How To Spot Burnout Early And Recover With Life Coach Kayla Sweet

Find all of Kayla's amazing resources here.

Burnout doesn’t arrive overnight; it builds quietly while we tell ourselves to push through one more week. We invited coach, speaker, and author Kayla Sweet to help us map the stages from honeymoon overcommitment to chronic stress and full burnout, then show a clearer path back to balance. Together, we unpack the WHO definition—emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced efficacy—and translate it into real-life signals like disrupted sleep, irritability, digestive issues, and the “I’m fine” story that hides mounting strain.

We go deeper than quick fixes. Kayla explains why productivity hacks often backfire and how true recovery depends on aligning workload, values, and autonomy. We explore the three arenas where burnout takes root—body, mind, and social systems—and how to intervene in each: nervous system regulation, mindset shifts that stop the stress loop, and boundaries that protect recovery. You’ll learn why normal labs don’t negate real distress, how to spot patterns before they harden, and what it takes to complete the stress cycle so you don’t live on cortisol and adrenaline.

For those wondering where to start, we outline practical first steps and when to call in backup. Coaching can stabilize your physiology and rebuild sustainable habits; therapy and psychiatry become vital when anxiety, depression, or trauma join the picture. We also share one of our favorite resources, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily and Amelia Nagoski, and how its simple, science-backed tools help high achievers restore capacity and joy. If you’ve been blaming time management for a misalignment problem, this conversation offers a grounded, compassionate reset.

If this episode resonates, follow and share it with someone who needs it, then leave a quick review so more listeners can find the show. Your story matters—what’s one boundary you’ll protect this week?

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Transcript

Welcome & Scope Of The Show

Dr. Lindsay Ogle, MD 0:00

Welcome to the Modern Metabolic Health Podcast with your host, Dr. Lindsay Olville, Board Certified Family Medicine and Obesity Medicine Physician. Here we learn how we can treat and prevent modern metabolic conditions such as diabetes, PCOS, fatty liver disease, metabolic syndrome, sleep apnea, and more. We focus on optimizing lifestyle while utilizing safe and effective medical treatments. Please remember that while I am a physician, I am not your physician. Everything discussed here is provided as general medical knowledge and not direct medical advice. Please talk to your doctor about what is best for you. Welcome to the Modern Metabolic Health Podcast. Today we're gonna talk about a really important topic, and that is chronic stress and burnout, and how to identify it and treat it to improve our overall health and well-being. I have a wonderful guest to talk about burnout. Her name is Kayla Sweet. She is a certified coach, speaker, author, and host of the Internally Guided Life podcast. She has a background in psychology and a master's degree in consciousness and transformative studies. Through her work, Kayla supports high-achieving, deeply caring individuals who are often leaders and carry a lot of responsibility and pressure. Her approach blends evidence-based practices with mindfulness, deep psychology, and lived experience, helping people restore balance, strengthen self-trust, and create sustainable ways of living and working. Kayla is also one of my childhood best friends, and we spent a lot of time together when we were younger dancing to Britney Spears and jumping on the trampoline. We have a lot of fond memories together. We eventually went our separate ways, but reconnected a couple of years ago. And I was honored to be a guest on her podcast. And she's done a lot of amazing things, as I mentioned before. So I'm so excited to have her on today. So thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. It feels like a full circle moment to be on your show now.

Dr. Lindsay Ogle, MD 2:20

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I would just love to, you know, if you could share with my listeners a little bit about yourself and your story and what brought you to this really important work.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Yeah, I think um, like most people who work in any kind of helping industry, you know, we have our personal stories. And while I always wanted to work in some kind of helping capacity, and I worked in community mental health for uh seven-ish years of my career, that was where I started. So it wasn't that that piece wasn't always there. It was, and there were other reasons for that. But the burnout focus actually came when I experienced my own burnout. That was a surprise that when it happened, obviously was not fun. It was a very challenging experience, one of those pivotal moments that kind of shift the way that I interact with the world and with work. And uh I learned so much about myself and my body and the societal expectations and pressures we have around work that a lot of people just don't, they don't know necessarily. We don't teach people and educate people when it comes to being able to really effectively manage stress and create sustainable systems in our lives. So I felt compelled after my own experience with burnout to begin to bring that work to other people and to share that with them. But for me, it happened actually pretty quickly. Uh, I had finished up my bachelor's degree in psychology and went straight into the mental health field. And I was working in an intense outpatient program for adolescents with addiction, which is a challenging population to work with, um, just because the severity of their symptoms and the challenges that they were facing at such young ages was obviously really hard to witness and really rewarding. Like it was really powerful to be able to support them through that. But coming straight from college, I had these big dreams, big expectations, huge pressure on myself. And I was not trained through the educational system or even my workplace on how to really care for myself through that. And so the processes and systems that had gotten me through college and everything before that just weren't serving me. Um, I essentially ran myself into the ground in the first six months. Um, so I was probably in like an extreme state of burnout for three or four months. Some people live there a lot longer than that. I was really lucky to have tools and know where to start and be able to recover. Um, you know, I got on that path after I realized where I was. But um, yeah, many people experience it for much longer than that. So I consider myself one of the lucky ones, but that's kind of where the burnout fascination and uh support um arm of my business came in. So I kind of do two things primarily: leadership development and um burnout prevention and recovery.

Dr. Lindsay Ogle, MD 5:23

Thank you for you know being so vulnerable and sharing your story. Um, and I think it's really interesting because even somebody who has so much training in the mental health field can still struggle with um stress and burnout. Um, so nobody is immune to it, no matter you know how much knowledge you have. Um it can it can happen to anybody. And I definitely relate, you know, with going through medical school and residency and how you mentioned like some of the strategies that got you through that are not sustainable long term for your career. And I also think that that's a great mindset approach to have because it did serve you at one point, but it maybe is not serving you now. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

And I think that is like a common um thing in mental health. I mean, another part of the reason I was so passionate about serving people who were burned out was because it wasn't just me, it was so many of my colleagues and the lifespan of people in like on-the-ground um social work is pretty low as far as like people who then go to other industries or move into different types of work within the industry. Um, that frontline work is really taxing, uh, even though you have the training, because it's one thing to know what the right thing to do is, it's a totally other thing to actually embody that and systematically hold um yeah, sustainable support and change. Yeah.

Dr. Lindsay Ogle, MD 6:55

Well, let's start with the basics. What is chronic stress and burnout? How would you define that?

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Yeah, so for me, I define burnout the same way that um the World Health Organization does. That's the definition I choose to utilize just because it's very straightforward, it makes sense, and um well-founded, right? We can we can look it to the World Health Organization for these things. So they define it as a syndrome that results from chronic workplace stress that hasn't been successfully managed, and then they categorize it um into three key dimensions. So the first is emotional exhaustion, the second is depersonalizationslash cynicism, and then the third is reduced professional efficacy. So usually all three of those are showing up to some degree once you get into that full burnout place. Um, but it can vary per person on which one they're seeing more of. Um, so some of the research suggests that women might feel the emotional exhaustion component higher, um, whereas men may feel the depersonalization and cynicism component higher. Um, so there's some different research there that there's some individualization to the way they present, but those are the key dimensions that tend to show up.

Dr. Lindsay Ogle, MD 8:12

Yeah, that's so interesting. And how there can be different presentations between men and women. Um, I guess if someone was wondering, like, do I have burnouts or chronic stress? What can someone like look at their behaviors or how they're feeling as like what what symptoms should they be looking for?

Early Signs, Stages, And Progression

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Yeah, this is one of the things that's like we actually need to be addressing it before we get to burnout. Like, so I like to think of it as um, it it moves in stages, it builds over time. So burnout doesn't happen through like a single incident or a hard season or a hard week. It compounds. So it doesn't start off in a state of burnout. Burnout is where you end up after ignoring signs for a prolonged period of time that something is wrong. So usually stage one is just like you're in usually a new realm or a new job or you just got out of college, whatever it might be, some kind of life transition, you're in a honeymoon phase and you just start overcommitting. You just start to engage in behaviors that aren't necessarily going to be sustainable. Um, but you don't feel tired yet. You're usually pretty energized, you're excited, you're ready to go. And so you just keep taking, taking, taking. Um, then the stress starts to kick in, rose-colored glasses come off, the stress starts to um be more prevalent, start to feel a little more tired, seeing headaches, fatigue, maybe a little bit of sleep disruption, irritability here or there. Usually people just ignore it at that stage because it's like, okay, just a bad week, just a bad month, just a little off right now, having a hard season. You know, we write it off when those are actually really key signals that we could intervene right there and never get to burnout, but we often don't. Then you get to chronic stress, which is the place where you're seeing more pronounced symptoms because you've been ignoring it for a prolonged period of time now, and the tax on your body and mind becomes, you know, more intense the longer that you don't have an equal match recovery-wise to the level of stress you're dealing with. So stress itself isn't like the problem. It's the fact that if we don't recover in equal measure to the workload and the mental demands, then we aren't going to be able to maintain that for a long time. Um, so chronic stress is where you start to see things like um behavioral issues at work. A lot of times, chronic stress is uh where people might intervene and do write-ups or put people on pips because they might see absenteeism, you may see negative attitude at work, resentment. Um, you get irritable, frustrated, you might get aggressive, um, really struggling to sleep, and you start to get more physical symptoms at that point, uh, rapid heart rate, um, yeah, digestive issues, that's a huge one. Um, so people start to have um either just discomfort or a slowed-down um system when it comes to your digestive health. So you can really notice it there. Then we get to burnout. So it's like starts out all gray, get a little bit of stress, a little more stress. Now we're burned out because we've continued to ignore all the signs of our body and our behaviors. Um, so once you're in like full-blown burnout, you might not know the word for it, but you know some things horribly wrong. Some people might think they're sick because it you physically are unwell. Um, headaches, the sleep deprivation, um, major issues with your relationships. You just don't have the same capacity to show up for the people in your life. Um, you you're snapping. Um, some people might do escapist behaviors, potentially drug or alcohol abuse. Um, yeah, that's that's when stuff gets really rough. Immunity problems too, as we're continuing to ignore stress signs, the the immune response starts to decrease and we might get sick more often. Um, a lot of the people I work with will push until their like body doesn't let them anymore and they come down with like just a cold or a flu that they can't kick and they're sick for months because they've just got such a weakened immune system by that point. So that's kind of the progression of it. So my advice is like, don't wait till you're in burnout. Like, as soon as you start overcommitting, like you can already take an action there before you're even in the stress state. But yeah.

When Tests Are Normal But You’re Unwell

Dr. Lindsay Ogle, MD 12:50

Wow. Um, a couple things a lot. No, that was all great information. Um, the first thing is yeah, prevention. I'm a big fan of prevention. I was trained in family medicine, primary care. So whenever we can prevent something, I am all for it. So um we'll definitely dive into how we can prevent um burnout and chronic stress. Um, but I also want to highlight, you know, that really was a long list of signs and symptoms that someone can experience. And it sounds like a it's a wide spectrum. And many of those symptoms are things that people, you know, come to me as a physician for looking for a diagnosis and help. And they're kind of what we call non-specific, that they could be attributed to many different underlying causes, um, both physical and mental health, like it can overlap with depression and anxiety and ADHD, um, insomnia, um, but also some physical um conditions as well, um, like abnormal, like thyroid levels and cardiac abnormalities and GI concerns that, like you mentioned. And so it can get really confusing and concerning and potentially add more stress if you're experiencing this and then worried about your health. Um, so I do think it's a good idea to talk to a medical professional if you're having these concerns. Um, but sometimes those visits are really unsatisfying because you may get a full a truly a full workup and everything comes back normal. And then, and then what? And then what do you do? And then it can be really, really frustrating because you're looking to feel better, you're looking for an answer, but there's at least there's not always a clear answer. And I guess one thing that we can learn from this is that if you're not getting a clear answer when you're having some of these symptoms, then to consider burnout and chronic stress.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Yeah, I I love that you brought that up. It's funny because I'm like actually just recalling um, because it's been a while now since I went through like my episode of burnout. So the further I get from it, the less, you know, I feel the way I felt then like in my memories. It's harder and harder to tap into how it was. But I actually remember going to my doctor and I did have a full workup done. Um, they like we were looking at blood sugar, we were looking at thyroid, we were like trying to piece together all these things. I wanted sleep medication. Um, it was like, and yeah, it is very ungratifying because you don't get an answer. And when you're being told you're fine and you feel very unwell, that's you feel like, okay, well, either they're wrong or I'm going like I'm losing it. Like I maybe I do need a therapist. And you might. I mean, I think everyone benefits from therapy, but me too.

Dr. Lindsay Ogle, MD 15:45

Yeah, yeah. Um, so uh yeah, I think that's just important to acknowledge. And also, um, you know, before we were recording, I was saying also sometimes people like on social media can pry on people who are looking for answers and can, you know, sell an easy solution, but in reality, there's no easy solution for something as complex as chronic stress and burnout. Um, before we get to the treatment and what someone should do when they are experiencing this, what are some of your recommendations for preventing burnout?

The Three Lenses: Body, Mind, Social

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Before I share preventing, I'm actually gonna like circle back just a little bit because uh I want to dial in on something you said about the complexity of the issue. Because I really think no matter what we can share in this brief conversation, it's not going to be able to fully cover this issue. Like this has been researched very thoroughly, and there's a lot of different approaches out there. Um, I mean, we could we could have entire classes, people have written entire books on this topic. So one hour is not sufficient. We can get people started down the path. Um, but for me, when it comes to understanding the complexity of burnout, it's it really happens in um three main areas. The first is the physiological side. So stress does have a real impact on our body. That's why we feel it physically, that's why it can lead to other physical things that do require uh, you know, uh medical treatment. If you ignore it for long enough, you start to have those very real consequences. And there's the like mental and emotional side of it where there's cognitive processes, thought processes that can make our experience of stress better or worse. Um, there's emotional awareness stuff that has to go into that. And then the social piece, are we well supported? And what are the societal expectations that we are up against? Um, so there's like all of these multifaceted um pieces, and the degree to which any of those is impacting a person can can vary. As so the more variables you have against you, the higher likelihood that you're going to experience those more negative, um, negative symptoms. So just want to dial in on that complexity a little bit. Like there really is a lot going on here, and we're only gonna be able to scratch the the surface in this conversation.

Dr. Lindsay Ogle, MD 18:08

Yeah, I absolutely agree. And the I think possibly the hardest one is the the third one, the societal um expectations, because that is the one we have the least amount of control over. Um at least I think so, unless there's something that I'm missing about that. Um, but the you know, financial pressures and you know, work pressures and expectations with family members and and that sort of thing, that that can really weigh heavy um on this.

Prevention: Systems, Boundaries, Recovery

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Yeah, 100%. And I agree that is the one that's like we can get some degree of power by acknowledging it and deciding how we're gonna relate to it. But we alone, any individual person, is gonna be able to change the system and the way that it's functioning. So we kind of have to learn to cope within it as best we can and try to find small pockets where we can influence change. And that's the the long hard road of change, just not a not a big overhaul all at once, right? But um I think your original question that I totally didn't answer at all was how do we prevent how do we prevent burnout? So um this is something I used to talk with people like on the first day when they came to my previous organization when I was in community mental health, um, because it was so prevalent in that industry that we talked about burnout on day one, because I really did want to lean into that prevention piece. Um, building sustainable systems where you can balance your stress and your workload with your recovery preferences is really key. Like if you can build that from the beginning or notice early when stuff starts to get out of balance and have options, whether that's asking for help or you have control over your schedule or you are able to negotiate some workload things. Um, it the way that looks can vary, but trying to create sustainable systems and listen to yourself really well, paying attention to those really early signs. It's everyone has bad days. Work, no matter how much you love what you're doing, has really stressful days. That's not an issue on its own. But when you're starting to see patterns, um like those are the invitations to get things back into balance. So you really want to make sure that you are in a situation where the tax of your environment, especially with work, although there are other kinds of burnout, caregiver burnout is another big one. Um, but if the demands of your environment are outpacing your capacity and your recovery, that's where you're really gonna get into a sticky situation. So trying to build that sustainability in early and being really aware when it starts to slip. So like boundaries, advocacy, emotional awareness, those are the things that you need at that foundational level.

Dr. Lindsay Ogle, MD 20:53

That's great advice. Um, and I wonder what your thoughts are about why burnout well, does burnout affect women more often than men? Um may is that true?

Gender Differences And Reporting

SPEAKER_01 21:09

So I can't honestly tell you in like conclusively because the research I've seen has been inconclusive in that some research studies report a very high discrepancy where women are very disproportionately impacted, and then others have that degree um of difference much smaller. So I don't know which of the research is accurate. I you you know, when you're looking at all of these studies, you're trying to make as sense of it as most you can. So it's are women reporting it more often because it's more maybe acceptable for us to share that we're stressed because of gender roles and social norms. Is it that men are presenting in their burnout differently? Is it the dual pressure that women are experiencing in the home and in the workplace that's leading to this inability to match recovery with the workload tax? Um, so there could be a lot of things going on. But um there is, there is some research that indicates it disproportionately impacts women. Um, and a lot of the people that I work with are women. Um because that's I'm a woman, I understand the unique challenges we face. So yeah, yeah.

Dr. Lindsay Ogle, MD 22:15

I just find that that difference interesting. Um so then if somebody does notice they're going down that path of burnout or they find themselves in burnout, what would you think would be, you know, the first step that they should take? And when do you think that they should seek professional help? Um, and what would that look like?

When To Seek Help: Coaching Vs Therapy

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Yeah, I mean, I guess it it really depends on where they're at on that spectrum that I shared in what action they could take. Because if it's just to the point of maybe early, um, early chronic stress, like you're a couple weeks in, you're noticing some pattern changes, you're starting to have some of these negative consequences, you may very well be able to make some lifestyle and behavior shifts. Um, if you're really intentional at prioritizing those things, if you are comfortable and have the tools and skills to self-advocate, to have your needs met, to make changes, you may be able to get back into balance without a huge life overhaul or major intervention externally. The problem is that a lot of people don't act at that point. They just white knuckle it. And that's what I did. Um, like I had all of the signs leading up to it, like from day one, ignored, ignored, ignored. I just thought, you know, like I can do this, I can power through. It's just a season, it's not a big deal. Um, like this is normal. This is normal is uh a really common thought that uh at least I've heard from women is like we're just supposed to be stressed. We're just gonna always be miserable. Like life is hard, work is hard. You hear these things that people throw out there, and so then it causes us to ignore our own experience. Um, so if you're really early on, I think there are really basic things you can do. Taking care of yourself physically, emotionally, mentally, self-care, time outside, movement, drinking water, like the basics are really the best intervention early on. Um, if you're already to a plane of chronic stress, or maybe you're someone who's been battling burnout off and on for years, some people get into a place where burnout becomes the norm. It becomes chronic, it becomes habitual, um, and they've sustained that degree of stress for a really long time. At that point, you're dealing with major behavioral and cognitive patterns that are going to need an overhaul. And that's where some support can be really helpful. Um, and the avenue of support, I think, again, degrees on or it varies based on the degree of severity. Um, so I do coaching, burnout recovery coaching. Um, and that's a very specific niche of support where I'm able to help people kind of do some burnout recovery like first aid, like get their physiology a little bit calmed, manage the nervous system. But then I also bring people forward into the future and connecting with their purpose, their passion, their values, because there's also mismatches and alignment that happen a lot. If the work that people are doing doesn't align with who they are or what they want from life, you can feel that higher stress and dissatisfaction to a larger degree. So that's where a lot of my work lies. If it's in combination with, like you said, depression, anxiety, PTSD, um, other major mental health things, therapy, psychiatry, like you want to make sure that you're seeing the right professional based on the symptoms that you are experiencing and if you have co-occurring challenges. Mental or medical health is also always something that you should just maintain, anyways, and tell your doctor when these things are going on. Um, but I feel like especially as you get to the further points, the more chronic stages, that's where the physical manifestation becomes real enough to be detected in some of the tests and the tools that are available to medical doctors and where there's actual maybe medication might be an intervention if now you have a chronic health condition that was caused by stress that lasted for a half a decade or something.

Dr. Lindsay Ogle, MD 26:14

But yeah. Thank you for breaking that down and um highlighting what it'll look like on the different, you know, on that full spectrum. Um and I want to start with the the beginning of the spectrum when you're talking how lifestyle interventions can be helpful. Um, and you said before that productivity hacks are not the answer for true healing. Can you tell a little bit more about that and why a productivity hack is not really what you would recommend as far as like a lifestyle intervention for treating stress?

Why Productivity Hacks Backfire

SPEAKER_01 26:53

Yeah, this was a like a personal uh trap that I fell into in my like journey. And it's one that I see in a lot of my clients, where you think that the problem isn't a stress problem, it's a time management problem. And if I could just be more effective and do more in the hours of the day that I have, then none of this would be a problem. So we try to find the perfect system, the perfect planner, we read the self-help books, like doing all of these things that are not actually addressing the real issue, which is a mismatch of some kind, whether that's a mismatch between your workload, what you're being expected to do, and your capacity to do it and your capacity to recover fully, or if it's a mismatch between what matters to you and what you have to do every day, or a mismatch in power. Do you feel like you have any control and autonomy when it comes to your schedule, when it comes to your workload, when it comes to getting support? Um, so all of those things can kind of uh weigh in. So when it comes to, yeah, let me just try to do more within the hours of the day, you're just adding to the system that got you where you're at. And there's never going to be enough hours in the day to counteract the stress. So if you actually want real healing, you have to change the way you relate to stress and the way you relate to yourself, the way you care about and listen to yourself, listen to those signals. Um, we really get ourselves here by uh like blatant disregard to our needs, to put it most simply, if we're not listening to our hunger cues, our need for water and sleep and exercise and sunshine, like just the basic things that bring us happiness and we're uh just constantly pushing through. We are keeping our body in this heightened state of stress for a prolonged period of time. Stressful events can happen all day and people not be burned out if they are recovering well. Um, so it's really that that imbalance. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Lindsay Ogle, MD 28:56

That recovery piece is so important. Um another lifestyle question that I have is you know you hear and see recommendations for self-care, and that's usually like marketed as like taking a bubble bath or getting a massage or you know, that sort of thing. Um yeah, exactly. Um, so I is there a difference between like self-care, I think you described before as that's versus one that is actually true healing self, self-care. And how, and is that different from person to person? And what what would that look like?

Real Self-Care Vs Glam Self-Care

Stress Mindset And Health

SPEAKER_01 29:36

I do think self-care does vary from person to person to a degree, right? Because the things that fill you up, that nourish you, um, while we all have like a physiological baseline of human needs, there are also preferences to be taken into account. And if you're trying to do something with a way somebody else is doing it, they may love yoga and it may give you heart palpitations because you just you really hate it. Like then that's not the intervention for you. Um, but I think what I what I see a lot of people doing with self-care is this very um glamorized version of it, right? Where it's it's the vacation on the beach, which that's nice. Like take a vacation, but don't expect it to cure your burnout because you're gonna come right back into the same systems um that you were in before you left and you're gonna be exhausted again in a couple of weeks. Like it doesn't really sustain you for the long for the long haul. So there's nothing wrong with things like bubble baths and vacations and massages, like do those things, treat yourself, but don't expect that that's gonna be the solution. It's really those are band-aids, right? Like you're not actually getting to the root of the problem. The root of the problem is often like a mental, um mental and emotional pattern that isn't sustainable. So a lot of the burnout problem we do to ourselves. Not always, we do have systems that aren't always um serving of the humans in them. So I'm not disregarding the systemic uh issue here. But at an individual level, we have more power than we give ourselves credit for. So when we are actually trying to change the way that we think, a less glamorous um piece of self-care would be actually sitting in discomfort, being able to accurately label your emotional experience, being connected to your body and really paying attention to the aches and the tightness and the little signs that pop up when our body's telling us something's not right. You have to really be tuned into that. And a lot of people are kind of cut off from their body from the neck down, um, dissociated from it to a degree. So they aren't tuned in, they aren't listening to it. So a lot of the real self-care, the like nourishing self-care, it's not pretty, it's not glamorous, and it doesn't feel easy in the moment. Like it, it's not just fun and let me let me kick up my heels and uh get a massage or take a bubble bath. Um, again, that's nice, but doing the work of checking your mental models, your thoughts, um, there's some really interesting research around, I'm gonna take us like on a little squirrel here, but there's some really interesting research around um mindset when it comes to stress. So there was this longitudinal study that was done that showed that people who all of the people in the study were experiencing high stress. The people who had um shortened lifespan or major negative physical consequences due to the stress that only happened if they believe stress was bad for them. The people who also had very high stress but didn't believe the stress was bad for them didn't have those same negative health consequences in their life. And that's a correlation, not a causation, but it shows the connection between the way we relate with challenge. So if you're relating with your stress in a way that you're putting more pressure on yourself and now you are trying to do more and you're not good enough, and you're striving for perfection and you're not asking for help and you're just go, go, going, and then you feel the stress, and now you're stressed because you're feeling stressed and oh, this stress is bad for me, and now I'm stressed about how stressed I am. Like you are making the problem worse and worse by your own mental traps. Whereas if you experience stress and you see it as a signal, not like a neutral event that's giving you information, the way you respond to that is gonna be very different. The amount of power and autonomy you feel to be able to respond is gonna be a lot different. So while I don't have the um the direct causation in that study, I think that is um kind of pointing to what is the real self-care piece, right? And part of it is how are we thinking? Um, what kinds of thoughts are we uh allowing to run our lives? What kind of narratives are we living in?

Dr. Lindsay Ogle, MD 33:58

I think that's fascinating. And it makes me think about the importance of working with a coach or a therapist that is a good fit for you and that you can share your concerns and your stressors with and share some of those negative thought patterns that you're having because what they're gonna do is they're going to, you know, give you the give you the space to share it and listen and be um be very neutral about it. And they're not going to judge you and they're going to, I almost it's like dump dumping out everything that's in your head and putting it like in that shared space that you have with that person. And then you can realize that you don't have like those negative thoughts are just in your head, they're just sentences in your brain, and you don't have to think them. And there is another option, like you were mentioning in that study. And then you can start to work with those other options and build up a new thought pattern in your head, and then can relate to the the stressors in your life that you're going to have, you know, at various points in your life. Um, and it can have a completely different, it can take you to a completely different place and a completely different experience. Um, so I think that that can be so powerful when you share with a trusted person who is not going to judge you for those thoughts that you're having.

Changing Narratives And Completing The Stress Cycle

SPEAKER_01 35:31

Yeah. Yeah. The the power of just shifting our our internal landscape is really like that's where it's at for me. Um, because if you can do that, it really is this ripple effect out into your life. Um, you change the way you think, and then that subtly changes the way you interact with your environment, the choices that you're making, um, and it reduces the stress that you're dealing with if the narratives you're telling yourself are more empowering and recognize your choice and autonomy. Um, because when we get into these negative thought patterns, um, we're hijacking our stress response and making it worse for ourselves. We're making our body stay in a state of like high adrenaline and cortisol production because we're circling through in our brains well beyond we need it to. Like that instant stress response is normal. It's a biological imperative so that we can respond when situations need our high attention and our alertness. It keeps us from getting hit by cars when we're outside, right? Like we need that, that instant like wake-up call. Um, so it's not a problem to experience that. But then if you're spinning in a mental circle, you're just continuing to activate it over and over and over. And the body is not meant for that. It's meant for activation, action, stabilization. So if you're not finishing that loop, you're putting your body at a toll that's unnecessary.

Dr. Lindsay Ogle, MD 36:57

Well, this has been so wonderful to go over stress and burnout and how to identify it, prevent it, actually prevent it, identify it, and then treat it if it's happening. Um, is there anything else that you would like to share that we haven't um already touched on?

Resources, Book Rec, And Where To Find Kayla

SPEAKER_01 37:15

Oh my goodness, there's so much. I could talk about this for hours and hours. Um, so I feel like we did a good job of hitting the basics, right? Like give people enough to know who maybe to go to for help or what a good next step would be. I will say a book that I really loved um that was a great support for me as I was navigating my own journey, but also something I refer to clients a lot. And I have no like marketing um piece for this, but I have oh, you can't see it because my background's on second. It's called Burnout, The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. And it's by Emily and Amelia Nagoski, and they break down um essentially how we interfere with that completion cycle in a very easy to digest way that's very actionable. Um, so that is something that I recommend to anyone that's dealing with any degree of stress, especially women. Um, it is targeted to women this particular book because it also impacts some of the social and societal things that we um alluded to earlier in the conversation. Thank you for sharing that.

Dr. Lindsay Ogle, MD 38:21

I recommend that. Thank you. Yeah, I will read it and I'll include the link below so anyone else can easily find that. Um, and if somebody is wanting to find you and you know, follow you, learn more from you, or work with you, uh, where do you recommend that they go?

SPEAKER_01 38:38

Yeah, so I am um internally guided is my brand. And so internally guidedleadership.com is my website. There's some information about my programs and also a lot of free resources available there. Um, the podcast, Internally Guided Life, is also somewhere that I like to recommend people because I bring on experts that are, I mean, therapists, doctors, speakers, researchers, um, you name it, you are on the on the show, and we talk to a lot around burnout, stress, but also purpose and thriving and leadership and really important things we need to feel fulfilled in our life. So that's a good like no-cost way to start to get the information you need. Um, but if you want to work with me, my website's a good place. I'm also pretty active on LinkedIn, um, just Kayla M Suite. Uh, use the middle initial. Apparently, there are a lot of us out there. Um, but I'm on the other social media things too, but I tend to be most active on on LinkedIn.

unknown 39:40

Okay.

Closing & Listener Actions

Dr. Lindsay Ogle, MD 39:40

Thanks so much. And I'll include those links as well. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time. Uh, like you said, we probably, you know, just touched the surface, so we'll have to have you back on um at the later point and dive a little bit deeper. I would love that anytime. Thank you for listening and learning how you can improve your metabolic health in this modern world. If you found this information helpful, please share with a friend, family member, or colleague. We need to do all we can to combat the dangerous misinformation that is out there. Please subscribe and write a review. This will help others find the podcast so they may also improve their metabolic health. I look forward to our conversation next week.