Burnt Out ft. Nina Nesdoly

When you break your leg, you have no choice but to let it rest because of the cast you wear.

But when you sustain a brain injury, it can be easy to keep going because you can’t see the injury.

Nina Nesdoly had a life plan to follow and nothing was going to get in her way. Until she didn’t take a break and rest. She suffered from Post Concussion Syndrome after getting a concussion — while taking a yoga class.

She was forced to take 7 months off and learn the skills to decipher when enough is enough.


Key Takeaways

• Listen to the cues. Your body is telling you that it’s had enough.
• Put your wellbeing first. When you put yourself first, everything else will benefit when you’re healthy.
• Cling to the things you like about yourself that are independent from work. If you are a compassionate person, you can be compassionate in anything you do.

Key Moments

{2:24} “I was incredibly burnt out and exhausted from the emotional toll of the cancer from the workload that I was taking on, but I had this plan. My plan was a once per week yoga class for self care. And if I just stuck with that yoga class and a couple of workouts a week, I was going to be fine.”

{15:55} “But because I was prioritizing my wellbeing so much, it meant that I had space for my mind to wander and to think about things and to reflect.”

{20:58} “I had this sense that nothing I was doing was ever good enough, which in the burnout dimensions as defined by the world health organization is very much reduced professional efficacy. That's the term they use for it when you lose your sense of accomplishment.”

{24:45} “I just didn't want to do anything that wasn't goal driven, goal focused, goal oriented, wasn't willing to even really make a lot of small talk with people. Didn't have time for that. Didn't seem like a productive activity.”



More about Nina

Nina is a work-life balance, stress, and burnout prevention expert. She is a keynote speaker, researcher, and consultant working with organizations across North America. Nina has a BSc in Neuroscience, a Masters in Management, and is currently pursuing a PhD studying work-related stress. She loves fantasy novels, Latin dance, and biking.



Get in touch with Nina

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nina-nesdoly/
https://www.instagram.com/ninanesdoly/?hl=en



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Transcript

Jenny Lynne: Nina Nesdoly, thank you so much for joining me here today. I'm incredibly excited to dig into your specific story and frankly your flavor, because I love your flavor and life and how you approach things. 

Nina Nesdoly: Thank you so much for having me, Jenny. 

Jenny Lynne: It's my absolute pleasure. Okay. So, you know, the season's all about the messy middle, so we're going to start like right in the heat of the plot, right?

What was the, what was your inciting events that started you to go down this journey of re evaluating your relationship with work? 

Nina Nesdoly: It was the second visit to the hospital for the same injury, which was a concussion. I was completely burnt out when I got the concussion, should not have been in the yoga class in the first place, but there I was too sick, too burnt out to be there.

[00:01:00] Collapsed and hit my head on the floor, ignored the symptoms, kept going so focused on my work and my volunteer projects and my courses. I was in my bachelor's at a time, pushed through, made it way, way worse, landed myself back in hospital and in front of a concussion specialist who looked at me and said, how could you let it get this bad?

Jenny Lynne: And I, I think about that moment, you were in a yoga class. Did I hear correctly? A yoga class. 

Nina Nesdoly: I was in a yoga class because I had this amazing little plan. Okay. So I'm coming off of a horrendous fall semester. I'm in my bachelor's of neuroscience. I have a very busy job. I worked for apple at the time. My dad had been diagnosed with leukemia.

So he's in hospital, he's undergoing chemotherapy. I'm constantly in the hospital visiting him, struggling with my classes, just trying to make it through. [00:02:00] Winter semester rolls around, he goes into remission. And rather than showing myself any compassion of any kind for everything that I've just been through and that my family has been through, I decide to fill up my life.

I get approval for a course overload. I go back to all my regular hours at work. I'm trying to lead volunteer projects. I was incredibly burnt out and exhausted from the emotional toll of the cancer from the workload that I was taking on, but I had this plan. My plan was a once per week yoga class for self care.

And if I just stuck with that yoga class and a couple of workouts a week, I was going to be fine.

Jenny Lynne: The irony doesn't escape me, by the way,

Oh my gosh, that's a lot. So I have to ask what, so I know that nature abhors a vacuum, [00:03:00] right? Someone once told me that. I think it's a great quote. You, you know, if it's empty, we tend to fill it out, but, but what drove you to need to fill it up so much? 

Nina Nesdoly: I felt like my dad having leukemia had set me back. So I wanted to graduate on time.

I wanted a promotion at work and I just had this constant sense of hurry that I was in. So Yeah, I wanted to finish my bachelor's on a certain timeline. I wanted to get this promotion at Apple as quickly as I possibly could. I wanted to be part of all these volunteer projects because they were going to look so good on grad school resumes.

And there was just this never ending sense of urgency. Like I had to do everything as quickly as I possibly could. 

Jenny Lynne: What do you think was driving the urgency?

Nina Nesdoly: So I'm very type a like that's a very natural state for me and I regulate that type a. [00:04:00] Now with a lot of different strategies around my schedule, but it's kind of my innate default approach to life.

And I think, you know, it goes back to a lot of different sources and different forms of childhood experiences and just the overachiever drive that kicks in. So there's no one source. It just, by that point had become the way that I operated. I was absolutely always in a hurry and it just led me to do ridiculous things and.

Ironically, the pushing through and trying to go as fast as I could with the concussion, it wound up slowing me down. Because if I had just taken a few weeks off, The first time I was in hospital, it probably would have been fine. Like I, you know, bonked my head on the floor in yoga, take a few weeks off, recover.

But instead I pushed [00:05:00] myself so hard that I developed post concussion syndrome. So it wound up taking seven months to go back to work after going on medical leave, a year to fully recover. 

Jenny Lynne: That 

had to have been hard because that affects like that particular affects your ability to handle day to day activities, 

doesn't it?

It 

Nina Nesdoly: really, really does. So a great example of this would be when you are, if you think of like a small child who is having a temper tantrum and they can't calm down and they, they actually can't like if, if the kid is upset about something. You know, you gave them the wrong color mug and the world is ending for them.

It's difficult for them to regulate because the brain is not yet developed in a small child to have self regulation and to say, Oh, I actually don't need to panic about this. It's going to be okay. And in a concussion, it kind of ends up being the same phenomenon that happens [00:06:00] because you have. This basically injury in your brain and this whole cascade of things that are not working properly.

One of the things that really suffers is your ability to self regulate. So at one point, a couple months into the concussion, I'm on the phone with the province, provincial agency that grants unemployment insurance. And I'm trying to get something sorted out for my unemployment insurance. And it kept redirecting me to different robots.

Jenny Lynne: Like, you know, it gives you like the voice recording. 

That's one of my pet 

peeves for the record. Just you talking about that gets me all like riled up inside 

Nina Nesdoly: and we do, we all get riled up by it. So take that riled up energy and apply it to a situation where you've got an injury now that is preventing you from regulating your emotions.

So when I got redirected to like the fifth robot, I lost it. And I smashed my phone on the floor, shattering the glass entirely. It was so hard to calm myself down when [00:07:00] I had the concussion. It was so hard to regulate myself. It was so hard to take care of myself. It just, it made everything more difficult.

Jenny Lynne: Oh, 

so did you end up having to learn differently? Did you learn new skills that you can, during that process that you are still able to apply 

today? 

Nina Nesdoly: Very much so, especially when I started going back, when I got back to work in the fall and I got back to school, what I realized very quickly was that.

My approach, what I've been doing before of just always trying to do more and push through more, it wasn't working. And with the concussion, you know, I was definitely burnt out when I got the concussion, but the concussion added this really tangible layer to it. So if I did too much, if I pushed myself too hard, I got very clear physical symptoms because of the concussion.

So I would get headaches, I would get pain, I would get dizziness. So as I was returning to work and to school, [00:08:00] trying to ramp things up, anytime I did something unreasonable in terms of loading myself up, my brain very clearly said, no, with hit me with headaches, hit me with dizziness. So what I started doing was turning to the neuroscience because that was my bachelor's degree to look for ways that I could take care of my brain better to prioritize brain health and what that would look like.

And one of the things that I discovered as I did that was that the same things that were good for brain health. And for taking care of myself, we're actually very good for productivity and focus as well. So this shift started to happen where I basically discovered that by taking care of myself first, I was then able to have focus, productivity and energy in my work in a much more fulfilling and rewarding way than I had before, because I made the shift where then I was approaching my work from this place [00:09:00] of energy rather than from this constant state of depletion.

Okay. So you had 

Jenny Lynne: the moment in the doctor's office where he's like, what are you doing? And then you have this moment where you realize. That shifting these habits and behaviors are actually going to help you become more productive and you're starting to feel this. I would say forward momentum, right?

Exactly. And so changes 

Nina Nesdoly: started to happen. Like I'd always been a pretty active person, but going back after the concussion, after the burnout, I started just really putting my wellbeing first. So it got to the point where during like final exam periods, when everybody else was trying to cram 10 or 11 hours a day of studying, I had figured out by that point that one hour of exercise was so good for the brain.

For focus for learning that it was better to spend an hour in the gym [00:10:00] in the morning and seven hours studying than put in the 10, 11 hour study days where you're cramming and exhausted. And that started to be the trend that I was seeing. It was better to get the eight hours of sleep and wake up in the morning to finish a paper than it was to pull the all nighter and put more time in.

So. By putting my wellbeing first, I was able to do things so much more effectively when I was working that you get them done quicker and more easily. Now, some of it was a matter of, you know, these, these brain health things that have helped me be more productive, but in other places in my life, it was also a matter of just needing to decide that I also couldn't do everything anymore.

So the year following my return to work and my return to school, I also started looking for places to cut back. And that meant looking at what I really wanted and what my goals really were. And also, because I was prioritizing my well being so much, I had a lot more space to actually [00:11:00] figure out what that was going to look like.

So, for example, I took an elective in organizational behavior after I got back to school. And I took that elective in organizational behavior because it was like a bird course. It was an online only course. It was going to be super easy. I actually thought it was the psychology of people organizing things.

Like I thought we were going to learn about like color coding the bookshelf and how that goes in the brain. I had no idea what organizational behavior was, uh, which is workplace dynamics and behavior. I loved it. Absolutely loved it. So I decided that I wanted to pursue it further and look at doing my master's in that field, which is what I ended up doing.

But so when I decided that, I decided to drop things I had been doing that were serving different goals. When I first started my bachelor's of neuroscience, I thought I was going to go into sports performance physiology research. So I had my eye on a master's in [00:12:00] human kinetics. I was coaching cycling and working in sport to get relevant experience.

And so because I'd had that experience with the burnout with the concussion and had made this shift. Instead of just keeping all that stuff on my plate that sounded really cool. Like I was a lead coach at one of the biggest cycling clubs in Canada, very prestigious, very exciting. When I realized that that job wasn't going to serve my longer term goals, I left, even though I loved the job.

And even though it was really prestigious and really cool, because I was just learning that I couldn't do absolutely everything. And the things that I was going to do, I wanted to be able to do really well. 

Jenny Lynne: How painful was that 

process? Learning to release things in order to say yes to the things that were important.

Nina Nesdoly: It was hard because there's a lot of different ways that you tie your identity [00:13:00] into the different activities that you do in the process of the concussion. I kind of got through some of it. Before having to deal with it later, because when you have a concussion and post concussion syndrome that goes on for as long as I did, your identity gets stripped away a lot.

So the things that I use to define myself, like being a student, you know, being in a bachelor's of neuroscience, I physically couldn't go to school. So I couldn't have that having been a former athlete, I could barely go for a walk with my dog. So I couldn't have that. My technical role at Apple and wanting to have this, you know, high achieving career while I couldn't go to work.

So I couldn't have that either. So during that, that time when I was physically recovering, one of the things that I really clung to and that helped me get through it was finding [00:14:00] things that I liked about myself and that were part of my identity that were independent from the things I did. And

I had this list. Uh, compassionate, integrity, and what was the other one? Hardworking, more perseverance, something like that, that I would look at, that I wrote down. And these were these three things about myself that I thought, you know, these are always going to be true. I can put them in different settings.

It's not going to matter what job I'm doing. It's not going to matter if I fail out of school because in the midst of my concussion, I was very convinced I wasn't going back. Like I really thought I was done for. So I would cling to these things about myself that were choices that I could make that, you know, no matter what job I end up doing, I can be a hardworking person.

No matter what degree I get or don't get, I can be a compassionate person. No matter what sport I do or don't do, I can choose to be someone who [00:15:00] conducts myself with integrity. And that process of really having to grasp my own identity and things. That I valued about myself that weren't work related, that weren't tied to things I was doing, meant that when I did go back and start doing things again, it was a little bit easier to tease that apart.

Still hurts sometimes to let go of some promotions and some jobs and things I thought I wanted and had been in pursuit of for so long, but I was looking at my identity in a very different way. And that helped immensely.

Jenny Lynne: So 

is there anything that you did when you faced those choices in the moment to ease that path 

Nina Nesdoly: in the moment, it was always about reflection.

I never made the right choice or a better choice in the moment. But because I was prioritizing my wellbeing so much, it meant that I [00:16:00] had space for my mind to wander and to think about things and to reflect. So I remember, for example, uh, about a year after I got back to work, I had been chasing a promotion and it was for this technical role.

My manager calls me into his office one day. And I'm like super excited because I know I'm next in line. Like I've been doing awesome at work. Things have been going great. I think he's going to tell me that the role has opened up and I'm going to be able to apply to it. And instead he tells me a role is open.

And it's a creative position for a workshop facilitator job. I was so offended. Like, my initial reaction was to be like, Why would you tell me about this? Like, I want the technical role. I'm not doing this creative stuff. I want to be... You know, a [00:17:00] technician, this is what I'm going with. The reason he had offered it to me was because in prioritizing my wellbeing, I was developing some hobbies, one of which was photography.

So he saw my photography on LinkedIn and the role that had opened up was to be a creative workshop facilitator in an Apple store. So I would be teaching photography and I, iPhone tricks and iPad art and making robot mazes with kids and stuff like that. And he saw this as a really good fit and because I had space and because I was consistently prioritizing my well being at that point, rather than remaining in the type a tunnel vision of, I want this technical position.

I've been after it for years. I went home. I don't remember the specifics, but I probably worked out. I probably talked to a couple of friends. Looked over some options and what I came back with, whatever that process was of [00:18:00] reflection. I remember coming to the conclusion that actually I would like to have a fun job.

Doing art for work sounds super fun. I was like, I don't know why I'm so in my head that I have to have this technical role just because I had already decided that I had to have this technical role. And it also, to me sounded more prestigious, right? This technical role versus this creative one. So I went back in a few days later and I told my manager that I was open to applying.

Uh, and I got, I got that position. And for the next year while I was in that job, before I left for my master's. I loved it. Like I loved going to work. It was so much fun. I got to take people out on walks to take pictures of tulips. I got to show them how to, you know, draw living rooms and design. Cats and little pets and stuff in their fake living rooms on these.

I've had architecture apps. We made [00:19:00] these super elaborate mazes out of duct tapes. And then the kids camps would come in and they have the little robots and they have to write code for the robots to get through the maze. We coded the robots to do dance numbers to pop songs. So they're like rolling in and out.

It was so much fun. It was so much fun and pre my burnout pre my concussion pre deciding to prioritize my wellbeing. I absolutely would have deprived myself of that because I would have been caught in tunnel vision on something that I had previously decided I wanted. 

Jenny Lynne: That, 

that is, it's so amazing. I'm, I'm literally visualizing, like when we get in that road, where all we see is what this is the path I have, this is what I've set for myself.

And like you said, pressure doesn't just come from the outside, it comes from inside of us. And over time we shape these thoughts and ideas. So amazing that you were able to get the space and open up to these possibilities. So how long was this messy part for [00:20:00] you? Like, what are we talking about in terms of years, months?

Nina Nesdoly: Ooh, gosh, it's hard to peg in some ways because, and I anticipate that this will be the case for a lot of people listening as well. You don't know when you're in it. It's often through looking back that you figure out what a mess it really was for myself. I didn't even know what burnout was until I started my master's.

And my supervisor said, you know, you've got this background in neuroscience. You want to look at workplace stress and mental health. I think you should read about burnout. And I learned about it and I went, wow. Okay. That day I collapsed in yoga class. I was definitely burnt out. I was emotionally exhausted with the cancer.

I was super moody all the time. Very cynical, very like, you know. withdrawn from other people in some cases. And I had this sense that nothing I was doing [00:21:00] was ever good enough, which in the burnout dimensions as defined by the world health organization is very much reduced professional efficacy. That's the term they use for it when you lose your sense of accomplishment.

So when I look back, I'm like, wow, that, that lines up pretty well, but it's hard to say kind of. When that started the phase that I tell as my story very much is beginning with when my dad got cancer, which was 2016 August 2016, and it was about was a full year to recover from the concussion so it was probably.

January 2018, February 2018, when I really got to a place where I was making better decisions for my well being and really prioritizing myself. But that's not to say that I wasn't crazy, burnt out, overwhelmed [00:22:00] undergraduate before that. Probably was true as well. 

Jenny Lynne: , you raised a really good point.

When, when I think of the middle, I tell people, you know, we're goalposting it between the moment that you realize that something had to change and the, the moment where things start. To move forward in a more positive and productive way, more consistently on an ongoing basis. And then in the middle, there's a lot of this, you know, we don't have habits built yet.

We're experimenting with things. We don't know what we don't know. We can't see it because we're in it. And that, that period it there's, it takes time because you're figuring it out for yourself. What is your definition of success? I think you said that so well, it doesn't have to look like everyone else's, but we have, we're intaking all of this information and trying to figure out how to move forward.

So, 

Nina Nesdoly: Yeah. And it's difficult because there is so much different information that comes in. There's so many different people that we encounter, different expectations, some of it's friends and [00:23:00] family, some of it's the media. And one of the hardest parts is some of it's really well intentioned. Like it's not like everyone is trying to brainwash you into burning yourself out.

Sometimes people just want, want what's best for you, but ultimately. If it's if you're basing what you're doing on other people's opinions or on external messaging and you're integrating that into your identity, then it's just very hard to take care of yourself and figure out what it is that you really want.

Jenny Lynne: Yeah. 

Yeah. So you, you said it really well, it's hard to see sometimes, you know, in the moment. So you're looking back on it, you know, a lot now about this topic. I mean a lot, a lot. So rewind, what are the signs you 

missed?

Nina Nesdoly: So I think the biggest one was how physically tired I was. I had had the flu. A couple of weeks before the yoga class, like physically I had been sick and [00:24:00] I just swept that under the rug. Like, I'm like, oh, you know, it's flu season, whatever, but I wasn't getting better. Like I wasn't fully recovering. It's not like I just had the flu for a couple of days and then I felt great.

It's like I had the flu and then I continued to feel terrible for weeks afterwards into then going into this yoga class that I. Probably shouldn't have been in, in the first place where my body just like took me out. I also think that I was very moody, very irritable and easily frustrated, like just a very consistently short fuse, um, and not a lot of space for fun.

Like I just didn't have time for it. You know, I just didn't, didn't want to do anything that wasn't. Like goal driven, goal focused, goal oriented, wasn't willing to even really make a lot of small talk with people. Didn't have time for that. [00:25:00] Didn't seem like a productive activity. 

Jenny Lynne: And knowing you now, that's crazy because you are like the funnest person in the room when we're together.

So just letting y'all know that who are listening, 

Nina Nesdoly: but looking back, I'm like, wow, that was. I mean, it wasn't only burnout. There's also just some measure of, you know, I was an undergrad at a time. So also being a young person and kind of finding out how you interact with other people. But there is definitely some overlap too, with typical signs of burnout that we see like cynicism and depersonalization and just this unwillingness to connect with other people because you don't have the energy for it.

And you find it. To be a waste of your time and your energy in it, it furthers the exhaustion. So when I look back, I see that physically, I was really tired emotionally. I was really tired and I didn't want to connect with people. 

Jenny Lynne: So now, you know, all [00:26:00] about this topic. So what does high stress and workaholism do to the brain?

Cause you're like our neuroscience expert and got to, yeah, 

let's get, let's get, let's nerd out together. 

Nina Nesdoly: Okay. So there's a couple of different ways that stress and burnout impact the brain because. Stress and burnout are different. So stress is really the acute response that we're having to demands that are in front of us.

So we're experiencing stress physiologically in the body, psychologically in the mind. So there are things that happen in the moment with your brain. And then there's also long term consequences of burnout and burnout results from chronic stress that hasn't been successfully managed. So we've got these.

acute interruptions to our functioning. And then we also have these long term, actual physical changes that can happen in the brain, which, before anybody gets scared, they are reversible. It's gonna be okay. Uh, so there's both of these things happening. So, when you [00:27:00] are highly stressed in the moment, Your brain functions differently, basically.

So if you think of the frontal regions of your brain, like your prefrontal cortex, which is right up behind your forehead as the CEO of the brain, it's the executive control center, decision making logical thinking, high order thinking, and it really runs the show. But when you are under threat and when you're in a state of fight or flight, Your brain shifts a little bit and your amygdala kind of takes over that function of running the show.

So it becomes very difficult to make logical decisions, to think things through, to do any kind of higher order tasks. One of the things that is possible, and this applies to professions like police officers or any kind of first responder, people who actually do need to work in high pressure situations.[00:28:00] 

You can train yourself to think really clearly under stress and to kind of bring these executive parts of the brain back online, so to speak, your brain never really shuts off, but just for, you know, the sake of understanding. But for office workers, knowledge workers, other jobs where we don't actually have life or death situations going on, that's not so necessary, and we don't want to be in these states of fight or flight because it simply interrupts our work.

It makes it harder to get things done, it makes it harder to focus. So, while it can sound counterintuitive sometimes when stress is really high, when situations are really tense, Often the best thing to do is to actually take a break and let your nervous system calm down. Get your brain back to a place where you can think critically because then your work is going to be a lot easier.

So that's the [00:29:00] acute is acute in the moment your body becomes more preoccupied with survival functions than it is with cognitive functions. So your cognitive functions are kind of limited long term. We see kind of the same thing happen, but in a more. Uh, a more enduring way. So there's a 2014 study which found that for people who are professionally burnt out, like experiencing professional burnout, they had a harder time regulating their stress response than people who were not burnt out.

So when they're exposed to a stressful stimuli and then have to calm themselves down afterwards. It was harder for people who were burnt out than for people who weren't. And the researchers attributed this to a diminished connection between the amygdala, so your threat detection center, and the anterior cingulate cortex, which is involved in attention and mood regulation.[00:30:00] 

So we have these connections in the brain that actually get weakened by Chronic stress over time. 

Jenny Lynne: And so how do those weakened connections affect people and show up in their lives? 

Nina Nesdoly: So because it's difficult then to regulate your stress response, it's going to look like things like, as I mentioned with myself, like the short fuse, the irritable and easily frustrated.

Difficulty calming down when something goes wrong. So you may see people where, you know, a stressful situation arises. And for one person, it's just like, not a big deal. Like, yeah, that was stressful, but like, that's okay. I'm going to calm down now and move on with my day. But for another person, if they're experiencing burnout and their brain has been impacted by these diminished connections.

That small inconvenience is like the biggest thing that happened that day, and it's just massive and it's really hard. It's really hard to come down afterwards. 

Jenny Lynne: So their fighter, essentially, I'm going to oversimplify this, [00:31:00] but tell me if I'm on the right path. Their fight or flight mechanism essentially starts to run the show because the executive functioning and the regulation systems that normally put that in perspective are no longer stepping in to put that in 

perspective.

Nina Nesdoly: Yes. Exactly. And interestingly too, and this has not been attributed in the research so much specifically to like occupational burnout, but to chronic stress. One of the things that chronic stress can do is it basically dysregulates your stress response, but it can go either way. So for some people, they're going to become more sensitive and more reactive to stressors in the first place, but for other people, they're going to become less reactive.

So often when we think of stress, we think we always want to like, get rid of stress, right? We're like, stress is bad. We don't want it. Stress is awesome. Stress is keeping us alive. Like if we have no stress, then we're not eating, we're not jumping out of the way. When a car comes around the corner too fast, like [00:32:00] we need stress.

It's so important. It's critical for us, but we need healthy responses to stress and then a healthy recovery from stress. So ideally let's stick with the car example, what you want to happen. In your brain is that if you are crossing the street and a car comes whipping out of nowhere, that's about to run a red light.

You want your nervous system to spike up into fight or flight in that moment. So you run, that's what you want to see happen. What we see in chronic stress over time, if the nervous system becomes dysregulated is it'll be one or the other people may become oversensitive. So now they're crossing the street and a car that is like.

Way, way, way far away. Not doing anything. Blasting their music too loud. They're like, Oh my gosh, it's coming. And there's this unnecessary stress response. Or the opposite where the car is coming and your brain's like, not queuing you [00:33:00] in enough. 

Jenny Lynne: It's like just standing there, staring at the car, like 

Nina Nesdoly: not reacting appropriately.

So we call that blunted, blunted stress reactivity. And like I said, it's not in the research been specifically linked to occupational burnout. The reason for this is that these kind of happen in different fields. So neuroscience research, management research. Occupational health research. I know they sound like the same thing.

And when we talk about they're not, I know the way journals get published, talk to each other, 

Jenny Lynne: it reminds 

me of when you go to the doctor and you have 10 doctors that all focus on their little, you know, their little I'm, I'm the finger doctor. I'm the heart doctor, but you know, we 

have to coordinate, 

Nina Nesdoly: bring it all together.

We can kind of make this inference that you can see the same kind of pattern in burnout because what we see in the neuroscience research on chronic stress, is these dysregulations of the stress response and it can happen in both directions.

Jenny Lynne: Yeah. So you have [00:34:00] all of these amazing roles you're playing and all of these amazing values that you've figured out. , what is the one thing that people who listen to this, you want them to take away and say, this is something that I should incorporate in my map to mine, you know, next chapter of life, whatever that's looking like for them.

Nina Nesdoly: When you hear yourself saying. Or thinking, I don't have time to take care of myself. I don't have time to eat. I don't have time to sleep. I don't have time to exercise, make that your cue to go and do that thing. When you're telling yourself, I don't have time to take care of myself. That is your brain operating in stress.

It's exactly when you most need to go take care of yourself because when you then take the time. To prioritize your health, to prioritize your brain and your well being and come out of that stress state, everything's going to get so much easier, like it [00:35:00] sounds counterintuitive. I know it sounds weird, but I promise for people listening, this is how it works.

If you're overwhelmed, exhausted, and stressed, you are working 10 times harder to get half as much done. So when you hear yourself saying, I don't have time to take care of myself, that's your cue. Drop what you're doing. Go take a nap, go do a workout, go for a walk, go eat. If you've been depriving yourself of food for the last six hours.

And I'm not joking. I mean, if you've been a workaholic, if you've been burnt out, you've starved yourself at some point, like we've all done it where we're like, I just have to finish this proposal and send it in before I can feed myself. And then it's like 9 PM at night. You haven't eaten anything. When you hear yourself saying, I have to do this before.

No, that's it. That's the cue. Go take care of yourself. Hmm. 

Jenny Lynne: I love that. So this is the part of the episode where I attempt to recap the milestones in your map and you tell me how [00:36:00] right or wrong I am. Okay. So the first thing I heard you say is listen to your body. If you are tired. If you are cranky or irritable, it's a good sign that it's time to step back and focus on yourself.

Um, and so you said that both in your own journey as well as right now, like there's specific messages your brain is saying. So that's step number one, listen to your body, listen to the cues it's sending you. And then obviously you had this, you had this experience by the way, that was like. Wow. I, we didn't take time to stop and just be present with that, but wow, that must've been pretty difficult to go through.

So moment for that, when you get in those moments where you are making a change, it sounds like what you did was anchor around what was important to you. You started, you identified your values, which is by the way, something I encourage everybody to do. Like if you don't know, and I love the way you worded it, [00:37:00] what can I love about myself?

That's separate from what I do is what I heard. What do I love about myself? That's separate from what I do. So first you're going to identify the cues that your body is sending you. Then you took the time to understand what you love about yourself that has nothing to do with your work product. And those are your values.

And then it sounds like you started to make decisions and prioritize things. So you weren't working on everything anymore. You were creating something beautiful in your life and you became open to other possibilities that you hadn't considered before as a result, which kudos to you. And then from there, now you're building something pretty darn 

cool lady.

Nina Nesdoly: And the coolest thing is because. You know, now I'm, I'm doing a PhD, I'm running a business, I get to work with companies all over North America as a speaker and a consultant, I just gave a TEDx [00:38:00] talk, these things that I don't think would have been possible if I just kept barreling through at other people.

Stages. Yeah. 

Jenny Lynne: So no, not pushing through, but really being, being open to what's possible. That's beautiful. So is there anything else you'd like to 

add Nina?

Nina Nesdoly: I'm going to add one more thing to my story, because as you said, we, we, we kind of carried on with other topics there. So my dad was diagnosed with leukemia in August, 2016.

I went through the concussion, the burnout. And during that time, I barely got to see him. I was so sick. I couldn't drive. One of the things that the recovery brought me and that getting to this place where I prioritized my wellbeing got me was fantastic moments in the rest of his life. My dad passed away in February, [00:39:00] 2020, and I'm very happy to say that two nights before I ditched a networking event, told my supervisor, I'd be handing in some work potentially late.

And Did the same with some TA work and went off to the hospital to see him because there was nothing at some networking event or in some paper or anything else that was going to be more important than spending time with him. I didn't know it then, but that was our last conversation.

Jenny Lynne: Everybody who's listening. Remember that when you open yourself up to being present for the people and the things that matter to you, you will never, 

ever regret it.

Nina Nesdoly: No, you won't. You will cherish it. 

Jenny Lynne: Thank you so much, Nina. 

Nina, you are an amazing person, human being and expert. And I don't even think I need to read your bio because [00:40:00] I think it spoke for itself through this conversation.

And I am so honored to have shared the space with you and guys, I want you to get to know Nina more. We'll be posting some links to connect with her and get to know her more. And thank you again for sharing your experience, please, everybody. Now's the time. Now's the time to get space.