Help For Executive Burnout

At its core, burnout emerges when the demands of a job outstrip a person’s ability to cope with the stress. People in careers focused on caregiving — teachers, nurses, social workers, and physicians — report the most prevalent rates of burnout, but the condition ultimately doesn’t discriminate among call center representatives, professional athletes, actors, or CEOs. Over time, jobs that require too much of individuals will cultivate feelings of negativity and hopelessness as people struggle to meet impossible deadlines, deal with rude customers, or cope with the emotional toll of professional caretaking.

It’s a common misconception that the culprit behind burnout is simply working too long or too hard — research indicates that other factors, both individual and organizational, can be just as detrimental. For example, a comprehensive report on psychosocial stress in the workplace published by the World Health Organization identified consistent evidence that “high job demands, low control, and effort–reward imbalance are risk factors for mental and physical health problems.” Ultimately, burnout results when the balance of deadlines, demands, working hours, and other stressors outstrips rewards, recognition, and relaxation.

 The most common complaints seen in doctors’ offices today include fatigue, depression, anxiety, allergies, digestive problems, insomnia, candida and hypoglycemia. These and many other symptoms can often be traced to a poorly understood syndrome, referred to as the adrenal burnout syndrome.

Adrenal fatigue is an increasingly common yet sometimes controversial diagnosis used to indicate depletion of the adrenal glands. Cortisol is a hormone released by the adrenals for use in the regulation of blood pressure. In response to stress, the adrenals release greater amounts of cortisol. Adrenal fatigue is thought to occur when the adrenals have become overtaxed by excess cortisol release and can no longer produce levels of cortisol necessary for optimal body function.

Your adrenal glands produce a variety of hormones that are essential to life. The medical term “adrenal insufficiency” refers to inadequate production of one or more of these hormones as a result of an underlying disease or surgery.

Signs and symptoms of adrenal insufficiency may include:

• Fatigue
• Body aches
• Unexplained weight loss
• Low blood pressure
• Lightheadedness
• Loss of body hair
• Skin discoloration (hyperpigmentation)

Adrenal insufficiency can be diagnosed by blood tests and special stimulation tests that show inadequate levels of adrenal hormones.

(Dr. Bojana Weatherly, Functional and Integrated Medicine Physician specializes in treatment of Adrenal Fatigue)