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By Tricia Granchi, MSN, FNP-C |

What Health Factors Cause Professional Burnout 

Uncovering the Underlying Drivers Behind Workplace Turnover

What Health Factors Cause Professional Burnout 
Business owners. Frontline medical workers. C-level executives. Over the past several months, patients across our practice have asked a common question: What health factors cause professional burnout, and what can they do about it?

The Underlying Factors Rarely Operate Alone

A vitamin deficiency can quietly disrupt gut health. Struggling gut health interferes with sleep. Poor sleep then throws off hormone regulation. And a hormone imbalance sharpens the body’s stress response, making it harder to make good dietary decisions. One factor pulls the next one down with it, which is why burnout often feels bigger than any single bad work week.

We can’t fix a difficult manager or an unreasonable deadline. But we can help patients optimize their health at the root so a demanding workplace becomes more manageable.

Key Clinical Takeaways 

  • What is “Burnout”: Burnout is the state of physical & emotional exhaustion that develops when chronic, unmanaged stress overwhelms the body’s ability to recover.
  • What Causes It: Beyond factors we can’t control, burnout is driven by measurable, treatable health factors like hormone imbalance, poor sleep, nutrient deficiency & gut dysfunction.
  • What You Can Do: Advanced testing can identify which underlying factors are driving your burnout, so you can make a plan that addresses the root cause instead of just managing symptoms.

Runaway Cortisol Dysregulation

Workers with chronic burnout symptoms lasting six months or longer showed higher work-day cortisol levels, more frequent sleep disturbances and greater postwork irritability than workers without burnout symptoms.

When stress hits, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activates and floods the body with cortisol to fuel a fight-or-flight response. That response is built to resolve in minutes. A body stuck in fight-or-flight treats everything outside of survival as optional. Digestion slows. Immune response weakens. Reproductive hormone production takes a back seat, since the body has no bandwidth to spare on functions it doesn’t need at that moment.

A functional medicine patient who looks stressed from work

Cortisol is Supposed to Follow a Daily Rhythm

It is naturally high in the morning to help you wake up, low at night so the body can wind down. When it remains elevated for long periods of time, that nightly drop never happens. Sleep is often the first thing to suffer. Poor sleep leads to fatigue and slower performance the next day.

That underperformance becomes its own source of stress, triggering another cortisol spike and starting the cycle over again.

“Many of my patients say they never fully decompress or ‘turn off’ from work. That means the body never returns to its natural baseline. So, what does the body do next? It tries to adapt to a constant high-stress state. Your body was built to handle short bursts of stress, not an entire career’s worth of it.”
-Tricia Granchi, MSN
A middle-aged woman decompressing from her day with music and a glass of red wine while in her kitchen

A Natural Shift in Hormones As We Age

Estrogen, progesterone and testosterone all decline gradually with age. That shift changes how the body handles stress, sleep and energy long before most people connect the dots. For many patients, these changes surface right in the middle of their highest-demand working years.

Trying to Navigate Perimenopause & Menopause Symptoms in the Workplace

A 2024 study found that of women experiencing perimenopausal and menopausal symptoms while working, 53.3% reported those symptoms actively interfering with their job performance. 38.9% of women reported frequent or severe emotional exhaustion in another study from 2023 that looked at perimenopause and work performance.
Perimenopause typically begins in a woman’s mid-to-late 40s, and it lasts an average of four years — though it can stretch to eight, as estrogen and progesterone fluctuate in the years leading up to menopause. Hot flashes, irregular periods and night sweats tend to get the spotlight, but brain fog, joint pain, heart palpitations and ADHD are just as common and far less talked about.

“It’s uplifting to hear more women talking about perimenopause online & on podcasts. Patients are walking into our offices more knowledgeable than they would have been just 5 or 10 years ago. You don’t need to grit your teeth & ‘just deal’ with sporadic discomfort anymore.” 

-Tricia Granchi, MSN

Sleep Disturbances You Didn’t Even Know About

Chronic stress delays the nightly drop in cortisol your body needs to wind down, and poor sleep sharpens the next day’s stress response. This creates that deep cycle of unrestful sleep and weaker work performance.

A 2023 study following young working adults found that those with a diagnosed sleep disorder lost a median of 164 hours of workplace productivity per year, compared to just 30 hours for workers without one. The majority of that gap showed up as “presenteeism” rather than missed days: the difference between the days you’re firing on all cylinders and the days that just feel like a slog to get through.

A woman sitting up in bed struggling to balance work stress and proper sleep

Sleep Disorders Don’t Always Present As Exhaustion

Bloating and sluggish digestion are common, quieter signs of a disorder, since disrupted sleep slows gut motility and raises inflammation along the digestive tract. It is important to discuss a sleep disorder diagnosis with a professional, as the underlying causes span a wide range, including (but certainly not limited to):

  • Screen exposure & inconsistent bedtimes, which are the most common culprit we see
  • An overactive nervous system that won’t fully power down at night, sometimes driven by undiagnosed ADHD or even stimulant medications
  • Diagnosable conditions like obstructive sleep apnea, which goes undetected in an estimated 80% of people who have it — this is especially common among women going through menopause
A patient organizing her magnesium supplements for the week

Chronic Vitamin D & Magnesium Deficiencies

A correlational study of operating room staff found that lower vitamin D levels tracked directly with higher burnout scores on the “Maslach Burnout Inventory.” Magnesium shows the same pattern. Both nutrients play a direct role in regulating sleep quality and the body’s ability to buffer stress.

Simple Bloodwork Gets Rid of the Guesswork

Testing for these core deficiencies is inexpensive and straightforward, yet it tends to be one of the last places patients look. Many patients come to us after first testing quick fixes like melatonin or a nightly drink instead — both of which carry their own potential consequences for gut health and sleep architecture.
Diagnostic testing offers the insight needed to choose a targeted supplement rather than reaching for one out of desperation. And this targeted selection can support both gut health and sleep simultaneously, rather than trading one problem for another.
“Supplements are a great ‘proof of concept’ for patients. You slept better after adding that  magnesium capsule a few hours before bed? Excellent! Let’s find some ways to incorporate into your daily diet so you don’t have to do that forever.”  
-Tricia Granchi, MSN

Gut Health: Sustained Damage to the “2nd Brain of the Body”

GI symptoms don’t always look extreme. Digestion that runs loud at night, heartburn that’s just quiet enough to explain away, constipation that’s become “normal” — they’re all pretty easy to dismiss individually.
Chronic stress at specific times of day can reshape the gut microbiome. This throws off the balance of bacteria that governs digestion, nutrient absorption and bloating. Healing the gut takes time and a clear starting point: you need to know what caused it and how far it’s progressed before you can fix it, which is also why it pays to avoid social media supplement trends that promise a quick reset, since some of them can actually disrupt the gut further and create new problems.
How to Heal Your Gut

The Gut-Brain Axis & Worsening Job Performance

In a multinational study of more than 16,800 working adults, 42.3% met the criteria for a diagnosable “Disorder of Gut-Brain Interaction.” Of those affected, more than half (50.7%-67.1%) reported reduced productivity while still at their desks due to their diagnosis.
The researchers also found fatigue and psychological distress were independently linked to that impairment. This tracks well with what we see at our practice: workplace stress activates the gut-brain axis, digestion suffers, and that discomfort feeds right back into more anxiety, worse focus and, often, another night of poor sleep.

Workplace Environmental Factors

A Note on Legal Protections:

OSHA doesn’t maintain a dedicated indoor air quality standard, but its “General Duty Clause” requires employers to keep the workplace free of recognized hazards, and specific ventilation standards do exist for general industry. This is not legal advice; employees with environmental health concerns should raise them directly with HR or workplace safety officers.

MORE INSIGHT

Solutions to Reduce Professional Burnout

A patient looking up facts about workplace protections on her phone

Self-Advocacy & Knowing Where to Look

Advocating for yourself starts with knowing what’s already available. In Ohio, the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation’s Better You, Better Ohio! program gives eligible employers a free wellness benefit to offer their teams, and the Ohio CareLine (800-720-9616) provides free, confidential support 24/7 with no employer involvement required.

Dr. Weston presenting about workplace wellness programs at the RTRX conference

Corporate Wellness Programs 

These types of workplace programs tend to work best when they target the specific factors actually driving burnout instead of offering generic perks or advice. A program built around real health screenings, education and access to functional testing helps reduce turnover and improve morale.

Corporate Wellness Programs

Dr. Weston going over lab results with a patient in Columbus Ohio

Functional Medicine Plans 

Each plan starts with advanced diagnostic testing to identify the underlying factors driving burnout, including cortisol, sex hormones, sleep, nutrient levels and/or gut health. Treatment typically begins with targeted supplements and lifestyle changes before moving toward more advanced interventions like hormone replacement therapy or weight management support — only if they’re needed.

Functional Medicine

“Some of these health concerns amplify over time. That makes it so bittersweet to work with a new patient in search of a better relationship with their career. I’m happy that they’re advocating for themselves. But they deserve to have this much sooner — & it could have been an easier journey if they knew about the causes earlier!” 
-Tricia Granchi, MSN

About the Author

Tricia Granchi, MSN, FNP-C, is an experienced functional medicine practitioner in Columbus, Ohio. She understands that hormone imbalance, poor sleep and gut dysfunction rarely show up alone. So, instead of treating symptoms in isolation, she looks for the dynamic, interconnected causes behind them. Tricia takes a patient-education-first approach to care, championing “movement as medicine” and helping patients build sustainable functional strength that supports their daily performance and longevity.

Tricia Granchi, MSN, Author Photo

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