Burnout Recovery
The podcast for slightly dented medics, execs and professionals seeking massive success, strong leadership and fulfilment. Weekly tips and techniques for high-achieving Type A professionals to beat burnout and restore outstanding leadership, performance and ease at work. Podcast hosted by Master Burnout Coach Dex Randall.
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Burnout Recovery
Ep#185 Mind-Body Approaches to Recovery
In this episode on mind-body recovery, Dex explores how physical, emotional, and nervous system practices can help you break the burnout cycle—even when nothing else seems to be working.
Forget effort-based solutions. These are small, proven actions that calm your system, rebuild confidence, and reconnect you to purpose—without needing more energy or motivation.
You’ll learn:
- Why most burnout solutions fall short
- What a mind-body approach really is (and isn’t)
- Why skeptical professionals still benefit
- Simple practices to reduce stress in minutes
- How to counter burnout culture with connection and self-trust
Resources Mentioned:
- CBT, vagus nerve regulation, EMDR, HRV tracking
- HeartMath Institute, HEAL documentary
- Traditional and indigenous healing modalities
- Placebo Effect https://comparecamp.com/placebo-effect-statistics/
----------------------------------- Burnout Resources:
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[00:00:00] Hi everyone. My name's Dex Randall, and this is the Burnout Recovery Podcast where I teach professionals to recover from burnout and get back to passion and reward at work.
[00:00:22] Hello, my friends. Welcome to this week's episode on Beyond Willpower: Why Body-Mind Approaches Matter in Burnout Recovery. And I'm going to do a couple of episodes on caring for your mind and body when you're burning out, because this process complements, and multiplies, any medical, coaching or psychotherapeutic help you might also be receiving, and it helps all by itself.
[00:00:52] And before you groan at the idea of more things to do, know that the practices that work best often take just one or two minutes, and it can save you hours of gnashing your teeth at your desk, hours of frustration, dread, irritation, and overwhelm, and most of all, unproductive work. Because I do know you're tired and demotivated and that everything already feels impossible.
[00:01:20] My focus with MINDBODY suggestions, as with everything I offer through coaching, is to help you regain time, energy, motivation, morale, and efficiency. Because what else is going to work when you are already scraping the barrel? Most strategies for burnout, demand, even more effort, more red tape, more meetings, more demands.
[00:01:47] HR often focuses on improving productivity, not reducing stress, but how could that help anyone in burnout?
[00:01:56] In my own burnout, I would creep into work, cower behind my monitor and hope no one asked me what I was doing. I felt unequal to the challenge of completing my day's work or sometimes even starting it.
[00:02:12] How about you?
[00:02:15] So mind body work really relieves strain at a physical and an emotional level. It rebalances your nervous system, helping you break the cycle of anxiety and overwhelm. It restores self-trust at a body level. You can connect with the felt sense that everything is okay in this moment, and that builds confidence.
[00:02:43] So today, in this first episode, we'll explore what the mind body approach really is and isn't, and share stories of what works and address skepticism. My aim is to show you how it offers a powerful counterbalance to the very work culture that creates burnout in the first place. Burnout isn't just about overwork, it's about disconnection.
[00:03:13] We lose confidence, which impairs productivity and collaboration, and it heightens fear of failure, judgment, rejection. When we've lost our mojo, Imposter Syndrome sets in. We confirm our own worst fears. We think everyone is judging us when we miss deadlines and we withdraw inside ourselves. Communication becomes painful.
[00:03:42] Has it been like this for you?
[00:03:45] The sad thing is we often withdraw from our families too -tired, grumpy, and reactive. We just want to watch TV alone.
[00:03:57] The disconnection is damaging to any human. We are pack animals designed to rely on social structures to survive. So the more we hide away, the more fearful we become. It's part of the implosion of burnout.
[00:04:14] At this stage, we're often pretty dirty on ourselves. The inner critic runs riot, and we begin to neglect our own needs, not feeling worthy of care. We abandon ourselves more or less in disgust. It's oddly outta sync, isn't it? That at this very moment when our human frailty is peaking, most recovery advice ignores the body or treats it like a machine.
[00:04:45] Mind body work offers reintegration back to self, to sanity, to groundedness, and to the nourishment of connection.
[00:04:55] So what exactly is the mind body approach? For one thing, it's not, woo. Might sound a bit woo, but isn't. It's also not a fix all. It's a practice of restoring inner connection, harmony between what we think, feel, sense, and do. Finding equilibrium in our bare bones self. Listening to our heart, not just our overcooked amygdala or a brain trying to rationalize working even harder to fix everything.
[00:05:30] It's also grounded in science, vagus nerve activation, nervous system regulation, neuroplasticity, somatic memory. These are evidence based. Many mind body techniques are proven to work for stress, anxiety, insomnia, trauma, cognitive impairment, and even physical illness.
[00:05:53] Personally, I also value ancient indigenous medicine, for example, Traditional Chinese Medicine. Why is it still practiced after thousands of years? Something must work, right?
[00:06:05] And shamanic work. Psychedelics interestingly are now medically prescribed in Australia for M.S., epilepsy depression, PTSD, palliative care, nausea, as an anesthetic, and for pain treatment.
[00:06:24] What's not really well documented is the impact of reengaging your heart in healing. If your mind has drifted far from your body, you may be very surprised at what happens when you reconnect.
[00:06:39] I am personally trained in meditation, mindfulness, yoga, and tai chi. All very powerful practices for me. And as a practitioner, I've studied Kinesiology, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Reiki, Emotional Freedom Technique, NLP, hypnosis. And my coaching is informed by what I've seen work, through all of these principles and methods.
[00:07:08] I had one client who came to me for support with sugar addiction after a lifetime weight struggle. We did a single mind body session together, and I didn't see her again for a year, but after that year, she told me she hadn't touched sugar since that one session.
[00:07:27] The coaching that I now do, it's based on all of this learning plus
[00:07:32] CBT, which of course is very heavily researched and proven. Yet, when I first tried CBT myself in my thirties, I found it abstract and completely ineffective to be honest. From memory, the therapist told me to imagine stepping out in front of a car and then decide not to. That was supposed to help. But since then, I've found a completely different way to apply CBT principles.
[00:08:04] One that's fast, effective, and deeply embodied. It unravels habits and beliefs. And I'm rather impatient still, so I love that it works quickly. CBT is essentially this: Notice your unconscious thoughts and feelings. Recognize how they're encouraging you to act in a way that creates outcomes you don't like. And interrupt and reverse the pattern. Isn't that mind body?
[00:08:33] Now you may feel skeptical and I don't blame you. I was too. I'm highly analytical. I needed logic and proof. But I dabbled. I got results and I started studying the evidence and the science. So here's some examples.
[00:08:52] Randomized clinical trials test against placebos and placebos are credited with cure rates of 15 to 79%.
[00:09:05] And endogenous opioids play a role in this expectancy based placebo effect. Isn't that mindbody?
[00:09:15] I watched the documentary Heal about spontaneous remission from cancer.
[00:09:21] I followed the Heart Math Institute, which explores how we can harmonize our heart rate value variability (HRV). And last week, anecdotally, mine was very low because I had an infection and I felt run down.
[00:09:36] Then on Tuesday I recorded an interview for episode 183 of the podcast on quantum energy and my HRV jumped 15 points and stayed up at that new level. I felt stronger, softer energy, I felt more buoyant.
[00:09:54] How about EMDR for PTSD? Proven effective, but nobody can explain how it works.
[00:10:02] It's based on eye movement during memory recall and visioning. Mind body too, right?
[00:10:12] So there's a couple of examples. My curiosity propelled me through years of exploration. Maybe yours will too?
[00:10:20] But ultimately it's up to you. Contrast it with where you are now- is your mind body tortured and shut down? Or is your energy flowing freely? Does your workplace support healing? What in your life right now is helping you heal?
[00:10:39] And I think let those contrasts inspire kindness to yourself, not in a self-indulgent way, but in a way that genuinely supports your inner being.
[00:10:51] Here's some contrast between burnout work culture and the mind body approach.
[00:10:57] We go from brain only logic at work to inner listening. And to practice this yourself, you can find a quiet moment just to breathe deeply. Notice your body. Let the thoughts pass through. Stay with your breath. Ask your heart, what do I want for myself? Can you say yes to whatever it answers? What would you say to a dear friend?
[00:11:26] Then we've got hustle and ego based goals at work versus mindbody values aligned action. Investigate and start maybe trusting your inner compass, your inner knowing in order to come back and start working from your values.
[00:11:46] Give yourself permission to ask for what you need. Set boundaries. Say no. And choose based on value, not just approval.
[00:11:56] Then we have metrics and outcomes at work versus mind body meaning and connection. You still have outcomes to meet, but meaning and connection multiply your capacity to get there. Reframe your work around service and purpose, your real drivers.
[00:12:17] Reach out to others. Collaboration heals.
[00:12:22] Then hypervigilance and masking versus mind body self-trust and self-acceptance. Being authentic at work is counterculture, but it changes the whole dynamic. People respect your skills, but connect with your flaws. When you trust yourself and accept yourself, you invite others to trust and accept you too.
[00:12:48] Burnout culture is dehumanizing.
[00:12:53] Mind body recovery is rehumanizing,
[00:12:55] If you are wondering what's happening with you, if you wanna check in with your body right now, a very simple way to do that is ask yourself: Where do I feel tension right now? And simply breathe into that place. Keep breathing into it for 30 seconds. Don't try to change it. Just accept it and listen to your body. Like you'd listen to a dear friend: curious, gentle patient.
[00:13:26] If your brain cuts in and is being mean to that friend, offer your self kindness.
[00:13:31] If you have a little time or energy, these practices break the deadlock of stress because they honor your human experience right now and your heart will notice.
[00:13:44] So when you need quick relief, just for one or two minutes, try breath work, gentle movement, a little journaling, to get in touch with your feelings and emotions and what's troubling you, and some non-judgmental self dialogue, like a grandparent talking to a child.
[00:14:04] So that's what I have for you this episode.
[00:14:06] Thank you for listening.
[00:14:08] Next time, we have mind body recovery for physical, mental, and emotional health. What actually works. Join me then, and until then be well.
[00:14:22] If you're burning out and ready to create big change, come and talk to me. Let's work out what will help you recover. Book an appointment at dexrandall.com.
[00:14:32] And if today's episode brought you value, please rate, review and share this podcast so others can take their first steps back to vitality and performance.
