Speaker_00 – 00:00
I completely agree.
I think a lot of what’s talked about is for burnout recovery is just all the stress management things which is like the band-aid but we’re not actually fixing the rushing wound that’s underneath that if we’re not addressing the contributing factors.
So I have heard a little bit about adrenal fatigue and I was working with a functional medicine physician and that was helping me with that but why don’t you explain a little bit more about what that is for the people that wouldn’t know.
Hi, I’m Avery Thatcher, a former ICU nurse, and this is not your standard stress management podcast where we just focus on those band-aid solutions like the benefits of meditation, mindfulness, and self-care.
You already know that you need some kind of recovery strategy to deal with your stressful life.
But what you may not know are all of the sneaky ways that society, our upbringing, and our high achieving nature, and so many other factors contribute to our risk of burnout.
That, my friend, is what we talk about here on this podcast because you can’t do something about a situation that you’re not aware of, right?

Avery– 01:03
So if you’re ready to get out of the pattern of burning out, feeling better, only to burn out again, it’s time for us to shut the light on the truth about burnout.
I am very excited to bring on my guest today because Laura has a really interesting story to share and I know it’ll be one that a lot of us can relate to in different stages.
So welcome, Laura.
Happy to have you here.

Laura – 01:29
So glad to be here.
Thank you for having me here.

Avery– 01:32
Yes, course.
I just think it’s so wonderful when people are willing to share their story because, you know, our story can become somebody else’s survival guide and I think that’s just such an important piece of our human experience, so thank you.

Laura – 01:46
Absolutely.

Avery– 01:48
So why don’t you tell us a little bit about you and when you first identified as a high achiever?

Laura – 01:54
I think I’ve been a high achiever my whole life and it just snowballs so I was I’m a physician and I was in my own practice and I had two younger kids and it was just blowing and going everyone was busy my kids were in their own activities they were doing you know soccer and Piano, ice skating
and then I had my life of working full-time I’d literally drop them off at school and I’d run to work and then run back and pick them up and then all the festivities began.
I think I was living out of the back of my car is what I always said because I had soccer chairs and I had you know coolers and dinner was kind of whatever we drove by that was close and so you hate to even admit that now but it’s like yeah you know how it goes.
And over time that just kept, you know, I just kept thinking, well, I can do it all.
You know, I’m, I’m not that busy.
And they’d ask you to do something at school.
Sure.

Laura – 02:54
I can do that.
So, you know, here’s another added, added stressor and another added thing that you had to accomplish.
And so over time it really started wearing, you know, wearing me out and I was really getting tired and, and I’d come home.
I was just exhausted all the time.
It was irritable.
My cycles got really all messed up.
I started kind of losing words and my kids would be saying mom we told you that and I couldn’t even remember the conversation.

Laura – 03:22
I named it word inversions I would be thinking something and something else would come out and I go oh wait that’s not what I meant to say and it really just It just kept getting worse.
So that’s kind of when I first started realizing that hey there’s really something wrong but I didn’t recognize it as burnout.
I thought there was something physically wrong with me and so you just kept plugging away.

Avery– 03:52
Yeah.
And that’s really common.
When I talk with people and they’re just like, oh, I don’t think I’m burned out.
And then we start to go through some of the signs and symptoms and then they’re like, oh, okay, so maybe.
And it sounds like that’s kind of where you were at is you were seeing all of some of these cardinal burnout red flags, but we didn’t admit that it was burnout, didn’t know it was burnout and you were still looking for something else so that you could keep going at the pace that you were.
Is that fair?

Laura – 04:22
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I even went to my doctor and I said, you know, I’m starting to wonder if this is stress.
Oh, what do you have to be stressed about?
You’re fine.
Oh, okay.
Well, maybe I am fine.

Laura – 04:35
So you just plug away and keep going another year and then suddenly you’re really starting to crash and really feeling terrible.
And that’s when there was one particular event that happened that really shook me up so much that I had taken my kids to school, run to work.
And it was a little different day, the schedule had changed a little bit.
Got off work, you know, jumped in my car and I had put a sticky note on my dashboard that morning.
I didn’t even remember putting the sticky note there on my dashboard though.
And the sticky note said, pick up the kids.
And I went, oh my goodness, I’m having to leave a sticky note to make sure I haven’t forgotten to pick up the kids because their schedule changed.

Laura – 05:23
And it was just enough of a difference.
I was so worried that I would forget to go pick them up at the different time.
And that’s when I was like okay this has got to stop.
I mean I was in my 30s.
It should not have been that much.
So I really started doing a deep dive into my health and you know traditional medicine was not creating answers.
All my lab work was normal.

Laura – 05:48
And I wasn’t getting anywhere and so that’s when I started looking even deeper into things and found functional medicine and that’s when I recognized that the adrenals, the adrenal burnout, adrenal stress was absolutely real.
And when I started addressing that, that’s when lightbulbs started coming back on.
I felt like I was in more control of my life.
And I had to do a lot of work though.
It wasn’t easy because you really have to stop and look at what’s creating that.
And you have to make some changes, even though you don’t want to, but you have to make some changes.

Avery– 06:25
I completely agree.
I think a lot of what’s talked about is for burnout recovery is just all the stress management things, which is like the band-aid, but we’re not actually fixing the rushing wound that’s underneath that if we’re not addressing the contributing factors.
I have heard a little bit about adrenal fatigue and I was working with a functional medicine physician and that was helping me with that, but why don’t you explain a little bit more about what that is for the people that wouldn’t know.

Laura – 06:53
So adrenal fatigue, you know, first off, you know, traditional medicine doesn’t even recognize that term and it’s not like the adrenals are like tired and need to take a nap.
I think it’s just more of a term of a concept of when you are in a fight or flight mode all the time.
The adrenal glands are the stress gland.
They are the ones that producing all the hormones that are getting you through that fight-or-flight mode.
And there are several stages of the adrenals that are kind of leading to burnout and depending on where you are and how long the stress has been going on it really kind of looks a little different all you know all along those paths.
So when we’re really talking about adrenal fatigue We’re looking at a kind of constellation of symptoms that are you know basically if everything else is normal and you’re so tired and you’re having trouble struggling and you’re anxious and you can’t get through the day especially having like
afternoon fatigue which is a hallmark of adrenal fatigue then you really need to start thinking about oh I wonder if stress is creating a bigger problem that could be adrenal fatigue.

Avery– 08:05
Great answer, love it.
So if somebody was interested in exploring that and wanted to talk to somebody to see if they had adrenal fatigue, what would you recommend they do if their traditional medicine doesn’t cover that?

Laura – 08:18
So the traditional labs you know everything’s done in blood work will miss adrenal fatigue now you can pick up adrenal failure in blood work okay and so to look at and rule out adrenal failure you’ll get you know a lab like ACTH which is the signal that says hey let’s go to the To the adrenal glands
and help them make cortisol.
You can check your cortisol level and then there is a marker called DHEA and they use the one sulfate so it’s DHEAS.
Those are the blood markers that you can you can do for adrenals.
They miss adrenal fatigue though so you really have to just have that suspicion that it’s there.
The salivary test that you can get and there’s actually some labs around that you can actually order them directly.
But taking it four times through the day first thing in the morning you know right before lunch mid-afternoon and bedtime those will actually kind of flush out adrenal fatigue with a lot more accuracy and what you’re looking for is that gentle ski slope but very often with adrenal fatigue You might

Laura – 09:21
start out okay at the top and then you crash and it’s just like you fell off the mountain or you’re just dragging all day long and they’re really low or sometimes when you really get dysregulation you’ll be low and then you spike high at night and then of course now you’re awake and you have trouble
sleeping so going that extra step of looking at the cortisol levels can really make all the difference.
And even if you can’t do that sometimes there are just there’s some questionnaires that you can do that will kind of rat you out because it really puts it in your face of yeah I have been burning the candle at both ends and those can help too.

Avery– 10:01
Awesome, thank you for those and we’ll link to some of those things in the show notes as well.
You said that you started to apply some things to help with your adrenal fatigue.
So can you share a little bit more about that and other things that you helped get yourself out of that burnout phase?

Laura – 10:18
So it was multifactorial.
It was literally not just one thing.
Um, one of the things that I did, I sat down one day and I just wrote out everything that I was doing that caused me stress.
And then I categorized them of what can I get rid of?
What can I delegate and what do I have to do and how can I reframe it?
So I really put kind of a little you know column type of thing and it became very important to really look at those And it was a really hard exercise because there were people’s names on that list, you know, so-called friends that caused me stress.
And you had to really evaluate those relationships of, you know, what’s happening here and, you know, family members that cause you stress and you’re not getting rid of family members.

Laura – 11:11
So how can you change the perception?
How can you set a better boundary?
What can you do?
And boundaries became very, very important and they were very difficult.
And I used to actually picture there was an old commercial I forget what Visa company it was or you know it’s like one of those loan companies or something that It would actually you know there would be a phone call and then they would say oh can you do this and they would hit this button go no and
so I had to visualize myself saying no because I was always saying yes I can help them that yes I can do this and I realized that yes I’m very capable and I can do a lot of things but that doesn’t mean I have to.
And so I really had to learn how to say no and just keep that space open for what I really wanted to do.

Laura – 12:01
And I honestly think that was probably the most important thing I did.
Now I also did quite a few very targeted supplements.
Once I realized that I was dealing with adrenal fatigue I checked the salivary levels.
I actually looked at the neurotransmitters which is a urine test that you can do and I started taking targeted supplements to really try to plug in those deficiencies And that made a difference too.
So between the two of those things.
That really started getting me on the right path and then it kind of snowballed so then you know suddenly I was feeling a little bit better so then I could exercise more and then I started you know really getting excited about what I was doing so it led me down a path that I never even saw coming
and it didn’t take long to get it reversed but without really doing that deep dive into making the shifts then I would have never really accomplished that.

Avery– 12:57
Oh, that’s perfect.
Yes.
So the process that you described about like writing down everything and categorizing it and the delegating and creating the space and boundaries.
It’s exactly what we do in the first two weeks of the recovery program because it’s so important to do that.
Just to look at all the sources of stress and say like, okay, let’s get a plan of attack here.
And also, what can I let go of versus what do I need to manage?
And that’s just so valuable.

Avery– 13:25
And I’m really glad that you shared that because it’s fine that I say, hey, you should do this.
But when somebody else says, it was really impactful for me.
It makes it easier for somebody that’s resisting to follow through.
And so as you’re rebalancing your high achiever, what are some things that you can catch earlier when your high achiever starts to ascend you back down into that adrenal fatigue burnout kind of space?

Laura – 13:52
I think what I’ve learned over the years is to watch for those little telltale signs of suddenly maybe you’re not sleeping as well or you’re feeling a little bit more anxious or You feel like you can’t get everything done.
Those are those little tip-offs that hey there’s a lot going on and what I’ve learned is that there’s seasons of life that are going to be like that.
I mean there just really is and it’s not about oh don’t be stressed it’s about how do you Perceive the stress.
How do you handle the stress?
Because stress will be there.
And so some of the things that I’ve really watched is that when I find myself kind of slipping into that I really almost do like a little mini checklist of okay what am I doing?
What’s you know eating my time?

Laura – 14:44
What can I let go of?
What can I pause?
And that use that word pause in that very often I will be doing something that I don’t have to do right then And so it’s about okay I’m gonna pause that I’m gonna get through this season whatever that season looks like and then I’ll pick it back up and I have to give myself permission to do that and
the grace to do that because I think we as overachievers you feel like you that you can do it all and you just really can’t and I always tell my patients if you don’t take care of yourself how can you take care of somebody else and so I keep trying to you know come back with that and then I also
recognize when I’m really starting to slip Is when I’m really letting go of my boundaries and you know things are starting to encroach a little bit more so I have to step back and go okay let’s set that boundary again and let’s just figure out okay why do I have space for what do I not and it’s not
being mean you’re not being you know I’m not a good friend you’re just recognizing your own space and then actually when you do that you’re better You are a better spouse, you are a better friend, you are a better everything and that became a very important part so I always reach for that too.

Avery– 15:57
Beautiful said and I think as high achievers it’s kind of scary to step into something like that because if you truly have that belief like hey I can do it all then you’re just like okay maybe I can’t that’s now accepting that you’re a human being and it’s really we have to trust that we’ll be able
to figure it out as we go because once we start to see the impact of those decisions That it’s really hard to want to go back to the way things were when you can see how much more impactful you are.

Multiple speakers – 16:29
Oh, absolutely.

Laura – 16:32
Absolutely.

Avery– 16:34
So tell us a little bit, Laura, about what you’re doing now.
How has this all pivoted and changed things for you?

Laura – 16:40
So when, when I was in my thirties and all this was happening, I really started looking for answers and you, you know, you’d go to the library and back when, when you went to the library, now you look online.
But you I found I was finding more and more things about you know I would take this supplement and take this supplement and you know eventually you had a list of 50 things and you’re like I don’t know what I need to take and I literally stumbled upon this functional medicine society called
Anti-Aging and Functional Medicine Society.
And I was like, wow, I don’t know anything about that.
I need anti-aging.
And so I really started investigating that, went to one of their conferences and I walked out and I was like, wow, that was a life game changer because it was looking at the underlying cause of disease versus just slapping a bandaid on it versus just giving a medication.
While medications are important, that was not the only answer.

Laura – 17:37
And so I started kind of really looking at these conferences As a way to help myself and when I started feeling better all my friends were like, what are you taking?
We need what you’re taking.
I was like, well, I don’t know if you need what I need.
Let’s see what you need.
So I started testing them and next thing you know, I was testing their neighbors.
And the next thing you know, I was testing their neighbors’ friends.
And suddenly I had a full business out of the back room of my house.

Laura – 18:03
And that friend of mine said, okay, you’ve got to open a practice.
I was like, I was an ophthalmologist.
I was like, I don’t need to open a practice.
I already have a practice.
I’m an ophthalmologist.
And you know, long story short, No, God just kind of keeps driving you in the pathway you’re supposed to be and next thing you know I was I opened a practice of functional medicine practice I had one room no staff that was 17 and a half years ago and I’ve been practicing functional medicine ever
since now I do it exclusively and I have I don’t know how many I’ve got nine staff I think and it’s been such an amazing journey and To really do the deep dive and look for the underlying cause because I just see you know basically my story over and over and over in so many different ways and

Laura – 18:52
sometimes it’s a lot worse sometimes it’s not as bad I just know that people feel off and they come in and they go well I think it’s my hormones well there are some hormones involved but it’s not always the hormones they think there are and so it’s been such a rewarding journey Oh that’s wonderful

Avery– 19:10
to hear.
So if people want to learn a little bit more about you or check out some of those resources that you have, where would they find you?

Laura – 19:17
Well I’m on the internet so we have a website and so you can check it out there.
We have a course that really basically just tries to Put the tools in your hands on how you can actually look at your own lab work because just because it’s a normal range doesn’t mean it’s optimal range and so there’s a thyroid course that’s kind of a carved out course and then there’s a
full course it’s a do-it-yourself thing it’s do at your own pace Basically has almost 100 handouts and I walk you through this is how you read a thyroid lab, this is how you read a b12 lab, things that you can make some actionable steps and there’s some things that are obviously a little bit more
complicated that you’re not going to be able to just treat yourself but just having the awareness that there actually could be a problem really can get you to go find the people that you need to get the help.
So it’s not a let me fix it kind of course it’s let me figure out the underlying problem And so that way you can ask the right questions.

Avery– 20:21
Beautiful.
So I’ll link to it in the show notes, but can you just quickly share what your website is so that somebody listening can quickly type it into their phone?

Laura – 20:29
So you can do, uh, you can put in Dr. Laura Myles and it’s D-I-N-G with just D-R and that would usually get it.

Multiple speakers – 20:37
Sometimes Laura Myles MD, um, will also come up.

Avery– 20:40
Beautiful, beautiful.
So thank you again for sharing your experiences and your knowledge and just having this open conversation.
I’m really grateful.
If you would leave the person listening with one final message, what would you want it to be?

Laura – 20:56
Gosh, there’s so many.
There’s so many lessons, aren’t there?
There are.
I think one final message is that You don’t have to do it all.
And it’s okay to ask for help.
It’s okay to say no and take care of yourself.
It’s not being selfish, it’s being self-sustaining.

Avery– 21:24
Ooh, I love that term.
Definitely going to be a quote for the episode for sure.
Thank you so much, Laura.
I’m just so grateful for your time.

Laura – 21:34
Well, I am so honored to be here.
Thank you so much for doing what you’re doing.
This is such a huge area and I know that just addressing this is really making some life changes in the people you touch.
Thank you.

Avery– 21:51
Hold please.
I know that these end-of-podcast blurbs are generally really repetitive and only say, make sure you’re subscribed.
But this isn’t like that.
Today I have a little habit challenge for you.
Before you sit down to do your next work block, I encourage you to take five slow deep breaths for five seconds on the inhale and five seconds on the exhale.
Doing this helps us turn off our stress switch which then regains access to our higher level thinking brain which is something that we talk about in the free course that’s included in the productivity partner app which helps you design your pre-work ritual.
And inside that productivity partner app, each day there’s a mini habit challenge where I take 60 seconds to explain something like this that you can do in your day to become even more effective and impactful as a high achiever.

Avery– 22:43
You can try it for one week for free by going to thetruthaboutburnout.com.
Give nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Go give it a try.