[00:00:00] Hi everyone. My name's Dex Randall, and this is the Burnout Recovery Podcast where I teach professionals to recover from burnout and get back to passion and reward at work.

[00:00:22] Hello, this is Dex and welcome to this week's podcast on the neuroscience of burnout and how to heal. It's really about your burned out brain Why you can't think, focus or care and how to fix that.

[00:00:40] And I do think that care is a vital element, not often talked about, but care is what powers you to get up in the morning, to keep you working in the face of burnout, isn't it? Care for people you serve, your colleagues, your family. Care is what gives life meaning.

[00:00:58] Read Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning on how he survived concentration camp, and you will see precisely how vital care and hope are, as the motivating force to live well and strong. In burnout recovery, head right back towards care and clarity, and passion and contribution, connection, engagement, and joy. All the things that matter most in work and in life.

[00:01:27] But burnout, of course, isn't just emotional, nor is it just physical, it's neurological. When you're burned out, your brain changes and so does the way you think, feel, and of course, perform and lead. In this episode, we'll explore what's happening under the hood of burnout and how to begin rewiring your brain for energy, focus, and joy again. Because you almost certainly don't recognize your burnout M.O. as your real self and neurologically you are right. It isn't.

[00:02:02] The good news as always, is that burnout can be fixed using a predictable set of steps,

[00:02:09] that reverse out the harm and bring you back to your full, powerful, self.

[00:02:15] Today, I really invite you to invest and connect more deeply in the reality of neuroplasticity, because you absolutely can rewire your brain to restore your former and future glory.

[00:02:31] You are not crazy. You are not broken. If you've felt foggy, numb, overwhelmed, demotivated, like your brain has slowed down or even had a meltdown, there is a reason. Burnout changes your brain and understanding that is the first step to healing it.

[00:02:51] So, when we live in chronic stress, that overloads what we call the HPA axis, the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal axis gets stuck on. This is your brain's threat system gets stuck on. Cortisol levels stay elevated, affecting things like memory, sleep, digestion, emotions, and of course energy regulation.

[00:03:17] Remember, the fight or flight system affects functions throughout the body, from hearing and vision to heart rate, to thought patterns. We often forget that other systems are affected too. Growth, repair, rest, sexual function, learning and connection. This is all fine whilst you're under threat, but it's not so fine if the threat never leaves, and those functions are suspended long term. So we can call this the amygdala hijack. The amygdala, your brain's alarm bell, becomes hypersensitive and amygdala hijack is Daniel Goleman's term for this phenomenon where it gets stuck on.

[00:04:03] So the amygdala perceives a threat and it triggers a fight or flight or freeze response before the cortical centers -so that's the centers in charge of your higher cognitive function, decision making, planning, problem solving -before those centers can even fully assess the situation, the amygdala is already shut you down, essentially hijacking the rational response process.

[00:04:33] Short-circuiting, if you like, "normal" mental and physical function in the brain and body. So then you become hypervigilant for further threat. That's part of the stress apparatus. You become more reactive, more anxious, and a bit emotionally flat-lining. And all of this is why it can be hard to break out of the cycle of anxious thinking once it starts.

[00:05:00] And it also helps explain, by the way, the addictive response. On which topic, if you want to explore further, I will defer to Gabor Mate.

[00:05:10] So if that's happening, we get stuck in this anxiety loop. We are triggered all over the place and we get stuck there. It can be really hard to shake that off and to step back and gain perspective because that part of our brain is shut down, that would do that.

[00:05:26] This is by neurological design. That's how our system is supposed to work to avoid danger and it's not a failing on your part if that happens, right? So you can't also simply pull your socks up and keep going. That's out of the equation. So it's important if you are triggered a lot, if you're very anxious and you're stuck in that cycle, is not to blame yourself or judge yourself or criticize yourself, because your body is working how it's supposed to, because it thinks it's trying to protect you from an external threat.

[00:06:01] Whereas in fact, the threat is usually internal. It's usually from the thoughts spinning around in our head. But your body hasn't evolved to cope with that yet. It doesn't know. It thinks there's a tiger after you.

[00:06:13] So the thing that happens then is we have the prefrontal cortex suppression. Chronic stress suppresses your prefrontal cortex.

[00:06:23] This is the area again, responsible for planning, decision making, empathy as well, and focus. You procrastinate. You can't think straight, you lose your edge. So burnout isn't laziness. It's a physiological shutdown that is beyond your immediate control. If you're a science nerd, by the way, there's a very good book by a woman called Bonnie Badenoch called The Heart of Trauma, and it details all of the physiological effects of amygdala activation and chronic stress.

[00:07:00] So if you want to understand why your system is behaving the way that it is, you might find it documented in that book. I know I did. I'll put that in the show notes.

[00:07:12] So if all of that's going on, you've been a bit hijacked, you're stuck in this loop of anxiety, your system's going a bit mad. What can you do to keep more of your brain online, more often? Because your brain can rewire. You know this, right? You've heard it often enough. The same brain that has adapted in this way to survive the threat of burnout can adapt again to recover from it. Handy to know, right?

[00:07:40] Research shows that things like mindfulness, deep rest, connection and compassion accelerate recovery. Why am I emphasizing compassion? Because I always do, because it is significantly missing in burnout, self-compassion, particularly.

[00:08:00] So what we do in burnout recovery is address the causes of this amygdala hijack and start to work as well as we can with them.

[00:08:08] And we make small changes that end up creating big shifts in our experience. Even small daily choices like breath work, pausing before reactivity, walking in nature, begin restoring our prefrontal activity and capacity. Because put simply your prefrontal cortex works when you feel safe. And in burnout, typically we don't feel very safe.

[00:08:37] So intentionally cultivating and building a sense of safety will help you. And restoring the joy that comes with that and the curiosity that then becomes possible. It's not a luxury, it's a neurological repair tool. That's how I want you to think about all of the things that you are hearing today. This is you repairing your neurology from over-firing, from over-protecting you.

[00:09:06] Shawn Achor, the Harvard Happiness Researcher in his book, Big Potential offers "Happiness is not the belief that we don't need to change. It's the realization that we can". Chade-Meng Tan, formerly the Google Jolly Good Fellow, from his book, Joy on Demand "The greatest freedom in life is to be aware of the moments you are free from pain" and he does go on to describe how to create such moments in just three breaths. Also, a good book.

[00:09:40] In Burnout Recovery, then, you will learn key emotional intelligence skills and strategies that allow you to boost your performance, leadership, and happiness. And this is of course, by no means a frivolous pursuit.

[00:09:54] When your passion reignites, so do relationships and you become indispensable as a leader with EI skills.

[00:10:03] So what can you do today to start healing? Let me share some quick, practical tips on how to calm your brain when your amygdala is triggered. And each of these first few, you can do in less than a couple of minutes.

[00:10:17] What we're really doing, with all of these very brief exercises, is creating just a little bit of pause, a little bit of space to downregulate your stress response and bring it back into normal function. And I've spoken to you about all of these before, but I'm going to say them again. I'm going to, you can practice even as I'm speaking if you want.

[00:10:39] The first one is box breathing, and the principle here is when you breathe out slowly through your nose and mouth, your amygdala receives that as a safety signal. So breathing in for a count of five, holding your breath for a count of five, breathing out a bit more slowly for a count of seven and holding for a count of five sends the amygdala this signal -no danger here, turn off. If you do this exercise once or twice, it will interrupt the cycle of anxious reactivity.

[00:11:15] Second exercise body awareness. Simply come home to your body, observe the emotions or the physical stress in your body, and that puts you back at the helm. So you might want to shut your eyes and breathe into your body.

[00:11:30] Take the breath into your body and follow it down your body and see if you can find where there's tension or where there is energy trapped in your body. Just simply observe it. Watch it without trying to change it at all. Just accept it as it is. Let it be, but notice it. Notice how it is, notice its features.

[00:11:52] Describe it to yourself. Where is the energy blocked or where is the tension, or where is the vibration? What does it feel like? Does it have any other attributes? Does it have a size? Can you describe the vibration, the speed, the density, or the temperature of it? Really just come home and be accepting of those sensations in your body and remain connected with them.

[00:12:21] And, if you can, notice what emotion is associated with the sensations that you are feeling. Don't take the storyline with it. Don't worry about your thoughts. Stay inside your physical body. Because really, that's creating also a sense of safety to be at home in your body and that too sends a signal to your nervous system to relax.

[00:12:46] When you notice and accept your emotions, rather than resist them, they will often dissipate. The length of time scientifically that an emotion can last in your body, if you don't resist it or recreate it with new anxious thoughts, is 90 seconds. So when you want to witness this emotion, if you witness it and accept that it's there for 90 seconds, you're pretty home and hosed.

[00:13:15] Next exercise, grounding. Sit or stand with your feet flat on the ground, feeling the connection between you and the Earth. And yes, even if you're on the 20th floor of a building! Notice the aliveness in your body. Notice your breath moving in and out of your lungs. Notice your ability to connect with your physical existence again, to be physically present to yourself and the world without harm.

[00:13:51] Notice if you can, that there's nothing truly going wrong in this actual moment. You are actually okay right now, and that will give you a sense of safety again in your body and in your connection and in your rightness of belonging, in this universe, and on this earth.

[00:14:10] Of course, if you have more than a minute or two to do those exercises: brief meditation and mindfulness is very powerful; taking exercise, sleeping, or taking a nap, walking on grass or near trees or somewhere in nature, having a warm conversation with someone, not about the niggles that are on your mind, but maybe about something else.

[00:14:33] Spending time with a pet or even learning something, something new can take you into a different head space. All of those things can help you reset. Notice that most of these are a bit less doing, more on letting the nervous system relax so that it can reset. And, spending a little time doing this, if you are reluctant to do it, remember, it really does beat the alternative, which might be hours and hours of head spinning paralysis and torment.

[00:15:05] So just take a couple of minutes out and do yourself a favor. If you can make that a new habit of yours, just to tune in and help your body and your mind return to safety.

[00:15:15] When you have practiced any of those reset exercises, then the next thing to do is really find a place to protect and rebuild your executive function. So this is your prefrontal cortex.

[00:15:29] One powerful way to do that is to reduce context-switching. In other words, multitasking. ' cause the human brain really doesn't thrive on multitasking.

[00:15:40] If you are able to do things like reduce notifications and pingers, stop constantly checking your messages, which is another anxiety trigger, reduce interruptions to your work. Allow yourself simply the space to do one thing at a time. You'll become more efficient, more focused, and more relaxed. And this also promotes professionalism and a sense of accomplishment.

[00:16:08] And when you do this, you are building back your executive function.

[00:16:12] Of course, my clients do generally fight making this change. There's a piece of us that wants to stay in the anxiety, it's quite compelling. And when my clients don't want to take this on, they're often citing the critical need to be available to everybody, real time, all the time. And on closer inspection this is rarely true. It's generally anxiety fueling that urgency to keep checking messages, listening to notifications, particularly the messages.

[00:16:44] Even physicians I've worked with have made really big gains in this area. Having made the change to simplify their workflow, there are huge upsides available in energy return, confidence and quality of results. You can deliver what you said you would and still finish work on time if you choose this path.

[00:17:04] Second idea, prioritize deep work even for 20 minutes. If you choose to commit to scheduling and protecting bursts of deep focus time on the tasks that require it, you're going to see an upsurge in successful completion, which is going to feel good. So, give your scattered mind space to produce its best, most coherent results.

[00:17:30] Did you know that your prefrontal cortex, this analytical brain, performs best when it's monotasking? Multitasking actually engages multiple brain areas.

[00:17:42] Designated deep focus time confronts procrastination urges head on, making it easier to start a task rather than keep pushing it anxiously around your plate.

[00:17:52] This helps you prioritize tasks and meet deadlines, which is likely to improve your reliability and reputation and enhance work relationships. Does that sound attractive to you?

[00:18:05] Okay, next technique: delay unimportant decisions. Don't embroil yourself in what we call decision fatigue, that thief of efficiency.

[00:18:16] Make your important and urgent decisions once and assign time on your schedule to act on them. Then make a separate time to make other smaller decisions during your weekly personal planning session.

[00:18:31] Don't be reactive to every tiny thing that comes across your desk. I think you already know how much pain that causes you, and it's another form of procrastination and scattering your precious attention.

[00:18:45] This one might be a surprise: Reintroduce play and beauty -both restore high function circuits.

[00:18:53] Again, this might sound like a luxury, but it isn't. Once you tame your schedule, notifications, distractions, then a little bit of space opens up to do what you love. Greg McEwen in his book Essentialism argues that play is when we have our best creative ideas, where we offer our own unique value. We don't squeeze good ideas out like toothpaste out of a tube when we're overwhelmed at our desks.

[00:19:25] Only pleasurable, expansive, aimless downtime yields that real deep visionary genius that we have. Ask yourself if this is true of you. When do you have your best ideas? And if you're going to do that, if you want to make time to play and for beauty in the environment or wherever, make the space first.

[00:19:49] Manager your schedule first. I do teach my clients to be highly economical with time, yet abundantly productive in their work hours, so that then they can work shorter weeks, feel less frazzled, and start to perk up to the idea of things like hobbies, adventures, family time, and play. You may not wish to believe this.

[00:20:11] However, I have had very senior leadership clients blossom when they've embraced this technique. Often it galvanizes an exciting promotion or a big leap somewhere in their workspace.

[00:20:24] To grow from burnout, you will need to toss out some of your existing beliefs that have held you back.

[00:20:31] Could this be one of them and are you ready to try?

[00:20:39] So when you've tried some of those techniques and you've started to increase your executive function and tame your work as well as your reactivity, the third thing that I would stress very much is to seek safe connection, because this is a key to keeping your amygdala regulated.

[00:20:59] It's called co-regulation, when you seek a safe other to spend your time with. This is time with people who don't drain you, where you feel safe and supported and accepted and listened to.

[00:21:12] Social isolation, where we mostly end up in burnout, reinforces "threat brain". Healthy social context soothes it. Enough said? 

[00:21:24] By the way, though, I do include self relationship in this, if you're busting your own chops, that's not conducive to safety.

[00:21:33] My clients learn how to be the encouraging mentor they've always wanted, believing in themselves at a higher level as good, capable and confident leaders. I call this championing yourself, and this is indispensable to burnout recovery. When you learn to be your own best friend, you will soften, and this will not make you weak or lazy. That's a fallacy. You're going to have the same laser-like brain, the same skills, the same high work function. You'll just stop being so hard on yourself and other people. Less irritable, impatient, demanding, judgmental, frustrated.

[00:22:15] You're going to be a better facilitator and mentor of others. When you reach this place, you'll start seeing their potential, not just their flaws.

[00:22:24] Your personal results will climb, you'll find work more rewarding, and you'll become the champion of your team as well, eliciting stronger performance, by building better relationships and trust with them.

[00:22:37] When you develop out your social muscles further, your Emotional Intelligence and a new enjoyment of collaboration, you become a really potent multiplier, a stronger problem solver at a larger scale.

[00:22:54] And I'm telling you this, your superiors will notice and your team will too. You're going to find other people easier to work with because you yourself will be easier to work with. No more isolation. Your stock just went up.

[00:23:09] In my early career, I did rely heavily on my own personal ability to create great results. I really didn't let other people in on it too much, fearing they were going to slow me down.

[00:23:21] Arrogant that I was. I can laugh at it now! I do actually like people a lot, but at that period in my life, I let my ego get carried away. I lacked humility. Yes, I did, but I also lacked social confidence and I wasn't a great leader, which pained me very badly. Eventually, I did learn how to mentor and facilitate teamwork, and I became a much better connector and I started to enjoy myself a lot more.

[00:23:54] And I think that's on the table for anybody who isolates, as well. When I look back on all of my career now, it's those moments of radically improved team performance and cohesion that stand out as the biggest victories.

[00:24:09] So if you are isolating in fear at the moment, and anxiety, I would recommend that you too embrace your potential to be this warmhearted mentoring leader, and then you're going to kickstart a new phase of your career that is astonishingly pleasant for you as well as other people and will be meteorically successful, I will predict as well.

[00:24:32] There's no better salve for your amygdala than warm relationships, and there's no better way, I think, to stoke your passion.

[00:24:41] This is the personal transformation you've been looking for, if only you knew it was available. Right? To have more fun at work, to play the success game with more bright minds. To be at the top of your game, working with others at the top of theirs.

[00:24:57] And that's why, frankly, I love my work right now. Brilliant, talented people drop into burnout and get confused and don't know why. They don't know how to fix it. It's not their fault. Their biochemistry went a bit wayward and they don't know how to reregulate it.

[00:25:15] So I teach them what worked for me, because now it works for my clients. And the revival is a bit like banishing a very long, deep hangover. It feels good.

[00:25:24] Burnout affects your body, but it does also affect your brain. And if you've felt like your mind isn't working the way it used to, it's not a flaw. It's probably not a mirage either. It's a flag. You don't need to push through. You need to re-pattern it.

[00:25:42] The good news is -your brain is built for recovery. If you yourself are feeling flat, foggy, reactive, or numb, if you have imposter syndrome because of it, come and talk to me in a free no strings consult.

[00:25:59] Discover how you can reset and recover your energy and perspective and create a better work life. You can book a time to speak with me at dexrandall.com.

[00:26:11] Thank you so much for listening today. It's been great speaking with you. If you find value in this podcast content, provided free with my blessings, please share the podcast with other people who may also need it.

[00:26:23] Thank you. Catch you next time.