7 Physical Signs Mummy Burnout Is a Problem

Mothering can be a hard gig – especially when you’re juggling household responsibilities, work & your own personal life. Exhaustion has become the norm for many juggling Mums. But feeling exhausted ALL the time is NOT normal.

I remember pre-kids I could push my body to the limits. I was completing a Ph.D. at the time, as well as working as a lecturer & tutor at Macquarie University. I was staying up late meeting work deadlines, eating poor quality foods, and I hardly had any ‘relaxation’ time. My ‘chill-out’ time involved high-intensity workouts 6 days a week, sometimes twice a day!

Looking back, I could see signs that I was burning myself out, but those physical signs only seemed minor, and not enough for me to be concerned about at the time. So, I just kept grinding my way through life.

It wasn’t until I had my two babies, and the added stressors that come along with it (pregnancy, traumatic birth, physical trauma, breastfeeding, sleepless nights, and the emotional rollercoaster of becoming a new mum, while also trying to juggle work), that I felt full-blown burnout, both at a physical and mental level.

Burnout: All Too Common Among Working Mothers

My story is an all too common story, especially among Mums juggling household, businesses, work & personal life. So many Mums say the same thing as what I did – I was ‘fine’ before I had kids, now I feel like I can’t handle anything!

Research shows that working mothers are very susceptible to ‘burnout’. While it is more commonly known that 1 out of 5 mothers’ develop postnatal depression in the first 2 years after childbirth, more recent data reveals that mothers juggling work and home-life, face prolonged pressures that can lead to burnout, regardless of a child’s age – https://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/articles/2015/release/mental-health-link-to-work-life-balance

What Is Burnout?

So what exactly is burnout? Metaphorically, you could say you have been burning the candle at both ends too intensely, for too long. Burnout often happens when there are too many stressors, including emotional stressors (like juggling demands of working & mothering, relationship issues, past trauma), physical stressors (like poor diet, too much or too little exercise), pain (like muscular-skeletal pain, headaches, or gut pain), and hidden inflammation (like nasty pathogens in the gut, or a body full of toxins).

All of these stressors will burn you out, and more specifically, burn your body systems out – your neuroendocrine system, your gastrointestinal system, and your detoxification system. As a Functional Medicine Practitioner, I conduct functional lab tests to assess if/which body systems have burned out due to prolonged stressors. The more imbalanced these body systems become, the more it causes physical symptoms, and also mental-emotional burnout, which can cause further stress and further burnout.

7 Physical Signs of Burnout

Now there are many physical, emotional, mental, and even spiritual signs of mummy burnout, but in this article, I want to focus on the 7 most common physical signs of burnout, and ones that I personally experienced after having babies. These physical signs are big warning signals from your body, telling you that one or more of your body systems are stressed out and need support (before you crumble in an exhausted and overwhelmed mess!).

FATIGUE – And not just the usual feeling tired at night after a long day of work and mothering. I’m talking about struggling to get out of bed in the morning, needing (or wanting) to nap throughout the day, the 3 pm slump, or feeling so exhausted in the evening that you want to fall asleep at 7 pm.
MOOD DISORDERS – Things like anger, snappiness & irritability (I call this the Dragon Mum!), or full-blown anxiety or depression. While these signs show up as a ‘mental-emotional issue, 95% of the time these mood disorders arise because of a physical body system imbalance.
WEIGHT ISSUES – No matter how hard you try, you just can’t budge that belly fat! The usual dieting and exercise that used to work to lose weight, just aren’t working anymore. This is a big sign that your metabolic system is out-of-whack.
HORMONE IMBALANCES – You know what I’m talking about: PMS (sugar cravings, emotional, fatigue, acne), irregular cycle, and painful, heavy periods. This is also something that conventional wisdom says is ‘’ But I’m here to tell you: PMS and the like is NOT normal and it is a sign that your body/mind is under stress.
LOW IMMUNITY – The kids are bringing all the bugs home from daycare/school, and you pick up every one of them! If you’re constantly catching colds, flu or developing infections (i.e. chest, sinus, vaginal, or gut infections), this is a strong sign your immune system is struggling and that you need to treat your body with some TLC.
GUT ISSUES – Mums don’t usually connect gut issues to burnout, but it is a very common sign I see as a clinician. Symptoms like bloating, heartburn, cramping, diarrhoea, or constipation often flare up when Mum is under stress.
POOR EXERCISE RECOVERY – You don’t understand why you can’t exercise like you used to! Even doing pilates is a struggle, and you feel muscle soreness for days. Poor exercise recovery (and muscle/joint pain in general) is a sure sign that you’ve been going too hard, and you need to find some balance. Feeling exhausted – rather than energised – after exercise is also a sign of burnout

What Can You Do About Burnout?

My motto is always: Test, don’t guess! If you are struggling with any of these physical burnout signs (and especially if they aren’t getting better with the usual rest or holidays), you need to work out what body systems have burned out, as these are very often the cause of your symptoms. This is a very important piece in my own healing, and I how I got on top of my own burnout.

In functional medicine, we do this with specialised lab testing which tests the stress & sex hormones using saliva, the mitochondria, the brain, and the detoxification pathways using urine, and the gut using stool or breath specimens. These tests go beyond what your GP would usually test for, and often uncover some pretty nasty imbalances when even all your GP tests have come back as ‘fine.’

Once you understand what body systems are out-of-whack and you begin to support these systems with natural medicines, you then need to identify and treat the root cause of the body system burnout. Often the underlying causes are mental-emotional, environmental, relationship, or lifestyle-related, but they can also sometimes be genetic or the fact that you picked up a nasty parasite on an overseas trip a few years ago.

Summary

Let me repeat – feeling exhausted and irritable and PMS-y and the like may be common in many working mums, but it is not normal! Your body is very intelligent, and these physical signs are your body’s way of telling you to slow down and make a change. I believe that every mum can have a vibrant, healthy body AND still be productive and successful. It’s all about finding balance and healing anybody systems that may have burned out over the years, as well as overcoming any root causes that could prevent your recovery.

If you’re a working mum and struggling with burnout, I’ve created a free scorecard that rates your level of burnout, and where the root-causes lie for you. You can take the scorecard here – https://chrisandfillyfm.scoreapp.com/

Filipa Bellette is Co-Founder of multi award-winning health practice Chris & Filly Functional Medicine – and author of Ending Body Burnout. She is an accredited Clinical Nutritionist, Functional Medicine Practitioner, Coach & Trauma Therapist. She is also a PhD Scholar & regularly featured in the media, such as nine.com.au, Forbes and Body+Soul. Together with her husband Chris Bellette, Filipa has worked with over 2,000+ burned-out clients in the past combined 25+ years. Their practice is best known for ending body burnout (for good!) in “busy” people with energy, mood & gut issues, with their ROOT-root-cause approach. They were awarded as the Tasmanian State Winner & National Finalist for the Telstra Best of Business Awards 2022, as well as Winner for the Australian Women’s Small Business Champion Awards 2022. Filipa’s own passion for helping “busy” people have more energy, productivity and connection, came from her own personal experience of body burnout, after juggling the demands of business, family, and her failing health.