No stranger to exhaustion and ill health, Christine Rankin credits author Dr Frances Pitsilis for restoring her joy for life and tireless work ethic. She talked to Seven Sharp reporter Sasha McNeil. Story: Emily Simpson.
There can be few women in New Zealand more qualified to talk about workplace stress than Christine Rankin. Especially that executive-level, high-profile sort of stress that sees you regularly defending yourself on the six-o’clock news.
Most people can’t remember exactly why Rankin, as the one-time CEO of WINZ, ended up in the media so often – but they always remember her trademark theatrical earrings and controversial clothing which, in the good old 90s and early noughts, was scrutinised as much if not more than her workplace performance.
“I think what happened to me would never happen in this day and age,” says Rankin. “It was extreme. I had people who wanted to kill me... I had my own police protection. There were bullets with my name carved on them, people spat on me. It was a terrible, terrible time every day for two years. Every single day and then long, long after that.”
But it would take more than two years of hell to eject Christine Rankin from the workforce. Now aged 70, Rankin holds no less than four professional positions: She has a fulltime role as chief executive officer of Lake Taupō Hospice; plus she’s also on the Taupō District Council, runs an HR business and works as a life coach. And this intense daily juggle is exactly the life she wants.
“It is a privilege to go to work every day, it truly is."
Leadership of any kind, she points out, is an enormous demand on energy, as it involves both caring for people and pushing them for better outcomes. “It takes a big personal toll. But who wouldn’t want to do it? And I’m so grateful that I can do it.”
This freedom to work her butt off has been hard won. Three times in the past Rankin has experienced burnout – that overwhelming physical, mental and emotional depletion that can have serious health consequences and, in her case, did. She says the stress of her work and public life has undoubtedly contributed to her having four different auto-immune diseases, the most debilitating being the rheumatoid arthritis that was gearing up to control her life, before she met a doctor who would change everything.
“I couldn’t dress myself, I couldn’t walk up and down stairs, I was exhausted all the time, I was very, very ill,” she says.
Then, through the process of purchasing some vitamin C, she happened to meet Dr Frances Pitisilis, and 20 years later, everything has changed. Pitsilis, she says, taught her to manage her hormones and take back her health.
“At 70, I am loaded with energy,” says Rankin. “She’s got me to a stage where I have more energy than people half my age and I’m very, very proud of that.”
Dr Frances Pitsilis is the author of the recently released Well Woman: A Prescription for Optimal Health and Wellness. She’s a medical doctor, but one who (sometimes controversially) takes a holistic and “integrative medicine” approach to chronic illness. She also prescribes plenty of common sense. Go to bed by 10.30pm, she says. Lift some weights, walk. Take fish oil, a multivitamin, vitamin C, magnesium for sleeping.
For Rankin she prescribed bio-identical hormones (known as BHRT, similar to HRT, except plant-based). “And I will take them till I die,” says Rankin. “Unless there’s some reason I can’t... I’ve experimented going off [the hormones] and it’s not pretty.”
Rankin says she sees women her own age suffering from physical frailty. “And that’s because they haven’t known how to keep their bones strong or how important exercise is – and your diet... All of those things are vital and I do see women at my age and younger who are already frail. And I have a condition that can create that anyway. But because of Frances I am not twisted." She laughs. "Well some people might think I am, but my body is not!"
Partly, these common afflictions – midlife career burnout, chronic illness, difficult menopause years – reflect the fact that humans are living longer than ever before and we're simply drawing out the twilight stage, with (according to the World Health Organisation) the average duration of disability before death being eight long years.
Dr Frances Pitsilis puts it plainly. “I think we weren’t designed to live this long."
No stranger to exhaustion and ill health, Rankin credits author Dr Frances Pitsilis for restoring her joy for life and tireless work ethic. (Source: Seven Sharp)
And of course it’s not just women who struggle. Men may not get whacked suddenly and dramatically with menopause, but there is a "manopause" – a slow but steady decline in testosterone which can affect mood, libido and energy levels.
For that, Pitsilis might prescribe testosterone replacement therapy – and Rankin’s husband would vouch for its effectiveness. “My husband has testosterone and doesn’t mind telling everybody how wonderful it is," she says. "You find so many men are grumpy after about 60 – they just turn into a different person – and they’re not full of life.”
But getting back to women – and not just those in the second half of life. Younger women are also very susceptible to burnout, especially as they attempt to juggle a demanding worklife with all the other pressures, and sometimes motherhood.
“I look at women today with young children who are working incredibly long hours and then working at night after their kids go to bed. I don’t know how people do it. You will crack, and something big will happen in your health, there’s no doubt about it,” says Rankin. “If you are trying to do it all it’s a damn tough road...
The 70-year-old grandma with four jobs and a spring in her step knows all about the tough roads. “I had an enormous job at a very young age and I wish Francis had been around then.”
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