It Starts With Attraction
Revealing secrets on how to become the most attractive you can be Physically, Intellectually, Emotionally and Spiritually (or as us insiders call it...the PIES). Listen to weekly episodes. Join a course or get more info at kimberlybeamholmes.com
It Starts With Attraction
STOP Letting Burnout Control Your Life
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Have you ever felt so exhausted by your job that even weekends don’t seem to recharge you? Join us as we unravel the complexities of burnout, a global crisis impacting two-thirds of workers, with insights grounded in both personal experiences and scientific studies. Discover how burnout isn’t just confined to the workplace but can also arise from academic pressures and volunteer roles.
Explore the pivotal role of cortisol, the stress hormone, in this phenomenon. We dig into how cortisol's balance—or lack thereof—affects our physical and mental health. Drawing parallels with athletic training, we introduce the PIES model to categorize the effects of burnout and stress, emphasizing the necessity of early recognition and intervention. You'll hear about our personal anecdotes, offering a relatable perspective on the toll of chronic stress and the critical need for effective management strategies, including mindfulness and exercise.
Arm yourself with actionable strategies to combat burnout, from progressive muscle relaxation techniques to the benefits of spiritual practices. Learn about disconcerting statistics from a 2024 study on US physicians’ vacation habits, underscoring the urgent need for adequate rest. Finally, we present seven practical methods to alleviate burnout and encourage you to commit to at least one of these strategies for a healthier, more balanced life. Prioritize your well-being with these expert tips and personal stories that bring our discussion to life.
Your Host: Kimberly Beam Holmes, Expert in Self-Improvement and Relationships
Kimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and following reach over 500,000 people a month who are making changes and becoming the best they can be.
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If you have ever felt burnt out or overstressed, then this episode is for you. According to a recent Gallup survey, two-thirds of workers across the world said that they were burnt out. That is way more than half Two-thirds. So it is a high likelihood that if you are employed, whether part-time or full-time, that you may already be feeling symptoms of burnout. So what is burnout? How does that relate to stress? How does that relate to cortisol? And what can you do when you're burnt out to restore yourself so that you can get to feeling good again? That's what we're going to be talking about in today's episode of. It Starts with Attraction. I'm joined today by producer Jason.
Speaker 2:Hi, nice to be back.
Speaker 1:Great to be back. Yeah that's right. I've taken four months off. People don't know, though they know now.
Speaker 2:They know now.
Speaker 1:They know now yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I've also taken four months off of recording this podcast you have.
Speaker 1:But not off work, unfortunately.
Speaker 2:Not off work. No, I've very much been here.
Speaker 1:Very much. You've very much been holding the fort down. So I recently did take four months off of work because of this very issue. I was burnt out and I realized it in March of this year and upon realizing it, I began to debate with myself of whether I should take time off work or not, and ultimately I started with, well, I'll just take a week off, two weeks, ultimately ended up taking four months off and it was incredibly restful, relaxing and helped me overcome a lot of the burnout that I was feeling. Have you ever felt burnt out, jason? Yes, specifically.
Speaker 2:Yes, specifically one time, and like I've been on the edge of being burnt out a couple of times but I've been able to kind of thwart that off a little bit, but for sure, once yeah.
Speaker 1:It can be difficult, though, if you're feeling burnt out at work, to like how do you speak that?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:How do you tell your person?
Speaker 2:your supervisor? Yeah, and how do you take a break? You know?
Speaker 1:you take a break.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially like what if you don't have any vacation days left? Like you know, what do you do?
Speaker 1:Is that you have you used all your vacation days Seriously?
Speaker 2:You never use all your vacation days.
Speaker 1:No, I have like, you have the opposite problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have too many.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean all of those are good things that we should cover in today's episode. But as we start, let's define burnout. We like the World Health Organization definition the best, because burnout isn't it's kind of like brain fog. It's kind of a word people use, but it's not necessarily a word like diabetes that explains a very specific system that's happening in the body. Burnout is more of a word that is applying to a general sense that people are seeing things happen in the world.
Speaker 1:So, according to the World Health Organization, burnout is a syndrome that's conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It's typically characterized by three dimensions. The first one is feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion. The second one is increased mental distance from one's job, feelings of negativity or criticism related to one's job. And the third symptom is reduced professional efficacy, so you just aren't being as effective as you used to be in the role that you have. Those are the three symptoms, and while it specifically says in that definition that it's a workplace-related type of stress, I believe that it could be related to academia and even like super high-level volunteer positions.
Speaker 2:Oh 100% 100%. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yes, anything where there's a lot of demands of you and it's taking a toll on you to meet all of those demands that you have. So, talking about burnout, what leads to burnout? Well, this led our research team to look into the cortisol. There's mixed reviews and mixed articles, journal scholarly articles out there deciding and kind of defining whether or not burnout happens from high cortisol or if burnout occurs because your cortisol was high for so long that your body ultimately stopped making enough cortisol. So actually burnout may be more associated with low cortisol. There's not a standardized answer to that. There's definitely two camps. So the answer to that is we don't know, but we do know that cortisol plays into it in some way. So let's talk about how cortisol plays into it. So we're talking here about the glucocorticoid hormone. Say that five times fast.
Speaker 2:I can say it once Say it once Glucocorticoid.
Speaker 1:Glucocorticoid. It's like when you're sitting in church and the pastor's like sharing their knowledge of a Hebrew word and everyone has to pronounce it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You can't get past that part in the sermon until everyone has said the Hebrew word.
Speaker 2:Well, let me tell you they've advanced and I've never said, I've never repeated it, so you can move past. You can move past.
Speaker 1:Yes, I just wonder why they do that. I don't know, but it's like what all of them do.
Speaker 1:Anyway, and I just did it with glucocorticoid Anyway, and I just did it with glucocorticoid. Glucocorticoid hormone is a type of steroid hormone and this is ultimately what leads to actually no the other way. When we feel stressed, it can increase that glucocorticoid hormone, which is the cortisol, and it's produced by the adrenal glands. Cortisol regulates your body's stress response. It helps control the body's use of fats, proteins and carbs and regulate your metabolism. It can suppress inflammation, regulate blood sugar, helps control your sleep-wake cycle. Cortisol is actually, when a healthy person is assessed, cortisol should be highest in the morning when you first wake up. That is what actually prompts your body to wake up. It's kind of what's. I don't know if you would say it starts your circadian rhythm, but in your circadian rhythm your cortisol rises and that's what wakes your body up. And then through the day your cortisol should decrease to where it should be the lowest before you go to bed at night, and all of that correlates with melatonin production and all of those types of things. So then when someone has high cortisol, and especially chronically high cortisol, they can experience weight gain, they can experience muscle weakness, high blood sugar, high blood pressure, because cortisol, when it's healthy, it regulates all those things. So then when the cortisol is always too high, it's like your body is always in fight or flight. It's always ready for the tiger to attack, if you want to think of it in more of that paleolithic way that people kind of always talk about it and so your body's not regulating itself as well and it takes a toll on your body. But then there's also symptoms of low cortisol, such as fatigue, unintentional weight loss, a poor appetite and even low blood sugar. So your body's actually not producing enough cortisol.
Speaker 1:We can kind of think of cortisol like motivation. They're not the same, but I'm using this as an analogy. When we're motivated to do something, then we actually have like a hyper focus. We're more likely to get things done. We have this like a motor always kind of running beneath us that's keeping us going and keeping us moving toward what we need to do. So we can kind of think of cortisol like motivation.
Speaker 1:But when your motivation is too high and you're too ramped up, then you're doing way too much all at once. You're in a frenzy, you're not focused on the right things and you can end up getting burnt out that way. You could also think about this like in athletics. If an athlete is training but they're overraining like they're too motivated, they have too much energy that they're putting into training on a day-to-day basis, then ultimately they're going to end up burning out. They're going to end up plateauing to where they can't actually even lift to the same amount that they're used to lifting, or run to the same speed that they're used to running, because their body is on overdrive. But then the opposite is true If someone's motivation is too low, then they tend to be fatigued, they tend to not do the things that they need to do.
Speaker 1:And cortisol is the same here and, of course, in training. Again, thinking of athletes as a second analogy, it can be the same If an athlete isn't doing enough to keep their body moving and keep training toward the event that they need to train at, then they aren't going to be able to compete at it at the level that they need to. So cortisol is really important in our body and cortisol is not bad, but too much or too little of it is bad. So then, how is cortisol connected to burnout? Well, like we said before, there's some studies that say that burnout tends to be linked to lower cortisol levels. So the thought behind that, at least the thought that Jason and I have come to the agreement, and so it must be right, is that when someone gets to the point of burnout, they have had so much high stress for so long that their body stops making cortisol, and there's a word for that.
Speaker 2:Yes, which is hypocortisolism.
Speaker 1:Hypocortisolism, which is an actual medical term that defines something that happens in the body to where your body's basically trying to protect itself from having so much cortisol all the time it's already affecting your immune system and all of that that your body just stops making it because you have too much of it in your system. So that's not good, but that could be what leads to burnout in some people. But then in other people their body may not get to the point of stopping making cortisol. It may just continue to produce that cortisol in overdrive and that leads to burnout as well. But both of them happen for the same reason it's because your body is done and it needs a break, and your body probably gave you a lot of indications of that before you got to burnout and you probably didn't listen. Ask me how I know.
Speaker 2:I was literally about to say did that happen to you? Did?
Speaker 1:that happen to me? Yeah, yeah, for sure, and I think I'm more aware of it now that I've come back from being off for four months the conversation that Jason and I were having before starting this. So this is my first week back in the office as of filming this, and I'm filming this on a Friday, and my first day I had six hours of meetings. My second day back, I had eight hours of meetings. Honestly, I don't remember my third day, just a blur.
Speaker 1:It's all a blur, like yesterday, you know. And so't remember my third day. It's all a blur, like yesterday, you know. And so it was just too much Like I ultimately ended up coming back in like full speed ahead the things that got me to the burnout state. So even coming in here this morning, I was like no more recordings on Friday recordings on Fridays.
Speaker 1:I already feel burnt out after one week Not really, but I do start. I'm feeling drained and that's the feeling it was a feeling during my sabbatical and I know the feeling within my body and it's this feeling of like pressure and expectation within my chest that at the same time I begin to feel really tired when I think about it, like that's the feeling in my body that I have to be aware of that was leading to burnout. But instead of listening to that, I just kept pushing through and kept pushing through for 12 years and that got me to where I was. But now I'm back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now you're back.
Speaker 1:But now I'm back, all right. So then what is the next thing that we need to know? Why or what does high stress do to us physically, mentally and emotionally? We love talking about our pies. The four areas of attraction on the podcast physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually are those pies. That's what pies stands for. And so burnout and high cortisol this is what it can do to us in the areas of our pies.
Speaker 1:Physiologically, stress can cause structural changes in the brain. I cannot tell you how many times my mother, my sweet, loving, amazing mother, has called me in periods of high stress in her life and said Kimberly, I just forgot something, is something wrong with me. And I say, yes, you're stressed out, that's what's wrong with you. It's true, when we are stressed, we forget things.
Speaker 1:The first week that I was on my sabbatical, I went to go pick up groceries something that I have done hundreds of times in my car and when I got there and the guy came up, he was bringing my groceries out. I rolled down the window and he said where do you want your groceries? And I said well, before I said anything, I was thinking like I want them in the trunk and I started looking around my car and for the life of me, could not remember how to open the trunk of my car. Literally Like for 20 seconds. He just watched me sit in my car and like, look around with this terrified look on my face of like. I feel like I'm having amnesia right now. I have no idea where this button is to open my trunk. So finally I said, just put him in the back seat. And it was about 10 seconds after he started putting them in that I finally found where the button was to put the groceries in my trunk. But it was the craziest feeling and, as someone who suffers from anxiety, I was like something's wrong with me. I already have dementia, like 34 years old. Send me to memory care. But at the end of the day, well, actually immediately I called my parents and was like something's wrong and they said, kimberly, you're just stressed. And that was true, I was just stressed. I did remember. I've never forgotten since where my trunk is in my car. But I knew where the trunk was. I didn't know the button to get there.
Speaker 1:But that's what stress can do you can end up having, because ultimately stress can cause atrophy of the brain, which sounds bad because it is bad the brain, which sounds bad because it is bad. Declarative memory disorders, reduction in spatial memory, just like not being able to remember things are not being able to remember words that you're trying to like. You feel like a word is on the tip of your tongue but you just can't place it. These are all symptoms of burnout. It can also cause changes to your cognition or even to your mood, and there's a note here that mild stress improves cognition, but too much stress causes cognitive disorders. So, jason, what is considered mild stress?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I think it's different in every person. I think, yeah, it has to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you feel like there's a certain amount of stress that you thrive under?
Speaker 2:Personally. Yeah, a hundred percent, and it's. I think it's actually pretty high, yeah, yeah. But there's definitely like a threshold. Well, I don't think it's a threshold of like how much. I think it's a threshold of how long. So how long I'm under that stress, so like if I'm experiencing it for like a week, like I can thrive under that and like that's where I work best. But if it's like months long, then that's when I'm like really about to just like fall off the face of the earth.
Speaker 1:It feels like yeah yeah, mild stress is motivating. It's because it's that little bit of core, similar to like how cortisol wakes you up. It's that little bit that prompts you to go and to do. Like a little bit of anxiety is a good thing, a little bit of stress is a good thing. A little bit of some of these things is actually good. We don't want to eliminate all of those in our life. As of the time of recording this, the Olympics is currently going on, it's about to end and talk about, so this is just a fascinating like human study in stress. So for athletes, having that little bit of stress, anxiety, like right before a competition propels them to perform better, but too much of that, like too much feelings of expectation and fear of not performing well, that can completely take you out of performing well, like you can get so in your head that you can't. That happened to Simone Biles. Was it two years ago or four?
Speaker 2:years ago it was in Tokyo.
Speaker 1:Okay, four years ago in Tokyo she like they called it the twisties Like she was too in her head mentally, there was too much stress to where she knew she could not perform well and so she called out and rightfully so. That was the right decision for her. And of course she came back this year and dominated like she does. But like athletes, at that level, they have performance measurements, mental performance measurements in place where they keep themselves grounded, like they have to do a lot of breath work, a lot of visualization of just seeing them.
Speaker 1:In fact, the guy Steven whatever his last name is, can't pronounce it but the pommel horse guy for the Olympics team, like so many people talked about how he looked, like he was sleeping during the five different men's gymnastics sets because he was just waiting for that sixth set that he would do his pommel horse in. But what he was doing was visualizing himself doing the routine over and over and over, which is a very powerful aspect of performance psychology. And so all of that to say all of that, to say that there's a level of stress and I do agree with Jason that it's different for every person, based on what they have been exposed to in the past and thrived through as to what level of stress they can then handle in the future. But even then there's a breaking point and you don't want to get to that breaking point because then it can cause severe stress which can lead to burnout, and severe stress can halt the secretion of growth hormone, which is interesting. Do you know what growth hormone does? Growth hormone does.
Speaker 2:It grows, you I don't know.
Speaker 1:So what about for a 25-year-old, or a 34-year-old, or a 60-year-old?
Speaker 2:I'm 26.
Speaker 1:Or a 26-year-old. What does growth hormone do?
Speaker 2:I have no idea.
Speaker 1:I'm not 100% sure either. Oh okay, but here's what I know. It does help you to like. It helps recover and rebuild your muscles when you sleep. Growth hormone is, I believe, highest when you sleep and it does a lot to keep your body strong and healthy as you age. If stress is too high it can lead to immune system problems. We know that stress can decrease the activity of cytotoxic T lymphocytes, which was a big buzz word, or several words, during COVID. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:And is a natural killer of cells. Stress is a natural killer of cells because it decreases that cytotoxic T lymphocytes and can lead to growth of malignant cells, to genetic instability, to tumor expansion. So could high stress lead us to be more prone to cancer?
Speaker 1:Maybe, Maybe we're not doctors so we don't know, but it could be. From what we're seeing here, stress can affect your appetite, it can affect your GI system to where you have all sorts of GI issues, and on and on and on. Stress at the end of the day, is bad for you physiologically, but it can also affect your mood and it can affect your emotions. There was a study from 1989, represent the year I was born from Bolger et al and it looked at several different married 160, more than 160 married couples to survey their stress and to survey what things in the home led to more stress. And what they found was that, looking at both the men and the women, that women tended to have slightly higher amounts of daily stress than men. I'm not at all surprised by this. Are you?
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:You don't have anything to compare it to, I guess.
Speaker 2:I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't Growing up. Did you feel like your mom was more stressed, or your dad?
Speaker 2:Oh, my mom, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. And she's going to watch this. Sorry, but definitely, definitely my mom.
Speaker 1:Definitely. I think we just take so much more on Like yeah not even that we necessarily need to take on. We just feel a heavy responsibility for many things, especially when it comes to, like, social relationships and childbearing and things like that by financial problems than women.
Speaker 2:Home overload was associated with significantly better mood for women, but again worse for men. For women, mood was better on stress-free days following a stressor than on other stress-free days. Mood is worse on later days of a conflict stressor series than on later days of non-conflict stressor series. I don't really know what that means.
Speaker 1:stressor series than on later days of non-conflict stressor series. I don't really know what that means. Mood is worse the longer that there is a stress like um, like, let's say, a husband and wife are in a fight and it lasts a full week, like more towards the end of that week If it hasn't been resolved, it's going to be more like the mood is going to be worse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, I get it now. It makes sense. It was a lot of words, I couldn't.
Speaker 1:It is a lot of words with a lot of dashes to try and put them together.
Speaker 2:I can't comprehend this right now, yes, and then, with conflicts with children, women are in a better mood on the first day of an episode, but men are in a worse mood, which I think, like, I think I agree with that, like from experience. And then interpersonal conflicts are the most upsetting of all daily stressors, which I don't think that surprised me at all.
Speaker 1:I don't think it surprised me either. So when you're having a fight with your daughter, your son, your husband, your wife, your best friend, those are the biggest stressors that people experience or fearing that someone's mad at you or angry with you, like those are the things we tend to worry the most about and can keep our stress up, which is not good. But it's with your marriage Marriage helper can help you. Another way that high cortisol affects us is through our mental health.
Speaker 1:There was a study done in 2005 of nearly 2,000 employees and they were given a variety of tests and really what they were looking for was job stress and ultimately what this study found was that mental health problems were significantly elevated when people had newly emerging job stress. So all of a sudden they were becoming really stressed out at work or they had been stressed out at work for a long period of time. For men, the recent onset of a stressful experience at work is associated with the highest risk of poor mental health, and for women it was more so with the continuously high stress. So women tended to be able to handle short-term high stress well, but not long-term, and it was kind of the opposite for men. But probably the key finding was that employees with continuous job stress over a one-year period and those with recently evolving job stress were at a higher risk of developing poor mental health compared to the control groups or the other groups that they studied. So then, with that as the result, what would you say is important to note, jason?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's true and I think, like even from personal experience too, like I know that's 100% true, because the more stress that I'm in for, like I said, a longer period of time and maybe it's like for over a week, maybe it's over a week Like I start feeling really anxious so yeah, I mean I a hundred percent can attest to this personally.
Speaker 1:Do you speak up when you're under stress at work?
Speaker 2:No, I don't Sorry.
Speaker 1:So what are some ways that you could speak up when you're stressed at work?
Speaker 2:So what are some ways that you could speak up when you're stressed at?
Speaker 1:work Probably start with actually opening my mouth, Actually actually speaking up, saying something. What's the fear behind it? Or is there a fear?
Speaker 2:I don't think there's a fear. Maybe there is, I don't know what's the fear.
Speaker 2:I don't know, these episodes always get so introspective of me. I don't know what's the fear I don't know. These episodes always get so introspective of me, I don't know. I think it like I want to feel like I am like good at what I do and can do, like can perform the task well, like by myself, without having to ask for help or anything, and so I think that might be where it comes from, where a lot of the stress comes from.
Speaker 1:Got it. So it's more so of an internal buffer holding you back from speaking. Not, you're scared of getting fired.
Speaker 2:No, no, it's very much an internal, like internalization in my head.
Speaker 1:I'm just trying to think of why people in general may not speak and I think, I think for some people it may be fear of getting fired, Like if I admit I can't do all of this they don't actually care about me. They're just going to replace me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which you probably need a different job at that point anyway, yeah. Or probably what you said, like I want to be able to do it. There's this internal drive and expectation of myself, but yeah, and I think that's probably.
Speaker 2:It probably happens a lot in people who are really competitive because I'm very competitive and it's almost like I'm competing with myself because I like, I want to be able to do like what I'm tasked with and it sometimes it just if it's like a really hard task or a big task, sometimes like when I'm trying to figure out how to do it. I get really stressed in that, but again, I also work really well under stress too.
Speaker 1:So but you can't do it for too long but I can't do it for too long.
Speaker 2:That's what the research is telling us.
Speaker 1:Another study said that exposure to chronic or everyday stress in financial, occupational or personal settings so basically with your money, with your job or with your family, alone or in combination with acute stress exposure, is more powerfully predictive of major depressive disorder than just acute stress exposure alone. So if someone is feeling stressed financially at work, in their family, and then they get a diagnosis, and then their hot water heater goes out and then they don't get the promotion at work, then you are at kind of like the sparks are going to fly, for the highest likelihood that you might also sink into depression Because and I'm sure this has something to do with the way that the chemicals in your brain are firing that's probably also correlated to stress. We know that serotonin is affected when someone is depressed, and so that is likely also playing into this. That is likely also playing into this. We know that stress also can trigger the first manic or hypomanic episode and predict future occurrence or recurrence in bipolar disorder. I had forgotten this until we were reviewing this outline for this show, but I remember in my abnormal psych class hearing that as like a 20-year-old, like in your late 20s to 30s, like that's when bipolar disorder typically presents itself in a person and it's typically done by like an incredibly stressful event and I was like I can never get stressed out, and that, of course, is not true or cannot happen. But there's a lot of great help out there and support for bipolar disorder, but high stress can cause that to happen. We also know that historical exposure to chronic stress is a predictor of developing PTSD following trauma exposure.
Speaker 1:All of our service members and the things that they are continually exposed to on day-to-day, week-to-week basis, especially when they're deployed, but not only when they're deployed Many people don't know that there's actually a lot that military members do in their training here stateside that can be very trauma-inducing. And so having all of that and just having that kind of mindset that you have to be in all of the time for law enforcement for many different high like where people's lives are at stake in the work that you do, air traffic controllers get very stressed out, have a very stressful job and what they have to do, and so experiencing that for long periods of time is a higher likelihood that if you do experience another trauma, you are more likely to have PTSD from that event. So all of this to say you're not alone If you're experiencing any of these feelings and it's important to get support and treatment and help. There are a lot of great things out there. So, to summarize, we are affected physiologically when we're under high periods of stress, in the way that our body works, our mind, in the way that our mood is. We're more likely to experience anxiety and depression, more likely to experience interpersonal issues in our families. We are more likely to feel burned out at work, or, if we are burned out at work, it's more likely to translate into possible issues in our home life. All of this is important for us to focus on.
Speaker 1:So then, what can we do to overcome elevated stress and burnout? So the first thing that we can do is weekend activities. Instead of just sitting around and watching TV although that could be a weekend activity that you do going out and doing something to actually reinvigorate you, or staying in and doing something that can reinvigorate you, is a great way to combat burnout. There was a study done in South Korea that looked at this looked at about 300 employees and asked them the kinds of things that they did over the weekend and how it ended up affecting them, and what the study found was that weekend activities were positively associated with psychological well-being. Weekend activities reduced work stress, and also what they found was that high recovery experiences lowered job stress. So there were some items that were considered more low recovery experiences, such as watching TV, reading magazines or books or listening to music All good things, but maybe not the level of intensity and enjoyability, if you will, that people actually need to truly recover.
Speaker 1:So some of the other items that they recommended that people do were social activities. That could be going to church, that could be going to concerts, it could be other social activities girls night out, guys night out, dinner with friends, date night All of those things are important. But it could also be physical activities, sports and leisure. So going out kicking the soccer ball, going for a run, doing CrossFit, if you dare, going camping, playing volleyball, mountaineering, whatever that might be. Climb that mountain, you think that's what it is, I guess. Mountaineering, hiking, who knows what it is? So physical activities Again, this is very much in line with what we teach with the pies. Who knows what it is? So physical activities, again like this is very much in line with what we teach with the pies doing things to better yourself physically.
Speaker 1:Intellectual activities was another thing that they looked at Learning a hobby, having job related learning. So there's a individual on our team at Marriage Helper who currently in his free time, is learning Python, the coding software or script to create his own program to do something that doesn't exist that we need done at Marriage Helper. He's doing it because he genuinely wants to and enjoys doing it. So for him that is a recovery type of activity, but it's also helping him in his job. But he wants to do it and I think that's the key here. Or even like going back to school, going and learning something on the weekend. Maybe you want to learn Spanish, maybe you want to finish some college classes All of those can count in this as well. So we have physical, intellectual, emotional with the social gatherings and things like that and spiritual all as ways that we can recover on the weekends, decrease our stress and avoid burnout.
Speaker 2:For recovery. Would you not recommend someone to just lay in bed all weekend, that's?
Speaker 1:really what I want to do tomorrow and do nothing. That's really so. It's ironic that we're talking about this because as I was getting ready to come here today, my husband was, like what are we doing tomorrow? In my mind I was like I am laying on the couch, I am going to binge watch something Hallmark Christmas movies aren't out yet, but that's like what I want to do. And he said I really want to go to the zoo. And I was like, oh my gosh, like the last thing I want to do after this week is go to the zoo. It's probably the best thing. It would probably actually be better for me to go to the zoo and not just lounge around. I do think that there are times where, like, you can take a couple of hours on a Saturday and just like lay there and that's needed, and sometimes you need to listen to your body. But I think if you take your whole weekend and just lay in bed, it's not going to actually refill you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just think of, like when I was experiencing burnout, and that's what I would do on the weekends is I would come home and just lay in bed all day and not do anything, and it made it so much worse, like I like my anxiety would be higher on the weekends than it was while I was working during the week and going to school and doing all this stuff that was causing my burnout.
Speaker 1:Yeah, before I took my four months off for 12 years, I always said I hated the weekends because I felt like the weekends got me behind and so I would always just like dread it During my four months off because I wasn't working. I had to learn like other things in life I enjoyed, so reading was one of those things. But also I found for me like going into the weekend and having a schedule doesn't really help me, like if I have to be a lot of places at one time, that just continues like this feeling of expectation. But having a general sense of like things that I want to genuinely want to do or experience or get done, that was really helpful and just like having something to look forward to for the weekend. That wasn't going to keep my mind thinking about work or different things like that, but could like get my mind into a better place. So actually for me, this past weekend, on Sunday, I got into a rhythm of cleaning.
Speaker 2:I get into those sometimes.
Speaker 1:And I deep cleaned the entire downstairs of my house and it was like I was a woman on a mission and I felt so accomplished. Yeah, cleaned out the garage. It was amazing. I vacuumed the garage. Whoa, I work out in my garage though.
Speaker 2:So it's like it has to be clean.
Speaker 1:So so yes, like what was. I don't remember your original question. What was?
Speaker 2:did I even answer. Don't lay in bed. That was. That was the question. I mean I think you could do it like, yeah, saturday a month, yeah, but like every weekend, all weekend. I don't think that's good, yeah, and I actually had a conversation with somebody here like last week about about the whole thing, about like not having a ton of stuff scheduled throughout the weekend, like that, because that's how I am, I cannot, I wouldn't, I know I won't be rested if, like I know, I have to be a bunch of different scheduled throughout the weekend, like that. Cause that's how I am, I cannot, I wouldn't, I know I won't be rested if I know I have to be a bunch of different places on the weekend.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:If I just go into the weekend knowing that like, oh, I kind of want to do this and this and maybe this, but then like not feeling any guilt if I don't do any of them, yeah, like if I just kind of do my own thing and just rest.
Speaker 1:So yeah, in the spring, both of my kids did soccer and both of their soccers were on Saturday, at different times, and I was like literally six hours every Saturday was me taking one of them, bringing them back, taking the other one bringing them back. I know that families have like different views and opinions on this, but for our family, what we've decided is we want our kids to be involved in extracurricular activities, but not to the extent that it takes away, that it like overburdens our family or takes away our family time. So we like even switch. You know what they do, or at least the places they do it through, so that it better fits having an open schedule on the weekends, yeah. So the second point of what you can do to decrease stress and avoid burnout is progressive muscle relaxation. There was a study that looked at 200 nursing students done in 2021, and it guided them through this progressive relaxation which I'll instruct you on how to do it in just a minute and what they found was that clinical stress decreased in students who performed progressive muscle relaxation. Therefore, there's evidence that it is helpful and you should do it. So here's what it is and, honestly, you could probably Google a ton of things on YouTube that are you know YouTube. Look up on YouTube a ton of different progressive muscle relaxation prompts and guides. But for an easy way to do it, you can do it sitting in a chair, you can do it laying in bed A lot of people do it before they go to bed and, honestly, what you're doing is you're starting at the base of your body, so you're starting at your feet and you are intentionally thinking about that part of your body.
Speaker 1:So you can either do both of your feet at one time or you can think about like your right foot, and so what you want to do is you want to focus on your foot and you want to squeeze all of the muscles in your foot as hard as you can and hold it for anywhere like five, 10 seconds, and then you want to release it and then you'll do it on the other foot. If you're doing it unilaterally or if you're doing it together, then you just do both of them at one time and then you slowly go up your body. So you think about your ankles. You might be thinking how do I just tense the muscles of my ankles, but you would be surprised like I'm sitting here doing it right now. So you think about your ankles, then you think about your calves and you just intentionally think about that part of the body and you're breathing as you do it and you're tensing and you're relaxing.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of a meditation type of experience.
Speaker 1:You're not trying to like check things off your to-do list in your mind as you're doing it, you're actually thinking about how your body feels as you're tensing and as you release, you go up to your knees, then your thighs, you can do your hips, you can do your glutes, you can do your abs, you can do your chest, then you want to do your arms, so you can do your hands, you do your forearms, you do your biceps, you can do your shoulders, and then you want to think about, like your back, your upper back, so you want to tense that, going up into your neck and then going up to like your head and thinking like, even just thinking about the top of your head, and you go through that and you can do it multiple times.
Speaker 1:If you do it slowly, like you're supposed to do it, where you're focusing on each area for about 10 seconds, holding releasing, it should take you anywhere from three minutes all the way up to 10 minutes, and this is a very relaxing thing to do. That also actually helps release tension in your body, because you're tensing those muscles and then you're letting them go. Have you ever done progressive muscle relaxation? I have actually.
Speaker 2:And it is like a miracle worker, Like if I can't, if I can't go to sleep, I'll do this from time to time and it's like not immediate, but I feel so relaxed when I'm done. Um, and then I've done it like a couple of times when I like am really stressed out, I'll go and like sit down somewhere and do this and it just it makes me feel so much better, so much better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, another thing that you can do is mindfulness. We've talked about mindfulness a lot on the show. There's several other previous episodes that I'm sure we'll link to in the show notes that you can go and listen even more about mindfulness. But honestly, there's a lot of things that you can do and be mindful while you do them, and that's really the key. There has been a ton of different studies done that show improvements on people who do mindfulness types of trainings all the way from. I mean you can do just making your coffee in the morning mindfully. You can go on a run mindfully, you can take a shower mindfully. So then, what does mindfully mean? It means that you're actually focusing on what you're doing as you're doing it.
Speaker 1:Every morning I make coffee and I'm not just talking like I go to Keurig. I am a coffee snob, so I have whole beans, my grinder, I have a Chemex, I have a reusable cloth filter for my Chemex. So every morning for me, if I were to make coffee mindfully, this is how it could look. I would go, I would turn on the hot water. I would be thinking like I would look at the steam coming on the hot water. I would be thinking like I would look at the steam coming off of the water. I would put my filter under it, because you're supposed to get it wet, and I would look at how the water is hitting the filter and how it goes through and I would think about it as I was doing it. I would place it into my Chemex. I would get the scoop of beans, put them in my grinder like listen to the noise and be very mindful of that sound as I'm grinding the beans, as I take it out, I would be intentionally inhaling what that smells like as I'm pouring the grinds, the ground coffee, into the Chemex. As I'm boiling the water, I would actually just be watching and waiting for the water to boil, only focusing on what I'm doing as I'm doing it. How I typically make my coffee is like I'm going through all the motions, but I'm thinking about what I need to get done today, what I did yesterday, what I did wrong yesterday, all of those things unloading the dishwasher, like I'm doing many other things at the same time.
Speaker 1:But you can practice mindfulness in anything that you do. So here's an example of today. So I said that like I'm already feeling high stress from my first week back in and so I was doing my workout this morning and I typically work out with my music or listening to a podcast or something like that, but today I knew I needed silence. So in today's workout it was just nothing. I had nothing. I was focusing on every move as I was doing it. I was just really using that time to just be really mindful about how my body felt, how I was doing, the different moves I was doing, and it was so calming. So if you want to include a mindfulness practice in your day-to-day life, you don't have to carve out 30 minutes to sit on a bolster in your living room. All you have to do is choose something that you can do mindfully. If you were going to choose something to do mindfully, jason, what would you choose?
Speaker 2:It's a great question, because I don't like coffee really.
Speaker 1:Such a travesty.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't like the taste of coffee. If I have to make coffee, it would be like a very sweet chocolatey version of coffee. So if I had to do something mindfully, I guess something that's already in my daily routine that I've kind of developed recently is like taking my dog to the dog park and like really focusing, trying to like just tune everything else out and really focusing on like each specific thing that I'm doing.
Speaker 2:I know that's kind of like. It's not something that you know is super like in depth, but it is something like I can just focus on being outside, like how the ground feels when I'm walking and all that stuff. So that's probably the one area that I would say.
Speaker 1:I like that. Maybe it doesn't need to be super in depth. I mean even thinking about how distracted we are in the world that we live in. And there's so many times I go outside and like I want to check my phone, I want to check all these notifications, but I intentionally leave my phone inside and then I just like try and listen to what I can hear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the wind or the birds. Yeah, something that's this is really like nerdy and very specific. But something that's really gotten me into like doing that that I just thought of is I have like an old school like actual film camera like where 35 millimeter you don't really know what the picture looks like, so, just like really focusing on what I'm taking a picture of, noticing nature, like that's something that that I've done recently that has kind of helped me be mindful of the world around me.
Speaker 1:So I heard this is like last year, and I heard someone talking about um how teen teenagers these days.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Have some phrase for when you go out on a walk with no headphones? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the phrase is either, but they were talking about this and so you know we were like it's a walk.
Speaker 2:Oh, I get what you're saying.
Speaker 1:I get what you're saying, but like there's this generation of people coming up that's like, oh, it's this crazy thing. Where you like, walk with no distractions.
Speaker 2:That's crazy. It's terrible Because I hate walking or like running or working out with headphones. Anyway, I can't do that.
Speaker 1:That is weird about you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I forgot that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, If I work out I can listen to music if it's playing over a loudspeaker, but I don't like not being able to hear everything else around me, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, this leads perfectly into our fourth point, which is exercise. Exercise is helpful in overcoming burnout, reducing stress, because of many reasons. I mean, we talk about exercise and have talked about exercise a whole lot in this podcast and we'll link again to some of the show notes that go in there. But there was one study that was done about 11 years ago, in 2013. And it only looked at 12 men. So it's not a super in-depth study. We can't necessarily take the findings of it. It was a pilot study. We can't necessarily generalize this, but it was specifically looking at burnout and it did look mainly at males and they were quite the age gap 30 to 65 years old. But one of the things that I love about this study and that I want to point out is that so they did exercise for two to three hours a week about. So three hours a week, let's just say, which is the current general recommendation that you hear from physicians and a lot of other agencies and government agencies out there. But they were instructed to exercise within 60 to 75% of their maximum heart rate, which is zone two rate, which is zone two.
Speaker 1:So if you've been hearing a lot about zone two in different podcasts on YouTube.
Speaker 1:Maybe you haven't heard about it yet, but it's kind of the new phenomenon or fad in the exercise world. It's all about your zone two training, so really trying to maximize the most benefit that you can get out of your workout sessions by focusing on getting your heart rate into a certain zone, and you can quickly do a mathematical calculation of what your top heart rate would be in order to find what your zone two heart rate would be. So, for example, the general guideline to find your maximum heart rate is to take the number 220 and subtract your age. So if you are 40 years old and you take 220 and subtract 40, then it's 180. So your max heart rate is around this is just a guesstimate, but it's a pretty good one. Your general max heart rate is 180. So then you want to take 60 to 75% of that. So of 180, oh gosh, 60, it's going to be around 130, um two hundred and 43, 145. I think Jason's doing the math right now 60% of what.
Speaker 1:One uh 180. It was 108. Nuh-uh, that's so low. Okay, so we're looking at 108 to. And then what's 75% of 180?
Speaker 2:135.
Speaker 1:So if your max heart rate is 180, then your zone two 60 to 75% of that is going to be anywhere from 108 to 135. So getting your heart rate in between those two. Now, if you have an Apple Watch or some other wearable, then that's. I mean you can program your Apple Watch to where it will show you the zone that you're in or at least tell you your heart rate during that workout. But the idea here is that you want to do a steady state. So what a steady state. You're either biking the whole time, you're on an inclined treadmill the whole time, you're walking the whole time and you're keeping your heart rate generally in that zone and it's very effective.
Speaker 1:Like it's not just a fad in the sense of like, oh it's here today and gone tomorrow. There's a lot of really good research around why you would want to get two to three hours of zone two steady state aerobic training every single week, and it was found in this program as well. So the results of this was that the participants significantly reduced burnout symptoms after doing this over a 12-week period, and participants experienced reduced feelings of emotional exhaustion and less depersonalization. So they actually got like their joy for life and and things like that back after the 12 week aerobic exercise program. So, um, it was good doing zone two was good. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Have you ever done?
Speaker 2:zone two I mean not like specifically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, specifically yeah yeah, you haven't done a plan. No, I feel like this is such an easy entry point for every single person.
Speaker 1:Whether you work out or not, you have to work Like if you haven't been working out, you need to work up to the two to three hours a week, um, but even just starting like 20 minutes a day, three days a week, in in that zone too, and maybe you start at at like the lower end of that. Zone two, based on you know you got to calculate your max heart rate and then calculate 60 to 75% of that is such low hanging fruit and it can really. I mean doing this in a year. Over a period of a year. You can see amazing gains and benefits in your first year If you haven't been training zone two like it's. It's just so easily movable and it's so good for your overall health. I'm a huge advocate of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in my whoop band that's like the. Anytime you do an activity or like it registers an activity, like what it shows you, the first thing it shows you is your, your different, like your zones, and it like your how much you know. It was recommended for zone two, like that's like the main thing that it measures.
Speaker 1:So yeah, the key is, though, doing it at one time. Yeah, so you get those steady state benefits by doing it for, eventually, 45 minutes to an hour at one time, but it's just so good, highly recommend Bottom line. Bottom line. We're not going to talk about strength training in this episode, but of course strength training is super helpful for reducing stress and avoiding burnout. But the other thing that is probably no surprise is sleep.
Speaker 2:Always comes back to sleep.
Speaker 1:Always comes back to sleep. In the four months that I was off work, I slept easily nine to 10, sometimes 11 hours a night, to the point that I was like something is wrong with me, like I'm too sleepy, I'm sleeping too much.
Speaker 2:You're just exhausted.
Speaker 1:I was exhausted and I was so nice to sleep that much. And then it was so funny because as soon as I was like gearing up to come back to work, it was like up at six, up at five, 30. Like I didn't even try it, just it just did it. But there was a study that was done in 2012, um 388 IT employees which they're up all the freaking time and ultimately what this study found was that too little sleep less than six hours a night was the main risk factor for burnout. Less than six hours of sleep a night like burnout's the last thing I would be worried about for the health and well-being of these people. There's so many things happening in their body that are just like crying out for them to get more sleep.
Speaker 2:I am now over six hours a night.
Speaker 1:I am so proud of you. It was like four and a half, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like I can't remember. My average is like six and a half to seven, so it's gone up quite a bit.
Speaker 1:It has gone up quite a bit. In what timeframe? When did you start focusing on it?
Speaker 2:Four months ago, when we recorded the last batch of episodes.
Speaker 1:There was another thing that you were going to focus on. It was screen time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we might as well just not talk about that.
Speaker 1:And what you did as soon as you woke up in the morning.
Speaker 2:That has changed.
Speaker 1:So you're not turning over and looking at your phone.
Speaker 2:No, that has changed.
Speaker 1:That's great.
Speaker 2:I've at least not done that. Yeah, the first thing I do now is I get up and go for a short walk.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic.
Speaker 2:I mean, obviously I have my phone with me, but I'm not going to social media first.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, that's a huge one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my screen time still sucks, because at nighttime that's what I'm, I'm just on my phone, so much, but definitely not in the morning.
Speaker 1:I just need to get you to eight hours average of sleep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1:I do still average eight hours of sleep Now. I go to bed at like nine, 10.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm, I'm slowly making my way up, but slowly you're, you'll get there.
Speaker 1:And then the final point of what can help is vacation, and I am not going to argue with this one, although, ironically, we didn't really take a vacation of the four months that I was off but I love a good vacation to reset, to get you out of your normal habits, to get you away from work and to come back more relaxed, refreshed and recharged. This study was actually done this year in 2024. Charged this study was actually done this year in 2024. They surveyed nearly 900,000 US physicians I just want to find out how they got that many to participate. And they asked them about their vacation, how many vacations they take a year, what they do when they're on vacation, if they still respond to emails and are still responding to patients and then also gave them a survey of burnout. And here's what they found. They found a lot of stuff actually. They found that 60% of doctors of nearly a million doctors took 15 days or fewer of vacations, like two weeks or less of vacation a year. I don't know about you, I don't want my doctor burnt out.
Speaker 2:Yeah me either.
Speaker 1:I want them clear headed.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Bright eyed and bushy tailed that's how I want them. And that 20% took fewer than five days of vacation. One in five doctors.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy because I feel like they would be some of the ones that would get burnt out pretty easily if they're not careful 50,.
Speaker 1:nearly 50% said that they were still responding to client emails patient emails fully while they were on vacation, which isn't really a vacation, and 70% reported performing at least some kind of work while they were on vacation. They didn't really take a vacation. Yeah, I was going to say that's not a vacation. It's not a vacation.
Speaker 2:I used to take days off that way, for sure.
Speaker 1:I did too. Yeah, it was terrible and I do not recommend Forbid it. I try to forbid and do. In fact may get to the point where, when people at the company still try and work while they're on vacation, I'm just going to kick them out of Slack and change their email password.
Speaker 1:Because, you just need to take the time off, like don't tell me you're going on vacation, and then send me an email. I'm legitimately offended at this point about it and I think it's because you know four months I didn't respond to anyone's emails and in fact my vacation responder was I'm going to delete this. Like don't expect me to ever read it, it's just going to be deleted. Yeah, if this is like, find someone else to tell this to because it's not me. And guess what, nothing burned down.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It was totally fine for four months. So I feel like no one has an excuse. Now someone could say, well, you're not a doctor and it's true, like I don't have people whose lives, people whose lives depend on me, but they can figure out a better system. Like there's other doctors, there's teams of doctors, there's doctors on call, no matter what your profession is, it is so important to take vacation and to be completely disengaged while you're on vacation so that you can actually have a vacation. That's my soapbox.
Speaker 1:And then our final point, point seven, is spiritual practices. So there was a study looked at over 250 people this was done in 2020, and found that when people engaged in different spiritual practices such as going to church, prayer, reading their Bible, being involved in small groups, different things like that that it was a buffering effect of perceived stress, so it actually helped their stress levels, helped them to not experience high stress levels, and it even predicted metabolic health, so they were more metabolically healthy. The more spiritual practices that they engaged in and that that they engaged in and that actually I have to read this point the more religious coping reduced daily negative affect, which is just like pretty much being in a pissy mood the lower the waist-hip ratio measurement, the lower the A1C value and the lower the overall obesity variable. That's really fascinating. Yep Lower the overall obesity variable.
Speaker 1:That's really fascinating. Yeah, yep, that's why Jesus is important.
Speaker 2:I was going to say look at God.
Speaker 1:Look at God. He's so good to us. Yep. So those were our seven ways that you can avoid burnout and focus on reducing stress. So, as a recap, those seven were weekend activities, progressive muscle relaxation, mindfulness, exercise, sleep, vacation and spiritual practices. It's a pretty good list, pretty good list Sounds like some working on the pies that need to be done.
Speaker 2:Yep A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:What are your key takeaways?
Speaker 2:Um, burnout is very real. Uh, it's not just a buzzword. Uh, coming from someone who has experienced burnout for sure. Uh, very real. If you don't take steps to avoid burnout, your body will take steps to avoid it. For you, not even avoid it, you will be in burnout and your body will just shut down. Yeah, it will burn out, it will. Yeah, that's exactly what will happen. And then don't feel pressure to take vacation or to take time off to do whatever you need to do, to to rest. Uh, because if you're burnt out, it's going to reduce the value that you're able to give to other people in the world, and that's not what we want at the end of the day of the day. So, no pressure to take time off. You got to prioritize your own health.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Another great reason of why it's important that we work on our pies. Becoming the best that we can be physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually helps us to decrease stress and it helps us to avoid burnout. So here's what I would love for you to do after this episode which of these seven things that we talked about about are you actually going to put into practice? What is your as we would call it in the research implementation intention? Because you can hear a lot of really cool things, but if you don't actually make a plan to how you're going to apply just one of them, you're not going to apply it and you're not actually going to end up seeing a benefit. So what is the one? Leave it in the comments, let us know. And how are you actually going to make sure you do it? Because that's the key. Until next week, stay strong.
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