As many women do, I have been plagued with feelings of burnout from my job. I picked up this resource hoping to find some pearls of wisdom to help. There were quite a few anecdotes and suggestions that I feel I could apply to my life. I appreciate the science behind these stratgies.

This book provides a comprehensive understanding of burnout, a psychological phenomenon that can manifest in our physical body as symptoms of dysfunction. The author presents scientific information that is easily understandable and science-backed, starting with the brain and working down to the body. The book offers a holistic or functionalist view of the self, breaking down neurotransmitters and their functions. The book discusses how different body parts can aid or inhibit burnout and provides recommendations for nourishing practices, lifestyle changes, diets, and recipes. However, the book seems to be geared towards an upper-class audience, excluding people with mental health disorders and single mothers. Despite this, the book offers valuable insights into how and why we feel burnout and tips for addressing it. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing a free e-copy of the book.

If this is your first time learning about the effects of stress on a human body this is a deep dive into the medical aspects. Nothing new in terms of medical discoveries or treatments, but a great crash course for first timers in easy to understand format. Essential for library shelves.

There is a lot of great info in this book, first I want to start out with what I liked about it then transition into what I didn't.

The Good:

What I like about this book is the author shows that burn out is not just a psychological phenomena, but most definitely also arrives in our physical body as nasty symptoms and is proliferated by dysfunction in the body, lifestyle, diet, etc.

I really appreciate all the scientific information outlined in this book. The information is easy to understand, digestible, and science-backed. The author starts with the brain and works her way down, pointing out all the ways stress impacts our mind and body. She talks about 'the why' and 'the how,' connecting dots along the way so we can see how everything is connected. It's more of a wholistic or functionalist view of the self in that sense, which is always welcomed by me. It's broken down in a way where the average reader can understand what a neurotransmitter is, how it functions, and why it's important and relative without going into unnecessary details.

I'd say the bulk of this book is establishing understanding of how different parts of the body can aid or inhibit burnout, what these pieces of the body do, and how all of that ties into burnout, plus a few recommendations as we go along. Towards the end of the book the author goes into how to fix burnout through nourishing practices, lifestyle changes, diets, offering recipes, and more. The recommendations are well organized and and many of them are do-able for most people.

The Bad:

From the get go I could tell that this book has a clear audience they wanted to reach. It seemed to me to be geared towards an upper class audience. It is pretty clear that the book is addressing folks that are living a 'modern white collar career based life.' Which is fine, but does leave many people out that are struggling with the same issues. I think I would have liked to have seen more inclusive text here because burn out doesn't just happen to people in college and in high stress careers. The everyday single mom, blue collar workers, and people with a variety of mental health disorders can just as easily experience burn out symptoms. With that, I believe some of the diet recommendations may be difficult for readers to attain and maintain without an upper class salary. (So, it makes sense why there is a target audience, but just throwing my thoughts on it out there anyway.)

Conclusion:

I like that I was able to take some of the recommendations and immediately start applying them to my lifestyle.

I'm glad I read this book and I did learn a lot. I may have not liked that the book felt exclusive to those with an upper class salary, but the info and recommendations are still there and they're still worth knowing. I think this book can be valuable tool providing insight into how and why we feel burn out and what to do about it.

I'd like to thank the publisher and Netgalley for the free e-copy of this book. The e-copy was provided to me for a limited time in hopes for an honest review. I was not paid for my voluntary review, rather I just love to read and share my thoughts. Thanks!

Rating: 5 stars

I requested this book to review because my boyfriend is currently having a burnout.

The Burnout Bible is a very helpful guide that gives more information and tells you how to deal with it.

I would highly recommend this book if you want to know more about this topic.

Thank you to Netgalley, Rachel Philpotts and the publisher for providing me with this copy. All opinions are my own.

A really comprehensive guide to burnout. The author includes all the details and it took me longer than usual to read this book, which is a relatively long book. Dietary strategies, exercise and relaxation are just some of the areas she examines for anyone wishing to recover from burnout. Of course the reader would want to consult a doctor before trying out the dietary strategies, exercise or other methods of tackling burnout. For example I found that cherry juice contains high sorbitol content, which does not suit everyone, I could not get the cherry juice recommended by the author, and I don't know if that brand contains high sorbitol content, but decided to try tart cherry juice and I thought I would check it on Google. That is when I found out that most cherry juice contains high sorbitol content, so reluctantly cancelled my order. Otherwise, with the caveat that you see your doctor first, I found this was a brilliant guide to burnout.