Burnout

Increasingly we find more people are experiencing burnout. So many of us experience pressures from work demands, providing and caring for family members, helping others with their problems and it can become too much, and chronic.

This makes us ill more frequently, exhausted, we lose sleep, suffer gastrointestinal discomfort, experience headaches and muscle pain. As well as feeling stress, anxiety, or depression, some will experience hopelessness, apathy, anger and struggle to enjoy things we used to love. The psychological and physical toll cannot be overstated. Our bodies remain in a state of of ‘fight or flight’, the sympathetic nervous system is dialled up - this is the exact same response we evolved to run away from bears so it’s there to protect us, but there are no bears and there is no threat to life, and our bodies cannot differentiate life-threatening dangers from serious psychological pressures. So we get sick.

The parasympathetic ying to the sympathetic yang however, sees the body calming down into what’s called the ‘rest and digest’ state. Here the breathing slows, blood pressure lowers and the body returns to the important business of rejuvenating the immune system, digesting food and recovering.

This is exactly why it’s commonplace for stomachs to rumble during a massage, the parasympathetic nervous system takes over up during a massage. Massage can provide much needed relief from the symptoms associated with burnout.