[00:00:00] Dex: Hi everyone, my name's Dex Randall, and this is the Burnout to Leadership podcast, where I teach professional men to recover from burnout and get back to passion and reward at work.

[00:00:22] Hello my friends, this is Dex, and today I am delighted to welcome on the show a special guest, Hannah Holden, who's an expert in burnout prevention based in the UK. And Hannah empowers tech professionals and consultants to mindfully navigate stress and to prevent burnout so they can be more impactful at work, present with their kids and live healthier, happier, and more purposeful lives.

[00:00:49] And I love this because really a lot of people forget that burnout is not constrained to work. It is a whole life experience and it affects everything outside of work too. And I think this is good news because it means that when you can prevent or fix burnout, the whole of life will be uplifted all at once.

[00:01:11] Hannah: I ran some workshops recently. So thank you for the introduction. I ran some workshops recently and when I was asking people how stress was showing up for them and what they wanted to change, the thing that kept coming up was that stress was showing up at work, at home, that they couldn't make a clean break between work and home.

[00:01:29] And actually the place where stress was most impacting their life was snapping at their kids. It's not being present at home, et cetera. 

[00:01:37] Dex: it's fundamentally the biggest pain point. I get a lot of men coming to me in burnout with the same problem is we start talking about work, but once we get into it, they start telling me about the kids.

[00:01:49] how they are with their kids or that their wife is rather disenchanted with them right now and I think it takes a very heavy toll on every relationship actually. Yeah, agreed. so I invited Hannah on the show today because I have been watching her on LinkedIn, stalking her a little bit and we've had a couple of interactions that I've really enjoyed.

[00:02:17] I do like to introduce you to new experts on burnout because everybody has their own perspective. I myself have realized that you get two burnout experts in a room and they will invariably, diverge in their views of burnout. Everybody I think comes from their own secret sauce, so we'll see if we can tease out how that works for Hannah today and share some of that with you, yeah?

[00:02:42] Hannah: Sounds good. 

[00:02:44] Dex: So let's start here. What is it about burnout, Hannah, that gets you up in the morning? What's your passion? 

[00:02:51] Hannah: So it's my own personal experience. I experienced burnout about 10 years ago. I was a consultant at the time in a job that I did love. I think this is a common theme for many people who experience burnout, that actually they did love that job.

[00:03:06] Mine was in an international consultancy and I had an area of expertise that only three of us in the organization had and it was relevant to our international colleagues. So we were working with them, training them, working with their clients. I flew internationally to go and present in front of clients as the thought leader in this space.

[00:03:27] And that was just so much fun. It was really fun working with all these people and getting that diversity of experiences, but the other two people who were skilled in the same area as me then left the business and my workload became unmanageable. And I just kept thinking that I didn't want to let anybody down, clients, the organization, etc.

[00:03:49] I think this is very common as well for people who experience chronic stress and burnout. I couldn't see another option. I only saw myself as the solution. 

[00:03:56] I didn't do very much around expectation setting, trying to train other people up. I didn't think outside the box of I just need to get it all done. So I was working extremely long hours. And then I got myself to a place where All of my self worth was wrapped up in work. It was the only place I felt like I was really worthy and making a difference.

[00:04:19] So, I wanted to work more to get more of the accolades and the client feedback and so on. Because I didn't feel happy , I wasn't getting that anywhere else. I just worked more to get more and it just became this spiral. And the more that I invested in work, actually the less I got from doing anything else.

[00:04:37] So, there was one point where I knew I was not in a good place and I was soul searching for where did the Hannah of yesteryear go and I used to love watercolors and I tried to Get creative again. And all I found was that I was just staring at a blank sheet of paper. I was just done. I had nothing.

[00:04:56] And I had lost myself. I think, because I had over indexed on work, I was no longer getting pleasure from anything else. So my burnout , I think that sort of sums it up, that I lost myself. I felt empty and as a consequence, it was similar to depression. It was just, emptiness.

[00:05:17] I'm done. And it was such a horrible sensation, such a horrible experience that I don't want people to go there. which is linked to the title of my podcast, Burnout Isn't Necessary. It's just not necessary to get to that point.

[00:05:35] There are so many options. There are so many other ways. And I get that when you're in chronic stress, it's really hard to see. but there are other ways. So that's why I want to do this. that's what gets me out of bed. That's what gets me onto LinkedIn and talking about this.

[00:05:48] 

[00:05:48] Dex: Yeah. there are some really common aspects of your story with a lot of stories that I've heard as well. We do tend to have some commonality of, seeking rewards, particularly going at everything, hammer and tongues, being the fixer. And the reward and the status of that I can see when you're talking about it and you're saying it escalated until it took over everything, makes sense really.

[00:06:16] Hannah: Yeah. I completely understand how I got there because it was all down to self worth. And if I wasn't getting that sensation of worthiness from anywhere else, and I didn't have it inside of me, then of course, any human's going to pursue that.

[00:06:32] An academic high achiever as well That's exactly it, a high achiever that wants to get the grades because then mum and dad go, well done you, isn't that amazing, they celebrate you and and so, I'm now mindful to strike a balance with my eight year old that I reward her efforts and not necessarily the outcomes.

[00:06:52] I tell her that even if you get zero out of the spelling test, I still love you. It doesn't matter. It doesn't change anything. I think it starts there and then you take that work ethic into higher education and on into your work life and you're constantly seeking the positive feedback in any form, whether that be a promotion, a raise, whatever it might be.

[00:07:12] Yeah, that's where it starts. 

[00:07:16] Dex: my education was, to use a technical term, a shit show. 

[00:07:20] Hannah: Ah, that is interesting. 

[00:07:23] Dex: I had a very strong streak in failing exams all through my life. I barely scraped into uni.

[00:07:30] So I failed the high achiever test in that. But, I've managed to hit some other targets since then. 

[00:07:35] Hannah: But you managed to hit burnout nonetheless. 

[00:07:39] Dex: Yes, I did manage to have a good career. That's for sure. I was better at that than exams. But anyhow, so what intrigues me about this a little bit and about burnout prevention is I have quite a lot of difficulty sometimes in assisting people to understand that they're in burnout, and that it would be good for them perhaps to take some steps to come out of burnout.

[00:08:00] it's not something people volunteer for very readily. People are reluctant to see that in themselves to recognize the whole set of symptoms and all of that. So I'm curious to know how you pick it up in the prevention stages or how you attract people to talk to you who are not yet burnt out.

[00:08:22] Hannah: Talking about stress is probably an easier conversation and people are more likely to recognize that they are experiencing an element of stress. To what extent, it's a very broad scale. I think it's easier, historically, I don't think any of these conversations have been easy.

[00:08:42] but I think that it's becoming easier and easier to acknowledge that there is stress. and that there are ways to, so I use the term navigate. Because we can make the most out of stress when it's in peaks and troughs and we've got a presentation or a job interview or something like that. and we can really leverage the energy that stress gives us.

[00:09:05] And if we have a really positive mindset around the effects that stress can have in those circumstances, we have a very different physiological response to stress in the body. which is far healthier. So I think that we have to recognize that there is an upside, but there's also a downside and constantly being in that high performing adrenaline pumping mode is not sustainable.

[00:09:30] so, we also need to manage and mitigate the downside of stress. So I guess my answer to you is that I think stress is a topic that's more accessible for people than the topic of burnout. I had no idea I was in burnout. I knew things were not good. I knew that I was in a really bad state.

[00:09:49] I wouldn't have recognized it as mental health issue and I wouldn't have, I don't even know if I knew the term burnout 10 years ago. 

[00:09:58] Dex: Hmm. I still don't really put it in the mental health bucket.

[00:10:03] Well, at least it's not in the DSM. But I think what you've alluded to a minute ago is that stress is in fact a feature, not a bug. It's only a bug if we've got it all the time chronically. Yeah, 

[00:10:16] Hannah: yeah, stress is not avoidable. And if you went about your life trying to avoid stress and making it as comfortable as possible for you.

[00:10:24] You're not going to grow. 

[00:10:25] Dex: So do you work with a mixed demographic then? Or what kind of people do you work with? 

[00:10:33] Hannah: So, there's tech and consulting. That's my background. Much of what I teach is about the science of stress, how the body responds to stress, and what we can do, what techniques we can use.

[00:10:43] And as long as we're in a human body and we're breathing and we're conscious, it's relevant to any of us. But I have a greater level of understanding and perhaps empathy for somebody who's in tech or consulting because that's my background and that's what I understand. I seem to be attracting quite a few people who are later in their career, people who are thinking, I need to start doing something better for my health.

[00:11:05] They're interested in the kind of messaging around healthy habits and embedding healthier habits into their life. I seem to attract quite a few people in that category. 

[00:11:15] Dex: My personal take on burnout is that people in different industries experience it differently, but also that it can be quite gendered, because in the culture of many of the people that I work with, society has trained women and men differently to fulfill a different role in society.

[00:11:36] And I find that women, have different hurdles and obstacles. For example, women will probably have more difficulty saying no, setting boundaries, quitting work, setting the off switch, not attending to messages than men do.

[00:11:57] Do you find that that's an experience that you have with your client base ? 

[00:12:02] Hannah: I think that you're probably right about the saying no. I don't think I've noticed it in terms of the being able to switch off. That seems to be a common theme coming from women and men. yeah.

[00:12:17] Dex: So if you're talking to people about stress, I think it's, there's a much lower barrier for entry. People are much more willing to talk about stress than they are about burnout because there's no self perception that stress says anything bad about them. It says something bad about their job, perhaps, but not about them.

[00:12:35] Whereas people perceive burnout as being a bit stigmatized. So I did wonder then if you were speaking with people about stress, in fact, if it's Women you're speaking to about stress specifically ? 

[00:12:46] Hannah: No. When I ran a series of workshops that were open to everybody in April and I had a fair mix, I would say that the majority of people who were attending them were from consulting.

[00:12:55] That was probably more about my network and who was aware of it. So yeah, most of them were in tech consulting. I wouldn't say that there were many in their 20s. I think that it was mostly people in their 30s and 40s who were joining and then some in their 50s too.

[00:13:10] And interestingly, it's some of the people who are in their 50s who are actually more interested in taking action. because they're feeling it's now or never. I need to, get on top of this healthy habit thing. Some people are talking about physical symptoms that they want to manage, high blood pressure, that kind of thing.

[00:13:26] but the theme that kept coming up was this, ability to be present with children, be present with, family members and switch off from work. And that seemed to be for both sexes. 

[00:13:38] Dex: Yeah. I also sometimes deal with students or post grads or people who've just graduated and are going into their first job.

[00:13:47] And then when I started working with Burnout, that surprised me that people that young would come to me. But when we look at the demographics of mental health challenges that young people, children, teenagers, young adults have, I don't think it used to be that way. And I find it very alarming, but at least now there's a lot of people out there.

[00:14:08] Who are developing skills to help them. 

[00:14:11] Hannah: I agree. I think we're still understanding what the global lockdowns did to everybody, especially of that age group at a time where being social and being with your peers is so important to your development. so I think that that is still having an impact.

[00:14:28] And, there's so many things now, like the education system in the UK has changed significantly. I think that increases pressure on young people. there's social media, and in social media, I think that They're far more perceptible than you or I to believing everything and thinking that that person's life really is as rosy as that.

[00:14:46] Whereas you and I would be able to see that it's not all like that. We've have life experiences that allow us to know that when one person's life looks amazing there's the good and the bad. and I think that they're far more susceptible to believing that.

[00:14:59] They are not as good as, and they don't have as much as, and so on. So yeah, I think that the mental health of young people is concerning. part of me feels quite inspired to do something in that space, but I don't feel that I have the experience. The people who I work with are people who are similar to me, who are going through things that are similar to me.

[00:15:20] but I do feel quite passionate, especially about teenagers. I just think it's such a hard time in our lives. We all remember being teenagers. Nobody had an easy teenage experience and, and yet it's getting harder and harder for them. And just being able to teach them things like, elements of mindfulness, breathing exercises, just really simple little tricks that they can use to help and how you can shift your mindset and get a different perspective on things.

[00:15:53] I think there's so much that can be done. 

[00:15:57] Dex: Yeah. The flavor that I see now is we think we're so hyper connected all the time, but actually we're much, much more disconnected than we would've been a couple of generations ago. 

[00:16:08] Hannah: Yeah. It's so superficial. So the connectedness that we have is we know that so and so went on holiday to The Bahamas .

[00:16:16] We can see some of the facts because they're sharing it, but we don't connect on an emotional level because we are not truly connected. We're not actually having a conversation like you and I are having, 

[00:16:26] Dex: we lack community in a geographic location, the kind that we had when people still, grew up and lived in the town where they were born and got to know the people in their, religious community, their school community, their business community, whatever.

[00:16:43] That seems to have more or less just disappeared. That concept of putting your roots down somewhere and staying there and just knowing people and them knowing you. 

[00:16:54] Hannah: yeah, which means it's extremely hard for somebody to see something in somebody else. And feel comfortable enough to say something like, are you really okay?

[00:17:03] You just think it's none of my business because I don't really know them that well. And it's far harder to ask for help because you're not around people that you feel comfortable asking for help. My parents at the time that I experienced burnout lived about two and a half hours drive away.

[00:17:17] And my brother lives in Australia and I'm in the UK. I was with my husband, but some of the people who'd known me forever, they weren't seeing very much of me. The kind of people who would be able to say, there's something that's not quite right here with you, Hannah. Those people, I wasn't seeing them. 

[00:17:35] Dex: Yeah. There's a frailty about the guilt and shame that comes with Burnout and feeling like we're not performing how we should be and then we withdraw further, we isolate more, we stop talking to people because 

[00:17:47] our mood and motivation gets lost in there and I think it just sucks us into this kind of vortex of, Oh, no, it's just me here then. Yeah. 

[00:17:58] Hannah: Yeah. 100%. As you say, shame around not good enough. I'm not performing. If other people can do this, why can't I? It must be me that's the problem.

[00:18:11] how do I fix myself? I don't even know how I ended up here. I don't know what went wrong. The biggest hurdle for me between where I was and talking to somebody was the fact that I didn't understand it.

[00:18:23] And I'm such an intellectual. I like to understand something. If I'm going to talk about something, like if I'm going to give a presentation, I am going to know that topic inside out. And I'm going to know so much more than I'm presenting because I want to feel like I really, have my hands around the topic and I can answer any questions that are a bit off piste.

[00:18:41] It was like, life is rosy. I've got an amazing job. I've got a lovely house. I've got a loving husband and I've never been more miserable in my life. And I don't know where I am.

[00:18:51] I don't know who I am. I just feel empty and desolate inside. It didn't make any sense, so I didn't feel like I could explain it to anyone. 

[00:19:04] Dex: Yeah, and you mentioned that that was 10 years ago, and I think things have changed culturally since then, and I think there's a much broader and deeper awareness of burnout now.

[00:19:12] But even so, when I start speaking with people, I say, okay, these are the experiences you might be having if you're in burnout. Do you self-identify now that you can see the shopping list. But I think back then, 10 years ago, we didn't have all of that. Even though I personally did know I was burnt out.

[00:19:31] I just didn't know how to do anything about it because I didn't know anybody who had a solution at that time. That was 2017. 

[00:19:40] Hannah: I just had no understanding. And without that understanding, I wasn't going to start talking to people. I did talk a bit about my workload at work, with my line manager and the HR director, but, I didn't talk about how I was feeling more broadly than there's too much work, and I need help.

[00:20:00] Dex: Yeah. I didn't tell a single human being. I was like, I hope nobody finds this out. I'm toast. 

[00:20:07] Hannah: Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's taken me nearly 10 years to go through that experience to actually want to talk about it. It's not something that can be talked about with friends and family afterwards.

[00:20:19] Until I left my career, because I felt like acknowledging how bad it got wouldn't be good for my career.

[00:20:29] Dex: I think a lot of people that I work with still feel that about their career, they're still in work, usually they're still in work when they come and see me, and I said don't worry we'll work it out, just don't worry what other people think or what you think other people think right now, let's just get you right.

[00:20:46] And you'll be good to go again, and you can deal with it how you think best. 

[00:20:50] Hannah: Yeah, I was going to say one of the things that I love about the message that you share with the world is how once somebody's been through burnout, the heights they can reach, the kind of leader that they can be.

[00:21:01] And I really resonate with that because I did become a leader in consulting and had a team working underneath me I really wanted to create an environment where they felt safe, where they could come to me, with any of this kind of stuff, where, there was no shooting of messengers. and a very empowering environment where I would, Allow the junior people to get new experiences and grow, but make sure that they knew I am right there with you.

[00:21:29] I am your safety net, And, you're not going to fall far before I catch you. I'm not leaving you exposed. You can grow safely. And that became so important to me. And I can see that it would become important to other leaders that you're working with who've, been through burnout.

[00:21:43] How they can. really make an impact on whole teams of people. 

[00:21:48] Dex: I think it's so powerful. I talk about heart centered leadership because it is more powerful in almost every aspect. And also, to be honest, it creates more success. it'll keep the capitalists happy as well.

[00:22:01] There isn't a downside to heart centered leadership, but this is what I wanted to do when I was a leader. And this is the kind of example that one of my bosses, very significant memory I have of a boss who always had my back. 

[00:22:16] But anyhow, I wanted to be like him. And I did strive for that. But what I think is for a lot of us who've risen in a kind of technical competency, In a professional discipline, accountancy, law, medicine, consulting, IT, whatever it is, we've risen through the ranks because we're brilliant and everybody loves us and can you do this and can you do that and we'll just promote you and promote you and promote you.

[00:22:42] a lot of us have never really had any people leadership training or it's been a little bit glossed over. So I think the emotional intelligence part of it is a closed book to a lot of people. They just haven't had an opportunity to really absorb. Well, how can I support my team in the most wonderful, coherent, bonding, supportive, diverse, performant way.

[00:23:18] I don't think many people get taught that. Historically, like you meet people now in their 50s, it's unlikely anyone's ever mentioned that to them. It's just here are the reports I need you to do. Here are the people I need you to manage. Here's how to hire and fire them. Can you work out how to train them and all that and make them do stuff?

[00:23:37] 

[00:23:37] Hannah: Yeah. So you either figure it out on your own or you mimic a previous boss. And, that's not always a good thing. 

[00:23:49] Dex: No, but I do find the people I work with are all such big hearted people on the inside. They've been a bit shut down in burnout, but they're such highly motivated, big hearted people that when I bring them up through some of the leadership skills they've been missing, they just flourish by themselves.

[00:24:07] They just go out and start mentoring people all over the place, which I think is so much needed, really. 

[00:24:16] Hannah: And it's amazing because, so I've been talking recently about having a ripple effect and how, you're working with your clients and if they're in leadership roles and they're out there mentoring people and they've got these teams working for them and they're creating that environment.

[00:24:28] And for me, There's something about working with parents that really lights me up. And when one of my clients who is a parent describes how they're showing up at home differently.

[00:24:41] I just think that's so amazing because that child is now getting more love, more presence with their parent. And that is going to make such an impact on their life. 

[00:24:51] Dex: Creating a sense of safety that their parents may have lacked growing up, 

[00:24:55] Hannah: Yeah. 

[00:24:58] Dex: Parenting changes, doesn't it, through the generations, the way my parents were taught that parenting was supposed to be done. Like stick your kid in a room, if they scream, shut the door, don't go and pick them up or feed them, stuff like that, you know, and you just think, wow, really?

[00:25:16] But we can't really say anything about how people before us have parented because they were taught differently than we. We're taught now but I do think it's amazing when you watch people upgrading their parent experience with their own children. And their partner experience with their spouses as well.

[00:25:35] and their relationship with their own parent. 

[00:25:38] Hannah: It can impact all relationships. 

[00:25:40] Dex: Yeah. So I find some of this has been like you mentioned being a high achiever at school and a lot of people in Burnout will share that experience but that's a bit of a double edged sword really isn't it?

[00:25:52] If your parents have expected great things from you or rewarded great things but not rewarded not great things then that's a precarious position to try and grow up in. Am I going to get the approval and acceptance I need today or not? 

[00:26:09] Hannah: Yeah, I haven't shared this before, but, we didn't really have many photos around our house.

[00:26:14] So we had lots of paintings. My mom was into textiles, those kinds of things covered the walls, all very unusual. she's traveled the world, but we didn't have many family photos around. and then finally she framed a photo of me and it was me in my graduation gown and it really upset me. Because we're sitting next to a picture of my brother.

[00:26:36] Dex: Oh no. 

[00:26:37] Hannah: it was a picture of my brother and my dad. And they were just attending a funeral at the time. And it was just a really nice photo of the two of them. It was at the wake, they looked relaxed, they were happy. It was a nice photo. And it felt like, They can just be themselves, and they get on the mantelpiece, and I have to graduate with first class honours from King's College London to make it to the mantelpiece, yeah.

[00:27:00] Dex: Ooh, I'll swap your story on that one. my mother had a small double frame photograph thing, and there was me in my graduation gear on one side, and then the other side was two students who came and rented a room off her for a year their graduation.

[00:27:17] I was like, oh, righto then. 

[00:27:20] Hannah: I don't understand which league I'm playing in.

[00:27:26] Yeah. Yeah. And I, so I was upset about that and I, she had no idea. She just thought it was a nice photo. She hadn't given it any more thought than that. but yeah, for me, I used to refer to my brother as the golden boy. 

[00:27:41] How many siblings are there? Two of us. 

[00:27:43] And it felt like I had to do something, to get the attention and he just had to show up. 

[00:27:48] Dex: Yeah. Well, that was like the two boys in this photo. She doted on their every move. They were just transcendent beings for her.

[00:27:56] I think a lot of us bear the scars of things that we rated as hugely important happenings when we were kids that our parents wouldn't have even known was anything going on. I think it's difficult to unwind those as we grow up because we're fed a message that you're only good enough if And then the rest of our life, we play that out.

[00:28:19] Hannah: Yeah, 100%, 100%. and that shows up in things like, I can only take a break when I've achieved dot, dot, dot. once this project's over, then I'll have time and space for myself once this XYZ. like when I was in my 20s, I need to stay in this job until I've got enough money for the deposit of this apartment.

[00:28:42] Then just pushing, pushing to achieve the thing and constantly shifting the goalposts so that I was pushing myself all the time. 

[00:28:50] Dex: It becomes quite an addictive hamster wheel really. You feel compelled to stay on it and run even faster than we ran before.

[00:28:58] 

[00:28:58] Hannah: we 

[00:28:58] don't know how to get 

[00:28:59] off. 

[00:28:59] Dex: We don't know how to get off. 

[00:29:00] Hannah: So we just put the next carrot in front of us. Right, that's the next thing that we're aiming for. 

[00:29:06] Dex: And we thought we were so clever, right? Anyhow, the general dynamics of burnout is this.

[00:29:12] We just whipped ourselves too hard for too long and got worn out. Realized it wasn't sustainable. Usually we hit a roadblock and realize it's not sustainable. We're really in trouble then.

[00:29:23] Hannah: Yeah. For me, I, there were signs, right? So I had signs of chronic stress years beforehand and I didn't see them.

[00:29:30] I went to a homeopath with this array of symptoms showing up and she said, I can't help you if you continue to work the way that you are. And I felt completely unsupported in that conversation. And like she didn't understand. And I didn't see what she was seeing. I think if she'd sat down and said, this.

[00:29:50] is a sign of stress. All of these symptoms that you've got, they're actually all interlinked. They're not completely fragmented like you think they are. So she could see the picture. She could see where I was headed. And a few years later, I still didn't realize, and then finally ended up in burnout.

[00:30:06] Dex: Because we suppress any internal information that doesn't align with where we're trying to get to I think. Recognizing my own stress. I think I do like certain stresses. I'm like, well, I'm super stressed. But now I use a fitness monitor and it actually tells me what my heart rate is, doing various things like meditation.

[00:30:25] Turns out my heart rate shoots up when I meditate and they're telling me it's not a very good thing to do. But also I'll be running and my heart rate will be up near 200 and I'll feel fine. I won't think there's anything going on. I think we quite dissociate from the inconvenient truth that we can't keep flogging ourselves harder.

[00:30:49] Hannah: Yeah. 

[00:30:50] Dex: Yeah. But coming back to your prevention thing, so how do you talk to people? Maybe you get them up on the stress thing and you talk to them about stress. How do you help people identify? If they need to prevent burnout, if they're in a situation where burnout is coming, do you talk to people about that?

[00:31:10] Hannah: So I just think that it's all on a sliding scale, and we just recognize that you are somewhere on that scale. I can't say that if you carry on, you're going to be in burnout in a year's time, two weeks time. It's hard to say, but things are not great. The way that you're looking at your work, your workload, the way that you are at work, how that's impacting at home, like whatever that unique circumstance is for you, things are not quite as you want them to be.

[00:31:40] Let's get you to a better place. And we don't need to exactly know where on that scale you are. I think it's, if you're not in a great place, let's get you to a better place. And we both acknowledge you're on the scale somewhere. despite the fact that I've got a scientific background, and sometimes I can be really analytical and I love all the structure and the numbers and the charts and everything.

[00:32:00] I just think when it comes to this, it's noise. It's noise. You're not in a good place. Let's get you to a better place.

[00:32:07] Dex: And What do you think they can do right now to help themselves if they feel their burden of stress is bigger than they wanted to be.

[00:32:15] Hannah: There are So many things. for example, somebody contacted me recently saying that the next month or so is going to be really intense and he knows it and it's going to be continuous, long days. But before that it was okay. I think he had changed roles.

[00:32:29] So this new role was going to be intense. So I'd give him different recommendations to what I'd give to somebody who was saying, I've been stressed for years, cause that by this point they're depleted. So for the person that's feeling depleted and has been experiencing this for some time, I love things like yoga nidra, which is a guided relaxation.

[00:32:47] You lie down, you close your eyes and you do nothing. But, your awareness is being guided.it raises your awareness of how your body feels. Effectively, you're just having a nice lie down. it doesn't replace sleep, but it is extremely nourishing for the body.

[00:33:02] if you don't fancy something called Yoga Nidra then, Andrew Huberman has rebranded it as NSDR, and taken the more spiritual aspects of Yoga Nidra out. There's only a couple anyway, they're more or less the same thing. but he says that branding is a big thing, so scientists prefer acronyms, so it's now called NSDR or non sleep deep rest.

[00:33:20] So I think for somebody who's feeling quite depleted and this has been going on for a period, there's no barrier to entry. Just lie down, press play. but somebody who is more like my friend that I was explaining, who's going through an extremely high period of stress, but it is just a period.

[00:33:36] Then physical exercise, I was saying to him, he needs to make sure that he doesn't compromise on his physical exercise so that he's regularly extinguishing all of those stress chemicals in his body because, stress is not just in our heads. It immediately creates a cascade of biochemistry through the body.

[00:33:52] And the most effective way to get rid of that is through physical exercise. It doesn't have to be yoga. there is no right and wrong here. swim, if you feel like swimming, run, if you feel like running, go play football, do whatever it is that you want to do.

[00:34:05] Do something that you want to do and do some form of physical exercise and make sure that you've got something that you enjoy. So, I would have different recommendations depending on where somebody is, but hopefully those are a couple of ideas.

[00:34:18] Dex: And have you got a quick tip you can share with listeners now? 

[00:34:20] Hannah: Oh yes, back to how stress is not just in our heads, it's also in our body. and I'll ask you Dex, how many times has somebody said to you, just calm down? And it work. 

[00:34:32] You can't calm yourself down. You can't release the stress response by thinking. It doesn't work. But you can reverse it through the body. So you can work your way back. So the thoughts you had triggered a stress response, which is now in the entire body, you can use the body to reverse that.

[00:34:50] So there are hacks And the quickest one is called the physiological sigh . in a sigh, we expand the lungs, which opens up, the little air sacs, which some of them will have compressed because they just do over time as we breathe.

[00:35:04] So it increases our lung capacity. But the most important thing about the sigh is the exhale. So we do a double inhale and then an exhale, which is very long and through closed lips. So as if we're blowing out through a straw for as long as possible.

[00:35:19] And that's the most important because it will actually send a message to slow down the heart rate. Do you want to practice it? Yeah, let's do it. If you're going to use this at home or at work, then do it three times. You can do this on a Zoom call.

[00:35:33] You can even do it with camera on. I don't think it's too obvious, but if you were more comfortable, you could do it with camera off and still be listening. You could certainly squeeze it in between meetings. It's a very handy tool to have in your back pocket. So we're going to do a double inhale.

[00:35:47] So we inhale through the nose until the lungs feel relatively full. And then we inhale again until it's really full. And then we breathe out long and slow as if it's through a straw. 

[00:36:00] How do you feel? 

[00:36:02] Dex: It changes my state. 

[00:36:04] Hannah: So three times. If you feel like you're agitated by something. I'll use hacks like this in the middle of work calls where the conversation was just going in the wrong direction.

[00:36:14] And I was getting quite stressed out about it. I wanted the team to run the call and it not look like I was running the call, but I was getting increasingly frustrated.

[00:36:23] And I would use these hacks , so I would be calm and it wouldn't look like I had any doubts in anybody, but would you like to think about this? You can really consciously shift your state. If, you're going into a challenging meeting and you want to be calm.

[00:36:34] You can use it for that. You can use it these, in the middle of a conversation. You can use it afterwards if you just know that you need to calm down. Really handy. 

[00:36:42] Dex: Quick bathroom break before a meeting. 

[00:36:45] Hannah: yeah. 

[00:36:46] Dex: whatever you're doing. 

[00:36:48] Hannah: Yeah. A hundred percent.

[00:36:49] And there is, so that's, that I think is the fastest one, but there are a few others that I use as well, like, you can press or tap into the sternum because the sternum, will, affect the vagus nerve of the parasympathetic nervous system. So there are a few ways that you can hack the parasympathetic nervous system, which is our rest and digest system.

[00:37:09] So effectively I'm saying that you can consciously tap into that and switch it on so that it neutralizes your stress response. 

[00:37:18] Dex: Yeah. Marvellous. Well, if you're really into yoga, I'm sure you have a lot of these things. I believe you have something for our listeners that they can check out on your website.

[00:37:28] Is that right? You're going to give us a link for that? 

[00:37:31] Hannah: Yeah, I've got a document which has links to videos and explains these hacks. So yes, I'll provide you with a link to that. And yeah, if you just went to my website, which is hannahholden. co. uk, You would be able to find your way there, but I can give you a link in the show notes to take you directly to the page where you can get that.

[00:37:48] Dex: That's super, 

[00:37:49] Hannah: Yeah, these should be taught at school . These are the kind of things that everybody needs in their back pocket for those moments . there's nobody that doesn't need these. 

[00:37:58] Dex: So, we have run out of time. We will have to finish now. Thank you so much for being here, Hannah. It's really been such a pleasure to hear from you. And listeners, please look for Hannah's links in the show notes of the podcast. I'll put them all in there.

[00:38:14] And if you've enjoyed today's podcast episode, I would really love you to rate and review the podcast because it's how we reach out to help more people who are suffering with stress and burnout. If you yourself are heading towards burnout, you can come and talk to me. Have a look at DexRandall. com.

[00:38:32] and I will talk to you about how to recover quickly and sustainably and get back to your best performance, leadership, and most of all enjoyment inside working out. Thank you so much for listening today. And thank you, Hannah, for being here. 

[00:38:47] Hannah: Thank you.