What Is The Difference Between Burnout and Chronic Fatigue?
The difference between burnout and chronic fatigue syndrome, how to know which one you might have and how to manage both of them.
In the last article I wrote about a documentary about chronic fatigue syndrome called Unrest and what new realizations it brought about my own burnout condition.
If you haven’t checked it yet, here the link to it:
In this article I’m going to talk about the difference between burnout and chronic fatigue syndrome, how to know which one you might have and how to manage both of them.
What is Myalgic Encephalomyelitis or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), medically called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), is a long-term condition with a wide range of symptoms: the most common is extreme tiredness and fatigue.
CFS can affect anyone, including children, but is the most common in women and tends to develop in the mid-20s and mid-40s.
Due to lack of funding and research, we don’t know much about the condition, so consequently the syndrome is very poorly understood and thus not taken very seriously by doctors, physicians and other medical practitioners.
Causes of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Due to this lack of research, we also don’t know what are the reasons why one develops CFS and what are the cures for it.
Based on individual testimonies, we can connect the dots and make some assumptions.
Immune System
One of the most common causes of CFS is a weakened immune system.
Based on individual testimonies, the most common starting point of CFS is after flu-like or other viral or bacterial infections, which damage the immune system: a lot of people develop CFS after they get sick with a virus infection.
Since the immune system functioning in people who suffer from CFS is so low that it can’t fight infections, people are stuck with CFS and can’t recover for years or they don’t recover at all.
That a weakened immune system is one of the root causes of the disease could be partly confirmed by the fact that some patients experience improvement after being prescribed antiviral drugs — such as Valcyte — which help prevent the spread of infection in the body and strengthen the immune system (source).
Based on literature and anecdotes, some of the causes for CFS could also be:
- hormonal imbalance,
- energy exertional: spending and giving away too much energy for too long,
- prolonged and chronic exposure to stress,
- genetic predisposition: CFS seems to run and be common in some families,
- toxic mold exposure.
The Difference Between Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Burnout
Although Burnout and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome can be very alike conditions with similar symptoms, there’s a difference between the two.
Here are some of the differences between burnout and chronic fatigue syndrome that I discovered during my research.
1. The Spectrum of Fatigue
Like I wrote in my article Is Burnout Real or Not?, we can view Burnout and CFS on the spectrum of the same condition.
Although burnout and CFS are very alike in symptoms, they differ in stage of severity.
Acute Burnout, a single acute episode of burnout, is the first stage on the spectrum with “milder” symptoms. Iff it’s not treated correctly, acute burnout can overtime become Chronic Burnout, a chronic medical condition or what I call a “chronic injury”.
Further along the spectrum of fatigue, we have an extreme versions of burnout — an extreme version of adrenal fatigue and HPA Axis Dysregulation -, Addison’s disease, Hashimoto’s autoimmune disease and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
The further we move down the spectrum, the worse the symptoms are and the harder it is to recover from the condition.
2. Causes behind the conditions and affected areas in the body
Like I mentioned above, it seems that the primary cause behind CFS is low immunity, on the other hand the root cause of burnout is mostly prolonged chronic stress.
Due to these different causes and origins of both diseases, there’s a difference in how both diseases and conditions affect the body.
CFS affects mostly the immune system and energy production at the cellular level and in mitochondria, that is responsible to fight off injections, keep us healthy and provide us energy.
On the other hand, burnout affects the adrenal glands and HPA axis which are responsible for production of stress and other hormones in the body.
3. Impact on Mental Health
Both CFS and Burnout have a strong impact on mental health.
Like I talked in my previous articles, burnout usually affects both our body — our physical health — and our mind and emotional health. Physical symptoms — general fatigue, sleep problems and insomnia, headaches, heart palpitations, etc. — are accompanied by problems with mental health: loss of motivation, problems with concentration and inability to do mental work, sense of failure and self-doubt, decreased satisfaction and sense of accomplishment, fear, anxiety, melancholy and even depression.
What makes burnout a very difficult and tough condition are physical problems combined with the mental and emotional ones.
Physical symptoms and problems negatively affect our mental, emotional and spiritual health, which further worsen our own general health.
It’s the same with CFS: deliberating fatigue and inability to do anything — literally — can have a huge toll on the mental health, which worsen the physical symptoms and condition.
4. Burnout is curable, CFS in most cases isn’t
Generally, burnout can be overcomed. In most cases people recover fully from burnout and come out on the other side better and stronger: a lot of people report that their burnout has helped them gain and learn new insight about themselves and their life and has helped them become a better version of themselves.
In some cases — after a longer and more intense episode or after multiple episodes — burnout become chronic and can leave some long-term consequences and negatively affect a part of our daily lives.
On the other hand, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome mostly isn’t curable, at least not fully and completely.
CFS is like autoimmune disease: it’s sleeping and hibernating below the surface waiting to be triggered. As with many autoimmune diseases, they are not 100% curable and reversible, but they can be very well managed and we can reduce the amount of “flare-ups” that are caused by it.
How To Manage the Symptoms of Burnout and CFS?
Here are a few simple ways how we can limit, reduce and manage symptoms of burnout and chronic fatigue syndrome.
1.Strengthen your body with strength-based and cardiovascular exercise
The stronger our body will be, the easier it will be for us to control the conditions and bear the burdens of life and have a better chance of recovering from them.
2. Support your immune system and its functioning:
Focus on good quality sleep, do some deep healing meditation and naps, support your gut health, choose some supplements to help support your immune system: glutamine, zinc, vit D, BPC-157, probiotics, turmeric,…
3.Support your adrenal glands
Get enough rest, reduce stress, eat good quality food, regulate your blood sugar, add more quality sea salt, and choose some supplements to help support your adrenals (B vitamins, vit.C, adaptogens,…).
4.Adjust your lifestyle and work
Work on lowering the stress, become aware and reduce the amount of energy you spend and give away, add and engage in more activities that give you energy and fill you up.
5.Destress regularly
Take time completely off, Engage in parasympathetic activities only (chill, read, go for an easy walk), Cut down the caffeine, Release tension from your body (deep stretching, yoga, shaking and dancing and deep meditation), Do some breathwork (Wim Hof method, DMT breathing), deep, meaningful conversations, Journaling.
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Love and take care of yourself, forget about worries and enjoy life!
~ Jani
