Ayurvedic Take On Burnout & Hormones with Dr Harmony Robinson-Stagg

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At Chris and Filly Functional Medicine, we understand that burnout and hormonal imbalances affect women differently based on their unique constitutional makeup. Through our comprehensive Ending Body Burnout Method, we've discovered how integrating ancient wisdom traditions like Ayurveda with modern functional medicine creates powerful pathways for personalised healing that honours each woman's individual nature.

Understanding Burnout Through an Ayurvedic Lens

The Ayurvedic perspective on burnout offers profound insights that complement modern functional medicine approaches. At Chris and Filly Functional Medicine, our work in holistic health and integrative medicine has shown how understanding your unique constitution provides crucial guidance for preventing and healing burnout in ways that align with your natural tendencies.

Ayurveda recognises three primary constitutional types or doshas—Vata, Pitta, and Kapha—each with distinct characteristics, strengths, and vulnerabilities. When individuals live out of alignment with their constitutional nature, pushing themselves in ways that contradict their natural rhythms and needs, burnout becomes almost inevitable.

Our approach to burnout functional medicine recognises that what creates balance for one person may create imbalance for another. This constitutional understanding explains why generic health advice often fails and why personalised approaches that honour individual differences create superior outcomes. Understanding your unique dosha through resources like Dr Harmony's Dosha Quiz can provide valuable insights into your constitutional type and specific needs.

The Root Cause: Disconnection from Self and Constitutional Alignment

One of the most common patterns underlying burnout involves disconnection from authentic self and living in ways that contradict constitutional needs. Through our natural healing work, we've observed how modern culture's emphasis on productivity, achievement, and constant doing creates particular challenges for women whose natural rhythms include cycles of activity and rest.

The experience of burnout following major life events like having twins while continuing to push and do all the things represents a common pattern where women override their body's signals and constitutional needs in attempts to meet external expectations. This disconnection from self creates the perfect conditions for physical, emotional, and spiritual depletion.

Our alternative medicine approach emphasises reconnecting with inner wisdom and constitutional nature as fundamental to sustainable healing. When women learn to recognise and honour their unique needs rather than forcing themselves into patterns that don't serve them, healing often accelerates dramatically. Dr Harmony Robinson-Stagg explores these themes extensively in her work at Harmony Inspired Health, offering guidance for women seeking to align with their natural constitution.

How Burnout Manifests Differently Across Constitutional Types

Understanding how burnout presents differently in each Ayurvedic constitution provides valuable insights for both prevention and treatment. At Chris and Filly Functional Medicine, we've observed how these constitutional differences affect both symptom presentation and optimal healing strategies.

Vata types, characterised by qualities of air and space, tend to experience burnout through anxiety, insomnia, digestive irregularity, weight loss, and scattered thinking. Their burnout often stems from overactivity, irregular routines, and insufficient grounding practices. The mobile, changeable nature of Vata becomes exaggerated under stress, creating symptoms of instability and depletion.

Pitta types, governed by fire and water elements, typically experience burnout through inflammation, irritability, perfectionism, digestive issues involving heat, and intense drive that eventually leads to collapse. Their burnout often results from excessive intensity, competitiveness, and inability to moderate their naturally strong drive and ambition.

Kapha types, embodying earth and water qualities, tend toward burnout characterised by weight gain, lethargy, depression, fluid retention, and difficulty initiating action. Their burnout often develops more gradually through accumulation of heaviness and stagnation, particularly when they override their need for moderate, sustainable activity levels.

Constitutional Self-Care: Personalised Practices for Each Dosha

The recognition that different constitutional types require different self-care approaches represents a revolutionary shift from one-size-fits-all wellness advice. Our naturopathic medicine approach integrates Ayurvedic constitutional wisdom with functional medicine testing to create truly personalised healing protocols.

For Vata types experiencing burnout, healing practices emphasise grounding, routine, warmth, and nourishment. This might include regular meal times, warm, cooked foods, oil massage, gentle yoga, and practices that create stability and calm. The key for Vata healing involves establishing regularity and reducing the scattered, erratic patterns that deplete this constitution.

Pitta types benefit from cooling, moderating practices that temper their natural intensity. This includes cooling foods, time in nature, reducing competitive activities, practising acceptance and self-compassion, and creating space for rest without guilt. The challenge for Pitta types involves learning that rest and moderation actually enhance rather than diminish their effectiveness.

Kapha types require stimulating, energising practices that counter their natural tendency toward heaviness and stagnation. This includes vigorous exercise, lighter foods, variety and stimulation, social connection, and practices that generate warmth and movement. The key for Kapha healing involves overcoming inertia while avoiding the opposite extreme of depleting overactivity.

For those interested in learning more about implementing these constitutional practices, the Ayurveda Alchemist Academy offers comprehensive training in Ayurvedic principles and their practical application.

Rewriting Masculine Hustle Culture for Women's Health

The modern workplace and achievement culture largely operates according to masculine principles of constant linear productivity that contradict women's naturally cyclical nature. At Chris and Filly Functional Medicine, our root cause medicine approach recognises how this misalignment between cultural expectations and biological reality creates conditions for widespread burnout and disease among women.

Women's bodies operate according to monthly hormonal cycles that create natural fluctuations in energy, creativity, focus, and social needs. Attempting to maintain constant high productivity regardless of these cycles creates chronic stress that depletes hormonal reserves and contributes to conditions including PCOS, endometriosis, infertility, and premature menopause.

Our holistic wellness philosophy supports women in honouring their cyclical nature while still achieving their goals and contributing meaningfully. This involves restructuring work and life to accommodate natural rhythms rather than forcing the body to conform to arbitrary external demands that ignore biological reality. Dr Harmony's higHERself™ method, detailed in her book "Ayurveda & the Alchemy of HER," provides practical frameworks for this transformation.

Honouring the Menstrual Cycle for Optimal Health

Understanding and working with the menstrual cycle rather than against it represents a powerful strategy for preventing burnout while optimising performance. Through our healing from within approach, we've discovered how different phases of the cycle support different types of activities and require different forms of self-care.

The follicular phase, occurring after menstruation as oestrogen rises, naturally supports new projects, social connection, and outward-focused activities. This represents an optimal time for launching initiatives, networking, and engaging in vigorous activity. Honouring this natural energy surge allows women to accomplish significant work without depleting themselves.

The ovulatory phase, when oestrogen peaks, creates natural conditions for communication, collaboration, and visibility. This represents ideal timing for presentations, important conversations, and activities requiring charisma and connection. Understanding this natural peak allows strategic planning that works with rather than against biological rhythms.

The luteal phase, as progesterone rises and energy naturally turns inward, supports detail work, completion of projects, and more introspective activities. Attempting to maintain the outward focus and high energy of earlier phases during this time creates unnecessary stress and depletion.

The menstrual phase represents a natural time for rest, reflection, and renewal. Cultures that honour this wisdom traditionally provided women with reduced responsibilities during menstruation, recognising this as essential time for physical and spiritual restoration.

The Moon Cycle Connection

The relationship between women's cycles and lunar phases represents another dimension of cyclical wisdom that supports hormonal health and prevents burnout. Our mind body medicine approach recognises how aligning with natural rhythms including lunar cycles creates coherence that supports optimal function.

The new moon traditionally represents a time for setting intentions, beginning new projects, and planting seeds for future growth. The waxing moon supports building energy and momentum toward goals. The full moon brings culmination, celebration, and peak energy. The waning moon invites release, completion, and preparation for the next cycle.

When women align their activities with both their menstrual and lunar cycles, they often experience enhanced effectiveness with less effort, demonstrating how working with natural rhythms creates sustainable success.

Integrating Ayurvedic Wisdom with Functional Medicine

The integration of Ayurvedic constitutional wisdom with modern functional medicine testing creates a powerful synergy that honours both ancient wisdom and contemporary science. At Chris and Filly Functional Medicine, our personalised medicine approach draws from multiple healing traditions to create comprehensive protocols tailored to each individual.

Functional medicine testing reveals specific imbalances in hormones, nutrients, gut health, and other systems, while Ayurvedic assessment provides constitutional context that guides treatment selection and lifestyle recommendations. This integration ensures that interventions align with individual nature rather than working against it.

Dr Harmony Robinson-Stagg's multi-modality approach, combining Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, acupuncture, and Western health practices, exemplifies this integrative philosophy. Her work at Harmony Inspired Health demonstrates how ancient healing wisdom can be masterfully integrated with evidence-based science.

Creating Sustainable Success Without Burnout

The possibility of achieving meaningful success without sacrificing health represents a paradigm shift from conventional achievement culture. Our whole body health philosophy demonstrates how honouring constitutional nature, cyclical rhythms, and biological needs actually enhances rather than diminishes effectiveness and accomplishment.

This approach requires releasing cultural conditioning that equates constant productivity with value and embracing a more feminine model of cyclical engagement that includes periods of activity and rest, outward focus and inward reflection, doing and being.

For women seeking to build thriving, purpose-driven businesses while maintaining health and balance, resources like the Ayurveda Alchemist Academy provide training in both healing modalities and wellness entrepreneurship that honours feminine rhythms and constitutional needs.

Discovering Your Unique Constitutional Type

Understanding your individual Ayurvedic constitution represents the first step toward personalised healing and prevention strategies. The Discover Your Dosha Quiz offers an accessible entry point for exploring your constitutional type and beginning to understand how your unique makeup influences your health patterns and needs.

This self-knowledge empowers women to make choices that support rather than undermine their natural constitution, creating conditions for sustainable health and success. Combined with comprehensive functional medicine assessment, constitutional understanding provides a complete picture that guides truly personalised healing protocols.

Ready to discover how understanding your unique Ayurvedic constitution could transform your approach to preventing and healing burnout while supporting optimal hormonal health? We invite you to explore how our integration of ancient wisdom with modern functional medicine could help you create sustainable success that honours your natural rhythms and constitutional needs. Book a Discovery Call with us to learn more about our personalised methodology, or take the first step through our Connect the Dots consultation to begin understanding how constitutional alignment could support your journey to vibrant health.

Remember, true wellness comes from honouring rather than overriding your natural rhythms and constitutional nature. When you're ready to explore this wisdom-based approach to health and success, we're here to guide you on your journey to balanced hormones and sustainable vitality.

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Chris & Filipa Bellette are the Founders of multi award-winning health practice Chris & Filly Functional Medicine, which is best known for ending body burnout (for good!) in “busy” people with energy, mood and gut issues. They have worked with over 2,000+ burned-out clients in the past combined 25+ years, with their own passion for ending body burnout coming from their own personal experience of body, mind, family & business breakdown, after a prolonged period of physical and mental stress.

Filipa is an accredited Clinical Nutritionist, Functional Medicine Practitioner, Coach & Trauma Therapist. She is also a Ph.D. Scholar, author & regularly featured the media, such as Forbes, Body+Soul and The Daily Telegraph. Chris is a Burnout Recovery Coach & an accredited Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) Master Practitioner, with a Bachelor of Human Movement Science. He has existed in high-performance realms of the sporting (think national athlete) & business industries and knows what it takes to get out of hustle-and-grind culture to thriving. 

They were recently awarded as the Tasmanian State Winner & National Finalist for the Telstra Best of Business Awards 2022, and Winner of the Australian Women’s Small Business Champion Awards 2022.