Ep. #11: Burnout and Completing the Stress Cycle

If you're in the nonprofit, international development, and education sectors where you experience compassion fatigue, then you understand well the topic of burnout. In this episode, I talk about what burnout look like and how it's different than just feeling tired. Using the book Burnout: The Secret to Completing the Stress Cycle" and drawing from polyvagal theory, I talk about the four trauma responses (fight or flight, freeze, and fawning), why stressors  are different from stress itself, and useful and evidence-based strategies to help complete the stress cycle in order to prevent burnout. 

Transcript

Dr. Janny Chang  0:10  
Welcome to unleash your inner power with Dr. Janny Chang, the podcast that helps women from all walks of life use thoughtworks research and storytelling to help rewire your brain and kick ass in your personal and professional life.

Dr. Janny Chang  0:28  
Hi, friends, I wanted to talk this week about a very important topic, especially for those of you who are in professions where you have to deeply care and have a lot of empathy and extend some level of nurturing compassion towards others. Right, I think this podcast will really speak to you in some ways, because I'm going to be talking all about burnout, burnout, and so I'm basing today's podcast on the book burnout, the secret to unlocking the stress cycle by Emily and Amelia Nagasaki. Now, I've been fascinated, I do coach clients on burnout. This is something that I've experienced, I happen to be in the nonprofit sectors and education. And part of that international development. And also, before that, and academia, and these were all professions where burnout and attrition rates, where people just drop out and leave these professions are very high. So I have that experience. And I understand the struggles. And my coaching is far more than just being aware of your, your thoughts and your feelings. I go into bodywork, I go into really practical strategies that this book actually touches on, and recommends and so I'm going to share all these useful things with you. 

Now, if you've ever experienced burnout, or you're experiencing burnout, now, I highly recommend that you join me here. So thank you for being here. Alright, so what I loved and I want to start off with kind of like these key points from this book that are so important. Okay, and one of the key points is, is that to be well, is not to live in a perpetual state of safety and calm, right doesn't mean you don't have stress. Okay, it's to move fluidly from state of adversity and risk and adventure or excitement, back to safety and calm. So stress is not what's bad for you, it's being stuck. That's bad for you. wellness happens when your body is in a place of safety for you, even when your body is not necessarily in a safe place, right? But for you feel safe. And there's ways you can tap into that safety. 

You can be well, even during the times when you don't feel good. Right? And that doesn't, it doesn't mean you deny stress, or bad things happening right in all my podcast episodes. And in general, in coaching, we talk about life being 5050, which means 50% of the time, we're going to experience positive emotions 50% of the time, half of the time will experience negative emotions. And that's just because with the course of life, right? I mean, things happen right in life. But it's learning to use the tools to shift your mindset. or giving yourself that love and space to experience all of those emotions, good and bad, rather than resist them that will make all the difference, right? And that's where coaching can really help therapy can help. And all these different strategies I'm going to talk about in this episode, can really help

Dr. Janny Chang  4:25  
help you accept the emotions that you have, and actually move through the experience in a way that serves you. Okay? And so it's not about denying what's happening or denying stress or denying native motions with that only compounds suffering, right? And when you deny or try to avoid stress or any negative emotion. What you might end up doing is numbing out or but we call it buffering, right? It's like you know Getting out that ice cream or eating to avoid negative emotions, right? And that's, that's all fine. We all need those moments, right? It's that's a great short term strategy, you know is buffering. And sometimes you just need to numb out, right? That's okay in the short term, but as a long term coping mechanism, it may not be the healthiest, or there's better strategies to cope in the long term, right. And so that's what I'm going to talk about today, because these strategies are so important when we discuss preventing or handling burnout. 

Okay, so we're gonna, I'm gonna just go ahead and start, start here, I've covered some of the key points that are so influential from this book. And I'm going to talk a little bit about how just reviewing our bodies and how it works. I've talked about this before. And that is that our bodies are designed to respond to short term stressors, right? Like you're being chased by predator, your body is overcome with adrenaline and cortisol, and glycogen. And that's to get your body prepared to survive, right. And so this is like this is stress, short term stress, a stressor, actually, it's not the stress itself, it's the stressor, that is totally normal, right. 

And so you try to escape from predator, you have a stress, right, and your body reacts in order to protect you, okay, and you either get consumed by the predator, okay? Or you make it out alive, right? So, you run, you escape the predator, you know, you make it out alive, right, and your body's like, has all the stored energy, and then someone you see, you know, shows you that you're alive, and you see that smile on the person's face, and you're filled with gratitude, and you have this connection. So and then you start calming down, right, your nervous system starts to stabilize. So biochemically, this allows you to complete the stress cycle, because there's really no need for stress anymore. Right? Your body, that stress that was lodged in your body just dissipates. Okay? Now, think of a tough commute or something that you're experiencing. That's challenging in your life, right? 

For example, it can mean that you're stuck in traffic, you get tense, because people are speeding and cutting you off or tailgating you, right? Sound familiar? Right? Now, you might practice some deep breathing while you're driving, but you don't feel relaxed. When you get home, you might see your kids, you have a glass of wine you eat, take a nice bath, and then you start to feel relaxed. But even though you've actually dealt with the stressor, which in this case, you know, traffic, it's no longer there, you've dealt with it, right? It's not there anymore, you're home. Now, your body still needs to deal with the stress itself, by completing the stress cycle. Okay. Now we're no longer chased by predators. I mean, a lot of us in modern modern life, we're not chased by predators. And so stressors and modern life aren't really things that threaten our survival in the short term.

Dr. Janny Chang  8:18  
Our jobs, our long commute are everyday stress responses, they do continue to be elevated. But the difference, the difference is that we don't get the chance to complete our stress cycle. So imagine, you have years and years of incomplete activated stress response cycles in your bodies, and all in our bodies. You know, for example, I talked about, you know, just right at the beginning of this episode, if you work in professions, where oftentimes it's dominated by women, and you're expected to be givers, and in fact, this book talks about this human human giver syndrome, like, you know how we're socialized, especially as women and also these professions, to always put ourselves last, you know, and that's when that happens day in and day out. And that actually is a stress report as a response as elevated, that doesn't get to be completed, a stress cycle doesn't get to be completed. Day in and day out. You're giving and giving and giving and not giving to yourself. 

That's when you get compassion, fatigue, and that's that can lead to burnout. Right? And so what does that look like? How do you know when you have burnout because it's not just merely feeling tired, or exhausted, right? burnout is when you are checked out emotionally. Okay, and you're checked out you fake empathy, when you're supposed to feel it. You're just some examples. you dismiss suffering that isn't the most extreme. You feel helpless and powerless, you stay in a bad situation, whether that's a relationship or a workplace, out of a sense of martyrdom, like you want to be that sacrifice, right. So all of these are indications that you may be burnt out, right. And no matter how much you're trying to rest, you just can't recover because your body has just shut down. And actually, you are disconnected from your emotions and what you're truly feeling, right. So if we want to change the world, it is so important for us to learn how to take care of ourselves and to receive care from others. Okay, and so some of the strategies, very practical strategies recommended in this burnout book by the Nagasaki sisters is, is one thing is is physical activity. So they say physical activity helps complete the stress cycle, okay, any movement helps, whether that's dancing or zuba, or Nia or yoga, walking, any movement. 

Okay, another recommendation, deep, slow breaths, breaths that go in through your nose. And you fill your belly come out. And then you breathe through your mouth, deep belly breaths. A second 22 a sorry, second 20 excuse me, a 22nd hug, right? A 22nd hug, whether you're giving it or you're receiving it, that helps a good cry. Whoo, I love this one. I love a good cry. It's so cathartic, right? And, and that helps complete the stress cycle. You know, and this is, by the way, complete the stress cycle. You know, that helps you I mean, obviously, over prolonged periods when we talk about trauma, that will require other strategies, okay. But anyway, good cry, always helps. And nap. a nap really helps, right? If you're a parent, you're probably wondering what is a nap. But I love naps. Because they are so few and far between, for me, I cherish them, I do find it to be something that really helps with stress right after nap, a good nap, always feel better. Okay. And then most importantly, positive social interactions, right, these friendly interactions that show you the world is a safe place. This helps complete, complete a stress cycle, right? We're meant to be part of a collective. Remember in a previous podcast, I talked about our body's Nervous System either being in a sympathetic mode, which is fight or flight, or parasympathetic mode, right. And positive social interactions actually activate brain structures that stimulate the myelinated.

Dr. Janny Chang  13:05  
Vegas, that cues the parasympathetic nervous system to kick into gear. And when it does, that, your body is able to relax and calm down. And when you've calmed down, that's when you're truly able to receive coaching and therapy and make the change in your life that you need to if you're constantly in fight or flight mode. So think about this. And it's not just those with a history of trauma and abuse. But think about it as a woman or minority who lives in the society and is inundated with messaging that we're not good enough, we're not worthy enough. You know, or if you feel like your life is threatened on a daily basis, right? You're a black man living in the US, or trans person who feels the safety is being compromised for a woman who has to fear being sexually assaulted on a daily basis. This can activate our Vegas nerve, and when prolonged, everyday over years can cause irregularities in our Vegas nerve, right? So studies show that people with PTSD actually show a diminished vagal tone, for example. I mean, so one of the things is that our automatic autonomic nervous system, which is the ANS is constantly scanning the environment to protect us. And what we gather around us and read cues for danger. That's called neuro ception. Right? It's, it's like our body surveillance system. 

Our body scans for cues, just so naturally as naturally as breathing, right? Someone with PTSD, or if you've lived a life where you are constantly on the lookout for your own safety, right as a woman or minority or trans person, right, and in a way that's a form of PTSD, but I'm saying that in general, even without the diagnosis, right, it's you can Have a very sensitive surveillance system that kicks into overdrive in order to protect you. Now, sometimes this, you know, response can take other forms, right? For example, we know about fight or flight and freeze, like that's when you're immobilized, right? And we often don't think about it, but there's also fawning, right? That's another trauma response fawning. In an abusive environment, people may find by conforming to the needs of what the abuser wants, in order to protect themselves, right. And physiologically, fawning looks like you're reading social cues of others to attend to their needs so much that you become disconnected from your own emotions and your body and needs right, it's a survival mechanism. from the polyvagal perspective, fawning is thought to involve both high sympathetic activation with that stress response and a degree of dorsal vagal which is the shutdown engagement so that means that you have lots of sympathetic energy in your bodies right that fight or flight which by itself would make you bigger and louder but the dorsal vagal which keeps you mobilize tones that down because you're trying to act in a way that conforms to society or conforms to your to the person you're trying to please right. 

And so, you know, as people pleasing that really stems from not feeling loved and accepted early on is is actually also a stressor right trying to be trying to fit in trying to people please and that can take in many forms right? I think you know, I think one of the ways in which fawning shows up and in many women's lives is that negative body image right that so many, so many people have of themselves right and and that is that is in a way fawning right is like when you hate your body and you loathe it and you try to get your body to fit into you know, whatever society thinks whatever you think society thinks is considered acceptable and pleasing right if we look at finding that way I mean, you know, the media and people that maybe you grew up with in a way that's a pretty traumatic experience being told that your body is not acceptable right and that you have to find people please you know you people please by trying to lose weight and make your body a certain way in order to please others whether others is society or your parents or you go on dates, you know, the opposite sex or whatever it is right. So farming can take

Dr. Janny Chang  18:08  
take can manifest itself in many ways right? And and it can show up in different ways in life but it is indeed a stressor and it is indeed a trauma response right? And it affects your vagus nerve as we see okay. But even with a diminished vagal tone so this all of this right can be counteracted and reduced with positive social interactions with others right and this is kind of what gets back to the burnout book is like all these strategies that help with burnout also help with you know, fight or flight and freeze and falling Okay, so you know, having positive interactions right? Giving a hug or getting a hug, getting a good cry out napping, engaging in physical activity, right? As long as you take action is what the Nagasaki sisters say. Go take action. You know, go for a walk, scream and a pillow. Right? Even anger is short term anger can be a way to complete the stress cycle. All of these things can help you complete the stress cycle. Right? 

Or as the book says, book called Carrie Fisher, who says take your broken heart and make it into art. Right? All of these can help so take action, take action. I loved the example using the book about redefining the societal expectations for yourself. So one of the things that they talk about in the book is to simply it and it also involves taking action and being with the collective right so like we were saying, have you gained weight You don't like the way you look, we'll do something about it take action where the leggings that you, you know, we're scared to wear, you know, call it the new hotness, right? Then text with your friends that this is the new hotness, like show them the pictures and have everyone else share pictures of themselves and leggings calling it the new hotness, you redefine it for yourself. Right? 

And, you know, it's it's really a choice, right that what the Nagase sister talks about when I talk about on my podcast as well. And in my coaching is it's it's choosing to be kind and loving towards ourselves, right and towards our bodies and appreciating, appreciating it for what it is like right now. And it's also done in connection with others, right? It's done with friends, we trust, it's done in this community that feels very safe. And sometimes we need others to remind us that the world is safe, and that we can trust ourselves and our bodies. That's where leaving our trusted friends in these times when you're down on yourself, you know, or you're getting coached, or you know, your coach has your back 1,000% they can really help to be to help you to be kinder to yourself, right? And also connect, connect you to a larger home, a community that's larger than your individual self. It's being part of this collective that helps us complete stress cycles in our lives, right? 

So yes, self care can help with burnout, but not the kind of self care we tend to think about, or at least not by itself, at least when it comes to like massage and bubble baths. Me, those are all great, I love those. All right. Let's keep those they can definitely release tensions in your body. And they can help mitigate or prevent burnout. To some extent, right? The book talks about that. But most importantly, what really is the cure to burnout, the book emphasizes is caring for one another, caring for each other, being part of the collective, where you assure those you care about that they're amazing and worthy, worthy, and loving and lovable, and they remind you of the same. So the cure to burnout is caring for others and caring for ourselves. Right? Those are my main takeaways from this book, and from the topic of burnout itself. So I hope you enjoyed this.

Dr. Janny Chang  22:37  
I enjoyed having you here with me. I'd love to hear from you. email me at Janny Chang one@gmail.com. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram. And I love to hear from you and hear your stories and feedback about this topic of burnout. You know what's been your coping strategies, what's helped you What are you concerned about? This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart and so I would love to connect with you on it some more. Alright, thank you so much for tuning in. And I hope you got a lot of podcast. I will see you next time. Take care