S5 Episode 34: Navigating Burnout - Insights from Rachel Philpott

Hello and welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching Inn. I'm your host, Claire Pedrick. And today I'm in conversation with someone who I last saw when we were both wearing blingy dresses at the Business Book Awards in 2024. Before I introduce our lovely guest, just a reminder, do follow or subscribe to The Coaching Inn wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you want to pop a review there, That would make a really big difference.

Our hope for 2025 is to double our listeners and we will do that thanks to you. So share it. All of those good things would be fantastic and I'd be really grateful. We'd all be really grateful. So Rachel Philpotts, welcome to The Coaching Inn. Thank you so much for having me. We do look different, don't we? I've even got yoga pants on that you can't see. Well, yeah, last time we were very glamorous, weren't we? We were, and what a lovely thing it was to spend an evening with you.

I remember many things about that evening very well, particularly how amazing you were with me. No, it was lovely, wasn't it? It was so nice to be sitting on the table of fabulous authors and just smiling and clapping.

And of course, you won, which was amazing. In fact, last night I said to my husband, I'm going on a podcast tomorrow and it's Claire, the one who won the award. Yeah but Rachel the amazing thing was that you'd already won an award hadn't you because you'd won the People's Book Prize. Yes, that's right, the first time author award in honour of Beryl Bainbridge, which was incredible.

So, yeah, just to be sitting there at that award was nice because we didn't actually have a celebration for the People's Book Prize. So the fact that we were then shortlisted for the Business Book Awards and there was a ceremony and we can get dressed up. And I was like, oh, yeah, any excuse to go to London and, you know, have some fun. And it was just such a good night. Yeah, so your book is the Burnout Bible, How to Tackle Fatigue and Emotional Overwhelm Naturally.

And I have my own personal copy, which you gave to me. Lots of coaches talk about burnout. And the way they often talk about burnout is how to talk about burnout in conversation, because they're in the business of having conversations with people. and you've written a body burnout book.

Yes, that's right, because stress is such a physical event and I think we forget that because we often think of stress as only being psychological or emotional, whereas actually, you know, there's behind it, there's a lot of physiology going on in the body and that's what I'm attempting to explain or illuminate in the book and it also to help people understand that their burnout is unique and

you I think when you're in that space you do feel quite alone and I think it's comforting to know that your combination of biochemistry will actually have brought you there potentially in a different way to your neighbour who is also experiencing burnout. Interesting. So what's your journey to be interested in this?

So, yeah, how long have you got, I'll give you the highlights. So I was working in corporate for a number of years. And I enjoyed that job, but in my 30s, I ended up burning out after a culmination of kind of strive, strive, strive, achieve, achieve, climb the corporate ladder and then more, more, more, which is the kind of culture that we find ourselves in. Yeah. And I burnt out in my thirties and it was really recovering from burnout. I actually gave myself a time to really recover.

And it was during that time that I really kind of came back to the things that I intuitively knew that we could, know, we could, the key to health was through what we ate, what we thought, how we lived our lives. And I became really interested. in exploring that further and coming out of my burnout I had this kind of light bulb moment that was don't go back to corporate, leave that behind, go back, retrain and that's exactly what I did.

So I found myself a student again at virtual university in my 30s and I I retrained to become a nutritionist. clinically trained so that I could offer nutritional therapy and functional medicine. And I decided along that journey that I was going to specialize in mental wellbeing and burnout. So that's how I ended up where I am in terms of what I do in my day job. And then the book. I think everybody wants to write a book when they're a kid, right? I think they always say, don't they?

Like, you know, everyone's got a book in them. And I think when I was younger, I thought I was going to write some kind of Nancy Drew-esque, you know, crime novel. And then that kind of, then real life happened and that kind of got parked. And then when I started my business, I operate in, I guess you'd call it like a luxury healthcare space. So not everybody can.

access my services and so I suddenly thought you know what I think if I write a book I can share as much of my knowledge as possible that can be generalized in a book format that's accessible to more people and so that's why I decided to write the book. Sorry if you're gonna ask that question later on, are you asking about my journey? you honestly think I've got a list of questions Rachel?

But yeah, so that's the journey and that's how we ended up sitting next to each other in that lovely room in London. Yeah, so, well I remember because I haven't got any questions written down.

Do you see people online? Yes, so the clinic is all virtual and that again was an accident because of COVID essentially. So I was about to set up, I had a clinic room provisionally, I hadn't signed for it but I had this clinic room in Liverpool on Rodney Street, which is basically the Harley Street of Liverpool compared to London. So I was kind of all ready to go for it. And that was in March 2020. And two weeks after I'd seen that route, we were actually in lockdown.

So I actually put the launch of my business on hold at that point. And like took a step back, let things settle down. And then in July, I launched online, which has actually been. brilliant because as we've expanded and I've got other practitioners working with me and they're based in different parts of the country. So it's allowed me to kind of tap into expert resource that's not necessarily in the same location as me. So yeah, it's working really well.

Plus most of our clients are burnout women that are time poor and they haven't got time to actually visit a clinic allowing for the journey time either side. So the fact that they can hop on. you know, when they're working from home or on their lunch break or before work is actually working really well for them as well. So I think all around it's, it's yeah, been one of the good things that came out of that those lovely couple of years.

Yeah, and of course anyone who's listening to the show, if they think actually I'd really like to have a consultation with Rachel, they can contact you. Yes, exactly. It doesn't matter where you are. We cover the UK and Europe at the moment. Not further, just because it's a little bit more complicated in the health profession, but we can certainly send test kits out to UK and Europe and work in that manner. Amazing. So I'm really interested in what is the extra bit that you bring?

What do you think you bring? Because you've done corporate, you've experienced burnout and you're obviously a really well-trained practitioner. Thank you, that's really kind of you to say. I think that having had that personal experience does allow me to relate a lot easier to those who are going through it because I've been there myself. And I think it like anything you can, there's lots of practitioners out there and other people who'll be working in stress and mental health.

And I think that we're just all unique. I will attract the type of people who resonate with my story because they've been there. And the fact that we've then got testimonials from other clients who've worked with us and seen the benefits. So I think the uniqueness is the combination of that knowledge. There aren't many of us that go the extra mile and do the functional medicine training. It's a slog, Claire. It's almost like seven years of academic training.

By the end of it, I felt like maybe I should have gone into medicine itself because I've done that much work. So yeah, think it's that. think it's that going above and beyond, having that assurance that me and my team have done that extra. We're highly qualified professionals, but we're also human beings that have been there and experienced it. So we are there to kind of offer solutions that are practical and not these kind of ideal things that you...

Ideal solutions that are perfect or that are presented to us so much on social media. We're there to kind of, well, what's actually achievable in this situation. So yeah, we're real and we're not perfect. I've sat next to Rachel, she's real. thank you Claire. Remember when I had that freakout? I know. I can tell you were a bit stressed actually. Lovely listeners.

I had no conviction that we'd win the actual Business Book Award and after we won the Specialist Business Book of the Year, I suddenly realised that we might win the Business Book Award and you'd had to agree to have an interview on the BBC the next day at five o'clock in the morning or some ridiculous time and I realised I had nothing to wear. So I'm going to Rachel, have you got something I can wear? the panic wasn't it?

was like no, like we'd all sort of provisionally said yeah okay we'll get up at half four or whatever it was but none us was actually thinking yeah and then you'd already kind of got that one step closer then you were like no you're going to have put your sparkles on weren't you at like five p.m in the morning Yes. So there was a little bit of a relief to find that we hadn't got it. But even like, isn't it funny because laughter really supports us because I remember laughing with you.

What am I going to wear? And that took a bit of the sting out of it. It was. you can't fail but to feel good can you? Even if you're sitting there like this and someone says smile, smile and then you kind of go, you instantly feel better don't you? It's that change of state which you all kind of know, being in that coaching environment.

But think laughter as well, it's also kind of toning the vagus nerve which is obviously helping us from our parasympathetic nervous system so it's good to laugh, absolutely. Even if it is at our outfits. a good thing to laugh at. Quite a lot of coaches are people who burn out of a previous career. Not all, but there's quite a significant number, I think. What's your advice?

General, I know you can't be specific, but what's your general advice to somebody who's just moving through and beyond burnout in terms of their body? Yeah, I think it depends on what stage you're at.

So you hit the nail on the head in terms of just moving out of it because we often think that... Burnout is often labelled as that end state where you've kind of gone through chronic stress and you've almost fell off the cliff and you can't function anymore. Whereas actually burnout is happening in three stages because we as humans are really great at adapting. So stage one will be kind of that adaptive stage and we're coping.

Stage two will be the stage where we start to notice symptoms, where the body's starting to become a little bit dysregulated because it's going to hang on a minute. Can't cope with this for this amount of time.

And then stage three is that ultimate exhaustion and it's really interesting because in stage one and stage two cortisol levels are actually you know peaking and often being called upon to rise whereas at stage three cortisol levels are often a lot flatter and lower so it depends upon which stage you're at in terms of the advice so obviously in a high cortisol state it's about regulating the nervous system trying to bring that cortisol level down and

Whereas in this stage three, we're not trying to lower cortisol levels, we're almost like needing a bit of a kick. And you can only kind of get that once you've sort of fully rested. So I think if listeners are finding themselves at that total exhaustion stage, then I actually would say, you just need to rest. Don't worry about making any other changes other than just, you know, focus on your recovery. If you're at stage two, we're really in that preventative stage.

And this is where we can start. educate, letting the brain know that we are safe because when cortisol is in play, the body's in survival mode, we think there's threats coming from every angle and it could just be that we've just got deadlines every day but the brain doesn't know the difference between a deadline or a bear outside the cave or what we're putting into our bodies.

So in that situation the brain's not getting the off switch message so it constantly thinks you know threat, threat, threat. So we need to let the brain know that we are not in danger, we're just working and the way to do that is to interrupt that pattern by activating that parasympathetic nervous system, the calm rest and digest state and that only takes five to ten minutes Claire and we often think...

Again because of all this messaging that we receive that we need to go off and spend 90 minutes doing a yoga class or find somewhere quiet and meditate for half an hour and if you've got the time for that and you enjoy that then great absolutely go and do those things but most of us when we're in that frazzled state you know couldn't think of where

on earth we could find 90 minutes and do a yoga class but what I would say to those people is but I'm sure you could find five minutes or even one minute to start off with just sit and breathe count in the breath count out the breath do that you know to the count of five six times and you'll have been breathing consciously for one minute and already

you're starting to regulate the nervous system so if we can find just five minutes in our day maybe at lunchtime when we're taking a break anyway just to calm things down then that's the perfect preventative tool for burnout so in summary prevention stage one and two by interrupting the cycle and at stage three just rest. So a little bit of a reset.

Yeah, it's almost like a little just retraining the brain, once the brain knows the it's that if you constantly drip, drip, drip, drip, the brain just gets so confused because it doesn't get the message that that threat is gone. It thinks it's constantly in survival.

Whereas if you interrupt that cycle and the studies, it's so fascinating when you think that you can offset 24 hours worth of stress with just five minutes of activating that parasympathetic nervous system because your brain knows that you're safe and that helps it to continue to adapt and regulate, which is just incredible. So five minutes to prevent burnout. Yeah, yeah, yeah, crazy, isn't it? the stress as well. Yeah, of course.

you know, if the load, I mean, we kind of think about stress as being, you know, there's, there's controllable and uncontrollable and with controllable, obviously we can delegate, we can ask for help, we can, you know, we can lighten the load where possible. But often, you know, it's the uncontrollable stresses that we, you know, we have to still, you know, we have to still do the food shop, we have to go to work, we have to look after the children, but potentially have to look after parents.

And there's all that stuff going on. that's, they're all, your must-do bucket and if your must-do bucket is becoming large and there isn't anybody to ask for help and it can't be delegated and that's where we need to manage or offset some of that stress by letting the system know that we are safe. You know, I'm glad you mentioned children and parents. And of course, there are people who've got all of the above. yeah.

My dad never rang me when my mum was alive unless she was in an ambulance and she had quite a lot of those episodes. And even after my mum had died, I was still activated when my dad's thing came up on my phone. And in the three years we lived here when he rang me more often, because we lived near him, he never... He never said anything that was an emergency. well. But you still felt like it was... every single time his picture came up on my phone, I could feel.

And then I'd go, no, he probably wants egg cups from Wilkinson's, which is what he did want. But your brain has learned and it remembers, doesn't it? And it's that primitive part of the brain, the fear center, the amygdala that's learned that. that this is something to be fearful of and it's almost triggering. that's, guess, so there is that mindset work, the reframe side of things, obviously the deeper work that makes us a bit more susceptible to stress and burnout.

And again, I talk about that in the book and this probably overlaps with coaching in terms of what you're doing to support your clients. That deeper work can be really helpful from a preventative perspective. But again, if you're really in the depths of burnout, you're probably not receptive to at that point. So it really is about once you've recovered, then working on yourself in terms of what are the things that I've told myself along this way that are maybe perhaps more vulnerable to this.

And you've identified a trigger there and that's first step, right? In terms of an awareness, because we don't even realize some of this sometimes. Yeah, exactly. that's where it becomes a huge thing. So you talked about one step is just interrupt the pattern.

What other simple things are there that people can do? Yeah, so I'm a nutritionist, so I talk a lot about what we're putting into our bodies and how that can actually also be a stressor on the system.

So if you're somebody who's constantly utilizing... takeaways or ready meals etc then that again is also potentially causing stress but when we're in that spin you know it's it's hard because cortisol is also our it works in tandem with insulin to regulate our blood sugar so when cortisol is in play it actually wants us to reach for the most energy intensive food that we can get quickly because again it thinks it's in survival mode so it needs you know energy dense foods now so the

that we live in a world of convenience often means when we're stressed we are going to gravitate more to the things that are actually less helpful for us but that's because our bodies it's just a natural human again it's a hormone thing go and eat this because i need it now to survive whereas ultimately that's then contributing to the stress cycle so how

can we break out of that because we're in it and it's a you know it's hard and i know because i've been there and i find myself there again as well i'm not just like i've not dealt with it once and it's never going to come back So I think we have to just come back to real basics here again if we're thinking about feeling stressed. So I start right at the beginning with simple things like making sure we're hydrated. So I would ask somebody to place a large glass of water by their bed at night.

And then as soon as they wake up in the morning to drink it and that's just adding to their hydration because even a small amount of hydration can increase anxiety. And they've run studies where increasing water can reduce anxiety and also reduce the risk of depression. So water is simple, free, It's not challenging in terms of, I could ask the most stressed person, could you drink an extra glass of water first thing in the morning? And they would say yes. So that's simple. And then, go on.

Yeah, exactly. So it's a pause, isn't it? never been a smoker but I really get why they are. I mean there was a we were watching a TV show last night and there were two women smoking and and you could see them just just taking some space and the cigarette gives so I'm not commending smoky at all but there is something about behavioural aspect of taking a minute and gathering your thoughts. Yeah, exactly. and staring into space.

Yeah, and just having that moment, especially when you wake up because often the first thing, I mean obviously go to the loo if you need to go to the loo, but I would say the first thing that you should do is drink that water and so many of us, the first thing we do when we wake up is reach for our phone or do something that perhaps is more anxiety

inducing, whereas drinking the water is a moment of pause, especially if you've got a large glass, it's going to take you a little while to drink it, but even if you're drinking three glasses of water a day and I say drink one in the morning, you're drinking four glasses so it's automatically increasing your over your load but the timing of it is really important because we're trying to set people up for a good mood day

so the minute they flood the system hydration and minimizing the fact that they're going to wake up and launch into racing thoughts. The other thing then to think about for helping people physiologically is stress is a real energy intensive experience and we burn through a lot of nutrients whilst we're stressed and they are often things like our water soluble vitamins like vitamin C, B vitamins, minerals like magnesium and zinc.

We're using a lot of them so typically when someone is stressed they've got a higher need for those nutrients, but they're also probably less likely to be consuming those nutrients because of what I said before. So, and then thinking how can we get, you know, something really nutrient dense into the system to help these people that's quick and simple and easy.

And often I'll recommend a smoothie with veggies, a little bit of berries, some avocado, just trying to tick the boxes, seeds, leafy greens. And then we're getting vitamin C, B vitamins, magnesium in, into the system and it quickly blended. It takes five minutes. So we're not talking about overhauling the fridge or the store cupboard or creating gourmet meals. We're talking about adding in a smoothie.

replenish some of those nutrients and then you know if you we can once you're feeling better we can then do some of the more creative stuff. Yeah, I love your little bit strategy.

yeah exactly well because we were all, I know when I was burning out that even when I remember when I was at the doctors and I remember like getting really upset and crying and I actually said I know what I need to do but I can't do it so there was that intuitive part of me that knew that like if I looked after myself better I would feel better but I just I was trapped by that point too exhausted to even do it so you need to rest and then little by little

because otherwise you just, if you try to do everything in one go and you go for perfect, then you're setting yourself up and then get guilt then if you don't achieve it. Whereas if you just say, I'm gonna drink a glass of water every day and I'm gonna do that for a week in the morning and then I've achieved it, right, I'm feeling better now. Week two, I'm gonna try and have a smoothie every day and then you're just layering that in. Yeah. So what's good rest, Rachel?

So I'd say that, you know, there's a mixture of things. When you're burnt out, I would say that there's nothing wrong with having a, like, I call them Disney duvet days because I know that there's definitely days when I allow myself, you know, to get under a blanket, put something really easy on, maybe even have a little cry. It's like a really kind of indulgence or rest day. What we don't wanna do is kind of end up in that spiral or we kind of end up like bed rotting, if that makes sense.

definitely when you're exhausted just rest and if you need to do Disney Duvet Day great do it but then if you're in that stage one or two we need to think about active relaxation and ways that we are actually engaged in the process so we're not disappearing off into the Netflix binges, we're actually present while we're relaxing and again that can be breath work, maybe that is some yoga, something where you're actually present in the body and it feels nice and restorative.

Yin yoga is a perfect example of this where you're holding the postures for a longer time but it's floor-based, we're not jumping around.

you know flowing but you're you're actively there in the moment because when you're holding a pigeon pose for four minutes there's it's very unlikely that you're going to be anywhere else other than your body and in that present moment and that is very you know active relaxation so that's yeah I think a nice combination of those things and it's really helpful for my preventative and also as we said before it lets the brain know that you're safe.

I love that you're describing that you're reconnecting your head and your body. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, so because you're there, I think it's like anything, little things. We talked before about breath work and breathing in for five minutes, but even before that, I talked to clients sometimes about standing up and just shaking a bit like a dog does. Like so a dog, know, every time they move around, they shake themselves off to relieve tension and that's an inbuilt mechanism.

They just get up and do it. Whereas we never do that. So I often encourage clients to just stand up and just shake and it feels silly, but like... Again, when you're shaking, you aren't anywhere else other than there in that moment because you're very aware and it makes you more connected with your body. And then you start to notice what's actually happening physically when you're feeling stressed. And I think bringing yourself back in centres yourself.

Same with like shoulder shrug breath where you're breathing in through your nose and... really shrugging your shoulders up to your chest and then, saying it out. We hold an awful lot of tension and stress in our shoulders. So if we just do shoulder shrug breath three times, I mean, that's really simple. We can do that anytime, anywhere throughout the day. And it's just a really nice way of relieving tension. And it is, it's very physical.

So, and because you're bringing yourself back to the body, your mind is not wandering elsewhere. So. can even do a traffic jam. Exactly any of this stuff can be done yeah in that moment you can no one would even know with the shoulder shrug people would know you're doing it but if you were doing your breath count at the desk you could do it your desk and no one would even know you're doing it so you know yeah. So a lot of what you've been saying today is about little and often and prevention.

yes. And being kind to yourself too because you know it's hard. I think I heard the phrase bone out, you don't. I'd say daily in various different contexts. The word is becoming more and more used. So we're all resonating with that. it's almost, we don't want to normalise it, but it's out there and people are experiencing that. And that's why I think we do need to be kind to ourselves. That that's the environment that we find ourselves in.

It's the culture that we find ourselves in, that go, go, go, busy, busy, busy. So we do have to then to unpick that we have to be, you know, low slow, little and often, to you know to otherwise you can't do everything in one go because the environment's not conducive to that. And we can't do everything, can we? Yeah, exactly. We're only human. Exactly. So your beautiful book is The Burnout Bible by Rachel Philpotts. I'll pop it in the show notes and it's just full of fabulous wisdom.

Thank you Claire. be your top three things that you want to say to coaches when they're working with people who may or may not be articulating that they're experiencing burnout? I think I would say to coaches that... Well, first of all, look after yourself because this is the, know, we're all so vulnerable, right? We're all helping people with burnout. And I think the first thing we need to do is make sure that we put ourselves first. So I have this mantra of me first.

So help yourself before helping others. Put your own oxygen mask on first, et cetera, because we can't pour from an empty cup. I think in terms of the advice for coaches, you know, they're already doing great work. They can recognize those limiting beliefs. that are popping up when a client's speaking that may predispose them to burnout. So they're already in a good position to be helping from a mindset perspective. And I think then they can mention some of the things that I said there.

So number one, me first. Number two, listen out for the cues. And number three is just give them simple tips like the hydration or, you know, smoothie. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I've drunk a whole pint of water in this conversation. Mine's almost empty too, although I did start before we spoke. Yes, exactly! Gold star for us. Amazing. But we've still got, you know, it's only Wednesday, we've still got the rest of the week. Yeah indeed, indeed. So Burn Up Bible by Rachel Philpotts.

Lots of information, lovely people in the show notes. Rachel, thank you so much for coming. Thank you for having me, Claire. It's been a pleasure. and yeah in normal clothes. hahahaha Thank you everyone for listening. We'll be back next week with another episode. Bye bye.