236. Why High Achievers Burn Out (And How to Break the Cycle)

Your pursuit of excellence is actually sabotaging your success. The achieve-then-crash cycle isn't just costing you your health—it's costing the global economy $8.8 trillion in lost productivity.

Here's what most people don't understand: burnout isn't a character flaw. It's a biological crisis—your nervous system demanding attention before something breaks.

Join Dr. Adrienne Youdim as she reveals why "work-life balance" advice fails high achievers and shares the science-backed framework to sustain peak performance without the inevitable crash.

What You'll Learn From This Episode:

• Recognize burnout as biology, not weakness
• Identify the three hidden stages before burnout
• Master the "Regulate, Restore, Reframe" framework
• Implement micro-interventions for macro results.
• Understand the ripple effect of your burnout

"Burnout is not the first stage. It is the final symptom of long-term nervous system overdrive. When we don't have the tools to regulate our stress, autopilot takes over and we end up overeating, overworking, over-pleasing, numbing, and self-soothing in ways that drain us even further." — Dr. Adrienne Youdim

Resources Mentioned:

• SHRM Burnout Survey: 44% of US employees report workplace burnout
• Gallup Poll: $8.8 trillion annual cost of burnout to global economy

3 Ways that Dr. Adrienne Youdim Can Support You

• Join Resilient Minds: If this sounds familiar, you're exactly who Resilient Minds is designed for. Next cohort starts September 30th - Limited to 12 high-achieving professionals ready to move from success to significance.
  Ready to stop asking "Is this it?" and start living like you know it isn't?
  Application details here: https://www.dradrienneyoudim.com/resilient-minds
• Subscribe to Dr. Adrienne's weekly newsletter https://www.dradrienneyoudim.com/newsletter.
• Connect on Instagram : Follow @dradrienneyoudim for tips and inspiration on well-being and peak performance.

Transcript

Today we're talking about burnout, not just as a workplace buzzword, but as a biological crisis. And I want to offer you a new lens for understanding burnout as really a side effect of reactivity, a chronic and constant stress response. Welcome to Health Bite, where we explore the true nutrients that feed you mind, body, and soul. I'm your host, Dr. Adrienne Youdim, a physician, author, and expert in medical weight loss and mind-body medicine, helping high-achieving professionals address the underlying hungers beneath reactivity, burnout, and self-sabotaging behaviors so that they can reclaim their health and thrive. So let's get into it. What is burnout? Burnout is a syndrome that has a specific definition. It's a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion that's caused by prolonged and excessive stress. It's defined by three main criteria. The first is exhaustion, so feeling drained, depleted, lacking energy. The second is cynicism, so developing kind of an indifferent attitude towards your work or other responsibilities, kind of having a negative worldview, so to speak. And the third is a sense of reduced efficacy. Feeling ineffective, feeling incompetent, feeling as though you are not as effective in your work as you should be. And burnout is not just a professional phenomena, but it can lead to a change in your mental health, it can change to problems in your physical health, like fatigue, difficulty concentrating, sleep disturbances, irritability, and a higher likelihood of getting sick, as we're going to talk about later in today's episode. But first, I want to say that if you're feeling symptoms of burnout, you certainly are not alone. Many of my patients and clients report symptoms of burnout. And to be honest, I've experienced many of the symptoms as well. Early in my career, I didn't have the awareness of it. Burnout wasn't a household term as it is now, but I certainly had these symptoms, feeling overloaded and exhausted. Feeling indifferent towards my work and other responsibilities. Feeling like I just wasn't good enough or doing enough. And now that we have a way of defining and describing it, we know that burnout is something that is so, so prevalent right now in our society. In fact, just last year, there was a survey by SHRM. This is a human resources society. who surveyed a group of US employees and they showed that 44% of those surveyed reported feeling burned out at work and 66% were experiencing some form of burnout. So maybe not hitting every single symptom or experiencing it perfectly as defined, but certainly experiencing some form of burnout. There was another study done by Affleck that showed that this affects literally every age group. 66% of millennials report moderate to high burnout, 60% of Gen X, 56% of Gen Z, and baby boomers, while they're doing slightly better, four out of 10 baby boomers report burnout. This costs us again our health and our well-being and according to a 2023 Gallup poll it showed that it was costing the global economy 8.8 trillion dollars in lost productivity and turnover. So whether you're personally, early in your career, or leading a company, or even approaching retirement, burnout is affecting you or someone close to you, like maybe even your partner or your child. And it's costing physical and emotional health and money. So, like I said, there are these factors that define burnout, like exhaustion and cynicism and reduced efficacy. But really, I see burnout as a sign of prolonged reactivity, a sign of the prolonged stress response. We've talked about on this podcast, when we feel stress, our body reacts. We release cortisol and adrenaline. These are stress hormones that cause the heart rate and the blood pressure to go up. It also causes more blood sugar to be thrown out into the bloodstream. So the liver releases glycogen so that there's blood sugar or glucose so that we can actually act or move. Your focus narrows. You start using different parts of your brain. Your cognitive or thinking and rational part of your brain powers down. so that you can respond to the threat and survive. And while that's perfect for outrunning a predator like a lion, when that threat is chronic, like never-ending emails or a toxic work environment or the weight of constant unmet and unrealistic expectations, This chronic stress and chronic reactivity leads to exhaustion, brain fog, emotional dysregulation, and quite frankly, a loss of joy and motivation. including a bunch of other physical symptoms like headaches and palpitations and digestive issues, insomnia. I can't tell you how many of my patients have come to me with these non-specific symptoms. Yes, we work them up, we get blood tests, we try and figure out an organic etiology, and sometimes it just turns out to be constant stress, burnout, and just the body reacting to that constant input. So here's the thing. Burnout is not the first stage. It is like the final symptom of long-term nervous system overdrive. And While it can affect us, it doesn't only affect us because there's a ripple effect. Burnout ripples outward. It ripples into your homes. So relationships are hampered by this. Relationships are affected. Our patience goes down. Our presence Fades and as a result our relationships are strained at work this Shows up as a drop in productivity more mistakes as critical thinking goes down Creativity innovation dries up and as leaders it impacts your inspiration and your ability to inspire others, your ability to mentor others, your ability to create, um, collaborative teams in your organizations and to make sound decisions for your company. Now, if you're listening to this and you're like, I'm not leading a company, all of these things can be, applicable to anyone's life because we are all leaders in some shape or form. You are perhaps the leader of your household, leader of your community, of your church or religious or social organization, or maybe you're involved in your child's school or a non-profit There's no shortage of ways in which we show up and can show up as leaders in our lives and chronic stress and reactivity will impact your ability to show up with intention, with clarity in all of these different areas and it will ripple out in terms of your ability to, again, engage in meaningful collaborative relationships, and your ability to execute your work, whatever that work is. So when burnout becomes part of your internal, personal culture. It's not just an individual experience, but it is a collective experience that ripples out and makes the people and organizations around you suffer as well. As you know, Health Bite is not about doom and gloom. It's about actionable bites to improve your health and well-being. And the good news is, that burnout can be reversed. It's not overnight, but we can do it with patience, practice, and intention. And I teach this in my resilient minds skills group in my signature course that I created to help high-achieving professionals master reactivity through mind-body skills. I teach the framework. on how to manage the body's stress response through mind-body skills, through mind-body medicine, how we can manage the very real and human response to all of the stressors around us. We do this by number one, regulating you can learn how to regulate your nervous system using practices like breathing and autogenics and guided visualizations giving yourself micro breaks or mindful transitions with these practices between tasks you can literally switch your body from fight or flight to rest, ease, and relaxation. And this is physiologic. This is physiologically shifting from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic response of the nervous system. And in doing so, dialing back that constant toxic fuel that revs up the body through the release of these stress hormones. Number two is restore. By giving your mind and body the nutrients that they actually need. Good, nourishing, nutritive food. Adequate sleep, not only in terms of quality but quantity. Movement. engaging in nature. These are all nutrients that are scientifically proven, not only to improve your mental and physical health and well-being, but to help you regulate out of this stress response. And then finally, to reframe. Shifting from autopilot from reactivity, from habitual, sometimes sabotaging behaviors, to intentional, mindful living, where we make sane choices from a rational and clear-minded place. This also means examining what's around us, examining your boundaries or lack of boundaries, your thoughts, your purpose, your personal definition of success, not just in the workplace, but in all aspects of your life. What does success mean to you? What does living well mean to you? We have to take the time to think about these questions and ask ourselves if we are engaging in our lives from a place of reactivity or a place of intentionality. So before we wrap up, I want to share with you some simple, actionable steps that you can start using immediately. And if you head over to my website at dradrianudeem.com, you can also download a toolkit. I call it the Fuel Blueprint. You can download that toolkit right now. But here's some strategies that I want to share with you that you can do in this very moment. Number one. Give yourself one-minute pauses before switching from one task to another, before going from bed to the shower, before going from, I don't know, your laptop or your phone to the dinner table, to picking up your kids, to speaking to your team, to engaging with your work. Before switching tasks, take 60 seconds to deep Deeply breathe by inhaling through your nose exhaling through the mouth and Consciously trying to relax your body Thinking about areas in which you hold tension like your jaw your shoulders Take a 60-minute break engage in deep breaths and actively relax your body Number two is take micro breaks. Every hour or so, step away fully from whatever task you're engaged in, from your screen, your to-do list, your work at home, your being with the children. Take a moment to stretch. Look out the window. Better yet, get outside. Take a short walk. Go around the block. Take a few micro rest breaks in your day. Third, create bookends. Create bookends to start and end your day with some kind of mindful, screen-free ritual. This can be reading or journaling, praying, meditating, or just sipping your coffee in quiet. Take a moment before you start your day and before you end it, book-ending your day with something peaceful and mindful. And then finally, nourish. Nourish your body. Think of one way that you can nourish your body with nutrient-dense food, restful sleep, movement, or time in nature. Remember that nutrition is not just the food that you eat. Finally, know that when we don't have the tools to regulate our stress, that autopilot takes over. That reactivity takes over. And we end up overeating, overworking, over-pleasing, numbing, distracting, and self-soothing in ways that drain us even further. I see it in my patients. I see it in the professionals that I coach. And I experience it myself as well. So if you're interested in doing deeper work, the next Resilient Minds cohort begins September 30th. I'm really excited. I love this practice. I benefit from it as much as the participants. This is an eight-week experiential program where a small curated group of like-minded people meet with me live online. It happens on Zoom, two hours, for eight weeks where I teach you and take you through the nuts and bolts of mind-body medicine and show you how to implement these practices into your life in real time. Together, we will learn how to regulate our nervous system, recognize and interrupt triggers before they lead to unhealthy patterns and self-sabotaging behaviors, and we'll learn together to shift from reactivity to intentionality in our work, our relationships, and our personal lives. If you've been running on empty, feeling reactive, or struggling to align your health with your ambitions, this is your sign. Our next cohort starts September 30th and spots are limited. You can find out more information at dradrianudin.com backslash resilient minds. we will also drop the link in the show notes. I'm so glad you're with me here this week on Health Bite. I hope that you can take some of these tools and tips in with you to your daily day, day-to-day lives. And I'll be here to see you again next week. Until then.