[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] All right, my friends, once more into the breach. Let us talk about stress for a minute, shall we? That totally fun topic.

[00:00:31] And here I want to start with a story. So in July, 2017, I had a major heart attack caused by work stress and burnout. I couldn't move about or care for myself. I couldn't work. It took six months of sofa rest to physically recover. In January, 2018, I got hit by a car and I spent three months in hospital, lots of broken bones.

[00:01:01] I couldn't sit up or stand or wash myself. I couldn't work. Yet from day one, I had to lift weights, hundreds of reps twice a day, lying in my hospital bed. It was pretty stressful trying to keep going. I didn't want to do anything. It hurt. And during this time, this is when I learned how to manage stress. Real stress. Would I walk again? Would I work again?

[00:01:36] So today I'm going to talk about stress habits and how to recalibrate your system to reduce stress, both in the moment and chronic stress. 'cause stress is corrosive.

[00:01:52] So stay tuned to hear what you can do to overcome it. And also, if you really want fast stress relief right now, use my stress coach Dex AI at dexrandall.com because this is precisely what it's trained to do. Help you reduce in the moment stress and retrain your brain out of stress habits. So go over there and have a look today, dexrandall.com. 

[00:02:23] Alright, so it is hard, of course to start breaking free of stress because it's unconscious.

[00:02:31] It happens very fast. The gap between the stressor, the thing that happens, and our reaction to it is instant, and it's compelling, because it's trying to protect us as fast as it possibly can.

[00:02:47] Of course, the stress response in evolutionary terms was designed to protect us from danger in the natural world -fire, flood attack. The problem now is that almost all of our stress is emotional. It comes from relationships with our fellows. Our human organism has not evolved to handle this very well!

[00:03:11] It's reaction to interpersonal stress -work, ideological, religious, or political stress, for example- is rather extreme. It hasn't adapted from the need for instant self-protection to the need for longer term existential self-protection.

[00:03:33] Under chronic people related stress, we build impenetrable emotional armor that actually separates us from all that is good, in people, in our environment, and from our own abundantly creative, joyful, and expansive natures. Emotional stress responses squeeze the joy out of life, don't they? Producing exhaustion, conflict, despair, and of course burnout.

[00:04:02] So, let's take a look at the dynamics of modern stress. How it hijacks our zest for life and how we can reverse even lifelong stress habits. This is a core part of the work of burnout recovery. It's essential to living a juicy, full, rich human life, where we delight in who we truly are, and we find ourselves able to engage in rewarding ways with at least a few of the 8 billion other people that surround us.

[00:04:34] This is life on Earth. And when I say earth, I do mean the natural world. The ground under our feet, now sheathed in concrete. The air we breathe, conditioned by machines. The food we eat, infused with toxic chemicals and the creatures we share the planet with, most of whom exist beyond our awareness.

[00:04:59] So, since the industrial revolution, our distance from our natural milieu has increased way beyond the point of depriving us of those essential connections that balance our equilibrium.

[00:05:13] Don't underestimate the emotional impact of this on a human such as yourself.

[00:05:20] In particular, it's encouraged us to focus more of our attention on status, ideology and materialism. than really is good for us. Even though science tells us to get morning sun, movement, fresh air, we think of these as nice to have. Boxes to tick before work to make us feel better about our performance, to bolster our social media status.

[00:05:49] I think we've entirely missed the point. Life isn't about performance. Looking down at a phone all day is fundamentally unhealthy because it shifts our focus away from what supports good health towards what supports ego. And your ego is not on your side. Ego has led you down a cul-de-sac of navel gazing that actually reduces wellbeing.

[00:06:16] Egos turned you into a machine, curating an airbrushed public image of yourself to gain acceptance. It makes you forget entirely what really turns you on, what you love, the unique wonder of what you were put on this planet to actually be. So you bury that realization, in order to maintain your social front.

[00:06:42] You are now a kind of grayed out, hollowed out human, a little bit rotten at the core. This, of course is an imperfection that you can never admit to. It hurts like crazy though, eh?

[00:07:00] Of course, none of that, that I've just said, is a surprise to you or to anyone.

[00:07:06] Yet we manage to stifle our urge towards sanity, every time it pops up. We reinvest in pain inducing superficial behaviors, that deprive us of connection, joy, and the reward that we seek.

[00:07:24] And it's time to unwind this habit, no? It's a habit that drives the burgeoning rates of mental health distress and chronic illness in our adult and youth populations.

[00:07:37] I'm not going to drill down into that. You can simply look up the escalating rates of medication in children. You can just pause to feel the squeeze in your own heart, your own relationships, and your career.

[00:07:53] Recognizing the dread you probably wake up with every morning, let's embark instead on a learning process to unpick some of these toxic behaviors.

[00:08:04] Shall we do that? Because it is possible to do this. To feel joy, return, no matter how long you've suffered, how ingrained your stress habits have become.

[00:08:17] As I mentioned, stress is an instant self-protective reaction, that we can't override at source, and of course it's designed that way. Our amygdala picks up danger and diverts our energy immediately to fight or flight, before our brain has a chance to register anything. It hijacks our attention and triggers the stress response, and it does this for physical, mental, or emotional stress, without discrimination. It turns off all our rest and repair functions, including our social and cognitive functions. Even dimming our senses such as our vision and hearing.

[00:09:04] So essentially we've become helpless. It focuses all energy on escaping or resolving the threat. Naturally, since that's its purpose. If that threat is fire, we can run or we can extinguish the fire. If it's a snake, we can run again or we can defend or attack.

[00:09:26] If it's an emotion, though, we have less agency.

[00:09:31] It is possible to be angry, fight, run, or freeze until the threat passes. But actually this rarely resolves our emotional state. We've ingested the emotion and then we ruminate, branching off into anxious thinking, blame or self-blame, rage, frustration, helplessness. This keeps the emotional wound alive inside us, in our biology, long after the external threat has passed, often for years. We entrench the pain as a new fearful belief about the world, and this is a problem that results in chronic stress.

[00:10:19] One thing we do do under chronic stress is deliberately squash the difficult emotion that arises, attempting to replace it with an easier one.

[00:10:31] For example, we eat, or we distract ourselves on our phone to change emotional state. This is the dynamic of all addictive processes, repetitive emotional escape. As you know, it provides the best momentary relief and it leads to a cycle that worsens how we feel, chipping away at our efficacy out in the world, and our self-esteem.

[00:10:57] Over time, escaping our emotions like this is not viable. It produces shame and self-doubt, which can snowball into bigger problems.

[00:11:08] I mention this to be really clear about the cumulative negative effect of stress on life. If you imagine the deep stress endemic to modern life at a population level, it's terribly saddening. And if you imagine it at a family level, it's where the cracks are starting to appear.

[00:11:31] At a physiological level, stress affects our organs. We stop being able to rest, sleep, procreate and digest food. Our muscles and joints can't relax and become painful. Our skin breaks out in hives. Our hormone system is dysregulated and our immune system struggles.

[00:11:53] Our brains of course, become tired, foggy, irritable. More disturbing, our heartbeat and blood flow are constricted. If we look at the science, our heartbeat and heart rate variability are extremely sensitive to stress, anxiety, and depression. They're the barometer of our emotional wellbeing. Something we can now witness in our fitness trackers, seeing dips in our daily recovery rates, capacity to exercise and think.

[00:12:27] So that's why today I would like to dive into a stress reset with you. We can become conscious of our stress cycle and habits. We can't prevent stress triggering altogether, because it's a survival mechanism, but we can recalibrate our nervous system to be more discerning about what we react to. And we can clip this rumination that entrenches stress in our system.

[00:12:54] If you'd like to actively reset your stress triggers, try stress coach Dex AI at dexrandall.com, because this is precisely what I've trained it to do, help you reduce in the moment stress and retrain your brain out of stress habits.

[00:13:12] If you want to follow it on here, I'm going to take you through six steps to reduce your stress, as it pops up in the moment.

[00:13:21] And step one is first notice that you're stressed. Your speedy brain won't want to slow down and do this. You're going to meet a little bit of resistance probably, but okay, if you can notice the resistance and notice your urge to escape into emotional avoidance.

[00:13:43] Notice you reach for your phone or a coffee or a snack. Just notice. Don't blame or criticize. Just notice. Say to yourself "This is stress in me right now" and celebrate that you noticed. This is your first breakthrough.

[00:14:01] And by the way, if you join my coaching program and you have a fitness tracker, you can receive stress alerts directly from your tracker, that automatically trigger an AI coaching prompt to resolve stress fast. This is a very powerful driver of habit change that reinforces the right behavior and the noticing part about it and returns you quickly to optimum function.

[00:14:28] So anyway, that's step one. Simply notice that you're stressed. Practice that until you get good at it.

[00:14:35] Step two, pause to take a deep breath. Just do nothing for a moment. Relax into the stress and accept that it's present. Stress is an urgent and uncomfortable sensation, but still it is just a sensation. Sitting with it can't actually hurt you. So when you do pause and sit still and notice and accept that it's there, this is your brain taking back control.

[00:15:05] And as you take a few deep, slow breaths, you physically signal to your nervous system that you're okay, that it can afford to calm down now. And when you begin this practice, congratulate yourself for doing this too. Your brain loves the reward, and this is how you start programming habit change, by taking action and rewarding it.

[00:15:28] For a deep dive, of course, into the mechanics and practical tips about habit changes, read Atomic Habits by James Clear. He developed this book after an accident that stopped him in his tracks just as mine stopped me.

[00:15:44] I really don't want you to push your system to break point. Learning this invaluable skill will protect you from this in future stress.

[00:15:54] So that's step two. Pause and breathe deeply and accept what's happening for you.

[00:16:02] Step three, once you have pause to breathe, notice if your emotional state changes.

[00:16:10] And to do this, you can just close your eyes and very briefly take your attention inside your body. Notice what's happening. Take it through your mind and your thoughts as well. Notice what's going through your mind. So in your body: Has your pulse dropped? Do you feel a little calmer? Or a little release? A little less tense?

[00:16:34] Or is it still red hot, urgent? Are you still distressed, angry, reactive? Whatever you find, don't judge yourself. Just tune in again and notice.

[00:16:47] Stress triggers an anxiety cycle, so maybe you'll simply witness racing fearful thoughts, and that's okay too. Whatever you're feeling, keep breathing and just observe it neutrally.

[00:17:00] Any feeling is just a feeling it, will not harm you, and also there's no need to change it. Just notice it. Again, if you have a fitness tracker, you can see your heart rate, and so you'll notice if it changes. You can also feel your actual heart beating. Tune in, notice it, or notice other stress symptoms like headache, tight jaw, clenched stomach.

[00:17:28] Get to know your body under stress. It's trying to tell you something.

[00:17:34] So that's step three. Tune into your body to detect shifts and patterns.

[00:17:39] Step four, as deep breathing perhaps begins to calm your brain, think about what you reacted to. What do you believe happened that caused you to react with stress?

[00:17:55] If you can, notice the story you're telling yourself about what went wrong. This is quite likely an old story about people behaving badly and hurting you. But like a feeling, a story is just a story. It's a belief you hold that triggers your stress reaction. Recognizing that story helps you release the stress habit a little bit further.

[00:18:21] There will always be people in the world who don't think and behave like you or like you think they should, and you cannot control them. But you don't have to keep biting the hook. You can tame your own response. You can change yourself to live more fluently with the world as it is. Simply noticing what you're telling yourself about people being bad, it gives you power over your stress. Remember, we are in this to tame chronic stress, not to tame other people. This is your stress.

[00:18:57] So step four, notice your own story about what went wrong based on your belief about how people should behave.

[00:19:06] Step five, ask yourself: Is there another way to understand what happened? Can I interpret it differently? What could I believe about what happened that wouldn't upset me so much? How can I help myself out here? Remember, we're really not concerned with exonerating or blaming other people nor changing what happened, just bringing down your stress.

[00:19:34] The way you interpret what happened is key. Choosing a new way to interpret life, people, situations, and especially people's motivations, you might find that it changes everything.

[00:19:51] So here's an example. Your VP wants you to change your product roadmap to suit his interests. You naturally want to stick to your own priorities. He pulls rank and prevails, and your boss backs him up, not you. 

[00:20:09] You're mad with both of them, with the injustice, with the effect of delays on promises that you made to other stakeholders, and with being disrespected and unsupported. Your belief in what's right triggers major stress in you.

[00:20:26] But at what cost? Your heart's thumping!

[00:20:31] Life isn't and will never be fair. You won't always get your way. But what if your assumptions about other people's motivation, or about disrespect, are wrong? Most people are trying to protect themselves with their actions, not attack you.

[00:20:48] They're avoiding painful consequences for them. Of course, they will do that ahead of protecting you, won't they?

[00:20:56] So maybe no disrespect occurred. And maybe argument will not change their decision anyway. Ultimately, your job is to serve. So how can you adjust your plan without causing yourself more angst? What compromise is required here so that you can resume work?

[00:21:16] So step five is a reframe, offering yourself an alternative view of what happened.

[00:21:23] Step six. Don't take anything personally. This is the magical step. Believe you me. Try it out for yourself and see.

[00:21:36] If you can, arrive at an understanding that gives others a little bit of the benefit of the doubt, or it simply extends compassion to their struggles and yours.

[00:21:50] Or, at the least, allows that you will find a way not to fight them or try to control them. If you can do any of those, you will be the winner.

[00:22:01] Your ego doesn't have to be right. That's up to you. No harm done by remaining neutral. There are 8 billion people in the world. You don't have to fight all of them.

[00:22:14] And really, if you choose not to, this is you reducing your own chronic stress, a valuable skill that others around you may not possess.

[00:22:26] It's you increasing your emotional intelligence, a great asset, and becoming more useful in your workplace. You gain power simply by being adaptable and failing to take offense.

[00:22:40] When you increase your emotional intelligence, people around you will guaranteed notice. You start to become available then as an ally, and this will strengthen your relationships at work.

[00:22:54] So that's step number six. Don't take anything personally.

[00:22:57] Step seven. Over time as you repeat this exercise, you're going to see patterns emerge in your stress, and these are your habits.

[00:23:06] You're going to start to notice them quicker and quicker as they pop up. And in that moment when you do notice, acknowledge your stress and then change your thought about what's happening. This is where I think coach AI really can help you as you find powerful new ways to interpret situations, and your stress falls, you are cementing in new habits. And the more you repeat these, the stronger of course they become.

[00:23:35] In time, this is you reducing chronic stress. Side benefits include being less tired, less resentful, making better decisions, and being more mentally available to solve problems. Also, feeling stronger and more capable in yourself and trusting yourself more.

[00:23:58] The biggest one -outside of how you feel- is how it improves relationships. As people sense you becoming more supportive towards them, or even just more lenient.

[00:24:09] New habits you are developing will compound over time. As you reduce stressors each day, you learn how to support yourself better and better, and your heart will notice.

[00:24:23] Use Dex AI coach every day to support new stress habit change. If you do this once a day for a week, notice how you feel. I think you might find some insight and some clarity in your stress patterns. And if you do, please let me know and we can celebrate your progress together.

[00:24:44] So that's step number seven. Keep repeating step to one to six.

[00:24:49] Learn more about your stress habits, gain insights, and get some leverage to change them faster each time they pop up and create new habits.

[00:25:00] I wish you very well with this journey 'cause obviously it's the very core of burnout to be able to handle your stress patterns and reduce your experience of stress. If nothing else, so you can feel better and keep your brain online all the time.

[00:25:13] Thank you for listening today then, and please do take action on stress for yourself, your career, your family, to create a better life.

[00:25:23] If you want the complete burnout recovery coaching package, come and talk to me at dexrandall.com about your struggles and let's make a plan to fix them. Do it now, and start enjoying your workday and your career like you've always wanted to, because stress is not a life sentence.