290. How to Heal From & Prevent Burnout With Angela Foster

Burnout doesn’t just drain your energy—it can derail your health, career, and relationships. 

In this episode, we sit down with Angela Foster, a former corporate lawyer who hit rock bottom before rebuilding her life through science-backed wellness strategies. Now an award-winning nutritionist and expert in women’s health optimization, Angela shares what most high-achieving women miss when trying to “push through” stress.

We unpack how chronic stress impacts your hormones, heart rate variability, and long-term health—and why recovery isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. Angela gives actionable tools to protect your energy, explains how caffeine could be working against you, and reveals why aligning your values might be the key to sustainable health.

If you’re doing all the right things but still feeling burned out, this episode will help you connect the dots—and reset before your body forces you to.

Resources From The Guest

>> Angela’s Website

>> Angela’s Instagram

>> Angela’s Facebook

>> Morpheus - for morning HRV tracking and optimized training

>> Elite HRV - HRV, Breathwork 

>> FirstBeat - the medical-grade device used for assessments

>> The Superwoman Health Quiz 

Resources From This Episode

>> Insulin Resistance Diet Blueprint - https://www.zivli.com/blueprint?el=podcast

>> Free Low Insulin Food Guide - https://www.zivli.com/ultimatefoodguide?el=podcast

>> Join the Zivli Program Waitlist - https://www.zivli.com/join?el=podcast

>> Test Your Insulin at Home - https://www.zivli.com/testing?el=podcast

Have a question? Email us at: support@zivli.com

Transcript

Hey everyone. Welcome back to the reshape your health podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Morgan Nolte. And today we are speaking with Angela Foster. She is an award winning nutritionist, health and performance coach, keynote speaker, and host of the high performance health podcast, a former corporate lawyer turned industry leader in biohacking and health optimization for women.

Angela created Biosyncing, which is a blueprint for high performing women who want to ditch burnout, harmonize their hormones and elevate their life. And if you've been following my podcast for a while, you know that burnout is something that I have struggled with pretty intensely. Even like recently in life, last harvest was very difficult for me. And it's been a cyclical pattern in my life to experience seasons of burnout. And

I'm excited to kind of keep trying this planting season, this newborn season, the next harvest season. I think that this will be a really cool conversation to get some new ideas and insights on what I've already gleaned from self-reflection and conversations with people involved with the burnout on how to prevent it, to heal from it, and just bring it to awareness, honestly, because I think sometimes we're living in this state of

chronic burnout and we don't quite recognize it because it's our natural state of being. So this is going to be very fun conversation. Angela, thank you so much for coming on the show. I would love just kind of start with your story because it's a pretty big shift from corporate attorney, corporate lawyer to health coach. So I'd love to hear more about that.

Angela Foster (01:41)
Yeah, sure. And thanks for having me here, Morgan. I really enjoyed our interview together on my show. was awesome. Awesome to be back together. Thank you. So yeah, I started out as a corporate lawyer for many years. And the thing about corporate law is it's really intense, right? Because when you need to get a little bit like you were talking about with Harvest there, when you want to get a multinational deal through, you will pull out all the stops, all-nighters, weekends. There's really no recovery.

And I think like you, I've learned over time and through my own experience of burnout and depression and things is that we can only really coach people up to their level of recovery if we want that sustained high performance. And that's affecting our energy. It's affecting how we perform in life, but it's also affecting our health and longevity. So for me, you know, in my twenties, I think I felt fairly invincible, like most people do in their twenties. And I just kept pushing through, disrespecting things like sleep, you know.

saying yes to the demands of the job. But then when I came to have my children, as you know, it really changes the dynamic. And now you're being pulled initially when you have your first child in one direction. And then as you go on to have more, you know, there's just more and more things coming into the mix. And you've got these tiny little humans who also have needs and you you want to spend all that beautiful time with them as well, in addition to your relationship. And I think certainly as women, we can then very easily neglect ourselves and...

One thing I wasn't prepared for was that I struggled with postnatal depression after each of my children. But then after my third child, that's when I was diagnosed about two years later with major depressive disorder and bipolar episodes. And that kind of mirrors what we see in that cyclical burnout that you're speaking of, because you can have these periods of extreme highs and productivity and feeling almost like you're superwoman, but then these big, big crashes was what I would experience.

And it ultimately culminated for me in hospitalization with double pneumonia, where, you know, my white blood cell count was so low, I was neutropenic. And that was the defining moment for me, because I realized, I've got these children, I need to take care of myself better, because here I am, you know, I'd felt trapped in my mind, if you like, had this, I'd created really a prison in my own mind, because, or a prison of my own making, because I just wanted to turn the thoughts off.

I felt I had a very low sense of self-worth. I felt like I was a terrible mother. And I was honestly thinking how can, when I was so depressed, could I end my life, but not wanting to be that mom, you know, who left my children without a mother? it was, it was a, yeah, it was a really tough spot to be in and I felt trapped. And then when I was in the hospital and they came to see me, at that point I was hooked up to all the drips and oxygen and everything.

I remember after they left looking at photos and just feeling this overwhelming sense of love and responsibility towards my children. And it was a real wake up call of like, actually there's a real prospect you might not get out of here. I need to rethink things. And that's when, you know, they say, don't they, that like the universe, God, source energy, or whatever people like to call it. I felt this overwhelming sense of love for my children. And amazingly, when I made that decision that I was going to get well,

my blood work started to change within 48 hours. And so my white blood cell count started to rise. And that really showed me the magic of how just our mindset and attention is affecting our physiology as well. And that's when I then afterwards, you know, the long process of getting my health back, retraining, and then doing everything that I do now.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (05:13)
Yeah, I'm kind of curious, how old were your children when you were hospitalized?

Angela Foster (05:17)
They were two, five and six.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (05:21)
young and then were you working in corporate law after all of those pregnancies and still up to this burnout?

Angela Foster (05:28)
No, so I'd stopped working, I'd taken a career break. And it's interesting though, because I think when you look at like a type A personality, someone who's very driven, I think from a mental health perspective, actually that contributed because, and I think this is the thing that people struggle with, right? Is that you feel really driven and enormously rewarded in your vocation if it's something you love. And the sort of burnout cycle will lead you to be...

almost like a boom bust in an economy, right? It's like all or nothing, but that nothingness actually is quite hard on mental health. And so for me, it was what I've learned over the years is how can we find fulfillment in whatever we're pursuing, but also manage our health and our energy at the same time.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (05:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I completely agree with you. I know we were having a really nice conversation before we hit record about motherhood, because, you know, at the time this episode airs, I'll probably be on maternity leave with my third child. And you have three. So we were talking about that. And if I learned anything during COVID, it's that work is really good for my mental health and not overdoing it, you know, not working 50, 60 hours a week. But, you know, for me,

15, 20 hours a week is a very sustainable amount that still allows me to be the wife and the mom that I wanna be. if I don't work, if there's like a period of time where I don't work, just like you said, like that sense of personal fulfillment kind of goes down. And so I think every single woman is different and it's okay to not compare your experience with somebody else's, but I do definitely share your experience in...

I thought I wanted to be a stay at home mom. And then after I had the experience, you know, postpartum, like, wait, I actually really like to work and I want to incorporate work back into my life because it's good for my mental health.

Angela Foster (07:25)
the same with me. There's a really, do you know, there's a really interesting story around the, I think it was the race to the South Pole by the Norwegian team and the British team and their approach and how different. And I think for people who struggling with burnout, this may help them consider where you want to actually pull back the stops a little bit and put the brakes on yourself ahead of time. the British team's approach was that they would

in bad weather and good weather, right, they would basically on a good weather day, they would try and progress further because they felt they could go faster. Then in bad weather, they were naturally held back more. The Norwegian team's approach was even if it's a good weather day, we're going to be super disciplined because they knew that if you work up too much of a sweat, you're going to get cold, it's going to affect your physiology and now likely impede your progress. So their rule was, and it was very strict,

was that they would only go a certain number of miles each day and that that was effectively at 85 % of capacity. So they had to rein themselves in in order to stick with that. As they got closer and closer to the South Pole, they couldn't see what the British team were doing. And it was tempting because it was good weather to push on like we all do and go, yeah, I'll just get this done, right? But they didn't and they dialed themselves back. And depending on which report you read, because they actually started a little bit earlier than the British team,

They made it there either 20 or 30 days earlier just by following this 85 % rule. But what was super interesting is that none of the British team made it back alive. And so they had no resources left. And I think that, you know, that example just shows us all, yes, you could do more. Yes, we have attempted to, but actually that's what's like, that's creating that cycle. And if only we can be a little bit more disciplined in our recovery.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (08:57)
Well.

Angela Foster (09:12)
we actually make better progress over the longer term.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (09:15)
Yeah, I think there's a lot of good just research too on productivity like for work days, like working a four day work week versus a five day work week, for example. People can be more productive in a four day work week because they have one more day of rest. And that's kind of our rhythm because our kids have a four day district. So they're in school Tuesday through Friday. We're home Sunday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. And I really like that rhythm because it's just a little bit more rest, you know, a little bit more leisure time.

And I think in our society today, especially when the weekends get filled with sports and whatnot, we all need it. So I'm kind of curious then after you came out of the hospital, is that really when you started to delve into health and wellness and biohacking or had you already been on that journey?

Angela Foster (10:01)
So I'd had

a little taste of that journey. I mean, I'd always been into fitness when I was working. I was a pretty healthy eater. But just before I had my children, I had struggled with my menstrual cycle throughout, throughout right from teenage years. And unfortunately, the kind of doctor's prescription was birth control, which is so often used for things other than contraception. And it was kind of like, you know what, we'll investigate it when you want to have kids, we'll sort of leave it for now. And so...

Then as I got into my late twenties and I wanted to start a family, that was when the investigations were done because I wasn't having periods. So like what was going on? And that was my first foray because that was when I was diagnosed with PTOS and I started to realize the link between that, it being a metabolic disorder at its core and insulin resistance, which I know you talk so much about, super helpful. And I realized that I actually was only ever really going to be able to regulate my menstrual cycle by beginning to get control of my blood glucose.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (10:49)
and

Angela Foster (10:58)
I did need at that time to have surgery and that's when they found I had endometriosis. So, you know, over the years I've worked hard in terms of lowering that inflammation, managing my blood sugar, because even to this day, you know, I'm 49 now, clearly in perimenopause, which is when we also naturally, even without PCOS, can become more insulin resistant. And I found that controlling that blood glucose has been really important, but also to my mood as well. makes a profound difference to that as well as health and hormone health.

So I had a little bit then when I was still working as a lawyer, I was focusing more on a kind of lower carbohydrate diet and things like that. But it was after I came out of hospital with pneumonia that I was like, do you know what? I've got to the point where I'm emotionally, physically and mentally broken now, you know? And so I needed at that point to really, really focus on it. And spiritually, I'd become quite detached. was raised in a very strict Catholic upbringing, which

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (11:46)
Thank

Angela Foster (11:56)
wasn't resonating me, so I'd kind of moved far away from that. And I think when we look at health, it really is that 360 degree approach that's needed if you really want to optimize everything.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (12:07)
You said something early in the interview that I thought was interesting. You can only kind of elevate to the level of recovery. And so I think it sounds like you had a lot of recovering to do after coming out of the hospital. And I'm guessing a lot of the people that you work with have a lot of recovery to do as well. Where do people start with that? Where do you recommend they start with their recovery? Because you said you are physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually drained. That's a lot. Like that's a lot to ask somebody to kind of bounce back from. I mean,

I know I have in the past felt like I just need to get away. I just need a couple days to myself to unwind with no demands on me. And that does help. It's almost like a system reset, which is kind of maybe what the hospitalization was for you a little bit. Like you didn't have the responsibilities that you normally would. It's a nervous system reset. That's how I like to think of it, but I'm kind of curious. How do you coach people on their, their reset, you know, coming back from burnout, where do you even start?

Angela Foster (12:49)
No.

I think, I mean, it's such a great question. And I think it's slightly different for everyone, but you do need that reset. you need, the thing about a reset is if it elevates your energy momentarily, you can fall back into the same trap, right? And then you end up with this cyclical burnout. So I think for me, it was like in the hospital, what I found, and hopefully your audience don't need to get to this extreme right to find it. I found a sense of purpose, right? It was like my North star were my children. I knew that they were so young.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (13:23)
It is.

Angela Foster (13:37)
that if I really wanted to see them grow up, I needed to pay attention to my health. So that was my guiding. That was my big why, if you like. And I think when we work with clients, that's one of the things we do is to really understand what is it that they want out of life and where do their values sit? Because if there's any conflict between your values and what you're pursuing, again, your nervous systems, everything's going to be discordant. And it's very difficult to get good results in either area. So for me,

Value alignment, I think, is really, really important as part of that process. And then it's like building up slowly in each area, because I truly believe in the power of tiny habits, you know, and it's been well documented in the research and people like James Clear and Atomic Habits have written about this and the power of getting 1 % better and just the kind of exponential growth you can see. And so the only way we can do that is to stress a little bit, but then fully recover.

So one of the metrics we follow quite closely, because it's a really non-invasive objective view of someone's physiology is to look at their heart rate variability, which we can talk about if you want to.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (14:45)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I'd love to. That's interesting. Being pregnant, my heart rate variability has crashed. So we have an eight sleep, which is a mattress cover, and it's a temperature regulator on the bed. So my side can be warmer, my husband's can be colder, and it gives you really good sleep data that seems to be pretty accurate. And my heart rate variability is usually super good, but the second I got pregnant, it like tanked. And then...

Now it's in like the 20s, which is lower. I think normally it's way, way higher. Like think it was in the 70s even. I don't even know what's considered good, but will you speak to that? What is it? How is it measured? How is it good? How is it a good indicator of stress? I'd love to dig into that.

Angela Foster (15:29)
Yeah, for sure. Let's do that. So, so everyone will be familiar with heartbeat, right? You can measure your resting pulse and you can put your fingers on your wrist and figure out what your, how many beats your heart beats per minute on average at rest. And let's say the average person has 60 beats per minute. It would be reasonable to assume, ⁓ maybe it's like one beat every second, except that the heart doesn't beat like that. So what you're describing there Morgan is there's significant, usually significant variation.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (15:52)
Okay.

Angela Foster (15:57)
or variability between those beats. And when we see somebody who's managing their stress well and they have enough capacity, they tend to have higher variability. their nervous system's working really dynamically. They're able to respond to a threat or the initiation of some stress or a deadline or something they need to meet. But then they can like down-regulate that nervous system, recover well and get that restorative sleep and they come back stronger tomorrow.

for people who are pushing that envelope too hard for too long without enough recovery, or they have a very high amount of mental stress or anxiety or hormonal imbalances or something that's big, like physically going on, like pregnancy that can depress, like, which is a big toll on your body. Right. I mean, even like, if you think about the blood that your heart is pumping, it's like another four pints, right. Around your system. Yeah.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (16:38)
Yep.

Yes, it's like 50 % more blood, like just to

make the blood then to pump the blood. mean, everything changes and it changes almost instantly, you know. And so the variability is really the variability between the heartbeat. So it's a very small amount of time that we're focusing on. But yeah, go ahead. You were saying that stress essentially can reduce that variability. Is that right? Okay.

Angela Foster (17:12)
Yeah, it reduces

the variability. So as you say, it's very small amount of time. It's measured in milliseconds, but that variability gets reduced because when the heart starts to sense disorder, then it starts to try and create more order itself. But so it becomes much more rhythmic in nature. Yeah.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (17:30)
I always wondered why,

like that's a really good explanation. Will you just say that one more time for people that were tuning out or I don't know stuck behind from driving super slow in traffic.

Angela Foster (17:38)
Yeah, she will.

Yeah, sure. So when the heart recognizes disorder, and that could be outside of the body through your environment, but it stresses your exposed to it, it could be your thoughts, you know, your psychology, when it recognizes disorder, the heart will try to create more order. So now it becomes more rhythmic in nature. So the variability between heartbeats goes down. So we see heart rate variability go, go down. Sometimes that is also mirrored with your, increase in resting pulse.

but not always, you may have, like, if for example, you'd been doing, like in your case, probably your pulse is quite a bit faster, right? It's having to pump a lot of blood. And so that in and of itself is going to affect your heart rate variability. But sometimes what we'll see is like in really fit athletes, if they're beginning to over train, actually we don't see an increase in their resting pulse because they're very fit. So that's staying low. Maybe it's gone up by one or two beats a minute.

but actually their heart rate variability is going down. And so now we can see that the demands are too high for what their body's currently able to cope with. and what we know with athletes is they actually just manage it better, right? They have higher heart rate variability because they're managing that stress recovery cycle on a day, on a monthly, weekly, daily, but also intra daily basis. And when we track people or we use a medical DRADE device to take assessments, what we can see when we're tracking them

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (18:57)
Mm-hmm.

Angela Foster (19:05)
is that if they're redlining it all day, they start to redline it at night. So what happens is it's like stress, stress, stress, going from one meeting to the next, then picking up the kids, then cooking dinner, then taking them to clubs. Actually, we see that then mirrored off, not always, but often in their sleep. So some people are really good. They're stressed all day. They get into bed. They completely relax. Nervous system down regulates. They get deep sleep and that's okay, right? You can carry that for so long.

However, there are other people, actually then just see their redlining at all night and their heart rate variability is very suppressed and they wake up, they feel under recovered, they can't get going and often there's quite a bit of anxiety as well.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (19:43)
Yeah, so what do you like to use to track heart rate variability? Like mine is just tracked in the evenings and I don't know, is that the most important time to track heart rate variability or do you like the data from all day?

Angela Foster (19:55)
So when we're trying to make changes, think understanding all day is really powerful because you can actually see your physiology change in the moment. So if I said to you, know, Morgan, why don't we get you doing this breath work practice or this movement practice or whatever it is that we found was working for you, you'd be able to see that in your data very clearly. It also allows you to pinpoint things that are very much stressing your system. So it's super helpful. But if you were to look at a measurement, like what time of day could we take it? That was the most meaningful.

it would be the measurement when you wake up. Because that would basically tell us after all the stress of that last day or few days and the sleep that you've had, this is where your capacity is for today. So taking it within sort of as you wake up or within that first 20 to 30 minutes will give you a really good indicator. Now the difficulty is how do you maintain the same environment to take it, right? Because...

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (20:50)
down.

Angela Foster (20:50)
not right variability is going to respond like if you're a little bit stressed or you're a bit uncomfortable, you're a bit neck pain, you know, it can respond. ideally you want to make yourself in a really relaxed position and then you can take a measurement to see what that is. And you could measure that on a daily basis. That's the most important, but when we're trying to make behavioral changes and just even just a client understanding how these daily patterns are impacting their sleep is very powerful.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (21:16)
Yeah, so do you measure it for like a minute or two minutes or how long do you recommend measuring heart rate variability versus heart rate, which you can, depending on if you have like a regular abnormal heart rhythm, you can do 10 seconds or 20 seconds or 30 seconds.

Angela Foster (21:32)
Yeah, about two and a half minutes is about the time to take a proper reading.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (21:36)
Okay, and then what device do you recommend using for this?

Angela Foster (21:40)
So there's a few different devices. There's a really good app called Elite HRV if you wanted to take a morning score that pairs with, I think they have their own one or you compare it with something like a Polar H10. So you want a chest strap basically to take this. There's also another good one that I really like called Morpheus that I use a lot myself and with clients because actually that's if there's people for your audience who are interested in cardiovascular fitness.

It's a really good one for training and actually working out training zones and improving heart rate variability. So for those physically active listeners, it's really good for that.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (22:10)
Hmm.

Yeah, will you email me those and then we can link up those resources in the podcast show notes. Okay. I yeah, I've I've kind of trained with heart rate zones before I do teach on it. But if you're just checking it manually, it's kind of a pain to be like, I in zone two? Am I in zone three? So it is kind of cool, especially like getting back into shape postpartum to try to because I realized I'm like,

Angela Foster (22:19)
I'm sure. Yeah.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (22:39)
Why do I feel gassed when I'm running all the time? It's like, well, you're not 18 anymore, Morgan. Like you can't go at the same pace that you used to go and be able to go, you know, three to six miles because your heart rate is so much higher and you have to build back up to that. So that's, that was really cool for me to learn a little bit more about the heart rate zones and training. So thank you for those resources.

Angela Foster (23:01)
Yeah, the Morpheus

is really good for that. And then if you were taking all day, what we do is we work with a company called First Beat. And that's where you take like, it's got like electrodes that you put on and you can take like 24 hour assessments, three day, five days.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (23:14)
Gotcha. Okay. So then

you'd maybe do it like occasionally like, Hey, do it for the 24 hours or three days or five days, work on these interventions and then kind of retest a month later. Have you ever noticed, I don't know, do you ever wear a continuous glucose monitor? Yes, it certainly is. I was wondering if you saw the, the synchronicities between those, like if you saw a blood sugar spike and a

Angela Foster (23:25)
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Yes. Yeah. That's, that's another thing that's super powerful for behavior change.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (23:43)
reduced heart rate variability.

Angela Foster (23:46)
I don't know if I've seen like, checked the immediate patterns. What I see is if you're not regulating your blood sugar well, as you know, then your body's under more stress. And so you have a heart and that in itself can also cause inflammation, right? And some of those things can then show up in heart rate variability. Also, if you have a big spike in blood sugar, heart rate variability is probably gonna go down because your heart rate is gonna go up often, depending.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (24:11)
me.

Yeah, I was I was like, bet she's tested both and I bet she's tested them at the same time and

Angela Foster (24:17)
But

it's funny when you're saying that because I'm actually just about to do another like batch of first beat measurements on myself. So I'm now going to measure that directly with the blood glucose and see if I spike it what happens. can kind of deliberately spike it and see the results.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (24:25)
Yeah.

Yeah, you should. think that'd be interesting to learn. So what are some of your favorite practices that you teach your clients to? Let's talk about first recovery from burnout, and then we can talk about proactively preventing burnout in the future.

Angela Foster (24:48)
So in terms of like recovery from burnout, I think anyone that's recovering from it, you need to go slow. So even when we were talking there around fitness, for example, actually doing a lot of the zone two and even zone one that you were describing can be super, super helpful. So I think like,

Typically, the people struggling with burnout often are the go-getters, right? And the type, not always. And so then when we say zone two, they're gonna be like, all right, okay, I'm not getting to the top of zone two. So now I'm gonna add a weighted backpack. And do you know what I mean? It's like, how hard can I make my zone two? Whereas when I interviewed Paul Lawson, who's a real expert in high intensity interval training and zone one, all the heart rate zones, you he was saying that there are so many benefits for your heart and cardiovascular system in zone one, which is just that gentle walk, but also,

your endocrine health, so your hormonal health and your immune health. So definitely, like I would never discount the just going out for a walk for the joy of the walk and not worrying, did I get to the top of zone two? Do you know what I mean? Because that in itself is actually a little bit harder to do. But the zone one and two training, really important. And also in terms of a cardiovascular base of fitness, right? The more you improve that, the more you're also going to improve as long as you've got recovery.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (25:52)
Mm-hmm.

Angela Foster (26:04)
you're gonna improve your stress resiliency and your heart rate variability. So zone one, two is a good way to do that. I wouldn't layer in the high intensity work until you start to recover and you've got a more normal cycle. You know, we're looking at cortisol, yes, but also remember cortisol is tightly linked with insulin, as you know, but also with melatonin and they have an inverse relationship. So if cortisol is high,

melatonin is going to be low. So if you're really stressed at night, you're not going to be sleeping as well. And melatonin is also a really powerful antioxidant. So I think that for people who feel burnt out, starting to get that circadian rhythm more in alignment and doing all the wonderful things that you talk about as well in terms of having your last meal away from bedtime and away from the melatonin being released, which is around 9pm because

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (26:45)
it.

Angela Foster (26:56)
Melatonin now makes you a bit more insulin resistant. So if we can go get access to early morning light in the morning, and then in the evening, start limiting that light, but having our meal away from bedtime, and then reducing that light exposure, we can start to bring some of these hormones back into balance and really create a more adept cortisol rhythm, which is really important for how you feel and also regulating all these things.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (27:22)
Yes, I agree. And I don't know, do you recommend blue light blockers like the orange colored blue light blockers in the evening.

Angela Foster (27:29)
Yeah, I like them. like them. mean, it's interesting, isn't it? Cause now there's like quite a few, you know, was interviewing a neuroscientist who specializes in neurofeedback. And he was saying to me that actually, ⁓ he wasn't an advocate of it because he was like, now you're restricting different light paths. And actually it's not just blue light is, but I think, I think what I'm learning more and more is it's the brightness that's the most damaging. So like even being in your front of your red light therapy lamp is not a good idea in the evening.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (27:55)
Yes, I have noticed that.

Yep.

Angela Foster (27:59)
You've noticed it, yeah.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (28:00)
Yeah, I like a red light therapy mask that I'll do sometimes. And if I do it in the evenings, it does not help my sleep at all. It really affects it. So like you said, the brightness, even if my eyes are shut or whatever. But I have noticed that they help the blue light blockers help my sleep a lot. They help me fall asleep, stay asleep. Will you speak to caffeine a little bit and maybe some individual differences there? Cause for me personally, that was a cause of stress on my body that was evidenced by like mid cycle spotting.

That was the first indicator where something's off with my hormones. I feel like all of my other stress practices are pretty dialed in. I don't feel mentally or emotionally stressed. I'm not over exercising. Is there something that I'm putting in my body that could be causing that? And when I stopped drinking caffeinated coffee, that eliminated the mid cycle spotting, but it took a long time. It took a long time, but.

Angela Foster (28:53)
Isn't that interesting?

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (28:54)
Yeah, so was wondering if you had any opinions on caffeine causing stress for some people or like maybe transitioning into perimenopause or postmenopausal if you've seen people have like a reduced caffeine tolerance. Just kind of curious on your thoughts there.

Angela Foster (29:10)
Yeah, I think with

caffeine, I mean, it's, it's interesting because it actually speeds up, we know it speeds up your metabolic rate, right? And that's why it's often associated with helping us burn fat a little bit better. So it's very stimulating on the system, but then there's genetic differences in the way people metabolize caffeine. So some people are slow metabolizers, some people are faster metabolizers. And if you're a slow metabolizer, it's going to hang out in your system a bit longer and is more likely to have an impact on your sleep.

but also it has a really long half life in any event of like six hours. So I think people often forget, don't they, that that afternoon coffee is kind of still, some of it's still circulating. It also elevates heart rate. I mean, what I see when people are having a lot of caffeine is that their heart rate stays more elevated throughout the day and the night. So actually it's putting an extra burden on your system. I think with caffeine, it's such a, it's a Goldilocks thing of,

getting the dose right for you if you're gonna use it. For some people who get really jittery, think comparing it with L-theanine works well. So about 200 milligrams of L-theanine just seems to like attenuate some of those jittery effects and just create that kind of sustained focus for people. But caffeine itself also depletes sodium. I think it's around like a quarter, I don't know if it's a quarter, half teaspoon. So I think understanding that, yes, it's a diuretic.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (30:25)
Mm-hmm.

Angela Foster (30:35)
and it's depleting sodium a little bit, you're gonna probably need some more minerals when you're a caffeine drinker.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (30:41)
Yeah, that's really interesting. Well, I'm glad I don't drink it anymore, but it was it was a beast of a habit to give up. I'll tell you. It took several months and several tries. Oh my gosh, and lots of fatigue. I did not realize how dependent my body had become on caffeine. But, you know, now now that I'm sensitized to it again, if I do have a cup, I do get jittery. I get anxious. It's almost like

Angela Foster (30:49)
I bet it was. Yeah. And several headaches probably.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (31:09)
I have a huge meeting coming up and I'm nervous for it, but there's that. That's not my reality. I'm just like working on the computer nervous. ⁓ so I definitely experienced more jitteriness and anxiety when I have caffeine now. all right. So those are some really good tips on recovering from burnout. talked about modulating your light environment so that we can kind of reset that cortisol and melatonin pattern for better sleep. We talked about.

Gentle exercise, my team got me a walking treadmill for Christmas. So a lot of times I'll just like walk at two miles an hour. So I'm glad to hear that that's having more benefits even than I realized. And any other tips for recovering from burnout before we pivot to preventing burnout.

Angela Foster (31:57)
Yeah, I think some of the other things I say is

just giving yourself that time and space. You know, it's a little bit when we're talking about that going at 85%. I think people often think, no, I've got to keep going. And actually there's a diminishing law of returns with productivity. You become less and less productive. And as you were saying, right, the evidence is there. If you work a four day week, actually you're more productive within those hours. And I think it's like anything.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (32:05)
Yeah.

Angela Foster (32:22)
you don't notice that all of a sudden it's gone down, right? Because it's this slow degradation that you almost need to give yourself a proper recovery to understand how powerful you can be when you are recovered. So I think anything that you can do every single day, just thinking, what did I do for myself today? How did I carve out some time? Even if that's sitting down reading a book, even if it's just taking a hot shower or running a bath.

for 10 minutes, just anything that can just bring your nervous system, breath work, you know, really small things. They don't have to take a long time resetting between meetings. Like Microsoft did some really interesting research where they put these EEG caps on people and they monitored them going from one meeting to the next. So they were doing like meeting number one, then hour later straight into the next one, the next one. And then what they did was they gave them 10 minute break between meetings and just looking at the way the brain kind of heats up and effectively

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (32:57)
here.

Angela Foster (33:17)
you know, is into a more beta brainwave activity when you're going from one to the other and how different it was having 10 minute breaks. It was extraordinary. And so anyone can go and look at that research online. And when you see the visuals, that will help reaffirm to you. know, NASA did some studies that I think you're something like 23 % more productive if you have a nap. I can't remember if it was 20 or 30%. So there's a license. So when you have your baby, you can have a nap in the afternoon guilt free.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (33:46)
Yes, I'm gonna try everyone's like sleep when your baby sleeps I'm like, well then when did one of the dishes get done in the water you done I just did. Yeah. Yeah. And so I'll try to do be a little bit better about that this time. And all of those are really, really helpful tips. Thank you. And I wanted to talk about

Angela Foster (33:53)
When does all the food puring get done when they're being weaned and stuff? That's what I used to think.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (34:06)
you know, what do we do to prevent burnout? Because I think they kind of go hand in hand a little bit. It's like, if you're really implementing recovery methods, do those kind of become then part of your lifestyle to prevent because what I recognize, I love the little mini breaks during the day idea. I just I need that I need deep breathing throughout the day like an actual lunch break, not working through lunch, but like

relaxing while I'm eating is important. And honestly, just from an overeating and emotional eating standpoint, un-linking. Like the fact that eating was my only time that I was relaxing during the day. So if I can like build in periods of time throughout the day where I'm resting and relaxing without food, that's really good brain training from an emotional eating standpoint. And then for me too, like having a Sabbath, like a day where I don't work.

is really important and it's hard. think like especially if you run your own business or if you have a certain type of job, it's really easy to like just check in on the email or check whatever you feel like you need to be checking or get ahead on the work week. But if I can intentionally pause for a whole day, like that's the best nervous system reset that kind of carries into the rest of the week. So those were kind of my

two things. And then another thing that, you know, coming out of that season of burnout that I thought, my gosh, I have to make this a priority as an evening routine, like an evening mindset routine. had a really good morning one, but just like you said, it could be a hot bath. It can be a hot shower. It is something where I am like away from everywhere else. Everyone else. I prefer it be in the bath or the shower. ⁓ sometimes my journal is with me. Sometimes not like

But if I can have a pocket of time to myself to like reset emotionally, instead of taking that into the rest of my night, you know, it's like, there needs to be a break between going, going, going, and then the resting period. And so that's been helpful for me too. any other, like, is that what you notice is the interventions to recover from burnout simultaneously become your strategy to prevent burnout? Or are there other things that you suggest people?

Angela Foster (36:29)
Yes, I think it's such a great point. think a lot of them do, and I think they shouldn't just be, yeah, I'm recovering, so I'll do this and then I'll get straight back to where I was, because now you're going back to that cycle. So I absolutely do. I think the thing when we look at it is we need to have stress, right? There's a form of eustress, isn't it, called, because that's what makes us more resilient. So what we're not trying to do, either of us here, right, is to totally discount the stress, because actually, you'll never get stronger if you don't lift the weight, really, so, and that creates stress, but then...

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (36:30)
So.

Yes, yes.

Angela Foster (36:58)
all the muscle has grown in recovery. So I think it's about understanding how do I recover on a daily basis. And some of that is down to your mind. Like as women in particular, I think we have a lot more rumination than men. And so one of the things that I, you know, that I talk with my clients is I have this process at the end of the day is how do we cap off our day? And the cap basically stands for number one, I'm going to celebrate the wins in my day, no matter how small. So if you sat down and had lunch,

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (37:10)
See you.

Angela Foster (37:27)
just by yourself in quiet and you could focus on the food and everything that celebrate that right in the moment, but also in the evening that you managed to carve out that time, anything that went wrong in your day, celebrate the lesson that you learned because that's what's going to inform tomorrow. And we know that we remember peaks and ends. So what we're trying to do here is to create a peak end of day experience because that's then going to carry over into our sleep and the next day.

So we celebrate and then we appreciate, which is slightly different because we're celebrating the goodness and what we did and the lessons, but then we appreciate all the wonderful things that are in our lives, know, our family, our spiritual connection, if we have one, anything can be no matter how big or small. So coming from that place of gratitude and quite often we'll do this as a family around the table, appreciating things. And then the P is how do I prioritize for tomorrow? And it's just getting those one to three things that are important tomorrow.

down on paper because they're out of your head, so they're taking up less space. And it's like, okay, so I'm going to cap off my day on a daily basis. Now you've created an environment where you can wind down this evening because everything's taken care of and you can start to relax. So that's one of the things I do with my clients is just, it takes two or three minutes, that's all, but there's huge benefits and there's loads of science behind gratitude as well.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (38:47)
I love that and I love a good acronym. So I might steal that someday, but I'll give you credit. Thank you. Any other tips that you wanted to share before we wrap up?

Angela Foster (38:51)
Yeah.

No, think that I think I guess the last thing I would say to people is, know, it doesn't matter where you are right now. And, and hopefully, you know, my story will inspire your audience that no matter how burnt out you feel right now and how much it might feel, there's this sense of hopelessness or maybe you're struggling with some health issues or relationship issues. But actually, when you break it down, I think what you and I have been doing is just creating things that are really small that you can just say, yeah, I could

just commit to that one thing, just take something and begin because as soon as you start doing one thing and you get momentum with it, you create a positive feedback loop and now you're more likely to institute more change, right? Over time, no pressure, but you are just more likely to and that's what the research shows. And so I always say, find your domino. Like we have a quiz that your audience can take if they want called Shift. This is a Shift quiz. It's actually for women, it's super women's school.

but it scores you on these areas of shift, which is sleep, hormones, the insights you're tracking, how you feel your body and how you train your body. And then we give you scores in each area. And what you can do is look at your lowest score. And if, example, that's sleep for you, then start doing all the things we've talked about for sleep and nailing those. If it's actually, you know what, I'm not moving enough, you can start with those and that will be the domino that pushes the others down. And if we can link to that, if it's helpful in the show notes, it's completely free. People can take it and just get a snapshot of where they're at.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (40:21)
Yeah, that'd be great if you can send me the links to the Hari monitors and then the quiz we can do that. And can you let people know where they can find you and learn more about you?

Angela Foster (40:30)
Yeah, for sure. I'd love to. So my podcast, which Morgan has been on, really popular episode is High Performance Health. My website is Angela Foster Performance and then angelafosterperformance.com. And then I'm most active, I would say on Instagram, which is over at Angela S. Foster.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (40:47)
Cool, thank you and thank you for making the time to just share your story and your expertise with my audience today. I really appreciate it.

Angela Foster (40:54)
Thank you so much, Morgan. It's been lovely to be here.

Morgan Nolte, PT, DPT (40:58)
We'll cut that off. That was great. Thank you. Why are you done for the day now?

Angela Foster (41:01)
Awesome. My pleasure.

I am going to practice what