putting your phone and/or devices away before bedtime, washing your hair with that nice-smelling shampoo, spending 20 minutes reading a good book, praying in silence with lights dimmed and a candle burning, sitting in a sauna or taking a dip in the lake...Remember, to help others, you have to help yourself first!

There you have it! 3 strategies we have our patients commit to time and time again, and would you believe it? Their burning candles get restored!

Want More Help: If you want my help restoring with your energy, let’s talk.  Call us or connect here