EP 02: Burnout 101 - Understanding, Healing, and Preventing Chronic Stress with Carly

Carly delves into the important and all-too-common topic of burnout. Fueled by an unintentional caffeine rush, Carly brings enthusiasm and insight to this episode, discussing the nuances of burnout—a condition often masked by our busy lives but with profound effects on our mental and physical health. She shares her personal experience and invites listeners to understand burnout not just on the surface level but down to a cellular level, providing foundational knowledge in this engaging and informative episode.



Resources Cited:
Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (2016). Understanding the burnout experience: Recent research and its implications for psychiatry. Retrieved from https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4911781

Salvagioni, D. A. J., et al. (2021). Physical, psychological, and occupational consequences of job burnout: A systematic review. Retrieved from https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8834764

Lim, W. Y., et al. (2021). Association between burnout and sleep quality among healthcare professionals in Singapore. Retrieved from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33783308

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Transcript

0:00:00 Carly: Foreign welcome to Coffee with Carly, your weekly wake up call to a happier, healthier life. I’m your host, Carly Shade, and I’m here to uncover how good life can get. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Coffee with Carly. Fair warning, I am feeling particularly jazzed because I accidentally drank my fiance’s coffee this morning. For context, I usually drink one cup of half caf like the old woman that I am, and he gets four shots of espresso in his lattes.

0:00:50 Carly: So it’s Coffee with Carly on steroids this morning, which is a really funny topic because we’re actually going to talk about burnout. So my adrenaline is bumping. Feels very appropriate or hilarious that we are going to talk about burnout today. So fair warning. Anyway, here we go to healing from Burnout. And it’s also one of those topics that’s definitely going to be brought up in the future by me, by guests.

0:01:23 Carly: And so I want to provide a foundation for people to understand what we’re talking about because I think it is, it’s really talked about, but do we all really understand what it is? You know, big picture and also down to the cellular level. So we will be doing these kind of 101 episodes on a lot of other words like embodiment empowerment, just to give you guys context of like how I define them, what these things are.

0:01:48 Carly: So today’s about burnout and the overly simplified definition is chronic exhaustion. Right. But we’re gonna dive in to what it is, what causes it, because once we understand that, then we can best understand how to heal from it. And there is a key ingredient that a lot of people miss when trying to heal from it. And we’re gonna talk about it today. So burnout was originally recognized as an occupational hazard for people, people in people oriented professions.

0:02:21 Carly: So human services, education, healthcare, you know, teachers, nurses, counselors, things like that. But today we know that it is much more common for people in all workplaces. So according to the World Health Organization, burnout is a psychological syndrome emerging as a prolonged response to chronic interpersonal stressors on the job. And there’s three levels or kind of three key dimensions to this chronic stress response.

0:02:51 Carly: So the first is overwhelming exhaustion, so fatigue maybe no matter how much you sleep. The second, cynicism and detachment from the job, irritability, maybe negative attitudes towards your role or other people. And finally a sense of ineffectiveness. You know, you’re not getting anything done, you’re not contributing, and there’s just low morale. So I also want to take it a step further and Share what’s happening on a cellular level with our nervous system, because this is going to be important role in healing.

0:03:23 Carly: So the science definition, since we’re always going to start there, when it comes to me, burnout is associated with sustained activation of the autonomic nervous system and a dysfunction of the sympathetic adrenaline medullary axis. What the heck does that mean? Basically, the chronic stress of our environment causes our nervous system to go into fight or flight mode. And when we’re in fight or flight mode, our adrenal glands secrete these survival hormones like adrenaline and cortisol because our body thinks there is a danger.

0:03:59 Carly: So burnout is caused by this chronic exposure that’s keeping our bodies stuck in fight or flight mode. So that’s a key part. We’re stuck there. And so this eventually is going to lead to a manifestation of physical and mental disease. So some common ones might be headaches, chronic fatigue, gastrointestinal disorders. So maybe you’re a little constipated. Maybe it’s the opposite. Muscle tension, hypertension, cold and flu episodes, and sleep disturbances.

0:04:28 Carly: So this chronic stress can really, really lead to a lot of problems in our body and what causes it. Right. So chronic stress in our environment means high workload and poor working hours or emotional labor, or there’s, you know, high demands in my role, and I feel like I have low or limited resources. Maybe there’s unclear expectations or conflicting roles, or maybe we just have poor work life balance.

0:04:56 Carly: Or I feel like I have lack of support either from supervisors or peers. And type A personalities are particularly susceptible to burnout. So those high achievers who also happen to be the people pleasers, you’re probably one of them. I was. We struggle to set boundaries. We don’t have a good work life balance. And so this type A personality and being susceptible to it, this is key. Because what this means is that addressing and healing from burnout, yes, we can change our environment, but that’s only part of the equation.

0:05:35 Carly: And the other half is actually our own responsibility. So, for example, I left my job. You know, I was textbook burnout. I had all of these symptoms. I had all of these problems, and I left without any other plan. I didn’t want another job because I was like, I just need time to heal. I just need these next couple months to just relax and heal my nervous system and, like, chill, relax, calm. Well, guess what?

0:06:04 Carly: I did that. And I felt the exact same that I did when I was at my job. And some days I even felt worse. Why? Well, I had been placing a Lot of blame. And I’d been focusing on the external factors and you know, attributing the way I felt to everyone else around me. And yes, you know, a tough job, a tough work environment, that is part of it. But I was not paying attention to the other part, the other half. And that was my side of the equation.

0:06:38 Carly: You know, I didn’t have a healthy work life balance. I wasn’t setting boundaries, I didn’t have coping mechanisms. So yeah, you can change environments, but if you also don’t have proper time management, mental resilience, the coping skills, a regulated nervous system, it doesn’t matter where you are, burnout will continue. Because the truth is, half of it is coming from us. You know, it’s coming back to that radical responsibility which is a huge theme in the work that I do in kind of this mission, this community I’m building.

0:07:10 Carly: And I hope you see this though as a form of empowerment, you know, because you do have this responsibility. But that also means that you have the capacity to heal yourself and prevent it from happening in the future. And especially for those who can’t or don’t want to quit their jobs, there’s actions that you can take to start healing yourself from this. Right. The goal in life is not to just quit and give up because there’s adversity, there’s a stressful situation.

0:07:40 Carly: Again, case by case, you know, I’m all for leaving a job and trying something new. Absolutely. But there are, there is something to be said about also having to look inward and take responsibility for our own health and our own well being. Right. The goal is to find a healthy balance and to be able to manage situations and be successful in adverse environments. Because you may change the environment, but life is still going to life.

0:08:08 Carly: And so how can we focus on our side of the equation? Which brings me to our next section. How do we heal from it? Okay, well a couple examples and these are going to be broad, but change your work patterns, right? Like take more breaks and avoid overtime work if possible, strengthening coping skills. So conflict resolution with other coworkers or working on time management. We can also heal from burnout through the self regulation of nervous system, regaining control of our emotional state and our well being and then just having good relaxation strategies like overall good health, good fitness and understanding our sense of self, our values.

0:08:50 Carly: These are all ways that we can help heal and prevent burnout from happening in the future. So those are kind of broad. So I want to have you walk away again. The goal here on Coffee with Carly, walk away with healthy, simple tips and things that you can implement right away. You know, there’s going to be this element of education that’s how I learn. Understanding the why and context behind things really helps me in my own healing journey and growth journey.

0:09:20 Carly: And then we’re also going to always do some quick implementation. So here are three tips that you can start incorporating in your day to help burnout. Okay, Number one, take breaks. Set a timer on your phone every hour if you can. If you can’t, every two hours, whatever the shortest amount of time is. But every hour is key. And stand up and take a break. Right. For those who have that apple watch. It tells you when you’ve sat too long.

0:09:48 Carly: Now, be honest, how many of you actually just ignore that thing? Because I used to also, it’d be like, oh, it’s going off, but I’m in the middle of doing something, therefore I ignore it and then I never do it. So just really hold yourself accountable. Stop, stand up, stretch. Take a five minute break. Go outside if you can. This will help. All right, tip number two. Hum a song. Yep, you heard it. Okay, why?

0:10:18 Carly: Humming stimulates the vagus nerve, which. Wow. We are going to dive into the vagus nerve a lot, maybe a little on this podcast, but we definitely do that in my courses. But the vagus nerve helps promote rest and digest and so humming stimulates it. And this can be one of the quickest and easiest ways to regulate your nervous system. So just choose your favorite song or just take a deep breath in for five seconds and then hum as you let it out.

0:10:46 Carly: Whatever floats your boat, just make sure you’re humming. And my third tip is just to ask for help. Connection is huge in co regulation of our nervous system and just having social support in the workplace is huge. So if you can chat with a manager or a supervisor and if you can’t, then seek support in a coworker. So those are my tips. That is my burnout 101 and I hope that was helpful just to better understand what is it, what causes it and how can we heal from it and prevent it from happening in the future.

0:11:21 Carly: If you are currently suffering from burnout or you didn’t know, and maybe this podcast has shined some awareness or shined some light on what you’re going through or you want to dive deeper, please reach out to me. We absolutely do this in my one to one work and the unique framework that I implement in my coaching directly addresses all of these areas. You know, we are going to start with establishing a strong sense of self coming back to our values. That’s why I call it the Root to Rise method, because we need to work on our grounding and our roots first.

0:11:54 Carly: And then we’re going to go through empowerment and regulation tools and together we’ll come up with coping mechanisms that work in your life that that you can take with you moving forward. So if you do want to work with me, you have questions again, I’m always hanging out on Instagram, so send me a direct message. That’s usually the best way to get a hold of me. Arlyshade Obviously all of this is in the notes and as always, please be sure to leave a review and subscribe to my podcast.

0:12:22 Carly: So this is just A quick again 101 on burnout, but we talk about all the time. It’s definitely talked about in, I don’t know, on social media, in life all the time. But it is a very real thing and can cause very serious health issues. That’s why I do want to bring it up and shine some light on it. And remember that if you are suffering from it, it is due to prolonged chronic stress and exposure. So that also means in it took a long time to get to where you are.

0:12:53 Carly: That also means that your healing is going to take a long time and so be patient, be kind to yourself and happy healing. Thanks for joining me on another episode of Coffee with Carly and I look forward to our chat next week. Have a wonderful rest of your day.