To the Woman Who Never Stops: Burnout, Cortisol & Anxiety

In this episode of The Anxiety Compass, Sammy and Nat dive into the growing epidemic of burnout, high-functioning anxiety, and the pressure many women feel to constantly keep pushing through life.

From perfectionism to 3am wakeups, emotional overload, nervous system exhaustion, and the feeling of being “wired but tired,” this episode explores the deep connection between stress, cortisol, thyroid health, hormones, and anxiety.

Together, they unpack:

•  Why so many women feel constantly overwhelmed 
•  The connection between cortisol, adrenal stress, thyroid function, and anxiety 
•  How chronic stress impacts the nervous system and body 
•  Why slowing down can actually feel unsafe for anxious people 
•  The hidden emotional cost of over-functioning and productivity addiction 
•  Why supplements alone rarely fix burnout 
•  The difference between surviving and truly recalibrating 

This conversation blends science, personal stories, humour, and practical reflection through the lens of the Anxiety Compass framework, reminding listeners that anxiety is often more than “just thoughts.”

Because sometimes the body isn’t betraying us…it’s trying to redirect us.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Hey, it's Sammy and Natalie here, and welcome to the Anxiety Compass. We're anxiety. Thanks for joining us on the Anxiety Compass World story episode with a friendly fine. We'll see you in the next one.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Anxiety Compass. How are you, Nat? I'm really Sammy. How are you? Good. I wonder one of these days when I'm gonna ask you, how are you going? And you go, I'm terrible. I've had a terrible day.

SPEAKER_03 0:45

Because sometimes I do have, you know, they've got your back stresses going on. And and you know, full disclosure, we have long conversations before we hit record. So if we do have things going on, I wouldn't talk them about them. And so by the time we hit record, I'm actually genuinely I'm good. Yay! I love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Oh, so good. So today uh I've got a book right near me that uh GP actually, it was an integrated doctor referred to me on adrenal fatigue. And uh I'm noticing out in the world and in your clinic space and everything like that, that women are burning their bodies out. And this is something that I actually did. I have experience in this, and we'll talk about your experience because yours was a little bit different. But for me, I burned out, uh, I shut my clinic down because of it. That was one of the reasons, one of the many reasons. But uh, I was uh running on adrenaline basically. Go, go, go, do, do, do, little kids, uh, being the perfect mom, being the perfect, all the things, because you know, that's a high functioning, anxious person. And I was also uh really committed to every single client that came into my clinic. I wanted the best outcome for them, that all their worries and woes became mine. And it was so heavy, Nat, like so heavy that um yeah, I I couldn't stop. And so for me, behind the scenes, everything was slowly burning out. Um, my thyroid, my adrenal glands, to the point that one day I could not pick up my child, I couldn't walk. Um, I was struggling to even breathe, like it got that bad that I felt like when I woke up, when your cortisol's supposed to be through the roof, I actually was waking up no longer at 3 a.m. with ready to take on the world because I was living on adrenaline, I couldn't produce cortisol anymore. And I felt like I'd been hit by a truck and even like under my eyes, big black rings, I had to stop. I was I was forced to stop and it was slowly burning in the background to the point where couldn't do it anymore. I I basically burned out my engines. I was running the car on full throttle. I think we've talked about me having a Ferrari with bicycle brakes before.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

I was running on full throttle for years. And and when I actually, because in this book it has a timeline, 10 to 20 years I'd been doing this. Yeah. And and you can pinpoint all the times that you were meant to stop. Like even after giving birth, like my I had like terrible births, like they were full on to the point where I was throwing up, I was in that much pain. But I continued to go and build businesses, and I can do this, you know, rest is for the wicked, I can't stop.

SPEAKER_03 3:35

Until you and even our society, like you know, that's a really good point about you know, um, after giving birth, you know, I went straight back to it.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

I was working in the hospital.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

Oh, yeah. That reminds me of actually a scene. It was from friends. I don't know if you remember when Phoebe had a heart attack. Yes, yeah, when they went, yeah, so it was like an alternate alternate life, and she'd had the heart attack, and she was sitting in hospital because she was this big businesswoman and on the phone and like go, go, go, yeah, you've got to go do everything. I don't have time for to be sick and have a heart attack. I think so. I can't remember, yes. But that exactly, you know, our society, you know, especially around well, giving birth or ha taking time off because we're not well, it's it's frowned upon. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

I find women are actually, women in particular are praised for overdoing it. Like, wow, she can do it all. Look at her go. She's amazing, she's burning out behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_03 4:45

Yeah, and that was a big that that movement really started in the 80s, didn't it? Women in the 80s, we were told you can do it all, you can have it all. And I just want to add a little caveat there that yes, as women, we can, we can do anything we want, just not all at once. And it's memo. Yeah, that's the clincher, right? Oh my god, that's where we end up, and and that has carried through you know, uh the years, the decades that you know, yes, you can have it all, you can do it all, you can be a mother, you can have run a business or or you know, work full-time and have amazing friends and have a great social life.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

And yeah, it's the society is too much now, like with all the notifications we talked about that. But yours was slightly different, like mine was a burnout over 10, 20, 30 years. Like, I'm even seeing that like these women that were coming into my clinic were 40, 50, 60, even 70-year-olds where they had felt guilty for slowing down because they conditioned their body to continue to do that they had to stop when they burned out. But for you, yours was like different, your experience.

SPEAKER_03 5:53

Well, yeah, exactly. I went beyond burnout. I probably into a full break, full-on breakdown.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:59

Um, you know, and there there are differences. I mean, a breakdown is not a uh medical uh official medical diagnosis, but it is known. Like even my own G, like the the doctor that was attending me when I had the had my breakdown when I was taken to hospital, she actually used those words, you know, like Sweetie, you've actually just had a full breakdown, like complete breakdown was her exact words. So, yeah, nervous breakdown is not an official medical diagnosis, it's a non-clinical term that people are commonly um commonly use to describe a point where someone can no longer function psychologically or emotionally in their usual way. So the difference between a breakdown, like a breakdown is much more acute. Um so there people, women usually have been experiencing burnout, and when they ignore the signals, it can go, you know, this is extreme, but it can go beyond, and then a breakdown. That is acute, that's like an instant for me. It was an instant thing. I was sitting at work one day, um, woke up that morning. I I think I've discussed this a bit previously. Woke up, it just felt tight in the chest, but not like just it was severe anxiety. I didn't realize that at the time because you know, I didn't really experience those severe anxiety and panic attack symptoms until after the breakdown. But you know, it just didn't feel great. Like it was just heavy. Went to work, was working all day, about one o'clock, phone rang, and I just had like a breakdown. Like I just literally something snapped in me. I just broke. So there, so that's usually what a breakdown is. It's much more acute. Yeah. Um and it's harder to hide. You're like we when we've got a in burnout, we can hide. Often still function under the Netflix.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

I didn't care with a Netflix and a bucket and I was about to say a bucket of ice cream, could be a bucket of ice cream. Um that block of chocolate, you know. This one happens out in public. I've seen um uh like YouTube videos and that of women that have been recorded having a mental and physical breakdown in public, and people laugh, and it's like it's not cool. It's not cool. It actually no, it's awful.

SPEAKER_03 8:16

Uh I had people laugh at me when I would be like having, you know, a meltdown, a breakdown in in public if I was in a shopping center, like full-on panic attack, and just bawling my eyes out. Because that's another thing, is like that inability to stop crying, unable to get out of bed, a complete disassociation, emotional collapse, yeah, inability to work or cope at all.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

I find like women who are burning at both ends of the stick, let's just say that. Um, they become quite emotional. Like I was very emotional. Um, my liver was not doing well as well. So I was quite angry, snappy. Um I'm seeing a lot of women who are very snappy. Uh, and I my heart goes out to them because they snap at me and I'm like, okay, something's not going okay in that person's life. I'm gonna just, you know, I think some women and and particularly those that are probably listening don't realize they're burning out because they've lived in this survival mode for so long that it feels normal for them. And so yeah, we want to to talk about that today, which we've already been talking about for the last 10 minutes. Uh, but why are women burning out? Well, we talked about the pressure to do it all. Um, I find that that we've created this system for women for hyperindependence. Do you find that you know, we you as you were saying, women can do it all, that um you know, we're we're trying to raise children on our own and and run businesses and we don't need help. I can do it all. Exactly. Look how amazing I am, give me praise. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 9:55

Or I can do it better, so I'll just do it myself.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Yes, and I find women um addicted to productivity, so I find it really hard to slow down. I'm getting better at it because I know the signs of when I'm on my way to a burnout, and um yeah, I I the the idea of I will rest when it's all done, like that, it's never done. Exactly. Absolutely never done.

SPEAKER_03 10:21

No, and look, I got I went into burnout a couple of weeks ago. Um, just it it just was you know a lot going on, busy clinic, busy work, um, you know, things happening in my personal life, you know, and it just all came to a head. And I literally just had to lie down for five days. Yeah. I just before I headed into complete burnout and you know, all the associated um things that go along with that, I just needed a listen to my body because you know, been there, done that, got the t-shirt, don't want to go back there again. So literally just stopped for five days. And you know what? The sky didn't fall in.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_03 11:05

I didn't lose my business over it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

I came back. I find though, like, because you you've had to slow down in the past. I find there's a lot of women that would come to see me and they would actually feel more anxious slowing down, dropping down.

SPEAKER_03 11:20

Oh, absolutely. I see that with my the women in my clinic as well. Absolutely. You can see the panic rising when you suggest that maybe you can slow down. Yeah. When you look at what it's doing to the body, I mean, a classic thing is how many people go away on holidays and get sick? Yes, that is so true. That is a classic sign that you your body is actually in burnout because you've finally stopped and it just crashes and burns, and you get sick while you're on holidays.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

That's so true. I get with the podcast being anxiety compass. Anxiety is like a an alarm system, it's it's signaling and pointing out things, and this is what it's telling you to slow down, and yeah, where's we've built this nice little uh routine of being overproductive, uh, that it's not your nervous system freaks out when you when you start to slow down. But I mean, rest can feel unsafe when your nervous system is addicted to survival, guys. It's just the way it is. We wanted to talk more, like we don't go too science-y in this um show, but I wanted to sort of talk more on the cortisol um because that's what burno is. It's not really recognized by doctors. Often when you talk about um adrenal fatigue, uh, a lot of GPs will think Cushing's disease or one of these, you know, clinical things. Uh, if you go to an integrator doctor or an allied health practitioner, they definitely know there is a point in between having an actual disease with your adrenal glands and burnout. Um, I've I've actually had someone tell me that burnout isn't a thing, it's made up. Whereas I've I've seen on the paper with the cortisol saliva tests the the way that your body, you know, releases cortisol. And for me, it was flatlined, and you've mentioned yours are flatlined as well. That is an actual thing going on there. Um cortisol is your main biochemical thing going on. It's biochemical. Absolutely. So I I call BS on that and I think it needs more research done. I've actually got a whole book here, and it's called Adrenal Fatigue, the 21st Century Stress Syndrome. Um, it's a fantastic book by James L. Wilson that was recommended to me. I mean, not everything in it I take, you know, take what you can and leave the rest. There are bits in it to talk about nutrition, which I'm not 100% agreeance on, but it's definitely something to read to go a little bit more into that. But um, when we talk about cortisol, cortisol is there to help uh stabilize blood sugar, it's there for your energy. Uh, as I was mentioning, cortisol, cortisone, inflammation, like it helps with inflammation. When you don't, when you have too much cortisol, that's an issue. When you don't have any cortisol, that's an issue. And that was where I was at. Um, cortisol impacts on your sleep. Like, if you have no cortisol, that can impact on your sleep as well. And uh blood pressure. I actually had extremely low blood pressure to the point where I was so cold all the time. Um my youngest son would always grab the back of my arms and say, I love your cold arms. And I never really thought much of it until I realized that was a sign. Yes, no, I was exactly the same, really low blood. Yeah, so and and feeling dizzy all the time as well.

SPEAKER_03 14:37

So um did you when when you were sitting, like I always found I used to get so dizzy, like I'd just be sitting there, like not moving.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Yeah, and then I'd literally have to grip the sides of the chair because like all of a sudden I was getting I had tested for many years and all sorts, but I realized it was just really blur low blood pressure, and that was because I had no cortisol in my body. There were so many things that were happening. Um uh yeah, so my body was stuck in flight or fight, and for for I'm gonna say 10, 20 years, it had been pumping cortisol and adrenaline constantly. Like I mentioned before, I was waking up at 3 a.m. and I thought this was normal. I had so much energy now that I'd get up, I'd do all my housework, then I'd make all the lunches and get everything ready to go. I'd take the dog for a walk at 4:30 in the morning. I'd already done everything by midday. Midday was like 9 p.m. for me. I'd already done everything. And I was like, I can't understand why people don't have any energy. Like, this is isn't this like I'm I'm full of energy, I'm full of life. This was my body producing way too much cortisol, and I didn't think anything of it. No, because that was your normal, yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. It was yeah, I mentioned the salivary cortisol test, and I've had a lot of people interested in that. Do you want to maybe mention, like, do you use the salivary cortisol test at all? All the time, yeah. A lot. There's different ones you can do as well. Yeah, I never do the blood test. I've always done the salivary test.

SPEAKER_03 16:11

No, because you're I do the 24-hour salivary test to see so we can track the cortisol over a full 24 hours to see exactly what it's doing rather than just a snapshot of cortisol, which is what GPs will often just test. Yeah, um, which tells us not a lot, you know. Because obviously, you know, yeah, as as you mentioned, Sami, our cortisol gently rises um in the morning. So there's a nice gentle rise because that's what wakes us up. That's the hormone that wakes us up. And then it slowly starts coming down after we've woken up. And we've spoken before about ways to help reduce that cortisol first thing in the morning by eating within an you know 30 to 60 minutes of waking up, avoiding coffee before food, um, getting that early morning sunlight on the eyes. Um, and then yeah, it has a gentle um uh lowering during the day, so that, and then you know, that when it gets to that low point, that's when our melatonin kicks in and we get sleepy over night time. That's a normal cortisol pattern. Um, it's not like absolutely like you know, it goes up and then down, it it undulates slightly during the day, especially if you know, because it responds to stresses in the day. And that's another thing that when I when we do that 24-hour stress um uh tracking, we can see so that if it starts spiking, you know, in the middle of the day.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

I found like with when people go and get their bloods done with the GP to check their cortisol, they just test it at seven in the morning if they're doing a fast test. And if you're like pushing out a ridiculous amount of cortisol and then it just drops an hour later, like you're not getting that picture.

SPEAKER_03 17:56

No, exactly, yeah, exactly. And the doctor looks and goes, Oh, yeah, no, you your cortisol's great in the morning, but at 7 a.m. Great, you're fine. Yay!

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Gosh, and so cortisol comes from our adrenal glands, which sit on top of our kidneys. It's one of the many glands, like the thyroid gland, the the pituitary gland is the master gland, and it sends a message out to all the glands and adrenal being your stress hormones. But I find a lot of people like we've got this HPA axis. We won't go too much into that. Um, but you know, you've got your hippocampus, is it hippocampus? No, hypothalamus. Hypothalamus. Clearly, I teach children now, you know, I don't go into this depth. But yeah, hypothalamus, pituitary, and adrenals. So they all sort of work in in connection together. And I also say the um the hypothalamus is like the security guard. It's making sure everything's going well. And if something is out, like your blood sugars, a little bit of stress, whatever it might be, it sends a message to the CEO, being your pituitary gland, and he sends a message out to all the glands to produce specific hormones, whether it's your thyroid, whether it's your adrenal glands. And so that's the in a nutshell, the HPA access. And um, when you have cortisol dysregulation, that hypothalamus is working over time and constantly getting your pituitary gland to you know, spit out that cortisol, spit it out, spit it out, spit it out. That can be from simple things like for me. I had really bad blood sugar balance um because I was so stressed, I was eating a lot of sugar to keep me going for energy. Yeah, that that was a big one for me for stress. It was a dysregulation with blood sugars in my body.

SPEAKER_03 19:43

Um, I think it is for a lot of people, like you know, yeah. You put your chocolate or your lollies, you know, or a sweet drink, you know, to get you through the day, especially that 3 p.m. crash.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Yeah. And so I found a lot of women who were on their way to burnout, uh, their thyroids were slowly going a little bit uh burnt as well in the fact that they were going uh hypo. Hypo is where you're not producing as much, slowing down your uh metabolism, uh, you know, blood pressure slowing down, uh uh, or it could be the other way, but everything sort of goes lower um to the point where that wasn't functioning. So they were gaining body fat, like it's sort of all hand in hand. I mean, it can work every every case is different, but that was what I was seeing more of the thyroid burning out, which was affecting their sleep, their mood, their energy, their blood sugar inflammation, like everything.

SPEAKER_03 20:48

It was connected, like the thor the thyroid, the thyroid and cortisol, um, the whole absolutely and yeah, it's it's hyper is that more heightened state of anxiety and go, go, go, and you know, that's really where because hypo, which is when your TSH rises, yes, um, it that's more when you start putting on weight, you're sluggish. Yeah, so it might start in high. Yeah, I was about to say I often a lot. Yeah, exactly. It goes starts in one, and then when you're really getting into that burnt out stage that can then turn into high policy.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Like, I'm done, I don't want to do it anymore. I'm slowing this.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

It's like I'm done, I'm done, I'm I'm checking out. Thanks, bye.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Yes, and and I felt like because I had been in hyper, because we've had Graves disease in the family, so like I was like, go, go, go, do, do, do. Um, that when my thyroid started, I was uh latent Hashimoto, so I was borderline Hashimoto's to the point where I started with the I'm lazy because I wasn't able to do what I was doing. And so I was struggling. Not just physiologically, but psychologically with this, I was so used to doing it. I felt like I'd lost myself, even though that self was me in a hyper state. I was never in between. There was it was either up here or down here. There was no in between for me. Did you find that at all? Um absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 22:23

Um I was gonna say though, on that, it's that is actually a big part of where of burnout is uh grief. Yeah. Because of that, because you uh of that, you know, losing yourself, you've lost yourself, you know, you you lose your identity with if you've gone into complete, you know, crash and burn. Um so yeah, grief, which is attached to our lungs, you know, from energetics point of view. So if you've got issues with breathing, you know, as well, like sleep apnea, you know, um, you get a lot of respiratory um, you know, infections, look at that as well. You know, obviously it suppresses the our stress cortisol, you know, hyper cortisol, adrenal fatigue, burnout, obviously suppresses our immune system. But from that energetic point of view as well, have a you know, looking at that to see if you've holding grief anywhere, so from losing yourself, because you do, especially as women, we you know, we do lose ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Our identity we've created, it seems to go out the door when you hit burnout because absolutely, but even before that, we lose ourselves in the doing, in the caring, you know, which we have talked about before.

SPEAKER_03 23:45

So, yeah, taking that step back, there's grief when we've lost ourselves, we've lost our way, we've lost our own identity because we are immersed in looking after everybody else, and even that perfectionism that's a turning away from our true selves. Yeah, you know, we're basically, you know, being the cane wielding teacher, you know, if we want to go back to the 50s, not in the 50s, but it is, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 24:13

It is, it is, and and I said physiologically and psychologically, like physiologically for me, my hair was falling out, uh, my skin wasn't great, like particularly down um under my chin, like the hormones. Like, I haven't even mentioned hormones. And I find like I'm in my 40s now, a lot of the women in their 50s and that that were going through perimenopause or going through menopause, um, one of the things that they didn't understand was you've spent your whole life relying on your um ovaries to produce um progesterone and estrogen, but your adrenal glands actually produce these sex hormones as well. And so when you go through uh menopause, your adrenal glands not your adrenal glands, your uh your ovaries usually go into, I know, right? They go into holiday mode. Uh, they're gone on a lovely vacation and may not come back. They're on the beach having a lovely cocktail. And all of a sudden, your um adrenal glands are responsible for producing these wonderful, calming, and beautiful feminine hormones, but your adrenal glands are too busy producing cortisol stress, and so all of a sudden you've lost all of these wonderful, beautiful hormones. And uh yeah, it's not a great thing. So we go through these huge hormonal changes from 40, even late 30s. I'm seeing women in their mid to late 30s going through it. Absolutely, yeah. Um, and that you get that heightened because it's an anxiety compass podcast. That anxiety comes through because you don't have the progesterone. You're your body's too busy making cortisol from your adrenal glands, your your ovaries don't make it anymore. So, guess what? Your adrenal glands are like, I don't have time to make progesterone to lifestyle. Um no, and so we're seeing a lack of sleep when we hit our 40s, uh, emotional sensitivity, and our stress tolerance really does drop. So we turn into these crabby, crabby women. And it's it's a hormonal thing because our adrenal glands aren't coping.

SPEAKER_03 26:23

Yeah, and then again, that immune system suppression because so you know you might notice, you know, you're getting more colds.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Yes, it's me.

SPEAKER_03 26:32

You know, you're getting sick more often. Yeah, yeah. That's that's often a a good indicator that something's going on. If you're it's like, yeah, I'm all I catch every cold that goes around these days.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Yes, something's going on. And I find like as women, we just we try to push through. We're like, oh, it's just a season, I'll get through it. You know, you look back in your 20s and 30s, I've gotten over this little hump before. I'm just feeling a little bit anxious. Um, you know, everything will come good again. And it doesn't because your body is screaming for you to recalibrate and fix the compass, and you're just pushing through again. Like, how many times can you push through? I could tell you how many times I have pushed through and it got to the point where I could no longer do it. I had to stop, and it was hard, it really was. And so for me, I don't know if this is something you did, Nat, but for me being a nutritionist, I went straight to fixing myself with supplements. Um, I dosed myself with zinc, uh, magnesium, all the things I fixed my B vitamin levels. Um, I even to the point, the integrated doctor that I was working with, she gave me adrenal supplements. Um, I don't know if you've heard of them. They were from uh was it bow, no, it wasn't bovine, it was oval. What's the what's the the it may have been a sheep or a pig? I don't know. But it was there basically they're dried adrenals and you can take it in tablet form. I know it sounds gross, but that's actually a thing that uh you can get from a created doctor. I think um some of the practitioners that we work with can um give them out too. But yeah, for me, I was like, I have to fix myself through supplementation, and there's only so much that supplements can do. They can't fix chronic stress and no boundaries and overfunctioning and emotional overload, they can't fix a lack of rest, like they can definitely supplement things that are missing, but you have to do the work to fix that.

SPEAKER_03 28:37

Exactly. Yeah, no, I didn't I didn't do the supplements because again, uh this was 1999 when this happened. I didn't the only supplement in inverted commas that I ever took was Baroca. Oh because it had some B. B bounce back exactly because I used to work in work full time. I used to, you know, I used to just take a barocca in the morning so that I could get through. I had no idea. So yeah, supplements apart from the occasional vitamin C, and I used to always take a garlic supplement. My mom had put me on.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Oh, I I did so. I determined an orange man, the amount of vitamin C. And because it's great, like these supplement, we're nutritionists, we're very aware of these supplements are so fantastic for your adrenal glands. But I was looking for a supplement regime, like a protocol that would help me to keep ignoring my body.

SPEAKER_03 29:35

Ignore, yeah, exactly. And that's that's the big thing, you know. And you yeah, you can't out-supplement lifestyle.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Yes. Oh my gosh. So for women that are listening and they're like, oh my god, this is me. I am totally burning out. I don't know what to do. I'm caught up in the system. Like, what sort of things can they do, Nat? Like, I mean, obviously, they could go back and listen to, if you haven't listened to all our podcasts, we give out so much information on how to slow down breathing, like the key things that that these the women need, like we need it. Like, nobody's ever perfect here. We we're all constantly healing at some point in our lives. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 30:13

I mean, like I said, two weeks ago, I I needed to stop. Yeah. Well, of course, being nutritionists, food is is the number one thing, you know. Use food over supplements wherever possible. If food doesn't cut it, then you would go to a good quality supplement. I always or we always suggest don't self uh prescribe, go and see a professional because there are vitamin C's and there are vitamin C's. There's also dosage, um, you know, and and timing as well. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

And I find um I was just gonna say the supplements that are on the shelf that you can get are nowhere near to the amount. Well, and they're nowhere near the amount that required because for legal, they can't do that because if you're on a medication and you take the actual amount that you need, it can it can impact on those medications. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 31:12

I mean, that's what we look at. That's the first thing you know we do is look at are there any contraindications between a supplement we're wanting to possibly prescribe and any medications someone is on. Again, it may be like a constriction, no, absolutely can't take that, or it might be a timing thing. And yeah, absolutely, you cannot get therapeutic doses from um you know over-the-counter stuff. Yeah, and all from food, food, food first, but obviously, yeah, that's when that's when I supplement when someone needs a therapeutic dose of something. So, like for example, vitamin C, because we've been talking about that. So, obviously, as nutritionists, uh, you know, food sources first um and foremost. So the highest food sources of vitamin C is your guava, kiwi fruit. Kiwi fruit um is also really, really great for um stimulating the or supporting the production of melatonin.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Yes. So I often recommend yellow ones. Are the yellow ones higher in vitamin C? You know you can get it. Oh, the green.

SPEAKER_03 32:14

I always say I don't know, maybe it is sorry, the the green ones are better for um the melatonin production. Yeah, um, so you know, if you're finding that your cortisol is out, having two just two average sized kiwi fruit of a nighttime, so have it for dessert, um, can help support that melatonin production. So and conversely, you know, also help that um cortisol because they do work synergistically. So just a little thing there. It's also really, really great for if you're constipated, which often happens when you're in burnout and that HPA dysregulation. You can either have yeah, you can either have dis um diarrhea or constipation, or a classic sign is that oscillating between the two.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Yeah, my muscles weren't working properly when I had burned out, and we forget that the sphincter is a muscle too.

SPEAKER_03 33:07

So when you're going to the toilet, ladies, it can um absolutely, and also you know, those stress hormones can actually also slow down the peristosis. So that moving uh that muscle, that smooth muscle tract gastrointestinal oranges, strawberries, oranges, papaya, and pineapple as well. Papaya and pineapple are also really, really great if you're got issues with um breaking down your food. So if you're getting some, you know, stomach upset, some GIT upsets, you know, having some papaya because and pineapple is really good because they've got digestive enzymes in them as well.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Well, I I had to have digestive enzymes because basically my digestive system wasn't working. I couldn't because everything was shutting down.

SPEAKER_03 33:51

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, try food first, otherwise come and see someone and we can, you know, prescribe that sort of thing. Vegetables, your red capsicum and yellow capsicum are really high in vitamin C. Your broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale, and parsley. And interestingly, capsicum contains significantly more vitamin C than oranges, graham for gram.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

I say that in my workshops, and the teachers are like, oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_03 34:21

Yeah, people are always really surprised if that's orange as well. Oranges are your go-to. So it's like, no, no, no, no. Kiwi fruit is is you know really high with an guava for um vitamin C for veg for blah. Fruit for blah, for blah, for fruit, and then yeah, your veggies, go for your red capsicum every time.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Um does it it it kills off some of the vitamin C when you when you roast them, doesn't it? Is that right? Well, why are you sure about that? I know other things, but not because I know that if you cook things, sometimes it increases specific nutrients and sometimes it depletes them. So I try and do a range of raw and cooked where I can.

SPEAKER_03 35:09

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, it when you are um when you're in burnout, when you've got anxiety, warm foods um are you are better for you to support your digestion in the first instance. Um, but yeah, if you're if you're if you're heading towards um burnout, you can recognize that you've got some of the symptoms, then yes, definitely, you know, salads, you know, raw food as well as um cooked foods, definitely. But when you are probably in that completely depleted mode, because you are in burnout, I would suggest really more nourishing, warming foods, because you know, when you look at Chinese medicine or Ayurvedic medicine, you cold foods, cold drinks actually dampen down that acne in in Ayurvedic medicine or the triple burner, which is what we call that digestive fire in Chinese medicine. But yes, you're right. I did, I just had a Google that yes, roasting capsicon reduces vitamin C content by about 25%. So that is something definitely, yeah. Eating that more raw, so yeah, having that in salads or even adding it to the top of. So if you're having roasted vegetables or you're making a stir fry, just add in the capsify at the end.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:36

I know you go. You make me hungry. I know I'm really hungry now.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

I love all this. Uh, so coming back to the anxiety compass, because this is what the episode's about. Um it is. I find when people think anxiety, they think thoughts, but sometimes we've mentioned a few times it can be so many other things, like it can be chemical things going on in your body, it could be hormones and stress, physiologic, physiology. Oh my gosh, I can't talk like you. Uh, blood sugar dysregulation, it could be a nervous system overload, like that you've been doing to over and over and over again. Um, lifestyle, like, and burnout. Like there's just so many things that it can be. Your body's trying to constantly redirect you. And if you keep ignoring it, it's going to get to the point where things won't function as well. And you'll end up like a lot of the women we've seen in our clinic, where their bodies have just stopped producing hormones, whether it's thyroid hormone, whether it's adrenal um hormones. Um, even like I find some women have got really low progesterone and their ovaries are still functioning, but they're too busy producing cortisol because it uses a similar pathway in the steroid um pathway. So yeah. Um, shall we end with a question? I feel like this episode has been quite a bit of an irony in the sense that Nat's been having issues with the technology the whole time. Your computer and your internet is having a burnout.

SPEAKER_03 38:03

It needs to really is my it needs some love. I need to stop this and go and love it before we do our next episode.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

You keep freezing and doing these really wonderful phases. I actually took a couple of photos, which I'm going to share with you. Um excellent. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 38:21

So should we answer the question? Yes, I was about to say that. Do you want me to ask the question? Yeah, I'd love for you to if you can get it out without disappearing. Yeah, no, quick, go, go. Um all right. If anxiety and exhaustion were actually messages from your body, what have you been ignoring?

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Ah and I wonder whether it's a physical thing or a or a psychological thing that you're ignoring.

SPEAKER_03 38:50

Or emotional thing, absolutely.

unknown 38:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

Where on the compass are you ignoring? Because there's so many points. And if you haven't listened to our first few episodes, we actually talk about all the different compass points. I feel like we need to do a recap on that somewhere. And um, yeah, it could be anything. Where are you going? Where where are you leading your body? Come back to it. Come back to it. And uh, if you would like to read that book that I mentioned uh throughout the podcast, it's called Adrenal Fatigue, the 21st Century Stress Syndrome. It was referred to me uh by Dr. Beer, integrated doctor down the gold coast.

SPEAKER_03 39:25

And um how lovely.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

It talks about uh it's by James L. Wilson, and it talks about energy, immune resistance, vitality, and basically enjoyment of life. And it's got lots of wonderful little pictures and cartoons and graphs, and I actually really enjoyed reading that. So I'm sure there's a few other books out there on adrenal um exhaustion, but yeah, that sounds like a really lovely book though. Yeah, it does. All right, well, on that note, we'll love you and leave you, and uh, we're gonna go fix Nat's uh internet issue. Yay.

SPEAKER_03 39:57

Hi, everyone.

SPEAKER_02 39:59

Thanks for joining us on the Anxiety Compass. If you love this episode, share it with a friend who needs a little laugh and a low calm. We'll see you in the next one. Keep following your true norm.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

Disclaimer time. Sammy and Natalie may be clinical nutritionists, but we're not your personal doctors. What you're here is for learning and laughing, not diagnosing or prescribing. If things feel bigger than you, call your doctor or local support line.