Ambitious but out of steam : how I helped my nervous system recover from 2 years of intense chronic stress.

It's something I've had a really hard time sharing, but the last couple of years, there has been a long period where I felt like something was utterly wrong with me.

Some times I wanted to do great things, I had ideas about how I wanted my future to look like and I was excited.

Other times, I was completely lost, no energy, drive nor motivation and it was exhausting just to do simple things. And I didn't know how to get out of this painful cycle.

So, as my ADHD brain often does, I went into a hyper-focused obsession about the nervous system and chronic stress, which also led me later on to facilitate therapeutic groups together with my best friend (also a psychologist) on Stress & Resilience.

What I learnt and experimented fascinated me, and I'm guessing if you're reading this, some of these pieces of advice / knowledge might be beneficial to you too.

Disclaimer :

It is obvious that this blog does not substitute medical advice. It should go without saying that everything that I write is the result of my research and humanly influenced by my personality, values and life experiences, even though I'm trying to stay as objective and scientific as possible. You should always exert your critical mind about everything you read (especially on the internet), do your own research and surround yourself with qualified experts.

Now, where was I?

Oh yeah : I was lost, I just had 2 years of what I now can only call an existential crisis that had been unknowingly launched by a series of emotional bombs exploding in all areas of my life in the span of just a few months (incl. but not limited to a car accident, death of my father, loss of my main job and source of financial stability, hormonal imbalance, massive reactivations of my once forgotten anxious attachment wounds, ADHD diagnosis, consistant plumbing issues in my apartment, a major health-related situation, and an avalanche I fell into. So... chill time.)

My mind was constantly on, trying to find solutions to all the problems, big or small, that were coming my way, and I just couldn't find the switch button to my brain, no matter how hard I tried.

My body was exhausted but I wouldn't really listen to it.

I started becoming more and more anxious, and weary at the same time.

The supplementing phase

Until at some point, I finally decided to go see my doctor (that I hadn't seen in 1,5 years, because, I was not sick and I could do it alone, right?).

She first ran a series of blood / urine / saliva work that confirmed hormonal imbalance and vitamins and minerals deficiency. Even with a decent diet.

Now that I know how much stress taxes your body, it makes so much sense.

So we first started with a cocktail of supplements to rebalance from a physiological point of view.

• Maca Root and Ashwaganda to rebalance my upside-down cortisol curve;

• Vitamin Bs, Extra-strong iron, Vitamin D (hello living in rainy Belgium...);

• DIM and Agnus-Castus for flushing oestrogen and supporting progesterone production;

• Berberine/MCT oil/oregano complex and probiotics to get rid of the excess candida (a type of yeast that feeds on sugar and messes up the gut health when overgrown) and rebalance my gut microbiome

• A plant-complex to help with sleep.

• And the already usual : Omega3, Magnesium, L-Tyrosine to support with ADHD.

  
  

My supplements routine looked like the one of a health fanatic, but the truth is, I don't know why, I didn't mind at all. Actually, I kind of enjoyed it.

And especially : After just a couple of months, I was already seeing great results on my energy levels and my Pre-Menstrual Symptoms were already way under control.

At that time, things started to feel a little better and a little more hopeful on the one hand, but I still had this strange feeling of emptiness.

My daily batteries seemed to be doing better : I could sleep better, would wake up pretty rested, and had less dips of energy during the day.

But my long-term life battery was still running on empty : I had a hard time finding joy, would still worry a lot about the future, felt a lot of shame about my apparently (from the outside) stagnant situation and I would still find myself being incredibly weary at times.

"You need a real break"

During the next check-up with my doctor, we talked about everything, including the big professional redirection I was taking (to completely leave the corporate world and finally accept my calling was to be a psychologist. But wait, don't you need energy for that?).

She looked at me and said : "I think you need a real break. You went through a lot for a long time. You look exhausted. Don't underestimate how stressful these events were on your nervous system. Even good change is stressful, and you've had close to no stability for the last 2 years. I'll write you a medical certificate so that you can properly rest before you dive into all these new projects."

On the one hand, I felt truly seen and I needed to hear a medical professional say that I couldn't go on like this, because deep down, I knew she was right. But on the other hand, it was the last thing I wanted to hear, because somehow it meant I was failing.

Worse : it meant that I was a failure.

And then I started crying from exhaustion, and we both knew I was going to accept the damn certificate.

It was uncomfortable. I told only a few people I felt wouldn't judge me. To my surprise, they all said they agreed with my doctor and they were happy to know I would finally rest and recharge.

It was uncomfortable, but it was necessary. And looking back, I'm so happy I finally listened to my doctor.

So I took the "rest and recharge" agenda very seriously.

For a whole month, I pretty much did nothing else than sleep, read, walk and spend time doing "mindful nothing".

✔︎ Ignored all requests I didn't have the energy to meet.

✔︎ Saw only a few people that I knew would really make me feel good.

✔︎ Read the Harry Potter saga again

✔︎ Played board games.

✔︎ Painted watercolors.

✔︎ Did jigzaw puzzles.

✔︎ Drank lots of detox herbal tea.

✔︎ Did a few rounds of gentle squats while waiting for my water to boil.

✔︎ Kept walking every day for at least an hour (even when the weather was crap).

✔︎ Focused on my pre-sleep routine (especially dimming the lights after sunset).

✔︎ Journaled every day.

✔︎ Burst into dance parties in the middle of the living room.

✔︎ Oh, and also, I was staying at my Mom's at that time, so I gratefully let her take care of feeding me delicious food.

✘ No emails.

✘ Deleted all social media apps from my phone.

✘ No thinking about the future.

✘ No reading psychology books.

✘ No intense workouts.

✘ No cold showers (turns out, they were increasing my stress response and making my symptoms worse!)

Months later, I look back and I'm really glad I took it all so seriously, because it really made a huge difference.

After only 1month, I was already feeling better, incorporating more stuff into my day-to-day, having much more energy in general and a much brighter outlook on life too, and I could feel that I was also slowly more resistant again to the daily stressors of life.

Learnings and take backs

So, now that I'm feeling like myself again (a different version, but still), here is what I believe has helped tremendously :

1. The medical check-up

I mean, I know symptoms are an alarm bell from your body. It's such a basic concept, especially as a psychologist. And yet, I couldn't connect the dots for myself.

It took me months to go seek medical help (that's not exactly true, but it's another story).

There's a reason we need all these vitamins and minerals, and it's because the body can't properly function without them.

And if you're feeling chronically stressed, ask for the 5x saliva cortisol test.

2. A proper break

   
   

Now, not everyone needs to stop everything for as long as I did. It completely depends on the state of your nervous system.

But I was chronically stressed for over 2 years and intensely so for 1,5 year, and that has a toll on your body that you just can't ignore.

If you feel that you need a break, listen to your body.

If you have symptoms of chronic stress, don't take them lightly. Remember that the body is a very well adjusted machine to face stress. So if it starts showing symptoms of malfunction, it means something is seriously off.

3. Cutting off screen time

   
   

Unfortunately, we don't need another study to be reminded that spending more than a few hours in front of a screen is detrimental for our health.

Plus, the way that our nervous system reacts to screens is very similar to how it reacts to danger (among other things, the way our eyes narrow when looking at a screen).

So if your nervous system is struggling, that's definitely not going to help.

And I can hear you already : as for everything, it's the dosage that matters. Yes, absolutely.

Problem : our favorite screen-related past-times built their business model based on their ability to keep our attention and they're very good at it.

True, watching a series for an hour or checking social media for 15min is not a problem, but I noticed that the state of my nervous system didn't help my willpower.

And I didn't want to be regularly asking myself "where the hell has the day gone by" because I had been caught on a doomscrolling loop that was not helping me with the general goal of that period of break.

So I decided to go radical, and I haven't regretted it at all.

Of course I did watch movies or a series once in a while, but at a very low dose. It was kind of hard the first couple of days, just long enough to find other, more fulfilling things to do, and then my body started to thank me and I didn't think about it anymore.

4. Learning to mindfully do nothing

OK, this was truly an amazing experience, but one that I had to implement gradually, because my brain first created quite a bit of resistance against it.

Fortunately, I had started the habit of going on my daily walks without distractions.

It eased into the process.

At first, I started with 10min where I would just put my phone in my pocket and just focus on my walk. Slowly, I increased the time until I'd manage to do a whole 1h walk without any external sollicitation.

And little by little, I'd add this mindfulness practice into more quiet activities.

I'd move a comfortable chair in front of the window to look at the garden, take my cup of tea, put a warm fuzzy blanket over me and spend hours looking at the birds and the branches of the trees while my cat was purring onto my laps.

I would just observe, let my thoughts wander, not have any objective.

If you're interested, I was inspired to start this practice by listening to psychiatrist Dr Alok Kanojia talking about the benefits of doing nothing on emotional processing and the impact of being constantly solicited (even in positive ways) on mental health.

Great episode (as usual) of Diary of a CEO : "The Brain Rot Doctor : We're all getting more narcissistic" (Sept 2024)

5. Learning about my nervous system

   
   

Seriously, it's such an important part of our body that drives so much of our life, and we know nothing about. I mean, I remember studying it during my Bachelor in Psychology I believe, but only the basics of it.

Learning how it works, what's healthy and not, what influences it in a positive or negative way (even the small things, cause they add up like a lasagna, without even realising) is truly transformative and that knowledge now feeds a lot of my decisions too.

For instance, a super simple thing I started to pay attention to was to make sure I'd cover myself well enough when I would go out because being cold would add stress to my system. And on a healthy nervous system, that might not be a problem, but in the state I was, I just didn't want to add "temperature" on the list of my stress factors. Simple, and yet...

So, multiple layers of clothes, warm boots, and hot showers only for a while.

Another thing I learnt was the hierarchy of hormones and how they influence each other and that was mind-blowing for me.

Understanding that oxytocin (the hormone of love and trust) is the queen of hormone and that it helps rebalance everything else (cortisol, insulin, oestrogen, progesterone) really helped me put things into perspective.

Being single, I realised that I was deprived of this natural resilience booster. So I started formally asking my friends for long hugs when I felt low, to help co-regulate and get a hit of oxytocin in my veins.

(If you want to know more about that, check out Dr Mindy Pelz, she's incredibly insightful)

6. Unshaming

   
   

Last but absolutely not least, I did a lot of work on shame.

Because my situation seemed like it was lasting forever (according to I don't know what totally biased societally-induced criteria), I started feeling a lot of shame.

For not being able to "get over it" and "push through like I used to".

For not having it all "figured out at my age".

For failing where others seemed to be succeeding (on the surface at least).

And that was adding some very intense layer of stress to an already stressful situation.

Then I heard Brené Brown take about it (a US researcher known for her extensive work on shame, if you don't know her yet, please go and look her up, she's absolutely brilliant and one of my all-time intellectual crushes).

She said that "the antidote to shame is normalisation".

Read this again. It's important.

The antidote to shame is normalisation.

Keep shame hidden and it will only grow bigger. Talk about it openly to people who can hold space for difficult emotions and who won't reject you for it, and it will shrink.

And that's what I did.

I told 2 of my most trusted friends about it. I started small, with something not too uncomfortable.

I'd start by saying "I need to tell you something, I realised I'm carrying a lot of shame about XYZ" (a situation I reacted poorly about, a feeling of being inadequate about something, a feeling of failing at something...) and I'd talk about it in more details.

Often, just talking about it and saying it out loud was already helpful.

And because these 2 persons are also highly emotionally mature, they were able to hold space for my shame and other linked emotions, without trying to change it.

They'd reply by saying "oh yes, I understand why that would be difficult" and would often tell me about their own feeling of shame around the same topics.

Incredibly freeing.

Amazingly powerful.

Wonderfully desensitising.

And oh-so empowering.

And the impact on our relationships? You can't even imagine.

It's like these confessions (and the fact that we were welcomed and accepted through them) spread a warm loving balm on this inner voice that so often fears being rejected.

It felt like someone truly accepts us for who we are, light and shadow, easy or hard. Priceless. And incredibly healing.

Highly, highly recommend.

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OK, that's certainly not the end of my story, but I'll stop here.

I hope it sparked something in you if you needed to feel inspired or to feel less alone in your struggles.

Voilà,

Bisous 😘