The Data Behind Burnout: Cortisol, Gut Health & Why Your Nervous System is Sabotaging You ft. Jessica Van Antoine
Listen on Apple Podcasts / Listen on Spotify
You’re Not Lazy. You’re Not “Bad at Rest.” You Might Be Running on a Degraded Battery.
You’ve tried the things you’re “supposed” to try.
You set boundaries. You bought the planner. You made the Notion dashboard. You added a wind-down routine. You even got serious about self-care: yoga, meditation, magnesium, sleepytime tea, early bedtime.
And somehow you still feel like you’re operating at 60–70% capacity.
Not “tragically falling apart”… but not good. Not sharp. Not clear. Not resilient. Not the version of you who can build the business you know you’re capable of.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: sometimes the problem is not your mindset, your work ethic, or your calendar.
Sometimes the problem is physical.
In a recent Burnout-Proof Podcast conversation with functional health practitioner Jessica Van Antoine (Phoenix Functional Health), we went deep into the data behind burnout: cortisol patterns, gut dysfunction, food sensitivities, mineral imbalances, and why “more self-care” can become a band-aid when your physiology is screaming for something more specific.
This post breaks down the key takeaways and gives you a practical next step: how to stop guessing and start getting the data.
The Relatable Truth: You Can Be “Doing Everything Right” and Still Be Burning Out
High achievers love optimization.
We will A/B test an email subject line like it is life or death. We will obsess over conversion rates, watch time, and click-throughs. We will tweak our content systems, our sales scripts, and our workflows until they run like a machine.
Then we treat our bodies like an afterthought.
Jessica said something that should honestly be printed and taped above every entrepreneur’s desk:
Your body is your business’s most important asset. If you do not function, your business does not function.
And yet most people wait until the wheels fall off to pay attention. That is like ignoring the “check engine” light until smoke is pouring out of the hood.
Even worse, many high achievers genuinely believe they are fine because they are still functioning. But there is a huge difference between:
“I’m fine.”
and
“I feel phenomenal.”
If you have normalized brain fog, irritability, low motivation, poor sleep, and needing caffeine to be a human, you are not fine. You are coping. You are white-knuckling it through a nervous system that is working overtime.
And a lot of the time, the body is sending signals… but you are moving too fast to hear them.
Stillness matters here. Not because meditation is magic, but because when you slow down, you stop outrunning the data your body has been trying to hand you.
Real Solutions: The 4 Data-Driven Tests That Can Explain Burnout (and What They’re Telling You)
This is where the conversation gets spicy in the best way, because it pulls burnout out of the vague “maybe you need better morning routines” territory and into tangible, actionable information.
1. Food Sensitivity Testing: When “Healthy” Foods Are Secretly Fueling Inflammation
Jessica’s gateway into functional testing was a food sensitivities test. She thought she was eating well: salads, yogurt, tea, lemon water, “good” choices.
Then the results came back… and a bunch of the foods she was eating daily showed up as reactive.
That matters because it can be a clue that your gut lining is compromised.
Here is the simplified version: your digestive tract is essentially a tube running through you. The boundary between what is “inside you” and what is “outside you” is extremely thin. In an ideal world, that barrier stays intact and does its job.
But modern life comes with an onslaught your body did not evolve for: chemicals, stress, ultra-processed food, environmental toxins, and chronic nervous system activation.
When that gut barrier gets “leaky,” partially digested food particles can slip into the bloodstream and trigger immune responses. The result is often acquired food sensitivities and inflammation.
And inflammation is not just “bloating.”
Inflammation can look like:
joint pain
brain fog
mood changes
irritability
a short fuse
road rage you swear is a personality trait
Jessica shared that when she reduced her reactive foods, her inflammation dropped and her irritability improved. Even her patience while driving shifted.
If that makes you feel called out, good. It is information, not a moral indictment.
Also important nuance: food sensitivities are not the same as food allergies. Allergies tend to be immediate and severe. Sensitivities can show up hours or even days later, which is why guessing is such a mess.
And no, it is not necessarily a life sentence. If the sensitivities are acquired (often related to gut integrity), there can be a path back—Jessica shared that leaky gut healing can take roughly six to 24 months depending on the person and protocol.
2. GI-MAP (Stool Testing): The Gut-Brain Connection Is Not a Vibe. It’s Biology.
The GI-MAP is a stool test that looks at the microbiome and potential pathogens.
Why should a burnout-prone entrepreneur care?
Because your gut influences:
nutrient absorption (vitamins and minerals you need for energy)
inflammation
cravings (including sugar cravings)
mood
sleep quality
Jessica described it like this: we evolved alongside bacteria for millennia. Our brains respond to what is happening in the gut. If “bad actors” are present, your system can still react—even if you are doing all the surface-level “sleep hygiene” things.
So if you are the person who says, “I do magnesium, a wind-down routine, and my room is cold… and I still sleep like garbage,” it might not be your routine. It might be biology.
Quick note on parasites because the internet is feral: parasites can show up on testing and sometimes need targeted protocols. But trendy “everyone do a parasite cleanse” content without data is often just expensive theater. If you want to be data-driven, test first.
3. HTMA (Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis): Stress Burns Through Minerals Faster Than You Think
This one is wildly underrated in entrepreneur circles.
HTMA looks at mineral balance using a hair sample. Minerals drive core functions in the body, including the electrolyte minerals many people are chronically depleted in under stress:
sodium
potassium
magnesium
calcium
Jessica shared that chronic stress can burn through these resources quickly, which affects metabolism, adrenal function, digestion, and more.
This test can also include markers that show how close someone may be to burnout.
And yes, it is slightly funny (and extremely human) that a burnout expert ran a burnout-related test and got results that basically said, “Hey bestie, you are not immune.”
But that is the point: the goal is not being immune. The goal is catching the drift early and correcting it before you crash.
4. The DUTCH Test: Cortisol Patterns and Hormone Chaos, Mapped
This is the test most directly tied to burnout in the way people think about it.
The DUTCH test measures cortisol patterns and sex hormones (plus metabolites), giving insight into how your body is handling stress over time.
Here is the key mindset shift Jessica explained beautifully:
Cortisol is not the villain. Cortisol helps you wake up and interface with the world.
In an ideal pattern, cortisol rises in the morning and gradually lowers into the evening as melatonin rises to support sleep.
But chronic stress can push the system into overproduction for too long, and eventually the body cannot keep up at the same level. Performance declines.
Jessica used an analogy that nails it: like a batter who starts strong in batting practice, then gets fatigued and starts missing. The system can only swing hard for so long before it breaks down.
She also explained why hormone symptoms often show up alongside burnout: cortisol, estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone share foundational resources. When cortisol demand stays high, other hormone pathways can suffer.
This is how you end up with symptoms like:
low motivation
anxiety
depression
sleep issues
weight changes
mood instability
Again: not a character flaw. A physiological pattern worth understanding.
Transformation Vision: What Changes When You Stop Guessing and Start Testing
When you have the right data, you stop doing random wellness roulette.
You stop buying supplement after supplement like you are throwing darts blindfolded.
You stop telling yourself, “I must just need more discipline,” when the real issue is that your body has been operating under survival physiology for too long.
And the business impact is not small.
Operating at 70% capacity means:
you make more mistakes
you drop balls
delivery feels heavier than it should
creativity feels sluggish
your sales calls feel flat
your content feels harder to create
your nervous system becomes the bottleneck
When you rebuild capacity, everything gets cleaner. You show up sharp. You make better decisions. You work faster with less friction. You feel resilient instead of brittle.
That is not just “self-care.”
That is strategy.
If You’re Stuck at 70%, Do This Next
If this post is hitting a little too close to home, here is your next step:
Stop guessing.
Get the data.
And while you are doing that, make sure your business is not actively manufacturing stress for you on the operational side.
If your systems are chaotic, your nervous system never gets to come down.
Start here:
If you want the deeper, full-body, full-business approach to building a burnout-proof business, explore Burnout-Proof Business: https://www.coachellyn.com/bpb
Because yes, your body needs support. And your business needs to stop acting like a cortisol factory.
If you are ready to build something that scales without sacrificing your health, your relationships, or your peace, this is your sign: get the data, then build the systems that protect it.
About Jessica Van Antoine
Most entrepreneurs are running at 60–70% of their true capacity - and saying they "feel fine." But when your energy, clarity, and resilience aren’t fully online, your business feels it: in slower decisions, diluted delivery, and missed revenue.
Jessica Van Antoine has been an expert in the health and wellness industry since 2009 in a variety of roles: massage therapist, yoga, meditation and breathwork instructor, and has owned her own wellness retreat company.
Now, as a functional health practitioner, she help growth-driven women uncover and resolve the hidden health issues that silently cap their income and client impact. Through lab testing and strategic coaching, she creates a personalized plan that aligns your physical performance with your business ambition - so you can serve better, earn more, and scale without self-sacrifice.
Follow Jessica: Website | Instagram | LinkedIn
Do you have anything to add?
Drop a comment below…
RELATED POSTS:
Transcript:
Ellyn Schinke (00:01.392) Jessica, welcome to the Burnout Proof Podcast. I'm so excited to have you.
Jessica Van Antoine (00:04.866) Thanks, Ellen. So excited to be here.
Ellyn Schinke (00:07.576) You are like only the I would say the second person who I've had on who like innately does burnout. So I'm really excited to pick your brain, especially with your background. So let's actually even just start there. Give us a little bit of like a high level overview of who is Jessica? How did she get into doing the work she does?
Jessica Van Antoine (00:28.002) Yeah, good question. I haven't asked myself the same thing. Exactly. So I've been in the health and wellness industry since 2009 in a variety of different roles. I started out as a massage therapist. I then kind of evolved into teaching, massage therapy, yoga, breath work, meditation, Qigong.
Ellyn Schinke (00:30.448) Who am I?
Jessica Van Antoine (00:50.55) So always approaching health and wellness from this like nervous system standpoint, essentially, recognizing that stress is the biggest driver for every major disease out there. Yeah. So, so, I've had a long career learning a lot of different skills and I had my own burnout experience in 2012. So I was working 90 hours a week as the director of business development for a wellness center. Yeah. This means like.
Ellyn Schinke (00:56.368) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (01:02.66) Thanks.
Ellyn Schinke (01:15.93) Jessica Van Antoine (01:19.464) I mean, if you do the calculations, 90 hours is like working until 1 a.m. and then getting up at 6 a.m. and doing it all over again the next day. I was...
Ellyn Schinke (01:27.804) Oh wow, okay, thank you for breaking that down actually, because I hear 90 hours and I'm just like, yeah, that's a lot. But like when you actually break it down, like what that looks like day to day, that's insane. Oh my God. But yeah, yeah. And considering if you're sleeping enough, and I know if you're sleeping enough is a massive qualifier, you're maybe awake for 16 or 17 hours every day.
Jessica Van Antoine (01:35.776) Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, maybe not quite that much. It's 13 hours a day, right? 13 hours a day for seven days, like no days off.
Jessica Van Antoine (01:50.774) Right, right, exactly. Yeah, and that was not, I mean, I certainly wasn't sleeping enough. You you still have other life stuff to do outside of the 13 hours, but it was ironic because, know, here I am like helping a wellness center scale and grow and being in the health and wellness industry myself, I completely lost track of all of my self care and in fact, like slid into...
Ellyn Schinke (01:59.108) Yeah. Yeah.
Jessica Van Antoine (02:16.212) really unhealthy habits. And I don't like to admit this, but I actually took up smoking so that I could get outside and have an excuse to like take a break from the computer for five minutes, even though I was inhaling toxic air. Luckily, I don't have an addictive personality in that regard. So it was super easy for me to quit when I decided to. But I was also, you know,
Ellyn Schinke (02:27.13) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (02:37.802) relying on caffeine to make it through every day and then winding down with like wine and beer at night. and then no, exercise, no self care. So I had this burnout breakdown episode in public at work. was triggered by something in a meeting, something that my boss said when I was, and I was like, my God, warned you about this. I told you that we should address this. And then we've got to the exact place where
Ellyn Schinke (02:43.253) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (03:06.176) we could have avoided had he followed my advice and I like something shattered inside me and I had to excuse myself from the meeting, go to my office, curl up at a wall on the floor, underneath my desk and just ugly cry. And that was when I like, knew things needed to change. And of course being in the wellness industry, I thought, I just need to do more yoga, get a massage, meditate more, like reintroduce some of these self care practices back into my life.
And while those, they helped ease some of the stress, but I was still struggling through my days, like brain fog, fatigue, anxiety. And it wasn't until I discovered functional lab testing that I actually learned that there were physical imbalances that were preventing me A from really fully recovering from burnout and B from for showing up at a hundred percent every single day. I was giving a hundred percent.
Ellyn Schinke (04:00.87) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (04:03.668) of my capacity, but my capacity was only like 60 or 70. It's like that cell phone battery, you know, when your cell phone gets like old and now it like charges to a hundred percent quote, quote, right. But it's only the capacity of the battery is only 70 % or whatever. That's where I was at. And, and that's where so many entrepreneurs operate from. So I eventually,
Ellyn Schinke (04:13.072) Ooh, great analogy.
Ellyn Schinke (04:25.466) Yeah. It's like why white knuckling it just does not work because you're white knuckling it through your degraded battery. Yeah.
Jessica Van Antoine (04:33.89) Right. Exactly. So I eventually evolved, you know, through all of the roles that I played in the health and wellness industry, and then added functional lab testing to, you know, my training so that I can now do that with other people. And I specifically work with female entrepreneurs because I am one and that's the way my mind works. And I'm so passionate about building businesses. And I believe that our bodies are.
Ellyn Schinke (04:46.492) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (04:59.214) part of the business strategy, right? The health optimization is essential for business growth, for scaling, for again, operating at that 100%, where we all want to be. And that will help drive business growth and help you accomplish your dreams, you know?
Ellyn Schinke (05:11.686) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (05:18.031) I really appreciate the vulnerability too of you sharing some of the things that you were doing that you weren't proud of that were a part of your burnout experience. I I think it's very relatable too because I'm sure there are people who are listening to this because I have a very split audience. That's why I always feel very torn in creating my offers. have like, I'm probably 40 % corporate, 60 % entrepreneurs in terms of how my audience actually breaks down.
Jessica Van Antoine (05:26.126) All
Jessica Van Antoine (05:43.266) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (05:46.512) And I've done a lot of speaking to healthcare, whether it is, one of my very first paid speaking engagements was with the Canadian Association of Critical Care Nurses. There's a lot of healthcare people in here. And I feel like what you just said about your experience is so resonant with healthcare workers. I should be, should, hate that word, should be a model of health to my patients. And I'm not.
Jessica Van Antoine (06:11.906) Right. Right. Right.
Ellyn Schinke (06:14.958) I'm a literally started smoking to as an almost like an escape from my day. I think that is so resonant for healthcare workers, but frankly for anybody because how many of us get into vices and what things that are ultimately numbing behaviors because we're trying to create an escape for ourselves. So I really appreciate that. really, know like those are parts of our journeys that we're not exactly proud of.
Jessica Van Antoine (06:19.222) Yes, absolutely.
Jessica Van Antoine (06:32.024) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (06:35.702) Mm-hmm. Yeah. So many people.
Jessica Van Antoine (06:44.086) Yeah, exactly.
Ellyn Schinke (06:44.134) but I really appreciate your shares. And I really appreciate the lens that you come from. I think the thing that's so exciting for me about, I feel like the scarcity part of my brain used to be really scared of talking to people who did work that was very similar to mine, you know, for fear that somebody was gonna come in and be like, I like her more, you know? But I'm starting to realize we have such distinct ways that we go about doing things that would be so needed by everybody.
Jessica Van Antoine (06:56.898) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (07:01.845) yeah, no.
Jessica Van Antoine (07:09.324) Yeah.
Jessica Van Antoine (07:13.304) complimentary.
Ellyn Schinke (07:13.478) but also like we've complimentary, right? I am so excited to hear about these tests, these different imbalances and triggers and whatnot that are creating burnout because this is a part of this whole thing that I'm vaguely know about, but I also don't like tactically understand. like selfishly, I'm really excited to start learning about these. So what was like the first, cause I'm sure there was like a kind of a domino that like.
Jessica Van Antoine (07:32.674) Right. Right.
Ellyn Schinke (07:40.688) toppled the rest in terms of you started to get into like, shit, this is really cool. This is really helpful. What was kind of that first test that you, that functional test that you learned about or that first imbalance that kind of triggered this whole thing for you.
Jessica Van Antoine (07:54.177) Yeah, great question. Because I have, know, being in the health and wellness industry, I
Ellyn Schinke (08:00.796) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (08:02.176) Live a fairly healthy lifestyle. eat well, I exercise, I meditate, I make sure I get time outside. so I was doing all the right things, right? From the outside, but I knew that there was something missing that I, you know, again, that I was operating at that 70 % capacity, that there was more that I could be giving. Like I could have more clarity. I could sleep better. I could not be so irritable. so.
Ellyn Schinke (08:12.646) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (08:25.627) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (08:27.886) One of the first things that really lit me up was actually a food sensitivities test because again, I thought it's amazing because I thought I was eating healthy, right? I was having like salads every day for lunch and I've been gluten free since 2010. I don't eat a whole lot of dairy. Sugar was definitely, you know, an addiction for me. I'd have ice cream every night.
Ellyn Schinke (08:35.676) I've wanted to do one of these for years. Okay, I'm excited.
Ellyn Schinke (08:51.452) I have such a sweet tooth, it's such a problem.
Jessica Van Antoine (08:55.992) So I got the food sensitivity test results back and it turns out like all these things that I was eating every single day that I thought were healthy, yogurt, sweetened with maple syrup. So it's not the, you know, chemical sweetener from the store with raspberries and granola. I was sensitive to oats, raspberries, maple syrup, yogurt. I was drinking tea instead of coffee because I thought it was healthier, reactive to tea, lemon in my water, reactive to lemon.
Ellyn Schinke (09:24.262) Shut up.
Jessica Van Antoine (09:25.28) chicken, carrots, cauliflower, beets, like all these things.
Ellyn Schinke (09:29.884) Okay, I wanna tell you though, this like I'm intrigued, but I'm also like, I almost, I've literally said this to people before. I think I haven't done a food sensitivity test because part of me is just like ignorance is bliss. Like I don't wanna know that I have all of these intolerances. So I'm already thinking that and I wanted to plant that seed as you tell this story because I'm like, don't tell me.
Jessica Van Antoine (09:46.071) Right. Yeah. So here's the thing. Right. I know. And giving up those things, mean, eggs, I was reactive to eggs and I would have eggs every single day, but here's the thing. I feel like that's such a chat GPT thing to say. Here's the thing.
Ellyn Schinke (10:05.072) People like write on chat, chpT for emojis too. And I'm like, no, I legit use emojis very similarly to how chat chpT does. So I like it cause it's on brand for me. But anyways, I digress, continue.
Jessica Van Antoine (10:09.862) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Total aside there. the fact that all of these things that I was eating every single day came back as reactive also gave me further insight into the health of my small intestine of my gut, essentially. and I don't want to get like too much into the science of it, but basically you're the
The outside of our bodies runs all the way through our bodies, like a tunnel. Think about like a tunnel through a mountain, right? You're not in the mountain. You're technically outside, but it's going through the mountain. And I live in the mountains. So that's an apt analogy. but same. Yeah. So same thing with the, the canal that essentially goes through your body from your mouth all the way out through your rectum. So that technically is outside of your body. The.
Ellyn Schinke (10:47.632) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (10:51.1) PNW.
Jessica Van Antoine (11:03.33) the dividing line between the outside of your body and the inside of your body is one cell thick. So if you think about like an army, they just have one line of guys, like that doesn't seem like a very secure border, right? But that's because we used to live in these like really pristine environments with no chemical pollution and no air pollution. so, exactly.
Ellyn Schinke (11:15.932) Like good design, yeah. Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (11:24.07) That's a really good point. Our body hasn't evolved to kind of deal with all this new shit that we're experiencing. Yeah.
Jessica Van Antoine (11:28.43) Exactly. Everything was organic because there was no such thing as pesticides and herbicides and chemicals. So that was sufficient for the majority of human history, right? But now there's an onslaught of chemicals and toxic things into our bodies every single day. And so that damages that one cell lining. So when those cells, start to of like shrivel and...
Ellyn Schinke (11:46.886) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (11:54.817) and gaps get created in between them. So the things that are moving through that canal every day, the things that you eat every day, then start to actually go through those holes that aren't supposed to be there between those cells and go into your bloodstream. And then your body freaks out because it's like, we didn't authorize this to be here. It's we tag it as an invader and then you become reactive to it. So it basically the presence of
foods that you eat every day as reactive on a food sensitivity test shows you that you most likely have what's called leaky gut. And there is a path to healing that. So there's a difference between, innate react reactivity or innate sensitivities and acquired sensitivities. So these would be the acquired ones, right? Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (12:42.172) That's reminding me of the immune system. I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm a microbiology immunology major. So, yes.
Jessica Van Antoine (12:47.774) wow. No, I didn't know that. That's amazing. Yeah. So the acquired sensitivities are the ones that you're eating every day. They're like the traffic is flowing through and then they're just going on these little off off ramps into the bloodstream when they're actually, you the cells are supposed to take up the nutrients through their bodies as opposed to in between their bodies. So these are acquired sensitivities. So when we do the work of healing the gut, then you can start to eat those foods again.
Ellyn Schinke (13:16.184) Okay, so it's not like you are yeah, okay, I think that's like my fear is that it is a life sentence because just like Like for example, I have a friend who grew up and she was lactose intolerant And so she could never eat cheese and I'm like I don't want to hear that I have like I like some sort of Intolerance that won't let me eat cheese. I love cheese cheese is part of cheese and eggs are part of the reason I could never be vegan Honestly, I would give up chicken and steak and all of that shit before I would give up eggs and cheese like
Jessica Van Antoine (13:16.478) So it's not a life sentence. It's not a life sentence.
Jessica Van Antoine (13:44.751) Right. Now again, for her, that sounds like it's, Oh, wow. Wow. Totally. Well, luckily these days there's a lot of really great gluten free alternatives. Like back when I became gluten free in 2010, it was so hard. That was just like, you just basically couldn't eat any sort of wheat. The gluten free alternatives were terrible.
Ellyn Schinke (13:45.988) Yeah, and I'm Italian too. So I'm like, don't take my gluten from me.
Ellyn Schinke (13:57.86) Yes, yes, yes.
Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is there a difference though between so you're saying like you had all of these food insensitivities and are food sensitivities and that is part of the reason why that was kind of a red flag that okay, this is probably related to leaky gut. When do we know that it's like a true like intolerance versus leaky gut like that might be getting a little bit too in the weeds but that was a thought I had is like is
Jessica Van Antoine (14:25.506) Right.
Ellyn Schinke (14:31.376) Like if you have fewer things that you have higher sensitivity to, is that more of a sign of intolerance? Yeah. Okay, okay, got it.
Jessica Van Antoine (14:36.44) healthier? Well, it's more of a sign of a healthier gut. Like the things that the if the things that show up on your food reactivity test, you're not eating very often. It's a more of a sign of a healthier gut and also a sign that those might be innate as opposed to the acquired sensitivities. Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (14:46.053) Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (14:52.41) Yeah, gotcha, gotcha. So the innate things are more like, like when people say they have food allergies, that's more an innate situation. Like my mom can't eat shellfish. It makes her incredibly sick.
Jessica Van Antoine (14:58.902) Right.
Right. So, well, there is a difference, a distinction between an allergy and a sensitivity. Right. So, so the allergy shows up pretty immediately. You break out on hives, you have anaphylaxis, your throat closes, you can't breathe. That's an, that's a full blown allergy, which is a certain type of immune response, right? With food sensitivities, it's like a longer term. it just, sometimes it takes up to 72 hours to, um, for the body to kind of start reacting to what you ate, which is why it's really hard without testing to know.
Ellyn Schinke (15:09.414) Okay.
Ellyn Schinke (15:12.87) Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (15:17.116) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (15:21.372) Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Ellyn Schinke (15:32.913) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (15:33.975) What was it that I ate in the last 72 hours out of all the things that I ate that is causing this reaction, right? But, but to bring it kind of, home and help people understand like how they would experience this in the day to day. When I cut out all my food sensitivities, my inflammation went down, which I experienced as pain. So my, my joints stopped hurting, my, also the.
Ellyn Schinke (15:39.706) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (15:46.268) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (15:58.574) and
Jessica Van Antoine (16:01.686) inflammation in terms of our moods right and we have all these expressions in our language about like hot temper short fuse that sort of equates heat with mood so i actually right but it's really it's really true like i
You know, my irritability went away. was so, I was, I felt irritable all the time. Like I was just annoyed by everything and everyone. so, so it really helped my marriage when I got out my reactive foods, my road rage went away. I was like way more patient on when I was driving. Could be a sign of inflammation in your body.
Ellyn Schinke (16:36.284) Man, do I road rage a little bit? Yes, yes I do. I don't like stupid people, okay?
Jessica Van Antoine (16:47.8) This is just what I'm saying. So connecting the dots, the, you know, food sensitivities can show up in our day to day lives as pain, inflammation, bloating, all sorts of ways. It sort of depends on your personal physiology, your personal makeup. But that was the first test that I was really like, Whoa, this is amazing. And if I just make these few changes, look at all the positive benefits I get. Not that the changes were easy. I mean, cutting out those things that I was right. Right. Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (16:48.348) Okay.
Ellyn Schinke (17:08.632) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, or immediate, I'm sure. Yeah. How roughly, and I know this is probably a hard question to answer, but I'm gonna ask it anyway, because my brain went there. Roughly, how long would you say, like, on average it takes to heal? Somebody's, leaky gut.
Jessica Van Antoine (17:29.954) Anywhere from six to 24 months, depending on the protocol. But like the more you can adhere, I'm not going to say that I completely cut out all of those foods for, you know, for, I, but I, yeah, but I did my best. And, I think when, when I went from eating, you know, 10 of those things every single day to maybe having one a week, that's a significant decrease in the sort of onslaught to the gut. So not only are we.
Ellyn Schinke (17:31.985) Okay.
Ellyn Schinke (17:38.296) Yeah, it'd be hard to. There's a lot.
Ellyn Schinke (17:51.963) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (17:56.047) We approach healing from two different angles, right? Where we reduce the influences that are sort of poking holes in the gut in the first place. And then we also come in with some targeted supplements to heal the lining of the gut. So anywhere from six to 24 months, depending on how, how strictly you adhere to the, you know, staying away from the reactive foods.
Ellyn Schinke (18:14.394) Gotcha. Yeah, beautiful. Beautiful. And I feel like I'm interested to hear as you keep kind of talking about the different, know, so this kind of like the gateway test for you into this world. I'm definitely interested to hear about kind of some of the other things that we can do and some of the other inbounds that kind of predispose us to burnout. yeah, I feel like
the scientists in me is like, much as like the day-to-day like food eater in me is just like, don't tell me. The scientists in me is just like, what good data, you know? Like what all of this is such good data. And I think we under appreciate sometimes, especially for my business owner speaking, I'm talking directly to you. Sometimes I think we...
hyperfixate on data points like the analytics from our social media and stuff like that as the data we need to burn out proof our businesses. But honestly, I think the lifestyle data is often the more valuable. So you're giving all of these very innate functional health data points. And then I will often add in to for people the lifestyle data points of how does this habit make me feel? How does this...
routine make me feel that kind of stuff, that's data as well. So you're basically giving us a lot of really tangible ways today to get concrete data from our lives and from our bodies in particular that is going to empower us in a really, really awesome way. So let's keep going unless you have a comment related to that. Yeah.
Jessica Van Antoine (19:40.27) Yes.
Exactly.
Yeah, no, I do have a thought about that, which is to say that as business owners, we do optimize like every other aspect of our business, right? We optimize our systems and our sales and our scripts and our content and streamline all the workflows that we can. And so often we ignore the body, which is our vehicle that's driving us through every single day in our businesses. And so it's such, it's like.
Ellyn Schinke (19:57.126) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (20:07.761) Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Jessica Van Antoine (20:14.91) You are your business's most important asset. If you don't function, your business doesn't function. There is no business without you. And so, and you know, what I'm really trying to call out here is that don't wait until you burn out to address your health. Don't wait until you have to.
Ellyn Schinke (20:18.428) I was literally thinking that.
Yeah, yep, yep.
Jessica Van Antoine (20:36.022) Right? Like every single symptom that you experience is your body talking to you. It's your body giving you some information that something's a little out of balance and you can try all these wellness hacks, right? This, the, the meditation and the yoga and the, you know, all the stress reduction techniques. and they, they help. Right. But they're not actually rebalancing the physiology. What's going on on that physical level. And we do live in such a data driven society.
Where data, you know, like you were saying, we nerd out on the data of like, what's working well, AB testing, you know, where can I optimize? And again, this is the data part of the physiology, right?
Ellyn Schinke (21:02.929) Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (21:14.778) Yeah, yeah, I love that and I'll even add to what you just said in regard to How was I gonna say it come on brain Like you were saying how like this is like we optimize everything blah blah blah and I think the thing that I was gonna add about meditation We'll cut that part out because Ellen couldn't think I actually like you're you were kind of talking about meditation from like a stress reduction perspective
Jessica Van Antoine (21:35.776) Hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (21:43.392) I know there are people listening to this, and I'm calling you out right now, who hear this and you're like, but my body's not sending me signals. I'm fine right now. Honestly, for most high achievers, we do not slow down enough to actually hear and pay attention to the signals our body is sending us. And personally, guys, I recorded a podcast episode probably a couple months ago by the time this episode is live, where I talked about stillness as a systems check.
Jessica Van Antoine (21:55.288) Hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (22:08.194) And I was talking about it from the lens of what's like literally concrete technical systems do you need in your business and how stillness can sometimes draw attention to those systems. But stillness can also be a systems check for our bodies. I'm very pro meditation from the perspective of, think it trains high achievers that they don't need to react to every fricking thought they have. And B, I think the other side of it is if you are moving a hundred miles per hour every single day,
you're probably gonna miss the cues your body is sending you unless you are so far down the path of burnout that your body is just like, bitch, you're not gonna listen, I'm gonna make you listen. So using tactics like meditation, maybe it's not meditation specifically, but some sort of thing that you do on a consistent basis that is essentially a forced slowdown, a forced pause, those can be times where those like,
Jessica Van Antoine (22:44.126) Exactly.
Jessica Van Antoine (22:56.536) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (23:00.696) nudges from your body can start to rise to the surface in a way that you're going to actually pay attention to them. So like don't immediately hear this and be like, this is cool, but it doesn't apply to me. It very well might apply to you, but you're just not sure. You're not slowing down enough to feel and hear the cues that your body is sending you that it might need these things.
Jessica Van Antoine (23:17.356) Right. And you know, what you said at the very beginning is super important. You said, I'm fine. Right? Like some of your listeners might be like, I'm fine. But there's a difference between, there's difference between feeling fine and feeling amazing, feeling phenomenal, feeling like you're on fire and you can accomplish anything. And I certainly don't want to.
Ellyn Schinke (23:25.722) Yeah, this doesn't apply to me, I'm fine.
Ellyn Schinke (23:31.738) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (23:39.661) Like I'm not bashing meditation. Don't get me wrong. I meditate every morning. I also think it breeds clarity. Like through slowing down, we work more efficiently. We make fewer mistakes. We drop fewer balls. And that's certainly part of the work that I do with my clients as well. So it's all about.
Ellyn Schinke (23:45.318) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (23:56.535) It's like I said in the beginning, stress. It's all about stress, right? Like reducing the stressors that are within our control and then giving the body resources so that it can be more stress resilient to the stressors that are not within our control.
Ellyn Schinke (24:11.758) I love the phrase stress resilient. Beautiful. Yes. Love that. Okay. So what are some of the others we got food sensitivities that was kind of the kickoff of this whole thing. What are some of the other physical imbalances that you've started to discover that are essentially predisposing us to burnout and are lowering our, you know, our battery down to 70%.
Jessica Van Antoine (24:19.394) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (24:31.674) I also run a test called the GI map, which is a stool test that shows us more, basically the balance of the microbiome in your gut, the good bacteria that's there, if it's there in the right quantities, if there's any bad bacteria present, if there's any viruses or pathogens or fungi that are
Ellyn Schinke (24:51.409) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (24:52.288) affecting your ability to A, absorb the vitamins and minerals from the food that you eat, and B, there's such a connection, a strong connection between the gut and the brain. So we as human beings have co-evolved with bacteria over millennia, and we've outsourced some of our functions to them, right? So these good bacteria in our gut, they help us digest, they help us do certain things. But because, because we have co-evolved with them, our brains are
Ellyn Schinke (24:54.684) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (25:22.222) trained to respond to them. Right. then even some bad bacteria kind of comes into the gut, sets up shop and starts building a little community and it's talking to the brain too. And so the brain responds because it can't really tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. So this is what drives sugar cravings, candida, weight gain. It affects mood, energy, sleep. mean,
Ellyn Schinke (25:43.067) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (25:47.681) It could be that one of some. some of these bacteria actually, I like to envision them. They're more active at night. So it's like, they're having a little party in your gut at night, but that can disrupt your sleep. They get so.
Ellyn Schinke (25:59.133) I don't know why but I pictured them like Count Dracula like a little like the cartoon Vasilis with the cape and fangs like having a party at night. That's what I pictured
Jessica Van Antoine (26:05.806) Bye.
Nice. That's awesome. So if you're not sleeping well, it's not just, you know, it's not like you need to meditate more or you need more L-theanine or more melatonin or magnesium. It could be this bacteria that is preventing you from sleeping well. And you wouldn't know that unless you have the data.
Ellyn Schinke (26:22.012) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that's a really good point, especially for the person who's just like, I'm doing everything right. I'm drinking my sleepy time tea before I go to bed. I have my wind down routine. I take magnesium and I still sleep like ass. Okay, well then she's probably talking to you right now.
Jessica Van Antoine (26:34.2) Right. Right.
Jessica Van Antoine (26:42.668) Right.
Yeah, exactly. I bought one of those really expensive temperature controlled mattresses, you know
Ellyn Schinke (26:50.906) Okay, I have one of those and I'm actually obsessed with it.
Jessica Van Antoine (26:54.254) Again, I'm not saying that those things aren't amazing, but I'm just saying like if you have a gut bug that's keeping you up at night, right? Like that is not, that's not going to be your solution.
Ellyn Schinke (27:00.858) You don't need to go down that route. Yes, it is very expensive, but I'm obsessed with it.
Jessica Van Antoine (27:08.736) I love that. Don't get me wrong. I love all the hacks and all the tricks and things, but, but like you said, if you're doing everything right and still not seeing results, then there could be something else going on. And that's where the data data comes into play.
Ellyn Schinke (27:13.487) Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Love that. I have a potentially a little bit of a tangent, but I thought of it when you were talking about all of these things that are in our gut that like a GI map would be testing against and looking for and whatnot. Parasites is not something that you said. And I don't know if that was intentional or not, because I know parasite cleanses have become.
very popular. I feel like they've become very trendy recently for people to do a parasite cleanse. My sister-in-law did one and I would just like, the hell? Like how do you even know about this stuff? You're not like very woo. Is that legit to do a parasite cleanse for this kind of a thing? Because I guess the microbiologist in me sees that and I just feel like that is complete BS because my understanding and how I was trained and taught about parasites is that
Jessica Van Antoine (27:53.879) Yeah, yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (28:12.048) when you actually do have a parasite with the exception of a few that kind of are fly under the radar parasites, like it really messes with your body. So like you'd be very aware if you have a parasite. So how much are parasites playing into some of this like gut dysfunction?
Jessica Van Antoine (28:26.414) Yeah, so parasites do show up on the GI map. just forgot to mention them. but certain ones, right? They're only testing for certain species. And in terms of...
Ellyn Schinke (28:29.062) They do, okay. Okay.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, not all parasites are gut parasites, everybody. There are blood parasites. They're not all gut parasites.
Jessica Van Antoine (28:42.926) Right. in terms of parasite cleanses, I I'm with you. I think that they're trendy. think that, yeah. now, however, that's not to say that if a parasite comes back, like present or high out of range, on a GI map that, you know, I would definitely do a parasite cleanse with my client. And that, like you said, there are, there are certain ones that you would know if you have, but there are other ones that do kind of fly under the radar.
Ellyn Schinke (28:50.596) Okay, I feel very validated.
Ellyn Schinke (28:59.152) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (29:05.275) Yeah
Ellyn Schinke (29:09.563) Yeah.
Jessica Van Antoine (29:12.718) There's one called blastocystis hominis that has the word cyst in it. I don't know if you heard that, but it basically travels. Yeah. And so, so for your listeners who aren't familiar with it, travels around the body and creates cysts in different parts of the body. So that's an important one to get rid of obviously.
Ellyn Schinke (29:18.62) Mm-hmm. Yeah, I remember learning about blastocystis in parasitology class, yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (29:32.284) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (29:34.198) And all the parasites have their different side effects and their different symptoms. But, you know, unless you're really, unless those cysts are really large, you might not even know that you have them in your body. You know what I mean?
Ellyn Schinke (29:37.02) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (29:44.282) Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Are there any, I feel like sorry for the people who do parasite cleanses, but I'm just wanting to call this out. Are there any that you would like call bullshit on for like parasite cleanses and whatnot? Like this does not work for fixing your gut because it's not like a thing.
Jessica Van Antoine (29:56.796) Bye.
Jessica Van Antoine (30:01.75) I tend not to pay too much attention to those because I prefer the data. mean, I, again, parasite cleanse if it's necessary, if you have the data, but just as like a, as like a, I think I'm going to do this thing because I brought like, don't really know. I think it's sort of a waste of money.
Ellyn Schinke (30:03.994) Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (30:10.02) Yeah. Just like a random health thing to do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So do it. Do it from a data driven perspective to actually clear a parasite that you actually genuinely know you have. Yeah. And the reason I nitpick on this is because I do see these like broad parasite cleanse things and like people like they take a picture of their like poop and be like, look at this parasite that I passed. And I'm like, no, that's actually the charcoal that you were consuming, but it's fine.
Jessica Van Antoine (30:20.632) Right.
Exactly.
Jessica Van Antoine (30:32.737) Right.
Exactly. That's what I was gonna say is that some of the cleanses actually, I feel like they produce the very thing that is coming out of the body and that is supposed to be the parasite or whatever. It's like, no, I don't, yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (30:44.028) Yes. Yes. Yes. And like so many, like this is what I mean guys, when I say, and I'll get back on track after this, but like this has felt like a good context to talk about this in because I do have opinions about these. Like most of the parasites that I feel like these things are claiming they cleanse, those things make you crazy sick. Like you would know if you had that parasite. I, like,
there what's what's the one that's on like cruise ships and like cruise ship salad bars. Noro. So that's not a parasite that that's a virus. But like, but like, those ones make you very, very sick. Giardia is a parasite that makes you incredibly incredibly sick. And I'm sorry, if you have Giardia, it's because you've been drinking some like mountain water, like, so like there are some that I'm just kind of like, there's very few that fly under the radar.
Jessica Van Antoine (31:16.437) Nora.
Jessica Van Antoine (31:20.717) That's a virus.
Ellyn Schinke (31:39.138) and you would need data like this to know like, do I actually have a parasite? Is this gonna be legit or is it just a waste of money? so food sensitivity, GI maps, what are some other good ones?
Jessica Van Antoine (31:41.323) Yeah.
Jessica Van Antoine (31:51.811) The hair tissue mineral analysis I really love. That's a, this one is, it's sort of like a gateway test, because it's, you can get it for pretty cheap, but it takes samples of your hair to look at the balance of minerals in your body, whether.
Ellyn Schinke (31:55.13) I've never heard of this.
Ellyn Schinke (32:02.075) Okay.
Jessica Van Antoine (32:08.578) They're high or low and minerals drive. I mean, you should know this as a microbiologist, minerals drive every single function in the body. So when your minerals are out of balance, kind of nothing is working right. Right. But this test gives us insight into not only the four main electrolytes, sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium, which are the four minerals that when you're in a state of stress and a chronic state of stress, your body burns through really quickly.
Ellyn Schinke (32:15.046) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (32:19.42) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (32:35.014) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (32:35.446) So this affects your metabolism. affects how your adrenals work. We can get insight into the thyroid and your digestion. And there's even burnout markers on the test that'll tell you how close you are to burning out. So I actually, it was ironic because I, know, the first time I did this test, I'm a burnout coach and it said that I was burning out and I was like, no, nobody's going to trust me.
Ellyn Schinke (33:02.108) previous burnout coach that I had on here because I had her on recently, we literally talked about the reason why people like us do this work is because we need this work. Like I feel like 90 % of the time I'm recording a podcast and be like, guys, I need this reminder to because I screw this up consistently. Like, I think, yeah, I don't think it makes us immune to burnout. But I think we just have such incredible knowledge now about like how we fix it that we're able to fix ourselves really quickly. When we do get into a state of burnout. Yeah.
Jessica Van Antoine (33:15.714) Yeah.
Jessica Van Antoine (33:25.144) Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The hair tissue mineral analysis. So the acronym is HT, HTMA. check it out with me girl. can help you. Yeah. Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (33:31.684) Okay, this one's what was it called again?
Ellyn Schinke (33:37.702) Hey, check this out.
That's very cool. Heck yeah, I might need to check this out. Shoot, this is cool. Okay, love that. And that one, I think I've never heard somebody come at it from, I've heard a lot about tests that would relate to the gut and food insensitivities. I feel like we hear that one, those kind of things a lot. I've never heard that one before. That is super interesting. I'm definitely very curious about that. Okay, cool, cool. So then, do you have any other tests that you wanna touch on?
Jessica Van Antoine (34:01.079) Yeah. Yeah.
Jessica Van Antoine (34:09.578) Yeah, one more because it's yeah, one more that is specifically relevant to the burnout conversation, right? It's called the Dutch test, which measures cortisol, sex hormones, and their metabolites. So it gives us insight into how well your body is handling the stress, like how well your body is actually producing cortisol, because cortisol is sort of like the interfacing with the world stress hormone. So when you wake up,
Ellyn Schinke (34:10.256) because I had another question that I wanted to ask, but I didn't want to cut off this conversation.
Ellyn Schinke (34:36.411) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (34:38.594) your cortisol spikes, it's like time to interface with the world. And then throughout the day, it's supposed to in the ideal, in the ideal kind of cortisol roller coaster, we want to see it sort of gradually drop off into the evening and be at its lowest point in the night when melatonin takes over and then helps us sleep, right? Those two have sort of an inverse relationship or should in an ideal situation. but
Ellyn Schinke (34:56.87) Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Jessica Van Antoine (35:03.818) When your body is under constant stress, constant demand, and your adrenals are just pumping out cortisol, pumping out cortisol day after day, day, year after year, eventually it's like a, it's like a batter that gets tired, but he's just at batting practice. And eventually like first he's like hitting them out of the park. He's like making great contact and just like feeling great, you know, but then after a while he gets tired.
Ellyn Schinke (35:22.042) Yeah.
Jessica Van Antoine (35:27.436) And he can't keep up and he starts swinging and missing. And you know, and the performance just goes down. It's the same thing with the body. Like the body can only keep up with that level of cortisol production for so long. And when it kind of peaks and then starts to go down, that's when people usually start to be like, I don't feel as good as I used to. I'm starting to have these symptoms that are cropping up. And then as I continued down that like down downhill side,
Ellyn Schinke (35:27.644) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (35:47.078) Yeah.
Jessica Van Antoine (35:53.441) the downward spiral, so to speak, then more symptoms start cropping up. Maybe they start self-medicating, you know, relying on more caffeine, relying on more alcohol to wind down, maybe, you know, engaging in some recreational cannabis use, whatever it may be. And then if it goes unaddressed and they're still trying to operate at the same pace, the same rhythm, like try with the same demands, then they're going to continue going down that downward spiral, eventually need medication, go to a doctor.
Ellyn Schinke (35:58.043) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (36:07.056) Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (36:14.79) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (36:19.846) Yeah.
Jessica Van Antoine (36:22.262) You know, so, so getting insight into.
Ellyn Schinke (36:22.458) Yeah. Or start to get some of those like stress comorbidities like ulcers and all that other kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jessica Van Antoine (36:27.466) Yes. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So getting the data again, back to the importance of data to kind of know where you are on, on that, that roller coaster, like, is my body keeping up with the demands of my life? Or is it starting to kind of go down? Am I starting? Right, right. Exactly. The good news is the movement along that arc is not unidirectional. It's possible to go backwards and regain the ability.
Ellyn Schinke (36:36.38) Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (36:45.968) to crash out, yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (36:52.784) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (36:56.27) to keep up with the demands of your life. And then knowing how cortisol affects the hormones also, which when hormones are out of bound, well, for the scientifically minded, right? Cortisol, progesterone, testosterone, estrogen, they're all produced from the same two base ingredients, cholesterol and B vitamins. When cortisol is the biggest demand of the body, all of the other hormones suffer.
Ellyn Schinke (36:56.86) Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jessica Van Antoine (37:24.864) is taking up all the resources. All the resources of the body are being kind of, you know, it's like, I, I, yes. Yeah. So I have a, when I do my master classes, I have a slide where I show like all the different hormone pathways and I talk about like subways, right? These are all different subway lines going to all these different stations. Each hormone is a different station. When, when we're in a chronic state of stress and the body has a really high demand for cortisol,
Ellyn Schinke (37:27.516) so that's why our hormones get out of whack. I actually didn't know that.
Jessica Van Antoine (37:51.511) all the train lines shut down or they all start running towards the cortisol station. And then there's no more stops at the other stations. So that's where we get low progesterone, low testosterone, low estrogen, which we experience as low motivation, inability to wind down and sleep, irritability, anxiety, depression, weight gain, weight loss. You know, it just kind of depends on your personal metabolism, but that's what we, we experience on a daily basis.
Ellyn Schinke (38:09.04) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (38:13.948) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (38:18.844) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (38:19.822) that could be signals that something is out of whack. this test is, and also gives us insight into the body's ability to metabolize those hormones, to use them properly, to send them in the right channels. And so we get insight into the function of the liver also, so the detoxification and how that's going.
Ellyn Schinke (38:22.822) Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (38:35.537) Ciao.
Ellyn Schinke (38:39.056) Yeah, to go off your subway analogy, I feel like you're basically saying like, because there's so many so much running through this cortisol subway pathway, have to shut down the other pathways. Like there's construction on the line. Like you can't use them. And I really like every time this conversation comes up in the context of this podcast, I always feel like it's important to point out because I feel like a lot of us have been and perhaps it's just kind of the general like way in which cortisol has been spoke of.
Jessica Van Antoine (38:48.46) Yep. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (39:07.556) Socially, we often think of burnout always as being high cortisol and it kind of is I guess to some extent like we've been producing so much cortisol for so long, but I actually think you've really done a good job at painting the picture of yes You've had too much cortisol running for your through your body for too long but I always really like to emphasize that it's about burnout like your body has Gotten to the point where it can't produce cortisol the way it needs to anymore and it's crashing out
Jessica Van Antoine (39:33.518) I'm gonna keep up.
Ellyn Schinke (39:37.18) Because we do, I think so often we can be very binary with how we think about things. Stress is bad, cortisol is bad. No, stress is actually not bad. Stress can be very adaptive. There is bad stress, but there's also good stress. There's you stress, there's stress that's good for you and makes you, as you said before, more stress resilient. And then same thing with cortisol. Cortisol is not innately bad. Cortisol wakes us up in the morning. We need cortisol.
Jessica Van Antoine (39:45.558) Right. Right.
Right.
Yep.
Jessica Van Antoine (40:00.813) Right. That's right.
Ellyn Schinke (40:04.002) So I really like how you painted that picture and I always feel the need to like emphasize that and point that out for listeners because that is a common misconception I feel like a lot of us have about cortisol and stress and things like this that it's, hi, hi, it's bad. Like we don't want this. Like, well, no, actually burnout happens because your body's crashing out after producing cortisol at those levels for way too long. Yeah.
Jessica Van Antoine (40:26.476) Right. I think the other thing to understand too, is that stress fundamentally changes the way that your body works. Right. So, so this cortisol production, the stress adaptation is meant to be a short-term response on the part of the body. It's literally a survival mechanism again, from kind of like prehistoric days before the internet and the industry. Right. Right. So, so there's a saber to tiger approaching you from the, from the horizon. So your, your heart rate.
Ellyn Schinke (40:32.708) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (40:38.725) Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Play to freeze and fun.
Ellyn Schinke (40:53.68) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (40:55.264) increases, your blood pressure increases, your breath rate increases, your blood flow goes out to your limbs so you can run away from this predator because it's a matter of survival literally. But now in the modern era our bodies don't know the difference between
Ellyn Schinke (41:04.06) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (41:10.272) an actual threat to survival and a slack notification when you're already overwhelmed or scrolling social media and getting triggered by something that you see having that comparison mindset, you know, so your body is still responding in the same way. And in prioritizing this short-term survival, all of the long-term functions in your body are then robbed of resources.
Ellyn Schinke (41:14.011) Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (41:17.66) I love this, yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (41:30.652) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (41:31.178) So your body doesn't need to digest the vitamins and minerals from the food that you ate. If it's not going to survive the next 10 minutes, it's not worried about long-term immunity fighting off an invading pathogen or bug, because you might not be alive in five minutes is what the body is thinking, right? Reproduction suffers. You don't need to gestate for nine months. If I can't, cause your body's getting the signal that there is an imminent threat to survival. So you get, you know, fertility issues, you get digestive issues, people dealing with.
Ellyn Schinke (41:46.843) Yeah.
Jessica Van Antoine (42:00.099) bloating and constipation, leaky gut, food sensitivities, because the long-term processes that come online when your body's in a state of relaxation are not functioning, not getting the resources that they need. And therein underscores the importance of meditation, like we talked about earlier.
There are some stressors that we do not have control over in our lives. There's always going to be work stress. There's always going to be geopolitical stress. And even these days, I would say like climate stress, you know? And we have control over our actions that either contribute to or protect those communal resources, but we still suffer the detrimental effects of the actions of other people, right? So it's a balancing act. It's...
Ellyn Schinke (42:45.904) Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (42:49.012) It's, you know, reducing the amount of stressors that you can in your life. So using natural products, reducing your chemical exposure, not buying scented things, eating organic. it's, you know, dealing with any physical stressors or biomechanical stressors that your body may have like structural misalignments or old injuries. And you can address those with massage therapy, osteopathy, acupuncture, you know, all the physical kind of stuff.
And then supporting your body's stress resilience with practices like meditation and healthy practice like eating healthily, slowing down when you eat, not eating front of the computer, you know, these kinds of things.
Ellyn Schinke (43:28.54) Mm-hmm.
This is where like that just recap that you just did you honestly kind of already answered the last question that I was gonna ask you anyway I may not even need to ask it anymore But I think what you just did made me very impressed by the sheer number of things in your toolkit and I was thinking it at the beginning when you were talking about like all the things you practice and the fact that you've done massage therapy and all of the stuff like your toolkit is tremendous
in terms of the various different ways you can support people tactically and tangibly with these various different offers and things that you've done and dabbled in and whatnot. Incredibly, incredibly impressive. And I love how you've synthesized down the places that all of those can kind of fit in to our burnout prevention arsenal and our burnout prevention toolkit. I think of conversations like these being incredibly powerful.
Jessica Van Antoine (44:20.405) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (44:28.122) because what they do is they just add new tools to our toolkit. And I think that's why to kind of dovetail back to what we were talking about before, people like you and I become burnout coaches is it's not because we never burn out and it's not because we never experienced stress, but it's because we built this tremendous toolkit that we are now sharing with people. And it really just boils down to that.
Jessica Van Antoine (44:47.758) That's right. Yep. And from experience too, you know what I mean? Like we have experimented with all the stress hacks and wellness hacks and optimizing this and optimizing that. And yet we still come up against burnout. And so what do we do? How do we resource our bodies and set up structure our lives and our businesses in such a way that we can minimize that possibility.
Ellyn Schinke (44:57.361) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (45:02.812) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (45:12.656) Yeah, yeah. Sorry if you just heard Alexa kick on. She's chiming away in the background. But yeah, and I think you've really hit the nail on the head. I think what's fantastic about this conversation, I think is what ties this up so beautifully is, again, this is for the person that says they feel fine, but also feels like they've tried everything else. And it still doesn't feel like they know it should.
The one time I think should is actually an okay word to use here. I always say there's empowering shoulds and disempowering shoulds. And I think that's an empowering should is realizing this isn't how my body should feel. And so, okay, these are, yeah, these are new tools in your toolkit that you may have never thought of before. You may have never tried before. And so now we now have an expert in your pocket that you can speak with and access and see which of these might be of benefit to you. Beautiful.
Jessica Van Antoine (45:42.798) Thanks.
Jessica Van Antoine (45:49.376) Yeah, I love that distinction.
Jessica Van Antoine (46:07.79) Yeah, exactly.
Ellyn Schinke (46:09.532) Okay, any other kind of final comments you would say about these tests, some of these imbalances you've spoken through, how they predispose us for not, do you have any kind of final comments in relation to this whole conversation?
Jessica Van Antoine (46:23.14) I would just say test, get the data. Don't guess because so many people out there are like wasting money on supplements that they don't know that they need while they're not really addressing the physical imbalances that would actually bring their body back to a state of balance. It's a lifestyle thing, know, habit stacking, adding one habit in at a time.
that is going to be one less healthy thing that you do or one more healthy thing that you do to support your body.
Ellyn Schinke (46:59.484) And like our time and obviously our money is precious here. So like if you really need to like validate why a test is a good option for you, look at that supplement you're thinking about doing or that parasite cleanser thinking about doing. Look at how much that costs and how long they're saying it's going to take for that thing to take effect. You're paying 50 bucks for a supplement that's going to take six months to really fully answer the question and solve your problem. That's 300 bucks right there. Maybe that's 300 bucks.
Jessica Van Antoine (47:16.93) That's right.
Jessica Van Antoine (47:26.124) or that may or may not.
Ellyn Schinke (47:27.756) may or may not. Yeah, it's a question mark as to whether it's going to fix the problem. That's 300 bucks right there that you could put toward a test.
Jessica Van Antoine (47:32.27) Right.
Jessica Van Antoine (47:36.857) Well, and also think two things. One is that taking care of your body now is going to prevent major medical expenses later on. You know, like actually having like a nervous breakdown and landing in the hospital or actually getting to a point in burnout where you can't even run your business. And so you don't have any income coming in. Right. Yep. Yep. And the second thing that I just want to say about that is
Ellyn Schinke (47:43.036) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (47:46.672) Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (47:57.54) Or you have to quit on your business, which we hear all the time from entrepreneurs who burn out. Yeah.
Jessica Van Antoine (48:06.67) You know, yes, it's an investment, um, not only in your health, consider it an investment in your business. Because when you're operating at 70 % or 60 % or maybe even 50 % or lower, your business is suffering. Your clients feel it. You're, know, your product delivery is not sharp. You're making mistakes. You're missing opportunities. You're dropping balls. You're having to go back and fix the mistakes, which is taking time.
Ellyn Schinke (48:30.811) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Van Antoine (48:31.2) So when there's that there's whatever level you're operating at 50 % 60 % 70 % there's that much more opportunity between there and 100 % for you to show up in your business sharp, clear, focused, not making mistakes, making more revenue because you're showing up in your sales calls with vibrant energy and people are just magnetically attracted to you.
Ellyn Schinke (48:54.012) Creech! Gotta give you snaps for that little bit. Beautiful. All right. So let's wrap this baby up. So I think you've given tremendous value here. I know there's things that I'm probably gonna be reaching out to you about. So for anybody else who's listening to this, I'm gonna put all of your links, all of your information, whatnot in the show notes. But just for the audio recap, where can people find you? How can they connect with you?
Jessica Van Antoine (48:56.11) you
Jessica Van Antoine (49:17.918) Yeah, great. my business is called Phoenix functional health. so I'm on Instagram. Well, that's the thing, right? So it's not Phoenix. is not referring to Phoenix, the city. No, it's referred. No, the Phoenix, the mythological bird rising from the ashes, right? Yes. Yeah. From burnout. For now that we don't love Phoenix, from burnout to rebirth.
Ellyn Schinke (49:23.376) Hint, hint for all my Arizona people. Sorry.
Ellyn Schinke (49:30.332) I assumed it was.
Ellyn Schinke (49:36.474) Rising like if I actually like that better. Just kidding ignore every I think I just said about Arizona
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Jessica Van Antoine (49:47.446) Right? So, yeah. So Phoenix Functional Health, I'm on Instagram. You can find me on LinkedIn at Jessica Van Antoine and website is phoenixfunctionalhealth.com. I have all sorts of freebies. If you guys are interested in an adrenal mocktail ebook to help support your adrenal glands and remineralize your body, I can send that to you.
Ellyn Schinke (49:47.748) Love it.
Jessica Van Antoine (50:09.184) I have a four week home detox that'll guide you through all the rooms in your house and help you think about everything that you might consider replacing from a chemical version to a more natural version. Those are all free resources. And then of course, if you're interested in working with me, just let me know that too. Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (50:17.745) Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (50:27.376) Beautiful, beautiful. Yeah, and that home digital detox I was checking out on that on your page during the summit and very cool, very cool. So beautiful. Thank you so much for all of the knowledge you just dropped on us. Thank you so much for all of the information, all the links, etc. Again, everybody and check out everything in the show notes. I've also got the companion page for this that's got the transcript. I'm all a bunch more information about Jessica and her offers and whatnot there. So check out all the links down below. And with that, thank you so much, Jessica.
for being here. Thank you everybody for tuning in for listening. I will see you next week. Stay relentless. Bye.
Jessica Van Antoine (50:57.774) Bless you.
