Burnout Recovery
The podcast for slightly dented execs and professionals seeking massive success, strong leadership and fulfilment. Weekly tips and techniques for high-achieving Type A professionals to beat burnout and restore outstanding leadership, performance and ease at work. Podcast hosted by Master Burnout Coach Dex Randall.
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Burnout Recovery
Ep#146 Self-Protection in Difficult Times
Times are tough in this world of ours. The environment has challenges our ancestors did not have to face. There are many apparent global threats to our wellbeing.
Yet recently, voices of research on the human health crisis have become more prominent, finally reaching the US senate in September. I think this is good news!
But let's take this personal, and look for a moment at potential impacts on your own health associated with burnout, and what corrective action you can take.
Show Notes:
Chris Palmer MD, Metabolic Mental Health, @The Metabolic Link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XTOKo99Ohg
Dr Joe Dispenza, neuroscientist, SOURCE film https://sourcethefilm.org/
Psychiatrist Dr Georgia Ede, @The Metabolic Link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C0czhRXKRA
Casey Means MD, @The Metabolic Link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvvvLkth5Q0
https://x.com/CaseyMeansMD/status/1838747091386142876
Gabor Mate MD, trauma, addiction and ADHD, https://drgabormate.com/book/the-myth-of-normal/
The Lancet https://www.who.int/news/item/14-03-2024-over-1-in-3-people-affected-by-neurological-conditions--the-leading-cause-of-illness-and-disability-worldwide
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[00:00:22] Hello my friends, this is Dex and we're going to go deep today into all the difficulties we all face in this world of ours. The ways this environment essentially contributes to burnout and other difficulties and what we can do about that individually and collectively. So welcome to this week's episode on the health crisis.
[00:00:46] You know, the one we've all been trying to ignore for decades. The worldwide crisis in mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health has been creeping up on us for a long, long time now. But that falls so far outside the scope of how we have managed health until now. So far out that it's really remained right on the outer edge of our radar.
[00:01:11] And it's really only now reaching critical mass at the top level. So talking about mental health, looking at the sharp rise in diagnoses in recent years, ADHD, autism, bipolar, anxiety, depression, PTSD, eating disorders, personality disorders, and so on. And the prevalent failure to resolve many people's suffering by established means.
[00:01:41] And also the rise, I think, in neurological disorders. So disruption to the nervous system. Things like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Epilepsy. And those are now affecting one in three people. That was from 2021, according to The Lancet. Making it the leading cause of disability and illness worldwide.
[00:02:06] If we look at the stats , globally, 4, 300 children die of diarrhea, malaria, and respiratory infections, every day. But compared to that, non communicable diseases are the most common cause of death overall. So, things like cancer, 18%. Cardiovascular disease, 33%.
[00:02:33] Neurological, 4%. And what about social factors? How do we see Societal health issues playing out in our world, and I'm really talking about things like the increase in drug use and addiction. Do you remember, because I sure do, when drug busts were recorded on the news in millions, and now it's billions.
[00:02:57] Also things like split families and communities, poverty, homelessness, school problems, class disruption, literacy and special needs. Domestic violence, sexual violence, street violence, racism, bullying, radicalization. And of course, let's not forget social media and the cult of personality and the damage that's done.
[00:03:21] And last but by no means least, physical health. Cancer, Alzheimer's, Type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, stroke, fatty liver disease, all chart topping issues these days in a way that previously they were not. And a contributing factor we can't forget our changing climate and environmental toxins. I was pretty disgusted last week to discover that our brains are now contain a half to one percent of plastic from breathing or ingestion.
[00:03:59] It's mind boggling, really, isn't it? Well, the 99. 5 percent of my brain that isn't plastic thinks it's mind boggling. Never mind the huge levels of toxins in our over processed food, our personal and home care products, our vehicles, manufacturing plants, and, saddeningly, our soils, our waterways, our oceans, and even our atmosphere.
[00:04:25] And, that was just a tiny roundup of the headliners, but all of the mental and physical health issues I just mentioned, all of them are connected with the inflammation, oxidative stress, hypertension, and blood sugar imbalances that come with metabolic issues. And as I see it, they also all relate to emotional and spiritual health, stress, disconnection, and loss of meaning in our lives.
[00:04:58] are affecting us, at a disease level. Metabolic health, of course, is a burgeoning field of study in recent years, linking many more conditions with poor metabolic health. For example, all mental health. It's a bold claim, isn't it? I'm putting a bunch of podcast links in the show notes in case you would like to explore the science of some of these issues that I've mentioned, because it really is fascinating.
[00:05:28] My friends over at the Metabolic Link podcast have an extremely well qualified set of experts covering a broad range of conditions related to metabolism that you might find quite insightful. And metabolic health has even just this week hit the mainstream with a presentation to the U. S. Senate, by those very same experts on September the 25th, 2024.
[00:05:56] I do hope they're listening. And of course none of this is new. I've mentioned these subjects myself at times on the podcast because in my lifetime I've watched some pretty radical changes in conditions decade by decade and I have watched that rate of change escalate dramatically in the last perhaps 20 years. But I don't usually go beyond acknowledging the problems, because all these subjects , they're all way outside my field of expertise.
[00:06:28] And I would feel rather fraudulent if I was going to go deeper into them. But, then there's suicide. And the reason I got into this work in the first place, coaching men out of burnout, was that suicide had become the leading cause of death in males aged 15 to 44 in Australia, with similar trends across the developed world.
[00:06:53] This was back in 2019. The leading cause of death in that age range. And 75 percent of suicides are men. And I realised, as well from my own experience of burnout, how stigmatised and lonely a road burnout is to travel. How hard it is to find help, and how poorly much of that help works. And also how reluctant many men are to seek help in the first place.
[00:07:21] To admit that their shoulders are no longer quite broad enough to cope. You know, trying to appease this strong silent rock stereotype of men. And yet suddenly they can't contain their emotions, their grief, frustration, rage, exhaustion, shame, despair. So what do they do? Typically, hide. So I guess that's when I stood myself up and I decided to find out what cures burnout.
[00:07:50] Not what papers over the cracks. Not what's temporary relief. Not what blames the victim or watches while good men, and of course women, who experience burnout are quietly removed from their jobs. None of that. I wanted to know what cures burnout. And I spent some years perfecting that method of burnout recovery.
[00:08:13] But guess what? I found out it's not that hard after all. Burnout is essentially a disease of disconnection, in common with pretty much all those experiences that I see comprising the health crisis. Coincidence? Do you believe that? Because burnout really, it isolates us in our crippling stress and failure and pain.
[00:08:37] It tells us to hide ourselves away in shame about our weakness and our unmanly emotions. Yet we should keep trying harder to fix our problems and handle our responsibilities. To keep feeding the machine, straining to be the good provider, the consummate professional, the stoic partner and family man, the invincible fixer of all things.
[00:09:03] Not to let the side down, not to be fallible, not to let our rage, frustration and devastation leak in emotional outbursts and sweat laden nightmares. Silent weeping or helpless internal collapse. That method, my friends, it just isn't working. And it's not quite the same for women, but it's a similar pattern for women.
[00:09:28] A different flavor of despair and dejection and overwork. But really, we could ask ourselves, Why are mental health diagnoses rising so fast? Why are our kids nervous, anxious and disordered? Why is there a global burnout epidemic or a global obesity epidemic? Why are fertility rates dropping? Why are we all so exhausted?
[00:09:58] Why do we have this health crisis? I think about this a lot and I may be wrong but here's how it looks to me. I think that rising stress levels across the world are behind this health crisis. Because chronic stress will naturally lead to metabolic failure. And metabolic failure causes disease.
[00:10:22] Mental, physical, emotional. Because stress triggering the amygdala is a mechanism designed to escape danger, but temporary danger. When the danger is ongoing, as it is in chronic stress, perceived almost as permanent, our bodily functions stop functioning in the normal way, which blows up our blood sugar, it blows up our blood pressure, it compromises digestion and sleep, rest and repair, immunity, growth, fertility, brain function, and even social function.
[00:11:00] It compromises, at the very base level, all cell function, affecting every organ of the body, and it tears at our nerves, literally. It impacts our hormones, mood and our cognitive function. Mental health breaks down and we age prematurely. Our bodies really are not designed to live with chronic stress. And we easily end up with this cascade of poor health outcomes,
[00:11:30] exacerbated by insomnia, gut issues, rage, pain, a sluggish brain and low mood and all the rest. And burnout I think is just an expression of that. Where a person's mind, mood, body and emotions break down and implode. The energy leaves the building. The exhaustion is creeping through their vein until things like motivation and communication become too challenging and they just have to shut down as humans.
[00:12:07] They might continue to walk around mechanically, you might see them at work, a cardboard cutout trying to fulfill their duties, but essentially they're down to a pilot light, their mojo's gone, no one's home, and a kind of deep and futile despair sets in. Everything seems hopeless, even in their family life outside of work.
[00:12:30] Burnout, I think, is an expression of societal failure, or if you like, the broader toxic culture that pervades work and life. And burnout is entrenched by a culture where we're surrounded by people, but loneliness is normal. And did you know that loneliness all by itself can shorten your lifespan by 10 years?
[00:12:55] Marriage, even an unhappy marriage, mitigates this. And men, you might be surprised to hear, are more affected than women. So because the burnout crisis, the burnout epidemic, is affecting so many people, I now work with both men and women. And when a man or a woman comes to me in burnout, I do have, thankfully, a proven solution.
[00:13:17] Which centers, and this might surprise you, not simply on restoring work efficiency. I do teach clients how to recover from overwork, overwhelm, procrastination, frustration, and all kinds of performance fails, but the performance improvements they make are almost a by product of recovery for me. Burnout recovery really works through connection.
[00:13:43] By reconnecting them to the source of their own power, if you like, by getting their mojo back. Because a person in burnout is lonely, self critical, and quite self neglectful. Mostly they will be finding themselves unworthy in whatever way. Maybe they've got imposter syndrome and generally speaking, they'll blame themselves for whatever's going wrong.
[00:14:06] Their work performance will almost certainly be lagging in one or more ways. And usually that will have come to the attention of their boss and perhaps incurred sanction. And if that's true, the boss, of course, may not be the best leader. They might be burning out themselves subject to all the same pressures.
[00:14:26] They might not possess the skills to prevent or remedy burnout in their team. And so often they will instead punish or even banish the offender, which unfortunately is fairly normal. Burnout is not well understood. But I don't think that means anything about your burnout recovery. It doesn't mean you can't recover from burnout just because people at your workplace are not behaving in the way that will be helpful to you.
[00:15:00] So I can steer you to a hundred percent burnout recovery, without the participation of your organization. Because burnout recovery is about connection. Firstly, connection to yourself. If you have neglected or abandoned your own needs, punished or blamed yourself, sacrificed your well being, trying to save your job, then we would gently remedy that.
[00:15:27] Because a human can never thrive in self neglect. So, first, we have to find the best way for you to support yourself, believe in yourself, find yourself worthy and good. And this, by the way, is much easier than you think. Just because you've been relentlessly self criticizing for years, seeing your own flaws in neon lights, it doesn't have to continue.
[00:15:54] It's just a temporary glitch that can be repaired. I mean, If only somebody had already told you how, but I will teach you. Because the thing is, whether you're in burnout or not, you're a good person. Beneath all your suffering is a tender heart of gold and also a wellspring of willingness to do the right thing.
[00:16:19] So what happens in burnout recovery is really together, we will rebuild your self esteem, your confidence and strength. We're going to shed this impoverished self image that you've had and rebuild a new one. You're going to start to feel good about yourself. I promise you and see the good qualities that you inherently possess
[00:16:40] as enough. You'll start seeing yourself as enough. And then once you're there, we'll go back and we'll find your mojo. Wherever you left it by the wayside, we'll go back and get it and let it rip again.
[00:16:54] And when that happens, you're going to find the energy and enthusiasm that you lost to connect with other people in a sustainable, wholesome, and rewarding way. People won't drain you like they used to. They won't bother or irritate you. It'll be more fun to connect and you'll start seeking people out.
[00:17:16] This is really because there's this energizing Teflon kind of protective quality about burnout recovery. Things start to be like water off a duck's back. And that leaves a little bit of room for your motivation, your passion and your delight to return. And your sense of humor with it. And also, by the way, your free time.
[00:17:35] Time to spend with your partner, your friends, your family, doing something you enjoy without wanting to shout at them. And if you don't think this can happen for you, try me! I'm going to teach you a few things about yourself, about the world, about your people, that will fundamentally change the way you experience life itself, as well as work.
[00:17:55] It's a level of transformation that's going to rock your world. And when you find it, the really good thing about it is, I think, it improves your life experience, but it also dramatically reduces your stress and therefore the risk of stress related illness and cognitive decline.
[00:18:16] Enjoyment of life along with high quality nourishing human connection is a protective factor against stress related health issues. It's probably your best shot at insulating yourself against the health crisis. and premature serious illness. When your amygdala is more often in a calm state than a stressed state, your system's got a chance to work the way it's designed to, more rest and repair.
[00:18:46] When you activate your stress hormones less, you're going to relax, sleep, and nourish your body and soul better. And you'll enjoy life more as a consequence. Because we neglect our human organism at our peril. It is designed to return to homeostasis, but it can only self correct up to a certain point.
[00:19:09] Generating warm emotions often; connecting with our fellows joyously; pushing happy hormones around our body every day; and being ultimately gentle and kind to ourselves and to others promotes health and happiness and longevity. Because at the end of the day that's how we're supposed to be and it's more fun.
[00:19:31] So whether you're in burnout or not, if you see chronic stress patterns in yourself, or if you feel alone, isolated, misunderstood, neglected, or if you relate with some of the health issues that I've mentioned. And if you'd like to find more out about the health risks of that, I'd encourage you to click some of the links in the show notes and learn a little bit to protect yourself.
[00:19:56] Change course, you absolutely can. And if you're in burnout, of course, it's fixable. A much better life awaits with considerably less stress. And to find out a bit more, I invite you to come and talk to me for free. Let's make a plan for you to recover quickly and sustainably from burnout and get back to your best performance, leadership, success, and most of all enjoyment .
[00:20:22] You can book an appointment at DexRandall. com. If you enjoyed this episode, please help me reach more people in burnout by rating and reviewing the podcast and by sharing the podcast with your friends who are in stress. Thank you so much for listening, and please do share your thoughts with me by sending me an SMS via the link in the show notes.