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Ep 51: If you've been feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, forgetful, emotional, or like you're constantly running on empty, you're not alone.
18 Plays1 day ago
In this episode, we're diving into burnout through the lens of perimenopause and midlife—a season where hormonal shifts collide with careers, caregiving, family responsibilities, and the invisible mental load so many women carry every day.
We break down:
• What burnout actually is (and why it's more than just stress)
• How cortisol, sleep, and the nervous system become disrupted
• Why perimenopause can make burnout feel so much worse
• The connection between hormones, brain fog, anxiety, and exhaustion
• Why recovery—not productivity—is the missing piece
• Practical ways to support your energy, resilience, and nervous system
This conversation is about understanding what's happening inside your body, recognizing the warning signs before you hit the wall, and learning how to rebuild your capacity to thrive.
Because burnout isn't a personal failure. It's often the result of carrying too much for too long without enough recovery.
And recovery is not a luxury—it's a necessity.
Where to find us:
IG @whatsmyageagain.podcast / FB - What’s My Age Again Podcast
Email us at: wmaapod@gmail.com
Where to find Tanya:
IG @tlcholistic / FB @tlcholistic
Book with Tanya:
Join the TLC Community: https://www.patreon.com/tlcholistic
Where to find Kim:
IG @kimdesmarais.nutrition /FB @KimDesmarais
Book with Kim: Complimentary Connect Call
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Mission
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to What's My Age Again, the realest podcast for women who are done chasing trends and ready to feel empowered. Hi, I'm Kim. And I'm Tanya, holistic nutritionists and childhood best friends who've been there, done that, and bought the collagen.
00:00:16
Speaker
more than once. Each week we provide actionable steps that you can start today to help you thrive through every decade to come. We're cutting through the wellness noise to bring you honest conversations about aging, hormones, health, beauty, mindset, and everything in between.
00:00:33
Speaker
You see, we're also on a mission to age gracefully one WTF moment at a time. Backed by research and real life, we're here to share what actually works, what's a waste of time, and how to truly thrive through the messy, magical midlife transition.
00:00:49
Speaker
We're so happy you're here. Let's dive in.
Common Midlife Stressors
00:00:52
Speaker
So have you ever looked around your life and thought, okay, nothing's technically wrong, so why do I feel like I'm one stubbed toe away from completely unraveling? Like, why are you so exhausted after what you thought was a really good sleep, but somehow you found yourself wide awake at 2.47 a.m., mentally reorganizing the pantry or replaying conversations from like 2009? Or what if coffee actually feels less like a pleasure? Because it is a pleasure and more like support these days.
00:01:30
Speaker
Or here's one actually. Maybe you hit that afternoon wall and suddenly you need something sweet immediately. Like it's not an option or you won't survive. Kim, we talk about this one a lot too. Maybe patience feels, let's say it nicely, thinner less. Or you're overstimulated. Like the noises feel louder. The to-do list just feels heavier. um Here's one we've talked about many times. You walk into a room and you completely forget why you're there. This is actually my personal signature move. or
00:02:05
Speaker
you're mid-sentence and the word you want just leaves the building. And you're like, okay, bye. um But then we actually do, all kidding aside, find ourselves wondering. What's happening to me? Maybe even where did the version of me go who used to juggle all of this so much more easily? This one resonates, I think, with so many of us, right? And if this all feels familiar, first of all, welcome back to What's My Age Again. But if this is all feeling familiar, pull up a chair.
00:02:40
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah, because so many women, sorry, Kim, in their 40s and 50s, it's just not stress, right? It's definitely just not you.
00:02:51
Speaker
It's sorry. It's definitely just not you. That's not coping well enough. Absolutely. It's a perfect storm, right? We are moving through the biggest hormone, one of the biggest hormonal shifts of our entire life, aside from puberty, right? While also carrying what can feel like the heaviest...
00:03:12
Speaker
mental, emotional, physical load that we've ever carried, right? We might be building a career or starting a new one or you know in a leadership position in our career. parent We could be parenting our kids who are still dependent on us, right? Even as they become teenagers and insist they aren't.
00:03:32
Speaker
We might be supporting our aging parents who need us in new and different ways now. Managing a household, relationships, appointments, groceries, texts, work obligations, forms, dinners.
00:03:45
Speaker
And, you know, somewhere in between all that, we're trying to eat our protein and drink our water, right? And book an appointment for ourselves for once in our life. So navigating what it means to be right?
00:03:59
Speaker
And who you are becoming as you continue to evolve, right, in this midlife transition. Yeah, and that's a lot. And I think all of us are laughing relating to that. Like that is seriously just a day in the life for a lot of us. And it's no wonder like so many of us hit a point where we are, let's be honest, I know we can all resonate with this, where we're holding it together on the outside.
00:04:29
Speaker
No one would ever know. But on the inside, we are feeling completely depleted and overwhelmed. So today we are actually talking about burnout and we're talking about what it actually is, because let me tell you, it's more than just being tired.
00:04:50
Speaker
And I think one of the key things that Kim and I really were striving for here is to talk about why women specifically in perimenopause can feel especially vulnerable to
Understanding Burnout
00:05:01
Speaker
it right? Right.
00:05:02
Speaker
Absolutely. And you guys have probably heard burnout is thrown out a lot, right? A lot. But for those of us who experience it, it is very, very real. And as Tanya said, it's more than just tired because let's face it, we are doing it all. And sometimes it's good to be tired.
00:05:19
Speaker
You know, when we want to when we are, you know, enjoying life with our families, we are working hard at work. And that is tiring sometimes, but we're talking about burnout today. What is happening in the body and the brain during this season that can make everything feel harder?
00:05:38
Speaker
and harder than it used to. I think back to like my transport trucking days and I'm like working, you know what I mean? Around the clock, I'm balancing like the radio's going off, 17 lines are going. I'm still like texting my friend about what we're doing after work. Like I felt like it was fine. It's almost like I thrived from that. And sometimes you're comparing that to like, if I had to do that now, sometimes two texts come in at once and I'm like, oh my goodness, like, yeah. I am stressed out, right? But we can all, and Kim, you know what came to mind when we were talking about this topic? Of course, if you know, as a Green Day fan, remember when burnout was just like a a Green Day song and like you had blissfully no idea that it could actually encompass what we're going to talk about today?
00:06:24
Speaker
Seriously. oh my gosh. Yeah. that Those were the goals. Yeah. Those were the days where we burned the candle at both ends and didn't feel like we were burning out.
00:06:36
Speaker
Right? Totally. I think one of the things we want to have as a takeaway today too, most importantly, is what you can start to do to rebuild resilience and to support your nervous system before running on empty becomes your normal. And some of you might say, shoot, I think I am running on empty. It's okay. Okay. Because these are things that you can start now, no matter what stage at burnout you may feel like you are in, or maybe you feel like you're not there yet and you don't want to head there.
00:07:09
Speaker
But these are... Yeah, sorry. These are tactics that we're going to give you in the podcast to kind of help you bridge that gap. 100%. And that gap can feel huge, right? So if you've been feeling like all the things Tanya talked about, wired and tired, overwhelmed, snappy, foggy, emotionally stretched thin, right? That your tank has been empty for way too long, then stick with us. We're going to talk about this today. This episode is for you.
00:07:42
Speaker
Yeah. And this episode is probably for every single woman I'm thinking. And I think it's kind of really important because as you said, Kim, burnout is a word that's like thrown around so easily, but like, I'm not sure if a lot of us actually fully understand what burnout actually is, right?
00:08:05
Speaker
For sure. For sure. Because Burnout is more of a recovery issue. And we can get into what that actually means. But to start, i'll think, and you alluded to this in the intro, Tanya, too, because in today's environment, we think that we just need to push through, right? We've got work obligations, life obligations, and if we can just push through. and in the past, it's changing now in conversations for sure,
00:08:36
Speaker
But in the past, I think you even mentioned it too in your trucking days, that lack of sleep, the reliance on coffee, the doing it all, the burning the candle at both ends with going out and doing working hard and playing hard. That was sort of a badge of honor, right?
00:08:54
Speaker
It was a badge of honor until it wasn't. And you're right, the conversation around this is shifting in such a positive way. And I just, when I hear now people saying, you know, i just need to push through, or I observe clients, friends, family, just pushing through life. My big question is always like, but pushing through until when, until tomorrow, until next week, until the summer, next year, like life is happening for us now.
00:09:23
Speaker
And the more we say that we need to push through it, my fear for all of these beautiful women, you know, around me in my life is that like, when does the pushing through end and the living begin?
00:09:37
Speaker
And that's so true, Tanya. And what I always used to think too, is there's always a light at the end of the tunnel, right? is If you think about your work, it's so busy, I'm going to have a break then. And then that light gets further and further away, because let's face it, there's always something down the road. There's always a personal or professional, you know, something to be done. So unless you call subconsciously support yourself in what we're going to get into today, and you constantly focus on recovery, you know, you are more susceptible to burnout.
Stress and Hormonal Changes
00:10:14
Speaker
And that's exactly what burnout actually is. It's the lack of recovery. It's what happens when the demands on our body and our brain and our nervous system, our favorite topic, right, keep outweighing our ability to recover. Right?
00:10:30
Speaker
Right. So put your scale hands out here. That's such a simple way of putting it. And it's so powerful. You literally have recovery on one scale and you have demands on the other. And when demands are pushed up and up and up and up, recovery is literally the bottom part of the scale. And if you're not working to balance that recovery and almost push that recovery time higher in some instances in your life than the actual demands, you are heading right to burnout. And we've talked about this before.
00:11:00
Speaker
The stress response is designed for short-term threats. It's 2026. The brain still thinks it's the start of time. And it is supposed to be for short-term threats. There's a mountain lion, you know, there's a big storm coming and you got to protect your space. There's no food. There's a food shortage. And today's triggers, we've talked about this, the constant phone notifications, deadlines, things that have to be done with your kids at home, at school, sports.
00:11:30
Speaker
They're constant, but the body doesn't realize that it's not in 100 BC and it is responding the same way, but now it's, these threats are continuous. So it's not working for the nervous system. It's not working for our hormones and it's certainly not working on what's happening inside the biology of what's happening inside your nervous system.
00:11:52
Speaker
Totally. And for you you guys know the fight or fight for the response because you've been listening to this podcast and we've talked about it a lot, right? We've got the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. And the sympathetic system is that fight or fight response that Tanya was talking about. And that Actually, short-term stress does make us more alert. It is support. Stress isn't always bad, right? If you have a deadline at work, your cortisol is going up, you're focused, you're on, the problem lies is that we don't recover. So if you think about that zebra in the wild, think about when that tiger or li or lion is chasing that zebra, the cortisol comes in, the fight or flight response kicks in, the zebra runs, and then you see them.
00:12:38
Speaker
shake and relax and perhaps start to eat when the threat is gone. They've just moved into that sympathetic, sorry, parasympathetic system where they're resting after, right? And that is what we, that's the part that we do not focus on. If you're constantly in that sympathetic system, this is where stress becomes chronic and where we are more susceptible to burnout.
00:13:03
Speaker
Kim, best analogy. And to take it further, exactly, when that zebra gives itself a little shake and starts eating again and is, you know, reunited with its clan and nature, all of a sudden it doesn't have 19 text messages that go off and a child being even even driven here and the doorbell's ringing and this is happening. The zebra has time for recovery. But for most of us as women, exactly like you said, Kim, the deadline, the cortisol isn't the villain that is driving us to get things done. You know, you do really good. So you meet that deadline.
00:13:36
Speaker
You're on to the next thing. Boom. There's no recovery time, right? So the cortisol isn't the problem. um The healthy pattern of cortisol in general, so we know that what it should do, we've talked about this in sleep, is it's going to peak when we wake up, right? After waking and it helps us feel clear and what it should be doing is gradually declining throughout the day and dropping in the evening as melatonin rises. But as we just said, this poor zebra now is getting text messages and all these demands. The cortisol is never dropping.
00:14:09
Speaker
The cortisol is remaining high. So it's the patterns, it's the sustained pressure and stress and all of these other factors that becomes more of the villain in our journey to burnout. It's not the hormone itself.
00:14:25
Speaker
Right. and And let's face it, there's a lot of clients that I see and women that I speak to that you can operate in this picture for a while, right? You can operate pushing through go, go, go, cortisol, cortisol, for quite a while, but it's the women, and you may have heard this before, you may have experienced yourself, people say to me things like, it was like I could do go, go, go, and then all of a sudden one day, bam, I couldn't.
00:14:51
Speaker
and that is And that is when burnout occurs, right? Because they've been going going, going, going, going. And at some point, it's not going to be sustainable anymore.
00:15:03
Speaker
And I think a really good example that a lot of people can relate to this is going through something ultra traumatic and stressful, like maybe the death of a parent, you know, something like this, where during it, if you know, during, let's say a state of illness for somebody else that's close to you, you're there. You don't know how you're doing it. You don't even remember how you're doing it, but you're at the hospital, you're making meals for the family. You're still being present for your job. You are taking the dog for walks.
00:15:30
Speaker
But then when, you know, something changes in that. And let's say somebody passes away. Most people they're done all of a sudden they just, they're burnt out. And this is the definition of burnout. How long can you ride the cortisol wave until something shifts and there's nothing you can do except be burnt out. You have no recovery left. You have nothing in the tank.
00:15:54
Speaker
For sure. And let's talk about that cortisol again for a second, because you know for those of you who, you know when Tanya was talking in the intro, she said wired and tired at night, you feel exhausted, but your body feels wired and can't fall asleep. That is that is when your cortisol curve is off.
00:16:12
Speaker
It could be peaking. It could be still high at night, not going down, as Tanya was mentioned, with melatonin increasing. You can't wind down, right? Or you know we talked about cortisol tanking.
00:16:24
Speaker
where you have more of a flat curve, where you're exhausted, right? So, you know, symptoms of a disrupted cortisol rhythm could be things like you find it really difficult to wake up in the morning.
00:16:37
Speaker
You feel like you need coffee in order to live, right? That afternoon crash, maybe three o'clock, you're just exhausted and reaching for that coffee again. The wired but tired in the evening or having trouble falling or staying asleep, right?
00:16:51
Speaker
For sure. And here's the thing, you know that we're going to bring this up. Here's the beauty of it all. There is definitely um a perimenopause layer to all of this. And of course, like we said in the intro, it peaks during our most of our peak professional years when we have so much on our plate across generations, as we said, children, aging parents, even, you know, friends, all of this thing. And As we've talked about many times, estrogen, progesterone, they are not just our sex hormones. They are regulating so many things. Bottom line, the stress response, brain chemistry, sleep, things that are so attuned to also shifts and peaks in our cortisol. So when our esther joan estrogen sorry and progesterone are shifting, remember that these things are
00:17:45
Speaker
like they're not just hormones for sex. They are feeling like your whole system gets a little bit less predictable because it does, right? And again, these are the things I think that come back to when we're questioning ourselves, why could I feel like I could take on the weight of the world in my 20s and my early 30s, right? It's because likely then estrogen and progesterone were balanced. They were more balanced during those years, right? you You weren't having the biggest, one of the biggest hormonal fluctuations of your life. So these fluctuations literally make stress feel heavier. They make emotions feel closer to the surface. And recovery doesn't happen as easily as it once did. So your cortisol might have been dysregulated in your 20s and in your 30s. Very much. Mine was. yeah We both jinxed Kim. positive mine went as well. We talked about estrogen dominance last week.
00:18:46
Speaker
That was me. Exactly. That's how mine showed up. And the extra layer is though, is that perimenopause exuberates all of this because we tend to have more of the fluctuation. So combine this with the cortisol dysregulation, we are really disrupting the system on so many different levels.
00:19:08
Speaker
Absolutely. And we talk about those perimenopausal symptoms and these overlap with burnout, right? Sleep disruption, that 3 a.m. m wake up. We joke about like, you know, all of our friends being like, could have had a party at 3 a.m. because we were all awake, right? The brain fog, the anxiety, stress like reduced stress tolerance. So many of my clients say they feel like they're pulled like a tight wire, right? Fatigue, exhaustion, hot flashes, body composition changes, right?
00:19:37
Speaker
You know, these are those symptoms that sort of overlap with burnout. And here, this is hard. This is why we're talking about this today. This is really hard because they're also symptoms of perimenopause and many other things. This is why I think a lot of women don't identify them as the start of burnout or potentially being in burnout until it's too late. Because all of the things you just stated, Kim, we can just say, oh, that's likely perimenopause. us But what if it's not? What if it's also that burnout creeping in? It's really interesting to...
00:20:09
Speaker
make sure that we are taking stock on our lives and saying, do these symptoms fall into likely just perimenopause based on my labs and everything else that's going on?
00:20:21
Speaker
Or should I be a little bit more fixated, you know, focused on the fact that this could have an element of burnout and what can I do to minimize, you know, this getting worse and creeping up on me?
00:20:33
Speaker
A hundred percent, Tanya. And this is why both Tanya and I are in holistic health, right? Because it's likely not one or the other. This is a combined, like our bodies are, we have to look holistically in there and likely it's all of it. And Tanya, you said it beautifully in, I think it was the perimenopause 101 episode when you talked about the domino effects. So, you know, if you are suffering from from what you believe is burnout and we're perimenopause, you know, those, the dominoes of hormones affect everything. Progesterone affects our neurotransmitters like GABA, right? And as progesterone declines, our GABA signaling changes, more anxiety, worse sleep. It can affect thyroid. So,
00:21:19
Speaker
You know, in fact, if you are in a stage of burnout with chronic, you know, cortisol, that can affect your thyroid, right? You might want to get your thyroid numbers checked. It could affect absorption. You might want to look at your iron. There's so, we have to look holistically here, right? Right.
00:21:35
Speaker
Absolutely. And I think before we move on to what can we do now that we're maybe some of us are more identified that I'm this burnout thing might actually be a thing for me.
Balancing Family Responsibilities
00:21:45
Speaker
One of the most important things I think that we need to bring up here is the sandwich years.
00:21:50
Speaker
And we are in them. We are that bulk in the middle that whatever your favorite sandwich filling is, that's what we are right now. um As we're all thinking of sandwiches, I'm starving.
00:22:03
Speaker
Let me get my mind back on, not on the podcast and not on the sandwich, but all kidding aside, sandwich years being, we are sandwiched between generations, right? We are sandwiched between responsibilities. We, a lot of us have not only just aging parents, but we can say aging family, people that are close to us that need our care and need more attention than we might have a younger generation, you know, underneath us, that other piece of bread or whatever bunny want it to be gluten-free, whatever. Yeah. Right. And we are stuck in between that for lack of a better word. And Kim, I would like you to speak on this because when we were talking about this last week, you said it so eloquently talking about the fact that like, whatever.
00:22:48
Speaker
we're not telling you guys to pull back and make recovery everything and not live your life. So I think we need to speak on that so we can all feel empowered about our why. So then what we can do when we talk about that, we're really empowered because of the way that we want to live our lives.
00:23:06
Speaker
Absolutely. You know what? And I think we said it in the beginning, so many people are talking about burnout right now. And there's a lot of focus on this rest, rest, rest.
00:23:18
Speaker
And to me, sometimes it looks like it's like, that is just not doable. Yeah. You know, we have full lives and I'm not saying to pull back. These could be a really important years for your work life. You could be ramping up at work, starting a new business in your 30s or 40s. And I think this is a great time to push in terms of, you know, breaking through that glass ceiling or doing what you you're making your dreams come true. And also, You could have a lot of family obligations. It's really important for you to be there for your parents or your children. You don't want to take these things off your plate.
00:23:57
Speaker
But what we are saying is that the recovery piece is so important, but it doesn't have to look like saying no to everything. It just needs to look at prioritizing micro moments of recovery. And we're going to show you how easy that could look like in terms of diet and lifestyle.
00:24:19
Speaker
Thank you, Kim, because I love this. At the end of the day, we all want to enjoy our lives at every stage at the end. We want to thrive. We don't want to hide from it and survive. It almost goes to that permission slip, writing yourself too much permission to recover and laying in bed the whole entire weekend. We're not talking about that. We're talking about...
00:24:39
Speaker
What can we do to live the most wild and wonderful freaking life right now? You know, how do we build in those micro recovery moments so we're not burning out, but we're not missing out, right?
00:24:52
Speaker
Love it. Yes, we're not burning out and we're not missing out. That's perfect. I love that. Exactly. And we don't also, we're not going to be repetitive here. There's a lot of things that we're going to know. Yes, these are the things we should be doing, but how can we actually build them in? And I think one of the most important things is to start off is take stock of your life and take an honest stock and be honest about the way that you're living it. Right now, take one second wherever you are. Can you honestly say that you are building recovery time in every single day?
00:25:28
Speaker
You know, you've heard us, the legs up of the wall, the power of just 30 seconds of deep breathing four times a day, you know, all of these little things, the short meditations, the little nature walks, you know what to do. Can you honestly say taking stock now?
00:25:44
Speaker
that you're building them in to the best of your ability consistently. Because a lot of us are going to say, shoot, no, I know I got to get on that, I got to get on that. But these are the micro moments Kim is talking about to build in the recovery.
00:25:58
Speaker
Absolutely. And it's funny because sometimes it takes, you know, it takes people to hear things a few times to actually implement them into our lives. So even though this is a bit repetitive, because we talk about how important the nervous system is all the time, here's another reason why you need to focus on these things.
00:26:19
Speaker
burnout prevention, right? And like Tanya said, these recovery moments can be simple. After you finish a meeting, take three deep breaths. Before you open up to your next, your email,
00:26:32
Speaker
Stand up, walk outside, look at the sun for a second, put your feet up the wall, whatever works for you. whatever brings Think about that zebra in the wild. All they're doing is shaking and like know and then calming their body down. What does that look like for you? Do you need to move your body? Do you and have a dance party in the kitchen for 10 minutes? Do you need to take some deep breaths and calm?
00:26:55
Speaker
what you need to lower your shoulders, relax your jaw? tap ah tap your body, what do you need to do? And and whatever that looks like for you, start there.
00:27:07
Speaker
Right. And I get it. Even when you were just saying it, Kim, like between meetings, do you need to breathe for three minutes? Most people are like, I can't. I literally end a meeting at 1145 and I have another one that already started at 1145. Guess what? to be 30 seconds late and no one's going notice. And they're actually probably going appreciate the 30 seconds because they're probably struggling in front of their team meets or whatever the Google thing is called. And they need 30 seconds. so You have the time. We're not telling you it needs to be 10 minutes. We know everybody doesn't have the luxury of putting their legs up in the wall in their glass office per se. There are things that you can do. So you have the time. So you need to build it in. This is not optional.
00:27:53
Speaker
It's the foundation. Yeah. and And do it for like what we always say. You are the best person to like test it on yourself. Test it on yourself for a few weeks and see how things change for you. See how your resiliency changes. If you're someone who feels like you're constantly like a tight wire and your shoulders are hurting and you're stressed and you're... Try that and see if that changes for you. Believe us, it will.
00:28:21
Speaker
Absolutely. um Other predictable pillar that is necessary to drill into everybody's head because it's the truth. obviously nutrition our favorite our foundation um one of the most important things and again we have a whole podcast on this is our blood sugar here is the science blood sugar crashes cortisol spikes blood sugar crashes cortisol spikes drill that into your mind so the not even the desire the susceptibility to skip meals
00:28:56
Speaker
on any day, but on demanding days, right? To run on cortisol and coffee and insert for me back in the day, cortisol, cigarettes, and coffee. It's draining the tank even more, right? So when we are are continuously knowing, we talked about it before, cortisol is already dysregulated when we're in a burnout state. Estrogen and progesterone fluctuating isn't helping. This is a whole other layer that you can control.
00:29:25
Speaker
Irregular blood sugar, that's making it even worse. That's putting more drive up on the cortisol. So, so important there. And for me, Kim, I'm going to be honest, this is when food prep is crucial because i have days like this as well. And you say it all the time, just because we're holistic nutritionists, we are not perfect. I am far from perfect. I am very imperfect. And if I don't have what I need ready, i am going to bounce from, you know, client to client or task to task, minimally grab what I can. And you know how I know I've had a day like where like that?
00:30:02
Speaker
Because after dinner, I am absolutely starving. I eat until 9pm at night. I can't stop snacking because I was in a calorie deficit. My blood sugar is completely irrelevated and sorry, irregulated and it's screaming for carbs and you know, sugar that's going to raise it. And then I going to go to bed feeling discouraged, feeling guilty, having a crappy sleep. And it's all, as we say, there's good domino effects. It's all a bad domino effect. So For me, one of my smallest things is to have that food readily available, right? Just like we've done in many of our food prepping podcasts, because it's a trouble spot for a lot of women.
00:30:43
Speaker
For sure. and so the And the other piece of it too is for those of you work long hours in an office, you might have your breakfast and then you may bring your lunch. Awesome. But if you're having your lunch at 12 o'clock and then not getting home from the office and having dinner until 7, no wonder you have sugar cravings at 3 or 2.30 or whatever it is because that is too long of a window. So as Tanya mentioned, being prepared with well-balanced snacks, and you'll know what a well-balanced plate is if you go and listen to our blood sugar balancing episode. We get really into it there. So take a listen to that. It's such a foundational, important episode.
00:31:21
Speaker
But yeah, making sure that you're nourished
Stress Management Techniques
00:31:24
Speaker
throughout the day. And if you find yourself snacky and craving carbs, that's a little, that's at your body communicating with you that that blood sugar could be dropping. So listen to your body. Don't have those long windows between meals. Nourish yourself. And as Tanya said, what you do during the day in terms of supporting blood sugar is going to affect your sleep at night, which is another pillar.
00:31:48
Speaker
ah Absolutely. So yeah, let's talk about sleep and then um we'll zero back into, you know, our final ones before we kind of close up this episode here. So we know we've talked about this, a couple of things about sleep that, you know, we've had an in-depth sleep episode and we love talking about it. Sleep is not just passive. This is where we repair. And for the purpose of this episode, this is where the cortisol rhythm recalibrates. This is so important. When we are having disrupted sleep, we know it. We have less patience. Our stress tolerance is even lower. We're not concentrating. We are more, let's say, emotionally reactive. um
00:32:32
Speaker
So sleep becomes so important. And I know we drive back to what we talked about before in our sleep episode. It's difficult because we know sleep's so important, but when we're in a state of burnout, often because our cortisol is elevated in the evening, we're not being able to sleep. So this is where having that sleep hygiene that we talk about in the sleep episode is so important.
00:33:00
Speaker
Totally. And go and listen to that episode because we give tons of tips. But what I could say here is one of the most important things when you are trying to regulate that cortisol curve again is go to sleep at the same time every day and wake up at the same time every day. That is that is one of the biggest things in terms of helping reset that cortisol rhythm. And because our bodies are so attuned with nature and the sun having it dark at night.
00:33:32
Speaker
i saw an influencer. She's like, I love looking at her interior design style. Her name's Chris loves Julia for anybody who loves home design. She calls it lamp o'clock. So we joke about that as the sun is going down, turn on lamps, turn off the overhead lights, minimize the blue screen because that's going to impede your melatonin and your cortisol. And so going to bed at the same time every day,
00:33:55
Speaker
And then waking up at the same time, looking at that natural sunlight outside is going to help you reset that cortisol rhythm quicker. I love it, Kim. And guess what? There's always a solution. So here, because we're so far far north where I live in Alberta, the winters are exuberantly dark. So I could technically go to bed at 3 p.m. and get up at 9 a.m.
00:34:17
Speaker
But we work with that to still keep our bedtimes consistent no matter the season. And here right now in summer, finally, loosely called summer here, um we we have no, we have barely any darkness. It's wild. And we're not even at the solstice yet. We're almost there. And right now, currently at the start of June, when we're recording this, it is where me and my husband are like, good night, good night, turn off the lamp. And we're like, and it's bright. It is wild. And we have a lot of windows in our bedroom and some are really high up and asymmetrical. So we don't have blinds. So
00:34:56
Speaker
There's ways to do it. Sleep mask. Love my sleep mask. Me too. Sleep mask, sound machine. And yeah, in terms of going to bed at the same time, we have really strict boundaries about my evenings. If you know me personally, and I know you know me, Kim.
00:35:12
Speaker
very strict times about my evenings, about, you know, even when I have guests over lovingly, you know, they can stay up to whatever time works for them. I'm off to bed. I'll see you in the morning. And that has changed so much for our sleep. We both get really good sleep. And fun fact, if you want a wireless alarm clock, that's going to be wired for like a 5.30 AM wake up time, even on the weekends, get yourself a Greyhound because I think their cortisol melatonin is on fleek because every day it's Saturday. Nope. We're not going to sleep in later than five 30. Don't worry, Kim. We're going to wake at the same time because the blue, he's going to be on the bed being like, I am awake, but that's so interesting how ingrained that is in animals and not just shows. And that changes for him in the darker seasons. This dog really rises with the light. It's wild. Yeah.
00:36:04
Speaker
It's so interesting. Yeah. And baby little ones too, right? Our kiddos were always like, oh, he's going to absolutely get up at 530. That's the time that that's his body clock is set to that time. And that's what we want to do. We want to reset that body clock. So if you are in a state of burnout, this is essential. And for those of you, you know, this this is a great episode for preventing burnout.
00:36:27
Speaker
Just pay attention to that. We realize there's going to be anomalies. You're going to want to stay out and party and have fun with friends some night. There's going to be an event. There's going to be a reason to get up earlier. But if you can be consistent about this most nights, it's going to really support your sleep and your body clock and your cortisol curve.
00:36:48
Speaker
Yeah. Consistency over perfection. Absolutely. Exactly it. um And moving into to consistency over perfection, movement. It is one of the most important things that we need to do consistently, and it doesn't have to be perfect. And we've alluded to this before. It's also going to change depending on who you are, what season of life you're in, what's going on, because we know that exercise is a stress and that's where it's nuanced. And that's where a lot of people can write the permission slip. And I've talked about this in that episode about, you know, being accountable. Um, I wrote myself a permission slip for so long because of my back injury that, Oh, I can't really do much more than walking. but Exercise is a stressor. Yes.
00:37:36
Speaker
But the body adapts amazing to the right movement when, our recovery time is adequate, right? Absolutely. and And with exercise, it is a stressor, as you said, but it also supports blood sugar.
00:37:54
Speaker
it also support you know like It also supports our mood. our ne they So I think the message here is, and you listen back to that episode that we talked about exercise because it's a bit a longer conversation, but for the intention of today,
00:38:10
Speaker
If you are in a state of burnout, it can be very difficult to feel like moving your body, um but it is essential. It is one of the pillars that is going to help move you out of that state of burn it burnout, but find a gentle movement that works for you.
00:38:26
Speaker
Walking, yoga, light resistance training, you know, when you're depleted, find something that works for your body. And then as, you know, you know, as burnout prevention, as what we're talking about,
00:38:40
Speaker
Be consistent with your exercise. Find exercise that you love doing and do it consistently. Yeah. And that number one tip, schedule it in like a meeting. Kim, you know that it's the first thing that you're going to push, not you specifically, but we as women are a lot of people. Me, myself, shoot, have a really busy morning. I'm going fit that in this afternoon. This afternoon. Go back to it. yeah I'm going put it in the evening and then you've all the sudden three days have come and you haven't worked out. So schedule it in, make it an appointment, stick to it, period, at the end of the sentence.
00:39:15
Speaker
Absolutely. And guys, these things aren't, you know, at the end of the day, we talk about these foundational things all the time, Tanya, nutrition, balanced blood sugar, movement that supports you sleep, biggest health hack out there and supporting your nervous system as a foundation and a ah the foundation of the, of the pyramid.
Holistic Health Approach
00:39:39
Speaker
These things are so important. And if you are in a state of burnout right now and feel, you know, the get the support that you need, reach out to a practitioner. There is nuances to it. There's testing that you can do to see, as we talked about, you know, the domino effect of our hormones. We can look at thyroid. We can look at other things as well. So, the me but this is the foundations that are going to support that recovery piece.
00:40:09
Speaker
For sure. And I think at the end of the day, what this episode is really asking you is that you need to take the step if you're not already to make that deep commitment to scheduling these things in. Hopefully you don't have to schedule sleep in, but you know what I mean? Scheduling the- prioritizing your sleep and scheduling the rest in scheduling time for your meal prep and be very serious about when you're having your meals. And it's always a running joke with people, with my friends who hang out with me. I'm always like, what time are we going?
00:40:45
Speaker
Are we planning to go somewhere? Where will that be? i need to plan my meal around it. And like people laugh and I show up with a cooler bag, you know, or I'm like, Oh, we're going after a meal plan or sorry, after the meal time where I'm going to eat, get serious. about nutrition and nourishment times and the kind of foods you're eating, get serious about scheduling things like your nervous system breaks and your movement into your schedule.
00:41:13
Speaker
And we're just calling on you, make that deep commitment. And like Kim said, see what changes in a couple of weeks. We know that you know by now listening to the podcast and you know being here, likely a lot of the things you need to do, get serious about scheduling them in and doing them.
00:41:31
Speaker
And you're going to find that your resilience is much wider, that you're going to be able to do all the things on your to-do list, that you're not going to have to say no to things because you're exhausted. This is the fuel that is going to support you through your busy lives that, let's face it, it's not going to change. The busyness in this stage of our life is not going to change. And as Tanya mentioned,
00:41:56
Speaker
The perimenopausal shifts, this is going to be foundational in supporting the shifts that we are seeing in our hormones as we're moving into menopause. Absolutely. That busyness is going to continue, but the way that we choose to live our lives, that can change. So it starts with that commitment. So hopefully this has inspired you to kind of take stock and look at what you're doing and prioritizing in your own life and make those shifts and drop us a message. We're always here to listen about the positive changes that you see when you make these commitments.
00:42:31
Speaker
Yes, we love you guys. And we thank you for listening week after week and love to hear your thoughts and conversations. So reach out to us between episodes. And if we don't hear from you, we'll talk to you next week.
00:42:43
Speaker
Take care, guys. Hey, guys, thanks so much for hanging out with us today. If this episode resonated with you, we would love it if you would hit like, subscribe to the podcast and share it with a friend.
00:42:55
Speaker
We love to hear from you because let's be honest, this show is for you. If you have a topic you'd love us to tackle or want to learn more about something we talked about today, send us a message. We got you.
00:43:08
Speaker
Stay connected with us on social media at what's my age again dot podcast for even more knowledge and inspiration between episodes. Kim and I aren't doctors or your healthcare practitioners.
00:43:21
Speaker
Everyone's body is unique, so always consult your own healthcare care provider before starting something new.