Sometimes life can become overwhelming. After a person has experienced a long series of difficult life experiences, they reach the stage where they feel like they just can’t take it anymore. They feel tired during the day and stimulants like coffee, caffeinated beverages and energy drinks don’t help. They may also experience difficulty concentrating, remembering things and thinking clearly, something we commonly call brain fog.

In addition they are more easily upset emotionally. They may feel irritable and snap at loved ones, or they may burst into tears over little things. This may be accompanied by feeling chronically nervous or anxious. They may even become depressed.

What compounds the problem of these unproductive days is disturbed sleep. They may fall asleep from exhaustion only to wake up some hours later unable to go back to sleep. They then lie awake obsessing over their problems. They may also wake up repeatedly at night, suffer from disturbing dreams or even nightmares, then wake up still feeling tired.

If this sounds like you, or someone you know, this issue of Sunshine Sharing was written for you. It will explain what’s happening when a person feels like this and, more importantly, what to do to rebuild that person’s energy, drive and enthusiasm for life.

Welcome to the World of Burnout

People have called this chronically stressed state by many names. Old school Western doctors called it enervation. Modern medicine commonly calls it chronic fatigue syndrome or systemic exertion intolerance disease (SEID). Another popular name for it is Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome (AFS) or simply adrenal exhaustion. We are just going to call it burnout. Whatever you want to call it, burnout destroys a person’s enjoyment in life. It also makes them more prone to infections, as well as many chronic and degenerative illness.

We can understand how chronic stress can cause burnout by reviewing the work of Dr. Hans Selye, a pioneer in researching the effects of stress. Dr. Selye’s work suggests that there are three phases or stages of the stress reaction­—the alarm phase, the resistance phase and the exhaustion phase. It’s these second and third phases of stress we are referring to when we talk about burnout.

Central Nervous System Disruptions and Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome by Michael Lam and Justin Lam

Natural Health, Natural Medicine by Andrew Weil

Strategies for Health by Steven Horne