Hannah Aylward (00:05.881)
Welcome to the Nutrient Dense Podcast. I’m your host, Hannah Aylward, holistic health coach, functional gut health practitioner, and the founder of HAN. So many people are continuously failed by conventional and alternative healthcare. We are here to do it differently. Alongside my team of functional registered dietitians, I’ve helped hundreds of women around the world overcome their chronic digestive issues when nothing else worked.

I’ve learned a thing or two about what it really takes to transform your health from the inside out. And I’m here to share it all with you. Please keep in mind that this podcast is for educational purposes only and should never be used as medical advice. Now, let’s dive in. Your transformation is waiting. Hello, hello, my dears, and welcome back to another episode of the Nutrient Dense Podcast. I’m excited to kind of dive into everything today because we’re going to be discussing burnout.

and adrenal fatigue. And when I polled my community, it was a couple of weeks back at this point and just asked like, are you guys feeling burnt out? How are we feeling? How’s our energy? How’s our digestion? How’s our like recovery? The overwhelming majority was that most people are feeling like pretty burnt out, which I’d say is increasingly common in today’s age, just due to, my gosh, so much our

hyper connectivity, our dysregulated circadian rhythms, our poor diets, our poor gut function, our perfectionism, our type A tendencies. I mean, the list could go on and on and on. In addition to just like trying to keep up with the demands of everything, everything that’s being put on us on a day to day basis, whether it’s running a business or raising kids or both navigating sick loved ones. I mean, we’re just like,

We have such high demands on us at all times. And I think especially for women, this does not exclude men at all though. mean, men definitely, definitely hit a burnout stage too. But especially women who just, know, the female body, we’re a bit more sensitive to stress. It’s not that we can’t hold as much of it. We’re like so incredibly resilient, but we feel other people’s stress, I think a lot more than we think, than we might be aware of. And we kind of like take on the…

Hannah Aylward (02:26.682)
my gosh, like the pressure of the world on our shoulders. We’re trying to fix everything. We want everyone to feel comfortable. We want to do everything perfectly. We want to exceed in everything. We do multitask. We can multitask, but can we really? So for those many, many reasons, I think that burnout is so, it’s just so prevalent now. And over time it’ll cause more intensive hormonal imbalances. And we can get into some of that today. It’ll cause that issues down the line.

if you don’t have them already. If you’re listening to this podcast, you probably do. And it’s just like really not a fun place to be in. So I’ve definitely been burnt out before, honestly, a few times. I’m probably writing my own little version of it now. And I’m really taking into consideration my habits, my routine, then everything that I need to do to take care of myself so I can continue to grow as a human in this business, in relationship, in all the things. And I think I’ve like finally gotten to a place in my life personally, where I’m just like,

I want to grow and I want to take everything to the next level, but I’m just like, I’m not going to do it at the expense of my own care, my own energy, my own sanity. And I think I’ve pushed so hard for so many years, likely like so many of you. yeah, mean, it’s just like you hit a point where you’re like, I can’t really do this anymore. I’m not in a deep, deep burnout now. It’s definitely been, it’s been worse, but I can kind of like, since I’ve been through it, I can feel like creeping up and creeping in a little bit.

So I know what to look for and I know what to do. And I just have to get really, really serious about like my boundaries and my own self care when I feel it coming in. And I have to start saying no to stuff. And I just have to like allow stuff to not get done, which is very difficult for someone, someone like me. You know, if that’s kind of resonating with you, you’re not alone in that. And I have been in this burnout stage before.

When I talk about burnout, we’re gonna get into what exactly that means when we’re looking at hormones and digestive function and all of that kind of stuff. But I describe it as like feeling bleh. Like you’re feeling like that juiciness of life isn’t really there as much. You’re not as excited for that next level. You can even become like a bit withdrawn. You’re pretty consistently exhausted. When I knew I had hit this quote unquote burnout state, I was like waking up with headaches. I…

Hannah Aylward (04:45.699)
felt like I needed coffee to like exist and get through the day. I didn’t feel very well rested when I woke up and I just didn’t really care about the things that I normally really deeply care about. So my business, building my business, traveling, all of these things that really light me up, I was kind of like, I don’t care, I just want to like rest and using projects and being innovative and being creative. was like really taking a back burner. And that’s when I know I’m out of alignment. And I’m in this case, I was out of alignment because I was just like truly so tired.

It came after a period of time in my life where I went through a breakup and I moved a bunch, a bunch of times. So my eating habits were, they weren’t like bad, but they were inconsistent. I didn’t have a consistent kitchen and it was very, very high stress and big life trauma and all of this kind of stuff had unfolded and the body’s so resilient and it hits this stage of like, it’s keeping up, it’s keeping up, it’s keeping up, pumping out cortisol, it’s pumping out adrenaline. And then eventually it crashes.

Today we’re gonna be kind of talking about that crash, but we’re also gonna get into the three stages of the stress response that the body kind of like goes through and that burnout or quote unquote adrenal fatigue being stage three of that like HPA axis dysfunction. So we’ll break all of that down. We’ll break down adrenal fatigue. It’s not really the proper term for this. Your adrenals don’t really fatigue, but I’ll get into that. So kind of just like discussing things to look out for what’s kind of happening in the body when you are, are burnt out, quote unquote.

common root causes for these things. And then yeah, how it starts to impact other things in your body, other systems in your body. And that’s what we want to just like be mindful to, mindful of as well. Because when we’re starting to get to that burnout stage, it’s not really gonna just stay like low fatigue, which that’s not good either. We want to have our energy. We want to have our mental clarity. We want to have that like oomph, right? That juice, that excitement, that joy.

But it’s also going to, you know, once we’ve hit that burnout stage, it’s going to take a hit on our thyroid. It’s going to hit our digestive function. It’s going to hit our skin. So we’re going to kind of get into all of that together today. So let’s break it down. But actually, before I jump into that, I really wanted to dive in a bit in this episode because I’m excited to announce that next week, so on April,

Hannah Aylward (07:05.966)
Second at 6 p.m. EST I’m gonna be teaching my beating burnout master class and I’ve only taught this I think one or two times in the past It was so highly requested. I think the last time I taught it was in 2023 which is like absolutely insane that the time just completely flies and at that time Everyone was needing it so much like everyone in my community was like I’m sober now help and here we are again Here we are again where the community is saying I’m super got help. So it’s really like a gift to you guys we usually work with clients in

more like intensive programs, one-on-one programs and group programs and all of that. And I don’t get to offer like too, too many of these, which just because we’re in the intensive work with clients, so it’s always a real joy to be able to. So in the Beating Burnout Masterclass that’s happening on April 2nd, we’re gonna be talking more in depth about all of this, the science, all of this. And then in addition, we’re gonna be like giving you a game plan, like step-by-step plan to overcoming burnout.

supporting your hormone balance, beating the blow, including nutrition strategies, lifestyle strategies, and targeted supplement strategies. So you will get like a list, like a handout after class with some of my go-to supplements to support. In addition to all of the other stuff that we’re gonna discuss, it’s gonna be really juicy. Like I want you guys to walk away from this class with action steps and I want you to come back to me in four to six weeks after and say like, I’m feeling better because I implemented what I learned in this class. So.

That’s really the goal. We would love to have you in class and it feels like a good fit for you. I do these like community master classes for a pretty low price point as well. So you can sign up for class for just $22 until March 27th at midnight. And then it’ll increase to $44 until the time of the class on April 2nd. So send it to your friends, any of your like girlfriends that are feeling the same way, send them the link. It’s just go.hanaelwer.com and then it’s forward slash burnout.

dash master class dash order, but we’ll pop that link in the show notes for you guys too. So yeah, super low cost way to like learn a lot, dive in, we’ll do a Q and A at the end of class as well. And you’ll have your, kind of like game plan. We can discuss testing options and that kind of stuff in class too, if you have those types of questions and yeah, we’ll just kind of like dive on in with the goal being to get you guys like truly feeling a lot better, you know, within a couple of weeks after class, because once we start implementing some of those strategies,

Hannah Aylward (09:21.874)
They can make a significant, a significant difference. So just remember that if you’re kind of like in the hole right now where you’re like, I’m so tired, remember that honestly, by making some like really good strategic adjustments, we can get you feeling a lot better pretty, pretty quickly. So if you’re interested in that master class, the Beating Burrow master class link will be in the show notes. Make sure to sign up, grab your spot. It’ll be live. We’ll be interacting. You’ll get your questions answered and you’ll have your step-by-step plan along with some of the science and some like in-class exercises that we’ll do too.

So it’ll be fun. I’m very excited to teach it. I love teaching you guys these classes. So let’s go ahead and dive in. First thing being, what even is adrenal fatigue? Let’s break down adrenal fatigue because it’s a term that’s really tossed around. It’s not really like real, but let’s break it down. So the term adrenal fatigue is, it’s not really like an accurate term because the adrenal glands don’t actually become like quote unquote fatigued. Your adrenal glands don’t like fatigue where they have nothing left and they just stop working, right?

What is happening is it’s more of like a miscommunication, a miscommunication. It’s a communication issue. When the brain essentially perceives a stressor, there is an interruption in the chemical messaging system between the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland to the adrenal glands. So that’s going to be that HPA axis. You’ve got the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, and the adrenal glands, HPA, right? And basically we’re getting like a miscommunication between these three.

parts of the body. So since the adrenals produce cortisol, they can start to overproduce or underproduce cortisol or that stress hormone. So when we’re looking at adrenal fatigue, I would say the more accurate, I guess, like description of that is going to be HPA axis dysfunction, HPA axis dysregulation. You could even say cortisol dysregulation as well. That’s going to be a more like

proper term or suitable term for what’s actually going on in your body. However, honestly, like I think it’s important to know what are the real terms so you can better understand it. But I don’t hate on saying adrenal fatigue because when I say adrenal fatigue, you as like the human and the listener, you know likely what I’m talking about, right? Like the feeling of adrenal fatigue, the symptoms that come along with it. So just know your adrenals aren’t actually fatiguing, but

Hannah Aylward (11:42.08)
All of those things that you’re experiencing with that, like the chronic fatigue, the lack of motivation, the lack of focus, the digestive issues, all of that, those are very, very real. So that is all happening due to this dysregulation in the HPA axis. So just wanted to bring some clarity to that. So let’s dig into kind of this adrenal fatigue, especially burnout. I kind of personally like to say burnout. I think a lot of people resonate with burnout, cortisol dysregulation, you follow whatever you want.

I just want to get you some help. So let’s dive into that and really like the three stages of the stress response because I think this is important for you to understand, to actually understand like what’s going on in your body. And it’s going to help some of you guys like put the pieces, like you’re going to start getting little clicks in your brain where you’re like, that’s me. and then that’s me. And that’s why I’m here now. So the general adaptation syndrome was the first theory of stress developed by Hans Selye. I don’t know if I pronounced that correctly, so stick with me.

And this was in 1935 and he hypothesized the three stages of the body’s response to stress being the alarm and then the resistance and then the exhaustion. So when you’re thinking about like, how did I get here? Know that your body has gone through these three different stages of the stress response. So that first one is going to be the alarm stage. And this is really that fight or flight response, right? So stressor comes up, body starts secreting a cortisol, norepinephrine, adrenaline.

These stress hormones start being secreted. We’re in that active fight or flight state. Stressor is active. We are alarmed. We get an increase in that sympathetic nervous system activity, which then stimulates the adrenals to release the cortisol and the noradrenaline. And the thyroid actually begins to release thyroxine. And this leads to heightened alertness, an increase in blood pressure, increase in breathing rate, heart rate, and digestion and sleep and reproductive functions are suppressed. So let that sink in.

In this first alarm state, digestion, sleep, and reproductive functions are suppressed. That’s something that we want to take note of, especially if you’re struggling with anything in that group. So this first state is really gonna be that active response, that alert or alarm stage. So some signs that you might be, this is really when you’re like running on stress hormones, essentially. You’re in that fight or flight state, you’re running on stress hormones, it’s like go, go, go, it’s very active, and you aren’t running on

Hannah Aylward (14:09.084)
like real good energy, you’re running on stress hormones. However, you still do have like some energy, which is also why most people will just run through this, including myself. You just keep going until one day you crash, right? So signs that you’re running on these stress hormones are going to be constantly feeling irritable, anxious. You have difficulty being fully present. You might feel very fearful. You might be jumping to the worst case scenario. You’re constantly like on alert, on alarm.

trying to mitigate negative things, fears from happening, very fearful, jumping to that worst case scenario. You may be addicted to exercise, especially these intense workouts, things like HIIT, because you love that high from it, or maybe even long distance running, it keeps you that high. You’re just riding that cortisol, you’re riding that adrenaline. You may feel like the people that are in this stage always tell me that exercise is their stress reduction, and I’m like, no, no, no. No, it’s not.

or their stress relief. And yes, exercise boosts a lot of great hormones. Yes, it can help to decrease our stress. But as you can probably imagine when you’re actively working out, mean, that’s a very, that you’re still using a lot of energy, right? It’s not really a stress relief. It could be like some stress release, but you’re not actually like fully calming down. You’re revving up in that. It’s still a stressor. Exercise is still a stressor. It’s like a beneficial stressor long-term, but.

you’re still experiencing an increase in stress when you’re actively exercising, especially in classes like HIIT, CrossFit, bootcamp classes, that kind of thing. So if you’re like, oh no, like I just go for a six mile run to reduce my stress, you’re very likely running on stress hormone. You may feel easily triggered, worried about other people’s opinions. You may really resonate with like type A perfectionist vibes, addicted to hustling, addicted to going constantly busy. Maybe you feel like you always have to be productive. If you’re not being productive, it’s a waste of time.

If you’re not doing stuff nonstop, you’re not being productive, you’re being lazy, that’s bad, like that kind of thought. A frame of mind, really addicted to the go-go-go, addicted to the hustling. These people are usually also saying that meditation just doesn’t work for them. It’s too difficult or it’s boring. That’s when you know your brain is like running you. You’re not running your brain, your brain is running you, your nervous system is running you, and you’re actively in that stress response. You might have trouble sleeping, feel very overwhelmed.

Hannah Aylward (16:30.066)
very worried, can’t really sit still and relax. It could also start to impact your focus at this point, but you’re still actively in that like stress response. So the focus actually shouldn’t be too, too off. You may run cold, may have like be experiencing some blood sugar swings. And to be honest, like running, I’ve run on stress hormones for so many years of my life. It’s really all that I knew until I knew better and I chose to do something about it. But I think so many of us run on stress hormones, especially when we’re

Yeah, trying to do a lot of things in this world or maybe we had to prove ourselves as children to our parents or to other people. you know, my story when I really, really peel the layers back is, and I always share this with my clients, you know, I always saw my mom working her butt off. I saw my mom working her butt off. She was always too busy to eat dinner with us. She was running around. She ran her own business. Her whole thing was I’m too busy. I’m too busy. And now reflecting on that, I’m like, my goodness, when do I think I learned it?

And it always, mean, as her daughter, as her child, that always kind of, you know, didn’t land with me the best. Of course I wanted her around and it wasn’t that she, you know, wasn’t fully around, but she literally wouldn’t even sit at the dinner table with us because there was always something else to do. So, I mean, she’s pretty much a walking example of this. And then, you know, as her daughter, I want her to love me and I want it to be like mommy. So then I took all of this on. So I just, I will just go, go, go, go, go harder than anyone. And it will start to impact my health.

And that’s why I bring it up. That’s why I even share because I know it’s going to resonate with some of you guys. And we just want to be mindful of it because if we’re not careful, we wake up one day, we’ve got hypothyroidism, we’ve got IBS, we’re exhausted, our hair’s fallen out, we’re cold, we’re gaining weight, we are bloated, we’re constipated, and it’s all stemming from this kind of stuff. So it is something we want to take into consideration. And that’s just the physical symptoms. That’s not even talking about the misalignment that we’re feeling in our lives.

the exhaustion, the lack of oomph and juiciness and the lust that we have for these beautiful things. So it’s going to all these different areas of our lives. So if you are resonating with any of those symptoms, it’s, you know, you’re very likely running on stress hormones and it feels really good because you kind of have more energy quote unquote, but it’s really like fake energy. You can hyper focus and you can like go, go, go. just push through and you’re like riding the high of the stress hormone until eventually you crash.

Hannah Aylward (18:50.566)
And one day it will happen if it hasn’t happened already. If you’re listening to this, it’s probably happened. But one day you will crash and we’ll start to see some of those painful things pop up that we didn’t want to. And then we ask ourselves, how do we get here? Why am I gaining weight? How did I get hypothyroidism? Why do I have Hashimoto’s? How do I have this autoimmune disease? How do I have IBS? Right. And it’s all stemming from the years that we’re just in running on stress hormones and potentially some other stuff too, but

you’ll understand how it kind of affects the whole body. So that’s going to be that alarm stage. It’s still very like active, which is why we can hang in it for a bit. And it doesn’t feel, you can kind of sense something’s off, but you’re like, it’s okay. I’ll just keep going until you crash. And then you’re like, shit. And that happened to me and it’s happened to many of our clients. So that’s stage one. Then we have stage two. Stage two is really that resistance stage. So in this stage, the body has adapted to the stressor and the symptoms of fight or flight are no longer really apparent.

However, that cortisol and the neuroadrenaline remain upregulated. So stage two, first stage is actively like, you may even have racing heart, difficulty sleeping, all of that kind of stuff. very like activated. Stage two is resistant. So your cortisol and those stress hormones are still elevated, but you’ve kind of like normalized it, right? So that is really that stage where a lot of people are hanging out. Cause when you’re still in that alarm stage, you can still feel it a bit.

It’s going to be more like prevalent. You’re going be like, ooh, I am feeling a bit stressed. And then there’s that second resistance stage where you’re kind of just coasting in it. Then finally, we have that exhaustion stage. And that’s going to be stage three. And that’s really characterized by fatigue, the inability to cope, and cortisol and noradrenaline have dropped to below the normal levels. So after cortisol has been high for a while, it eventually is going to drop and it’s going to be low. And this is really that burnout stage. This is what I refer to as burnout.

or HPA access dysregulation, or you’re just freaking exhausted, right? And I got to this point where I tested my cortisol levels and they were actually very low. I had been in that, honestly in that resistance stage with bursts of that alarm stage for a while, for a long time after like moving a million times and riding a lot of emotional waves and running my company and all of that, where eventually I just crashed and I could feel it. I was getting headaches. I never have headaches. And my digestion was surprisingly hanging in there.

Hannah Aylward (21:13.96)
I don’t even know how, but honestly I wasn’t even like eating enough because I was so activated. And that’s another thing when you’re in that kind of like alarm stage, you may even feel like your appetite is decreased as well because you are so stressed. Like you’re just running on cortisol. So you can’t even feel into your appetite. That can also really happen in this final stage, that more like exhaustion stage when you can get no appetite or like you see your appetite decrease during this stage too, because you’re just like so exhausted and

Yeah, it’s little counterintuitive because your body needs the nutrients so much, but you’re like so depleted that you don’t even have, you can’t even feel your hunger hormones anymore. So not ideal. And that’s really that burnout stage and what that kind of looks like when we see it. So when we’re working with clients who are quote unquote burnt out, we’ll see it on their labs. And so we’ll get into what that looks like on a GI panel that we run, but we’ll see it in cortisol panels. We’ll see it as like low morning cortisol or honestly low cortisol all day long.

That’s what I had. My cortisol was just low, truly all day. It went up a little bit, but your cortisol should start high in the morning and gradually get lower as the night progresses so you can sleep. And mine was just like basically tanked. Like I was like running on fumes or like I didn’t even have the fumes anymore. It’s kind of scary. You know, it does increase your risk for autoimmunity and you just don’t even feel like yourself. I didn’t feel like myself when I was in that state. So symptoms of

this burnout or like the crash are gonna be like, you’re no longer even running on these stress hormones. So you can’t even like fake it. When I’m most running on the stress hormones, I could kind of like, you can kind of like still run through it a little bit because you’re running on, yeah, just like fake energy. And then in that exhaustion stage, that burnout stage, you’re like, I don’t even have it in me. I don’t even care anymore. You can’t wake up without a cup of coffee. You wake up maybe feeling like foggy, like you didn’t get enough sleep, even if you got eight hours. There’s not a lot of cortisol around anymore. You’re just like truly absolutely exhausted.

Low drive, low motivation, low excitement for things in general. You may be feeling flat, like you don’t have a lot of interest in things that you used to. That was definitely my experience. Absent appetite, like I mentioned. Sometimes we can also see it like very ramped up, like you’re starving all the time. It can vary per person. You may feel totally depleted just from everyday activities. So the evening comes around and you’re like, I don’t even have it me to fold my laundry. I’m like so exhausted. We should not be feeling that way, you guys. Yes, we have long days and

Hannah Aylward (23:37.242)
Yes, some days you just let that laundry sit on your chair for sure. But if you’re consistently feeling like I don’t have it in me to even make dinner, like something is up, right? You may feel also poor recovery from workouts. So you could be working out. You may feel like you’re a lot of muscle soreness, like you’re never recovering. The days that you do work out, you may feel super depleted, super exhausted, like a couple hours afterwards. Your muscles are sore for a long time.

It can also be very difficult to build muscle during this time because the cortisol is so high and that is catabolic, cortisol is catabolic. So it’s like you’re in the gym trying to like build your muscle, but then you’re running on cortisol. So then you’re just like, it’s muscle wasting. So you’re really like not, it’s very difficult to your goals in that regard. You also are probably experiencing some flare ups, things like anywhere from hormonal flare ups, skin flare ups, gut flare ups. And you may also feel like I’m too young to be this tired.

And I just feel bleh. Like I know something’s up. I’m like honestly too young for this. That’s why I was feeling too. I was like a little bit tired, like fatigue. Okay, that makes sense. But I’m like freaking exhausted and it’s, and I’m freaking exhausted like day after day after day. And that’s when you really know that you’ve kind of hit that space, hit that crash phase. And you’re not alone in this. You know, that’s why I also like to talk about this stuff. Like so many of our clients are here and going just to kind of like bounce back a little bit.

I mentioned what this looks like clinically with like a cortisol panel. It will also impact your stress hormones. We’ll see people with like low progesterone eventually due to the high cortisol for a long period of time. We’ll see sluggish thyroid function and I’ll get into that a bit more in depth. And then we’ll also typically see people like with an HTMA, hair tissue mineral analysis. We’ll run those on some of our clients to get a better gauge at what could be causing their symptoms and what might maybe they’re not getting better.

And sometimes we’ll see a lot of those macrominerals just like very plummeted. So low magnesium, low potassium, low sodium, low calcium even, those can all, you know, that’s kind of what it looks like clinically. So sluggy thyroid function, low cortisol levels on a salivary cortisol panel, definitely gut issues. And we’ll get into that and then some thyroid stuff as well. So let’s just jump into some of the common causes of this. How do we get here? Right? I already touched on some of this, but let’s run through this. So.

Hannah Aylward (25:51.272)
When we’re looking at how did we get here, you’re not going to get there overnight. It’s going to be like tripling in for a little while. Sometimes people have a really rough year or sometimes you’ve just been like riding in that resistance stage for like a long time, for like two years or so. But of course, if we have a big stress or a big trauma in our lives and we encounter that can kind of expedite the process. Like post COVID, for example, and the, I mean, the complete like panic and like nightmare that that was afterwards, like everyone was burnt out.

everyone was feeling it because everyone was like existing in fear for like months at a time and staying at home and not socializing and not laughing and not in their community and like absolutely terrified about what was going to happen and losing their jobs. I mean, it was crazy. And then those of us that had our jobs were like trying to push and make sure we kept our jobs. So it was a whole thing. So like that is an example of like a big kind of like trauma or big stressor that then like took a lot of us out, you know, caused a lot of burnout and a lot of people.

Mostly common causes of this, so dietary stressors is going to be number one, dietary stress. This can be a huge underlying cause. Big emphasis on blood sugar dysregulation and that’s because blood sugar dysregulation can be a huge cause of inflammation and it’s going to, if you’re riding these blood sugar highs and lows, you’re going to be riding this like cortisol roller coaster because when your blood sugar levels dip, your body is going to secrete cortisol. So if you’re not balancing your blood sugar levels, you cannot balance your hormones.

and you cannot get off this cortisol roller coaster. So this is a big, big thing. Blood sugar dysregulation can be a big contributor to this. A lot of the times we’re thinking like stress at work or family stress, but these dietary stressors are really big too. Eating a poor diet, of course, that doesn’t give your body macronutrients, vitamins, minerals, and the different co-factors to drive chemical cellular processes in the body. That’s gonna be a big thing. If you don’t have the nutrients that your body needs, we’re gonna run into a lot of issues. Sometimes that’s coming from eating a poor diet.

especially if you eat a lot processed foods, but also especially if you have a lot of gut issues, so you’ve been very restricted for a very long time, that’s gonna cause nutrient deficiencies, right? As soon as we start excluding a lot of stuff, we’re gonna run into more issues. And then if you have a lot of food sensitivities and intolerances, once again, we’re taking a lot of these things out, we’re eating the same foods over and over again, that can also contribute to just not having these macronutrients or minerals, micronutrients that the body really needs.

Hannah Aylward (28:13.218)
And then on top of that, the poor absorption of nutrients. So when we have these chronic gut issues, and once again, you guys, mean, obviously y’all know I love the gut. I love the gut work, but it’s, the epicenter of everything. It is the center of everything. And that’s why I just like, I harp on it so much. And that’s why I make this podcast, right? But essentially if you cannot digest your food efficiently and you’re not absorbing the nutrients from your food efficiently, everything’s going to take a hit. Your Liberty talks, your thyroid hormone conversion.

your thyroid function, your skin, ability, your skin’s ability to repair, your hair gray, your blood sugar, like everything’s gonna take a hit. So if you’ve been living with a lot of digestive stuff, like you have a lot of bloating and constipation and maybe your doctor told you that you have IBS or you have diarrhea or are sensitive to a lot of foods, like it’s not something to ignore because it’s going to cause more issues down the line. And that’s not even to be alarmist, it’s just like.

we can’t expect ourselves to live with all of these chronic gut issues and then we wake up and it’s like, we have hypothyroidism and people are like, well, how’d this happen? I’m like, well, you’ve been living with poor absorption of nutrients and gut infections for freaking years. It’s shocking it didn’t happen sooner. So that’s just me being very real. Usually I don’t get that real with you guys or just that blunt with you guys. I’m always real, just maybe that blunt with you guys. But my point is don’t ignore it. Please, please sit here a bit and investigate there and we’re happy to help you do that.

So the poor absorption of nutrients is another big dietary stressor. Then we have these more inflammatory stressors. Once again, that blood sugar dysregulation, a huge inflammatory stressor causes a lot of inflammation in the body. Other things, gut imbalances. Gut imbalances are a huge source of inflammation for people. Maybe it’s a gut pathogen or it’s a low-grade infection that your body is like perpetually trying to fight off. Maybe you have a parasitic infection. Maybe you have an H. pylori infection.

These things are going to cause and contribute to a lot of inflammation and that’s a stressor that’s causing a lot of stress on your body. Then we have emotional stress. So that’s going to be the things that most of us probably like thought about, right? Like the perfectionism, unrealistic expectations, never resting, never resting. Work stress, family stress, chronic overworking, always being on without actually truly resting, always being connected, checking the phone nonstop.

Hannah Aylward (30:29.763)
Being in front of the screens nonstop, those may be more of a physical stressor, but this kind of stuff, being very, very busy, overworked, under rested, overwhelmed and under resourced, all of these things fall into this emotional stress bucket. And so many of us just keep running and we try to run through these things until we hit the day where like we can’t anymore. Let’s not let that happen. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, and if it has, then make sure you come into class because we’re going to get you some good takeaways. The other thing,

It’s going to be physical stress. So if you haven’t noticed, I like to put stressors in like different buckets so we can kind of better conceptualize them and then go, oh, okay, I’ve got one here, I’ve got one here. Let’s address this. Because when we’re just talking about stress overall, it’s like, yeah, I’m stressed. Of course I’m stressed. But like, let’s break it down so you actually understand like where it’s coming from, what you can do, where you need to actually pay attention. So that’s one of the reasons why I like breaking it down. So then this next little kind of piece of the stress overall stress bucket or little section category.

It’s going be physical stressors. So over-exercising, a huge physical stressor. Excessive exercise is burning up towards glucose. That can lead to low blood sugar. This is very problematic if you already have blood sugar issues. Over-exercising when you are already not eating enough, not sleeping enough, dealing with a lot of stress at work, dealing with a lot of stress with family stuff, dealing with gut issues, like you’re just packing on the stressors. It is still kind of like a

Over exercising you’re putting your body in a catabolic state, right? And you’re breaking down your body’s tissue. That’s how we build muscle. You’re like putting it under pressure. You’re breaking down the tissue so it can build back stronger, which is amazing. But if you’re already under these stressors, right? You’re under lot of emotional stress. You’re not eating enough or you’ve got a lot of gut issues or you’ve got a lot of food sensitivities and you’ve taken out a lot of food or you’ve been restrictive dieting like restrictive eating for a long period of time. You’re already in this catabolic state. Your body is already breaking down.

So when we’re adding on more intensive exercise, we’re doing more harm than good. You don’t want to add more catabolic activity to this, especially if you’re not repairing. Like you have to earn these really intense workouts, the HIIT workouts, the marathon training. In order to do those things without burning out, you have to eat enough. You have to earn those workouts in those long runs. You’ve got to eat enough. You’ve got to support inflammation. You’ve got to rest enough. You’ve got to recover enough, or you’re going to be chronically in that catabolic state. And then over time, it’s not going to be good.

Hannah Aylward (32:55.745)
Other things, sleep habits, going to bed too late, not sleeping enough. This is really where the blue light comes in, blue light exposure, increasing cortisol. It’s literally increasing cortisol right before bed. So that’s not going to work long-term. And then leading into that is this big disconnection that we have with our circadian rhythm. So many of us wake up, look at the phone, look at the screen, we’re on the screen all day. I mean, I’m not an exception to this. I’m literally recording this in front of the screen right now and it’s 7.45 PM.

So the sun’s going down. I should be outside with my eyeballs, like looking at the sun and looking at the sunset. So I get it, right? In this state, like you can put on blue blockers, get off the screens as quickly as you can, but that exposure to the blue light is increasing your cortisol. And then of course you can’t sleep after that exposure. And what do most of us do? We wake up, we look at the screens, we go to work, we’re in front of screens, we’re inside all day, we’re under artificial lighting all day. We’re never getting outside. If we’re lucky, we get outside for a couple minutes.

We’re not getting that sun exposure in our eyes at sunrise or sunset. So I actually like to these little sun breaks where I just like step outside for even 30 seconds and just see the light outside and then step back in. And I get it. I mean, even though I work from home and I work for myself, I work all day. I work all, all day. I’m on calls a lot. I can’t step away from my desk that much realistically, depending on the day. So I’m working with you guys with on all of this. I’m not like

someone with this empty schedule that I’m just like, get outside and get your son. No problem. So it’s like, where can you add it in? Where can you get in this sun exposure and reconnect to that circadian rhythm is a good thing to ask yourself. And then we have those environmental stressors too. So this is that last bucket. Gonna be things like toxin exposure. So plastics, phthalates, endocrine disruptors. And then we have like mold toxins, mold exposure, mycotoxins, and then things like heavy metals. All of these are gonna be more like

environmental stressors that are increasing that stress load and filling up that stress bucket that can contribute to this state. So the question we have to like really ask ourselves in order to really overcome this, overcome the burnout and the adrenal fatigue, whatever you want to call it, is what are my stressors? When I’m looking at all of this, what is causing me the most stress? Where am I disconnected to like my natural alignment?

Hannah Aylward (35:11.797)
Is it my sleep? Is it how I’m feeling myself? Is it my relationships? Am I not saying no enough? Do I need better boundaries with myself or other people? Where can I help my body feel safe again? And where can I reconnect? Where can I get back into alignment and the natural rhythms that I was like designed to live by? We weren’t meant to sit in front of screens all day. How can I get outside? How can I make sure I’m eating enough? Where can I decrease my exercise? All of those things, like we can’t expect to…

just throw on a bunch of supplements on top of these poor habits and see a huge difference. They can help, absolutely, but in order to not end up back there, we have to dig a little deeper. So those are good questions to start asking yourself now. And then, you know, we can kind of, like I said, take it that level deeper and we’ll explore a lot of different tools to have in the toolbox when it comes to supporting adrenal health and overcoming burnout in the master class that I’m teaching next week. So.

Some warning signs that you’re headed for burnout if you’re not there already. So pay attention to these because this is where you know like, I’m on my way and I need to make adjustments. So weight loss resistance, severing belly fat, digestive issues, feeling very forgetful. That’s when I know I’m under too much stress, you guys, when I’m not remembering things. I’m like, this is not okay. I keep forgetting things and I’m like, goodness gracious, I have got to pull back. Like the cortisol, it’s too much. For getting to eat.

or this thing slowing down, feeling like it’s hard to meditate, or you quote unquote don’t like yoga because it’s boring. That’s the big one that people are just revved up in that stress response. You might feel jittery, feel better during the high intensity workouts, but crashing after not really seeing the muscle gains at the gym. You’re not being able to really build that muscle mass because there’s too much of that cortisol, as I mentioned. You might have worsening PMS symptoms. This is really big, really big, you guys, like really painful periods and the stress connection here is massive.

and just running on cortisol can absolutely make your period symptoms worse. Things like estrogen dominance, irregular cycles, racing mind when you try to go to sleep, and then even a craving for salty and sweet foods as well. So the impact of burnout, the impact of all of this and hitting the stage, it’s large. It’s going to hit our mental health. can contribute to anxiety, depression, other mental health issues.

Hannah Aylward (37:28.747)
our physical health, increased risk of illness, immune system dysregulation, fatigue, sleep issues, further hormone imbalances, painful PMS, digestive issues, on a work and personal life front, decreased productivity, strained relationships, difficulty focusing, and that low cortisol state can also increase your risk for autoimmunity. So it’s not a place you want to hang out in. We really do want to take it seriously.

And then the impact on digestion. So it can absolutely contribute to digestive issues. So when we’re running labs on someone that has hit this kind of burnout state, has hit this low cortisol state, or has been just like burning the candle at both ends for too long, we’re typically seeing things like low secretory IgA, which is that lowered gut immune function. It’s your resistance and resilience to gut pathogens, things that are coming into your gut through exposure.

to the outside world through the food that you’re eating, through sticking your hands in your mouth, anything like that, your resistance is gonna just be down. So you might get food poisoning more consistently, you might have more tummy issues, you’re not gonna be able to fight off these invaders as efficiently as someone with higher secretory IgA. So you are at higher risk of infection. We’ll also see people with low elastase, so low pancreatic enzyme secretion, that’s gonna cause a lot of maldigestion.

burping, bloating, undigested food in the stool, constipation, it’s gonna contribute to gut dysbiosis. We’ll see also that stress depletes a lot of minerals and B vitamins, and we actually need these to make stomach acid. So you can see how it’s like you’re on the hamster wheel. All of these different systems in the body impact one another. So we can’t expect to be under this, in this chronically stressed out state and then have gotten to this burnout state and our digestion to not have taken a hit.

But we burn through so many nutrients and minerals when we’re under that chronically stressed out state. And we need a lot of them for arsenic acid and for so many other things. And chronic stress is also associated with increased intestinal permeability or leaky gut. So we’ll see that chronic stress will contribute to that increased permeability picture. So it has a very direct impact on your digestion.

Hannah Aylward (39:40.891)
Which is also why if you work with us or if you have worked with us inside of a program, when we’re working with you on your gut issues, we’re supporting all of this. Like we’re doing mineral repletion, we’re supporting adrenal function, we’re giving your body all of these resources and we’re working on nervous system regulation and blood sugar balance as well for many reasons and one being you simply won’t get rid of this gut stuff if you’re too exhausted. You won’t get rid of it if your immune system isn’t strong enough to get rid of it and if you’re too depleted.

We’re going to work on supporting adrenal function and detoxification and the gut stuff and the gut imbalances and things like that. When we work together with our clients, it’s a non-negotiable or we won’t get you feeling fully better because all of these things are connected. So then we have the thyroid impact. So the HPA axis can have significant effects on our thyroid function. And the HPA axis, as I’ve mentioned, it’s responsible for regulating the release of stress hormones, particularly cortisol.

which is produced by your adrenal glands. And when the HPA axis is activated by stress, it’s going to affect tons of different bodily symptoms, or excuse me, systems, including your digestion, but also including your thyroid. And your thyroid is what really regulates metabolism and energy production. So activation of the HPA axis. When the body perceives stress, the hypothalamus signals the pituitary gland to release ACHT, adrenal corticotropic hormone.

which then stimulates the adrenal glands to produce cortisol. And cortisol is that stress hormone that helps the body cope with immediate stress by increasing energy availability, right? Which is once again, why when you’re in that alarm stage, it’s like, it doesn’t feel the worst. You have some energy still, it’s like stress hormones, but you still can see clearly in focus, but it’s going to increase energy availability through glucose production and suppress non-essential functions like digestion and like reproduction.

So cortisol also has anti-inflammatory effects and helps to regulate immune system responses. Like it can, it can help and it can be helpful temporarily. It’s not all bad. We just run into issues when we’re experiencing it long-term. So the relationship between cortisol and thyroid function is complex, but cortisol can influence our thyroid function. So cortisol, when chronically elevated due to long-term stress can suppress the production of TSH or thyroid stimulating hormone.

Hannah Aylward (42:07.223)
from the pituitary gland and TSH is essential for stimulating the thyroid to produce thyroid hormones, T3 and T4 and lower TSH levels can lead to a reduction in thyroid hormone production. We’ll also see that it can reduce the conversion of T4 to T3. So our thyroid hormones exist primarily in two forms. We’ve got T4, which is thyroxine, the inactive form and then we’ve got T3 and that’s really the active form that is actually used by the cells.

So cortisol, especially when it’s high, in chronically high levels, can actually reduce the conversion of T4 to T3. So we can’t convert it into the active usable form that the body actually really needs. So this essentially means that even if the thyroid is producing adequate amounts of T4, the body may not be able to convert it into active T3, leading to symptoms of hypothyroidism.

or low thyroid function. And that would then essentially look like fatigue, weight gain, depression, cold hands and feet, thinning of the eyebrows, hair loss, constipation. I mean, there’s lots, lots of things that can kind of be associated with that hypothyroidism state. So we’re seeing those high cortisol levels in influence, negatively influenced TSH and then also negatively influenced our ability to convert thyroid hormone into its active usable form.

This is also one of the many reasons why getting a full thyroid panel is very helpful. So if you want to learn more about functional blood work and a full thyroid panel and all of the different kinds of like more comprehensive labs that we run with clients, check out my last podcast episode. I’m the one right before this. I’m diving into all of that. In that episode, we talked about a full thyroid panel. This is one of the reasons why it’s so important because your TSH can look normal and then your conversion of T4 to T3 is off. Well, we can also see your reverse T3 very high.

signaling that the body’s under a lot of chronic stress. So you want to get that full thyroid panel when you are going in for your thyroid blood work if you suspect that anything is off there. Lots and lots to kind of discover there. So all in all, to round this out, we’ll see. We’ve got these three different stages of that stress response. Once we hit that burnout stage, we’re in that stage three, we got little to give. We got little to give in that state, and it’s not fun.

Hannah Aylward (44:32.065)
Honestly, running on stress hormones is so much better than that. But you have to know if you’re running on stress hormones, it’s only a matter of time before you’re in that more depleted burnt out state. So we have to get a hold on this, like either way. And we’ll just ignore it because running on stress hormones doesn’t feel that bad, right? But yeah, so we’ll see those different stages of that stress response eventually leading to that burnout stage. And then hopefully through this episode, you guys can see.

how it’s gonna impact your digestive function in many ways. So impact stomach acid production, impact gut permeability, impact secretory IGA leading to things like dysbiosis, poorly impact digestion overall and your gut. It can contribute to a lot of hypothyroidism symptoms. So things like weight gain, hair loss, cold hands and feet, fatigue. It’s not really even just staying as fatigue. That’s when we’re gonna start to see all of these other things pop up, which is just one of the many reasons.

why we’ve got to pay attention to that stuff. So if what I’ve been sharing with you guys in this podcast episode has resonated, if you’re feeling this, if you are dealing with, you know, the weight loss resistance, if you’ve got the chronic fatigue, if you feel like you’ve been burning the candle at both ends, you’ve got gut issues, maybe skin issues, or you’re just feeling like not really like yourself, you’re feeling bleh, you’re resonating with the lack of motivation and some of these kinds of signs of burnout, please make sure you come to class and come to the Beating Burnout Masterclass. I really do these classes for you guys.

You’ll walk away with your step-by-step plan to overcoming burnout, supporting your hormone balance naturally and feeding the bloat. And we’re going to break down nutrition, lifestyle and supplement strategy. So you will have like a pretty solid plan after class. We’ll dig more into kind of like the data, the science behind all of it, the theory. And then we’ll also do a live Q &A with me at the end. So that’s going to be April 2nd at 6pm. It’s only $22 until March 27th at midnight. And then the price is going to increase to $44.

The link to sign up is just go.hannahaylward.com/burnout-masterclass-order.  A little long, sorry about that. We’ll pop the link in the show notes for you guys. And we’d love to have you in class with us, bring your questions, bring a cup of tea, bring your notebook and we’ll dive in. And I feel pretty confident that if you apply everything in class and really take, take, take it all, apply it all in a good few weeks, like you’ll be noticing a real difference. So

Hannah Aylward (46:56.513)
We’ll dive on in. So thanks for being here with me in today’s episode and I’ll see you next week for a brand new episode of the Nutrient Dense Podcast. Okay. Bye guys.

Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Nutrient Dense Podcast. If you found this episode valuable, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and come back next week for a new episode. See you then!