Burnout to Breakthrough

More than half a million of us are suffering from work-related stress, running ourselves into the ground as we strive to have it all. So what happens when you hit burnout? This was my story...

There was the routine visit to the dentist where he mentioned that I grind my teeth badly. And then there was the time I burst into tears while unloading the dishwasher. I knew I was stressed, but it turns out there’s a fine line between living a demanding life and slowly burning out. The World Health Organisation recognised “burnout syndrome” as a legitimate medical concern, adding it to the International Classification of Diseases list back in 2020.

Burnout isn’t just everyday stress, nor is it depression or anxiety. Burnout is all-consuming; it is sacrificing tiny, seemingly insignificant pieces of yourself, your sleep and your time, until it feels as if you’re drowning.

Ten years ago I was the beauty director at one of the biggest weekly magazines in the UK. I loved and lived for my job. A career promotion coincided with returning from maternity leave and I was determined motherhood would not become the full-stop on the end of my CV. For four days a week, I’d flit between meetings with beauty-brand CEOs, mentally conceptualising the weekly pages while shooting, writing and travelling internationally – all before downing tools at 4.59pm to run for the train and collect my two-year-old son from nursery. I’d fall through the door at 6.01pm to see his face crumple as they vacuumed up around him. My Fridays, intended to be time spent with him, were filled with work I couldn’t squeeze into my four “career” days, and my evenings bled into the early hours developing the idea for This Is Mothership. “Cumulative work stress is a big contributor towards burnout, but the first signs often emerge at home,” psychotherapist Jessica Henley tells me. It’s true. I may have looked as if I was aceing it on the job front, but at home we ate cereal for dinner at least once a week because I’d forgotten to do the online shop; I skipped pages of my son’s bedtime story to hurry back to my emails, and my to-do list was out of control. It felt as if I’d been blindfolded after 10 espressos and put in a tumble dryer. I was exhausted yet wired, bad tempered, anxious and always in a rush. My thoughts were scattered around my head like a deck of playing cards and I couldn’t sleep. Despite my bone-deep exhaustion, I would wake at 2am thinking about work dilemmas and email myself notes in case I’d forgotten by morning. But it wasn’t until I had my adrenals tested for a feature I was working on that I realised something was very wrong.

Holistic GP and hormone specialist Dr Sohère Roked tested my hormone levels via four saliva swabs, taken at intervals during a regular working day. She called me after hours with the results; it sounded serious. “Your cortisol levels are abnormally high all day, spiking when you wake up, and again around 4pm. If your cortisol and adrenaline levels remain this high, you will burn out within two years.” These spikes of adrenaline are good in a sample sale but bad when they don’t subside. Roked sees many women in her clinic suffering from what’s being described as adrenal fatigue or “city syndrome” – a stress-induced state in which your adrenal glands (the two walnut-size ones sitting atop your kidneys) are on constant high alert. When called upon to exert the fight-or-flight response over and over, these adrenal glands simply accommodate by switching to “low battery mode” until they have a chance to fully recover. This is when you burn out. As well as the usual symptoms (moodiness, exhaustion, over-caffeinating), there are less obvious ones: headaches, muscle pain, indigestion, inability to conceive (something that I was trying – and failing – to do) and allergy flare-ups.

About to Blow? How to Calm Yourself Down

If you find yourself in a classic ‘about to blow’ scenario, take a moment and think about ‘who’ you are being in that moment.

‘Are you who you want to be when you shout at your kids because you need peace after a hectic day? Are you who you want to be when you put your mum on speakerphone and ignore her with an intermittent “yeah” because you’ve had a bad day? Are you who you want to be when you bring low energy into a room with your partner because you’re living out of alignment, but you can’t bring yourself to talk? All of these people are getting the worst version of you,’ explains Charlotte Silver, life coach and mentor (and my sister-in-law). ‘Generically speaking, everyone – no matter their background, race, religion, social status or finances – is able to make some minor well-being changes in their lives,’ she continues. ‘And the smallest of changes can be life-changing to those who are living in a state of constant bubbling under the surface, like a fuse ready to blow.’

According to a 2023 study conducted by Sanctuary Spa, women get only seventeen minutes of ‘me time’ a day. To some, even that may sound like a lot. To others, it’s laughable. It’s less time than an episode of Friends. Is it any wonder we’re turning into an army of zombies?

‘We swallow life; we say we’re fine when in fact we aren’t,’ explains facialist Anastasia Achilleos, whose words will ring true for many. ‘We’re so unconnected to ourselves that we don’t even know it.’

Following the pandemic, during which we were forced to forgo the spas and salons as a place to relax, a new breed of beauty products emerged that promised to do more, healing us from within our own bathroom walls.

Beware of marketing hype. Although largely well-intentioned, the term “self-care” has unfortunately been overly commodified and commercialised since its inception around ten years ago and, as such, has lost all meaning. “Self-care” is now synonymous withcheap, throwaway beauty culture: bath bombs, panda eye masks and hashtags, most of which are highly wasteful. Beyond that, it’s also infused with notions of being frivolous, superfluous, and a bit silly. I absolutely refute that. If anyone could benefit from “self- care”, it’s the over-achieving, thirty-something, working mother.’

My breakthrough…

For me; something had to give. I had worked painfully hard to climb to the top of my industry but this was a wake-up call. Despite having it pummelled into me from a young age that women could do it all, it turned out that I couldn’t. My husband and I discussed finances. If I resigned it would mean we’d both be self-employed. Was that risky? It would also mean forgoing a hefty maternity pay if I fell pregnant again. We went backwards and forwards over the course of a month, and I made the mental decision to resign eight weeks before I physically did it. A week after I handed in my notice, I found out I was pregnant.

As we emerge from the slowness of January and enter that re-born, Spring period, my advice to anyone feeling this sense of chaos is that rather than leaning in, it is often more beneficial to lean out. Reframing “how” and “why” I work was the key to my recovery from burnout.

I have an issue with the wellness industry and the way that it’s commercialised our need to slow down. Even finding calm costs you these days. If well-being practices are supposed to help us to be well, then they really shouldn’t be an extra source of stress and expense for us.

Beauty Breakthrough; Products That Worked For Me

Aveda Chakra 1 Balancing Body Mist Grounded, £30

This was the scent of the offices at Stylist, a busy, bustling, weekly magazine with tight deadlines. At least daily, when dealing with a particularly stressful scenario, someone would shout, ‘Get out the Chakra spray!’, and we’d all spritz with wild abandon. The blend of pure essential oils is linked to the root chakra in Ayurveda, an Indian form of healing medicine that brings good energy.

ESPA Restful Bath Milk, £18

Another product I relied on heavily when working in a high-pressure environment, this was created to inspire the same sense of tranquillity found post-yoga, with scents of lavender and eucalyptus to calm and soothe plus research-backed herbal remedies Valerian (calms the nervous system) and adaptogen Ashwagandha (regulates the body’s stress response). Add a capful to running water and breathe.

Beauty Pie Goodie Two Chews Zen O’Clock Calming Gummies, £10:

Vegan, chewable daily supplements blended with chamomile, L-theanine and vitamin B6. These help support the nervous system, and reduce tiredness and fatigue. Take two a day.

NEOM SOS Calming Pen, £17

Cramped commute? Long meeting? Looming deadline? Try an on-the-go scent solution. The ritual of rolling this on to wrists is as good a calming factor as the soothing scent.

Spacemasks, £22 for five sets

A self-heating eye mask that releases tension around your eyes and temples, and really does help you relax. Bonus points; you can’t look at your phone/reply to emails/do housework while wearing it – it’s forced relaxation. Zone out.

Bed of Nails Accupressure Mat, £70

Eastern wisdom meets Scandinavian modernity in this acupressure mat, which has more than 8,800 non-toxic plastic spikes. The spikes work in a similar way to acupuncture needles, helping release endorphins (the body’s own ‘happiness’ drug) and oxytocin, to help you stay calm and relaxed. From soothing sleeplessness and easing stress to alleviating aches and pains, the spikes help the body rid itself of toxins, increase blood flow and help you get a heavenly night’s sleep.

@fireflyformula Gua Sha and Face Yoga

If you find that you hold a lot of tension in your jaw, grind your teeth at night or suffer from tension headaches, you might want to try gua sha. Carelle Rose (@fireflyformula) offers a monthly online tutorial for £30 a month, but her Instagram page is packed with easy tutorials you can do at home, and her before-and-after images of facial structures are mind-blowing.

Jo Malone London Pomegranate Noir, from £28

This is the ultimate candle to cosy up with. Sometimes just the act of lighting a candle and watching the flame flicker is enough to distract you from what’s whirring around your brain. To me, lighting a candle after I close my laptop at the end of the day is a signal: ‘the evening is now yours’. The ‘me time’ can begin. When we gaze at a flickering flame, the brain begins to shift out of the beta brainwave state, which is associated with thinking and alertness, and into the alpha brainwave state, which corresponds to a relaxed and creative state of mind.

Fraîcheur Ice Globes, £15

Twitchy eyes are often a sign of being over-screened and over-stressed. The relief that comes from rolling a set of these over your eyes, cold from the fridge, is incomparable. Not only do they de-puff (soothing after a night of broken sleep or a crying session), but they also help boost circulation, giving skin a glow.