When longtime health coach Angela Privin began feeling exhausted, unmotivated, and disconnected from her usual drive, she realized her constant “push through” mode had finally caught up with her. The loss of a loved one tipped her into deep burnout that affected her thyroid, adrenals, and overall energy.

By embracing a slower pace, nourishing her body with healing foods, supporting her minerals, and rebalancing her nervous system, Angela rebuilt her energy and sense of joy. 

Here’s how she recovered from burnout.

A Health Setback: Deep Physical Burnout

Angela Privin has turned around her health again and again, from digestive distress and a sluggish thyroid to Lyme disease and mold illness.

But her most recent health setback came on gradually — and yet, unexpectedly.

The health coach has long used self-care to keep stress levels in the green, balancing that with her driven personality. Then, the loss of a loved one and the resulting grief led her into deep burnout that eroded many of the health gains she had made.

“My self-care, my diet, my knowledge to keep myself in balance was always enough to keep me running just one step ahead,” she reflects. “I would have the stress, but I’d have the recovery just enough to keep a step ahead of crashing. So something happens when you’re just a step ahead, you can stumble, and I stumbled.”

She was exhausted, unmotivated, had difficulty sleeping, uncovered abnormal thyroid markers, and rode a roller coaster of menopause symptoms as her hormones fluctuated. Her usual mode — pushing through — only compounded her symptoms. She knew she had to take another approach.

How Burnout Affects Our Health

Burnout is most commonly associated with overworking or pushing too hard in our jobs and careers, leading to exhaustion or disengagement.

But for Angela, burnout went beyond that — it took a toll on her thyroid, adrenals, and energy.

“Burnout’s really simple,” she says. “It’s just when your nervous system has been in fight or flight for so long, meaning you’re pumping out cortisol and adrenaline and you’re running on stress hormones. Your body’s adapting to the stress so you can function, but you can’t run on stress hormones. That’s not real energy. Eventually, your body can’t sustain it.”

Angela’s path to burnout was paved with relocating to a new country, dealing with mold toxicity, and then losing someone close to her. All that, plus the demands of caring for others as an empathetic health coach, added to her stress load.

Physically, her sleep suffered and she lost her typical drive to get things done. For insights, she turned to lab testing.

With a history of thyroid sensitivity, Angela checked her thyroid and found a gradually increasing TSH (thyroid-stimulating hormone) level, suggesting her thyroid was beginning to slow down. Her thyroid antibodies were low but slightly above the optimal range, indicating mild autoimmune activity. Her free T3 (the active thyroid hormone) levels had begun to decline, reflecting reduced hormone production or conversion.

Angela also ran one of her favorite health checks, the Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis Test (HTMAT) — which confirmed mineral and adrenal imbalances.

Angela’s Path Back to Health

Angela approached burnout recovery with many of the same self-care strategies she’s followed in the past, but with a more relaxed energy:

  • Nervous system regulation — She focused on rhythm and routine through practices like sauna sessions, breathwork, meditation, yoga, and group coaching.
  • Diet changes — She nourished her body with the Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) diet, a protocol developed by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride that emphasizes gut healing and reduces inflammation. She ate easy-to-digest foods such as bone broth, animal protein, and vegetables while avoiding processed foods and refined sugars.

“Slowness is the number one thing that your body needs to recover and your nervous system needs to recover,” she says. “So spending that time in the kitchen, cooking food, nurturing myself was also part of the recovery.”

  • Mineral support — She replenished potassium, sodium, and magnesium to rebalance her adrenals and support energy production.
  • Reduced workload — Angela conserved her energy for client coaching, pausing or scaling back other business responsibilities.
  • Emotional support — She leaned on friends and family for connection and emotional regulation.

Recovering from Burnout

Over time, Angela celebrated signs of progress — more energy, improved sleep, and the ability to exercise again.

She saw measurable results on her Oura Ring, which tracks biometrics such as heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV).

“I have an Oura Ring and it actually told me that I was recovering because my heart rate went down…” she recalls. “My HRV [heart rate variability] went up, but my heart rate when I was sleeping went down. The lower your heart rate is, the better, but the higher your HRV is, the better. Heart rate variability is tied to nervous system health. So my Oura Ring was telling me, you’re improving — but I felt it. I felt like myself again.”

When her drive returned, she knew she had turned a corner.

“My energy came back,” she reflects. “My joy came back. I did not sweat the stuff that I used to sweat before. I could exercise more. I was happier. I slept better.”

Angela’s experience gives her valuable perspective as she helps clients navigate burnout, gut healing, and other challenges. She now takes a more holistic approach as a coach — addressing the mental, emotional, and physical aspects of healing.

She cautions those experiencing burnout not to approach recovery with the same energy that led to it — a type-A drive to control and force healing.

“It’s just that perfectionism, that pressure is just keeping that cortisol pumping,” she says. “And the body never heals in fight or flight, burnout or no burnout. It does not. That’s not the healing state. These energies and emotions that get you sick, you can’t bring them to healing.”

Angela named her business Do-It-Yourself Health and firmly believes healing comes from within.

“I just believe that you really can heal yourself,” she says. “You can do it yourself. You need support along the way, most likely, but healing is an inside job.”

Find and follow Angela at Do It Yourself Health and on Instagram.

The Steps That Helped

  • Nervous system regulation — Creating daily rhythm through meditation, sauna, and group coaching supported her recovery.
  • Diet changes — The GAPS diet — including broth, animal protein, and vegetables — helped calm inflammation and restore energy.
  • Mineral support — Replenishing sodium, potassium, and magnesium balanced her adrenals.
  • Reduced workload — Scaling back business demands preserved her energy for healing.
  • Emotional support — Staying connected with friends and processing grief provided vital emotional grounding.

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