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Speaker 2: See pocash Energy dot E for fulltiesncies. Oh hey, it's
Speaker 2: your coworker who makes bunt cakes, Ali Ward. And speaking
Speaker 2: of work, let's get right into it. How are we doing?
Speaker 2: How are our brains? How are you feeling? Are you
Speaker 2: feeling like a little bit like wilted lettuce? You feel
Speaker 2: in like a swollen infection? Get a pop? We get it,
Speaker 2: I get it. So this episode has been a long
Speaker 2: time coming, and I cornered one of the world's leading
Speaker 2: experts on burnout. They got their MBA at the University
Speaker 2: of Oregon and a Doctorate of Education at the University
Speaker 2: of Pennsylvania, where they are currently a senior Fellow. They're
Speaker 2: the director of the Penmaster in Medical Education program too.
Speaker 2: They wrote the book on burnout. It's called Burnout Immunity
Speaker 2: so Ergo Pathology. It's the science of ergon, which is
Speaker 2: work in Greek and pathology, which is something bad. But
Speaker 2: what exactly is burnout? Okay, obviously we're going to cover it,
Speaker 2: but if you're experiencing exhaustion, cynicism, and professional inefficiency, you're
Speaker 2: going to want to keep listening before we get to it.
Speaker 3: Though.
Speaker 2: Thank you to all the patrons at patreon dot com
Speaker 2: for submitting your questions for this episode. You can get
Speaker 2: sneak peaks at future episodes, and you can submit questions
Speaker 2: for them by joining Patreon for as low as a
Speaker 2: dollar a month and for zero dollars. Thank you to
Speaker 2: everyone leaving reviews which helped the show so much. Like
Speaker 2: for example, this week Euphonium Shorty left a review that said,
Speaker 2: I couldn't possibly care less about the making of street murals.
Speaker 2: At least that's what I thought until Ali explained it
Speaker 2: all to me. That's happened to me at least a
Speaker 2: dozen times with this podcast. That's why I love it
Speaker 2: amazing really the frequency with which they come out. If
Speaker 2: I could change one thing they write, it'd be Ali
Speaker 2: taking better care of herself. Euphonium shorty Timely. I'm doing
Speaker 2: much better, and I'll tell you how I balance life
Speaker 2: with work that I legitimately love. Also, speaking of love,
Speaker 2: lots of love. Back to reviewer, Amari, you know who
Speaker 2: you are. Okay, let's get into it. Please take a
Speaker 2: load off, Lie down on a carpet, you can recline
Speaker 2: against tree trunk. Take some time to listen and absorb
Speaker 2: the teachings about what is burnout, who burns out faster
Speaker 2: than others, who doesn't burn out? What professions are more
Speaker 2: at risk for fatigue and mental health repercussions, How do
Speaker 2: you tell your boss you're burned out? Neurodiversity and burnout grit,
Speaker 2: The myths of guilt, hockey mascots, childhood trauma and lingering anxiety,
Speaker 2: and how to tell your brain to tell your body
Speaker 2: that you got this and when to acknowledge no, I
Speaker 2: do not got this. Baby needs to rest. Also how
Speaker 2: you don't need to wait until you're onotropical vacation to recharge,
Speaker 2: in fact, don't with scholar author and burnout expert, ergo
Speaker 2: pathologist for candy weeds.
Speaker 4: Candy weens, she her mm hmm, burnout expert.
Speaker 2: How does it happen this one become a burnout expert
Speaker 2: just like diving right in. I'm like, tell me everything.
Speaker 3: Well, let me tell you. When I was probably nine,
Speaker 3: ten years old, that's the last thing I ever thought
Speaker 3: I would be. In fact, I don't even hear the
Speaker 3: word burnout until just probably, I don't know, eight, well
Speaker 3: twelve years ago. So becoming a burnout expert for me anyways,
Speaker 3: started with me having a life threatening wake up call
Speaker 3: experience with burnout, the kind where I was having a
Speaker 3: hypertensive emergency and just decided to go on a quest
Speaker 3: to figure out like what was going on with me,
Speaker 3: learn how to deal with my stress. And then as
Speaker 3: I started nerding out and geeking out on the whole thing,
Speaker 3: I decided to go get my doctorate. I just it
Speaker 3: was like one of those I'm Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 3: go figure this out for real. I'm going to science
Speaker 3: the shit out of this thing, and I'm going to
Speaker 3: find out why some people just seem to be somewhat
Speaker 3: immune to burnout. They are clearly experiencing a lot of stress,
Speaker 3: but they work alongside people like me that are experiencing
Speaker 3: the same sort of stressers, but they're not burned out.
Speaker 3: What's going on with them?
Speaker 2: Can you tell me a little bit about that hypertensive
Speaker 2: emergency if it's not true traumatic, But what was the
Speaker 2: moment you realized that it was related to stress?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So, at the time, this is back in twenty eleven,
Speaker 3: I was a management consultant, on the road a lot,
Speaker 3: had three young kids at home, living the whole type
Speaker 3: a personality sort of career. Loved what I did, threw
Speaker 3: myself into it, super engaged in work, loved my colleagues
Speaker 3: and my clients and all of that. And I felt
Speaker 3: at the time like I was experiencing a lot of stress,
Speaker 3: but to me, it felt like the good kind of
Speaker 3: keeping myself motivated sort of stress, alongside a lot of
Speaker 3: the other bad stress too. But my approach back then
Speaker 3: was just stuff that stress, like, put it in a box,
Speaker 3: put it in a put that box in a closet,
Speaker 3: like lock that closet, and don't touch that stress until
Speaker 3: you're ready for it. What happened was when I had
Speaker 3: this hypertensive emergency, which I had no idea I was
Speaker 3: even having one. I went into my doctor's office just
Speaker 3: for a routine annual physical you know that kind where
Speaker 3: you go in and they check your blood pressure and
Speaker 3: they check all your vital signs and you're in and
Speaker 3: out in about twenty minutes. They give you your a and
Speaker 3: say see you back here next year. I thought it
Speaker 3: was one of those, But what happened was I was
Speaker 3: in the exam room, the nurse checked my vital signs,
Speaker 3: She checked my blood pressure four times before saying anything,
Speaker 3: and the only thing she said to me was I'm
Speaker 3: going to go talk to the doctor. And instead of
Speaker 3: like taking that seriously and thinking, holy caw, like what
Speaker 3: is this about? What's going on with my blood pressure?
Speaker 3: Instead I picked up my phone and started working again
Speaker 3: because that was the norm for me. And I know,
Speaker 3: it's like I'm hearing stories from so many people that
Speaker 3: that's what they would have done too, because the stress
Speaker 3: I was feeling at the time had just become to
Speaker 3: feel so normal to me that I wasn't recognizing the
Speaker 3: fact that when my doctor came in she told me
Speaker 3: that my blood pressure was two hundred over one ten. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I didn't know what that meant at the time.
Speaker 2: Just a side note, I had to look this up.
Speaker 2: Normal blood pressure one twenty over eighty it's considered high
Speaker 2: around one thirty over eighty. Stage two is like one forty.
Speaker 2: But if you get a blood pressure reading over one
Speaker 2: eighty over one twenty, you need to call nine one
Speaker 2: one or go to the er immediately, like you could
Speaker 2: die on the spot. And again, doctor Weens was two
Speaker 2: hundred over one ten. What so, this is what's called
Speaker 2: a hypertensive crisis, and it's usually caused by people forgetting
Speaker 2: to take blood pressure meds, or kidney disease underlying or
Speaker 2: heart disease, some pregnancy complications, taking meth or really high anxiety.
Speaker 2: And according to the CDC, heart disease is the leading
Speaker 2: cause of death for women in the United States, killing
Speaker 2: over three hundred thousand women in twenty twenty one, or
Speaker 2: about one in every five female deaths. We do have
Speaker 2: a cardiology episode coming up, of course, but yeah, her
Speaker 2: blood pressure was well into the range of all hands
Speaker 2: on deck, holy shit.
Speaker 3: And then of course she gave me a huge delsa xanax,
Speaker 3: which I'd never had before, and brought my blood pressure
Speaker 3: down and so like an hour later, she called my
Speaker 3: husband to have them come pick me up, and about
Speaker 3: an hour later I was finally stable enough where they
Speaker 3: could send me home and not to the emergency room.
Speaker 3: I was basically like ordered to be on bed rest
Speaker 3: for several days. And my first thought when she told
Speaker 3: me that was there's no way I can be on
Speaker 3: bed rest because I have this big leadership development program
Speaker 3: to run, and I almost panicked, like it almost sent
Speaker 3: me back into another stress spiral. But then the second
Speaker 3: thought was, well, thank god, someone's finally telling me I
Speaker 3: can go home and rest, like giving me a permission
Speaker 3: to rest, because because I wasn't giving myself enough rest.
Speaker 3: And I hear this so often from people that I
Speaker 3: work with and people who hear me speak. But then
Speaker 3: my third thought was, you know, she's absolutely right. My
Speaker 3: doctor is telling me I'm not fine. I need to
Speaker 3: take this seriously. I need to stay home and not work.
Speaker 3: And so for a few days, laying on the couch
Speaker 3: on xanax and blood pressure medicine, I had a lot
Speaker 3: of time to think and started reading some books and
Speaker 3: started digging around on you know, what are the best
Speaker 3: stress management techniques and doing to sell so a lot
Speaker 3: of self reflection, and it started to dawn on me
Speaker 3: then that I needed help. I needed to make changes
Speaker 3: because my work environment was not going to change anytime soon,
Speaker 3: so I needed to think about for myself what were
Speaker 3: some immediate things I could do. But then also it
Speaker 3: really dawned on me too, like longer term, I really
Speaker 3: need to find a work environment and the right conditions
Speaker 3: where I can really thrive without burning out. So that's
Speaker 3: kind of how it started my interest and my geeky
Speaker 3: curiosity on stress and burnout, and then it eventually turned
Speaker 3: into me wanted to get my doctorate so I could
Speaker 3: study it for real.
Speaker 2: When you realized that you had to make some changes,
Speaker 2: where do you start, Like did the doctor say like,
Speaker 2: oh okay if you need to matter or are they just like
Speaker 2: your blood pressure's good. You got to figure out the rest.
Speaker 3: So it was like, you know, gave me medicine and
Speaker 3: told me to go home and basically figure it out
Speaker 3: for myself. She didn't recommend anything at all. And this
Speaker 3: was again back in twenty eleven, where very few people,
Speaker 3: if any, were talking about burnout, Like I wasn't really
Speaker 3: hearing about it, and I worked in healthcare consulting, so
Speaker 3: it wasn't really until like twenty twelve, twenty thirteen that
Speaker 3: I started reading studies about this stuff and reading some
Speaker 3: other stress management books and like practitioner kinds of books.
Speaker 3: But then when I started digging into the research, I
Speaker 3: started seeing, Okay, there is this thing called burnout, and
Speaker 3: then I was able to put my finger on what
Speaker 3: I was experiencing.
Speaker 2: What exactly Looking back, now that you have your doctorate
Speaker 2: and now you've been working in this for so long,
Speaker 2: can you pick apart a little bit of what was
Speaker 2: happening during a burnout episode. I imagine that it can
Speaker 2: show up in your heart or your brain. I imagine
Speaker 2: that whatever crisis people might finally get to can show
Speaker 2: up at all kinds of ways.
Speaker 3: Right, So they're really a number of ways that we
Speaker 3: can pay attention to the fact that stress is turning
Speaker 3: into something that's a little bit more dangerous, potentially getting
Speaker 3: to a point where we're going to break down or burnout.
Speaker 3: And I would say, first and foremost pay attention to
Speaker 3: the physical science. Most of us can notice things like headaches,
Speaker 3: not sleeping well, not being interested in exercise, not being
Speaker 3: interested in intimacy with our partner, you know, all kinds
Speaker 3: of physical manifestations that if we were to just really
Speaker 3: pay attention, they are there. Those signs are there. But
Speaker 3: then also like some of the psychological ways that burnout manifests,
Speaker 3: that things like just lack of interest in things that
Speaker 3: we once love to do, starting to feel more negative
Speaker 3: and cynical about work or about other people, And then
Speaker 3: we also might notice changes in our relationships. Some people
Speaker 3: tell me that they notice the first signs of burnout
Speaker 3: when they start to notice their relationships are kind of
Speaker 3: fraying and starting to become more tense, that they start
Speaker 3: lashing out, maybe at people that they really love or
Speaker 3: they even enjoy working with. So there are a number
Speaker 3: of ways that you can pay attention to how stress
Speaker 3: is affecting you, and it's really noticing the fact that
Speaker 3: burnout is really this thing that can be quite insidious,
Speaker 3: meaning that it can really sneak up on you if
Speaker 3: you're just going through the motions of life and keeping
Speaker 3: with the grind that you've always been doing, which was
Speaker 3: my case and a lot of people that I talk
Speaker 3: to who have been burned out, that's how they experience
Speaker 3: it because they're so focused on performing or achieving or
Speaker 3: helping other people or just juggling life and family and
Speaker 3: everything all at once that it's really easy to lose
Speaker 3: track of what's going on with yourself.
Speaker 2: And what's happening. From a scientific perspective, I know, the
Speaker 2: amygdala has so many things to say when it comes
Speaker 2: to stress. I know, we've got cortisol, we've got adrenaline,
Speaker 2: we've got dopamine, we've got serotonin, We've got all kinds
Speaker 2: of things going on. What is happening under stress where
Speaker 2: it finally, just like the roof caves in.
Speaker 3: Well, so for some people it caves in on a
Speaker 3: physical level, and burnout for the most part, is a
Speaker 3: psychological experience. With stress. Our body goes through all kinds
Speaker 3: of chemical reactions when our amygdala goes off. It's that
Speaker 3: part of our brain that triggers the fight flight or
Speaker 3: freeze response. And very few of us, though, are actually
Speaker 3: threatened by bears coming out of nowhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean chased by.
Speaker 3: A tiger or you know, in my case, I actually
Speaker 3: am going through something that it's not physically threatening, but
Speaker 3: it's psychologically threatening to me. So that to me is
Speaker 3: much more stressful than something like coming on the Ologies podcast.
Speaker 3: I was nervous to come on and also excited. Like
Speaker 3: there's stress involved in both of those scenarios, but one
Speaker 3: triggers a threat response to stress. The other one, coming
Speaker 3: on your podcast triggers what's known as the challenge response
Speaker 3: to stress. So our body is going to react differently
Speaker 3: in each of those situations. And what's really important what
Speaker 3: I write about in my book is learning how to
Speaker 3: pay attention to those science so that you can regulate
Speaker 3: your nervous system. Whether you're truly being threatened or if
Speaker 3: the stressor is something that you are excited about and
Speaker 3: looking forward to, you can learn how to regulate your
Speaker 3: nervous system in a healthy, productive way so you can
Speaker 3: show up as your best.
Speaker 2: So doctor Weens says that the challenge response to stress
Speaker 2: kicks in when we want to perform or achieve something,
Speaker 2: and why it doesn't freak you out is because you've
Speaker 2: told yourself that it's not life threatening, and so your
Speaker 2: body uses those fight or flight hormones, like if you
Speaker 2: are exercising or trying to beat your brother in law
Speaker 2: in a potato sack race. So the challenge response gives
Speaker 2: you energy and focus and motivation and just a little
Speaker 2: bit of swagger. So how do you respond that way
Speaker 2: instead of throwing up in a garbage can before your
Speaker 2: annual performance review. Doctor Weens writes that you have to
Speaker 2: like gently brainwash yourself, or you have to unbrainwash yourself
Speaker 2: by telling yourself inside, hey, you can do it. You
Speaker 2: can go crush this. So don't try to suppress the
Speaker 2: stress because that makes it worse, and she says to
Speaker 2: tell yourself, I'm stressed right now, but that's okay. I've
Speaker 2: experienced stress before. I always get through it, or say hey,
Speaker 2: why not go for broke. I'm stressed right now, but
Speaker 2: this ain't my first rodeo, and I'm going to kick
Speaker 2: some ass, she writes in her book. She also says
Speaker 2: other quick mindset shifts include remembering all your strengths, remembering
Speaker 2: all the prep you did for the challenge, all the
Speaker 2: times you overcame similar challenges, imagining your loved ones rooting
Speaker 2: for you, or having a mantra like I've got this,
Speaker 2: I can handle this, or again. Her personal favorite is
Speaker 2: this ain't my first rodeo, and she confesses in her
Speaker 2: book that she'll actually wear a T shirt that says
Speaker 2: this ain't my first rodeo under her suits when she
Speaker 2: gives like a big keynote, I tell myself to show
Speaker 2: up like you belong and have fun, which I guess
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that I was shifting my terror into
Speaker 2: a challenge response to stress. And I have to do
Speaker 2: it every week before I record HI doing it right now.
Speaker 3: Neuroscience researchers who look at this stuff and look at
Speaker 3: really all the chemical reactions to stress and not just burnout,
Speaker 3: but every everyday stress for long periods of time. Sometimes
Speaker 3: that may lead to burnout, other times it may not.
Speaker 3: It main lead to other psychological conditions. But yeah, when
Speaker 3: we get stressed, and that turns on our nervous system,
Speaker 3: and that nervous system switch is turned on for a
Speaker 3: long period of time or it gets stuck in the
Speaker 3: on position. We start to burn through our adrenaline first
Speaker 3: and then our cortisol kicks in, and that's meant to
Speaker 3: protect us. But over time, burning through all that cortisol
Speaker 3: really really quickly can lead to other physical symptoms. It
Speaker 3: will immediately cause your blood vessels to constrict, so you're
Speaker 3: then experiencing lack of oxygen and healthy blood flow to
Speaker 3: your brain, which then puts you in what we call
Speaker 3: fast thinking mode. So it's like a chain reaction where
Speaker 3: we first have an unconscious physical reaction through the release
Speaker 3: of these kinds of hormones, you know, whether it's adrenaline
Speaker 3: or cortisol, or in some cases with good stress, it's
Speaker 3: dopamine and oxytocin and other things that help us manage stress.
Speaker 3: But it's those physical things that happen without us even
Speaker 3: knowing it before we start to fill the psychological effects
Speaker 3: of stress and then eventually burn out.
Speaker 2: So the chemical background here is that adrenaline helps you
Speaker 2: survive in physical stress. It gives you this fuel boost
Speaker 2: in the form of glucose, which helps you get out
Speaker 2: a dodge or fight or hide in a bush or
Speaker 2: whatever it takes to evade an attack. Now, the hormone cortisol,
Speaker 2: this is our lined in the Frontiers and Psychology paper
Speaker 2: Burnout and Hypocortisolism a matter of severity. Cortisol responses to
Speaker 2: acute psychosocial stress. Cortisol gives us the energy mobilization to
Speaker 2: fight off that attack, but as anyone who's ever had
Speaker 2: nervous diarrhea knows, it's not always helpful. And it continues
Speaker 2: this paper that long term exposure to stressful circumstances without
Speaker 2: enough recovery is hypothesized to be the cause of fatigue
Speaker 2: and exhaustion symptoms in people experiencing burnout. So things might
Speaker 2: be happening physically to you under stress, but like your
Speaker 2: own bo sometimes you can't even detect it. You're just
Speaker 2: accustomed to it, and you might not even notice your
Speaker 2: burnout and your anxiety symptoms until your body's very mad
Speaker 2: at you or your sanity starts to fray. And I'm
Speaker 2: speaking from experience. Do you think some people are more
Speaker 2: predisposed to burnout? It's like, if you have an anxiety
Speaker 2: disorder pre existing, or you have depression, or if you're neurodivergent,
Speaker 2: do those people tend to push beyond their limits or
Speaker 2: have a lower threshold for this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's interesting research that shows the relationship between
Speaker 3: You can look at it by temperament, So each of
Speaker 3: us is born with a certain type of temperament that
Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily change as we age and get older, and
Speaker 3: then we also all have personality traits that may change
Speaker 3: through life experiences. Anxiety is an interesting ones. So people
Speaker 3: who have just like underlying anxiety disorders or tend to
Speaker 3: be one of the personality traits as neuroticism. So people
Speaker 3: who are high on the neuroticism scale it's great, tend
Speaker 3: to be more prone to burnout in certain contexts because
Speaker 3: they are more easily triggered. But it's also not just
Speaker 3: with people who tend to run anxious. I would say
Speaker 3: what's important to look at for everybody is not necessarily
Speaker 3: whether you have an anxiety disorder or depression or anything
Speaker 3: like that, but really think about the interaction between what
Speaker 3: you want and need out of a work and life
Speaker 3: environment and what you're actually getting. What is the environment
Speaker 3: that you're actually in, because it's really the interaction between
Speaker 3: you and that environment that makes you more vulnerable to
Speaker 3: burnout in certain contexts are in certain environments.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm laughing about the neuroticism because we did a
Speaker 2: Personality Psychology episode. I took a test and it was like,
Speaker 2: You're neuroticism is so high we can barely measure it.
Speaker 2: It was just like they know, so I know definitely
Speaker 2: some of us are predisposed. And we'll link to that
Speaker 2: Personality Psychology episode. It is a banger. We'll put that
Speaker 2: in the show notes. But the cheat sheet is that
Speaker 2: there is a scholarly five factor model of these five
Speaker 2: core personality traits, which are agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and openness.
Speaker 2: And there was a twenty twenty three study titled the
Speaker 2: Big Five Model Personality Traits and Job Burnout a Systematic
Speaker 2: Literature Review, and it showed that higher levels of neuroticism
Speaker 2: and lower levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness are
Speaker 2: associated with higher levels of burnout. No surprise. So the
Speaker 2: neuroticism and hiding from the world and being stubborn that
Speaker 2: I think protects me from failure, Nope, it does not.
Speaker 2: Why are we like this? Do you think that there's
Speaker 2: anything in our past that makes us more prone to
Speaker 2: pushing through? I understand things like, you know, childhood trauma
Speaker 2: or codependency issues, things like that might make us take
Speaker 2: on more than we necessarily should be handling. Does childhood
Speaker 2: experience or does codependency or just like I can give
Speaker 2: more than the average person because I should, Does that
Speaker 2: figure into being predisposed for burnout?
Speaker 3: It absolutely does. Yeah, absolutely, So if you think about,
Speaker 3: like what really contributes to my vulnerability to burnout? In
Speaker 3: yours alle your vulnerability might be different, it's two things,
Speaker 3: like what are we born with? We're born with a
Speaker 3: certain kind of temperament and personality, but then also what's
Speaker 3: the environment, what are the conditions that we're exposed to
Speaker 3: in our early childhood all the way up until where
Speaker 3: we are today, And so, you know, aside from personality
Speaker 3: and temperament, which are hard for us to change in general,
Speaker 3: when we are able to reflect on the early experiences
Speaker 3: we had in childhood, and not just the experience itself,
Speaker 3: but who helped us or who did not help us
Speaker 3: through stressful experiences.
Speaker 2: And chronic trauma like surviving long term intimate partner abuse
Speaker 2: or war or sex trafficking, or childhood trauma that can
Speaker 2: result on what's called CPTSD or complex post traumatic stress disorder.
Speaker 2: And as for CPTSD being distinct from PTSD, some experts
Speaker 2: fight about that, which is not schill.
Speaker 3: And it's interesting because there's really good research that shows
Speaker 3: a correlation between people who have had a number of
Speaker 3: what we call aces, adverse childhood events or experiences, and
Speaker 3: the studies are mixed. It's really showing that people who
Speaker 3: have a number of aces, like in my case, the
Speaker 3: whole first chapter of the book describes my experience from
Speaker 3: early childhood and how I went through a lot of adversity, and.
Speaker 2: Her book details more of that, but she writes, I
Speaker 2: grew up on an Indian reservation in eastern Montana. Picture
Speaker 2: big blue skies, golden wheat fields, and their rich beauty
Speaker 2: of Native American culture, alongside abject poverty, little opportunity for education,
Speaker 2: and on my mom's side of the family, a long
Speaker 2: history of mental illness and alcoholism. She writes. My parents
Speaker 2: divorced after the tragic death of my two year old
Speaker 2: middle sister, leaving my mom to care for a newborn
Speaker 2: in me. Needless to say, she shares, we struggled a lot.
Speaker 2: My mom was traumatized and grieving in ways I couldn't
Speaker 2: begin to understand. Lived in government subsidized housing, and relied
Speaker 2: on food stamps and Indian health Care for basics. I
Speaker 2: was constantly bullied at school for being too skinny. Not
Speaker 2: my fault, I would think to myself, I've barely eaten
Speaker 2: in the last five days. So began my struggle with
Speaker 2: adversity induced stress, she writes. So childhood adversity is even
Speaker 2: more crushing, with systemic oppression and lack of financial resources
Speaker 2: and support.
Speaker 3: And at the same time, I had a really loving,
Speaker 3: supportive family environment, even though it was very unstable and
Speaker 3: I felt at times very very insecure, and that led
Speaker 3: me to all kinds of bad patterns and habits around
Speaker 3: overachieving and immersing myself to an unhealthy level. That was
Speaker 3: offset by the fact that I had parents who loved me,
Speaker 3: and I had other caregivers and people in my life
Speaker 3: who were supportive and tried their best to give me
Speaker 3: as secure of an environment as possible. So that all
Speaker 3: factors into both my patterns and how I've responded to
Speaker 3: stress up until today, as well as how how I
Speaker 3: perceive stressers now and into the future, and how that
Speaker 3: might make me more vulnerable to burnout. One that's really
Speaker 3: interesting that I'd want to hit on a little bit
Speaker 3: because I think a lot of people can relate to
Speaker 3: this one is we hear a lot about grit, that
Speaker 3: grit is a good thing, the ability to persevere and
Speaker 3: work through things, you know, big hard challenges, And we
Speaker 3: find that a lot of people who go through really
Speaker 3: advanced education, like physicians go through you know, med school
Speaker 3: and then residency fellowship, that they learn how to persevere,
Speaker 3: like they have grit, like nobody's business sort of thing.
Speaker 3: So I started digging into that, and sure enough, there
Speaker 3: are studies that show that that grit protects people from burnout.
Speaker 2: So, according to a twenty eighteen paper, the relationship between grit,
Speaker 2: burnout and well being in emergency medicine residence, grit is
Speaker 2: this personality trait marked by perseverance and passion for long
Speaker 2: term goals, especially over a sustained period of time, and
Speaker 2: this study found that residence with higher grit appear to
Speaker 2: be less likely to experience burnout. So how do you
Speaker 2: know if you're gritty? If you're the Philadelphia Flyers hockey
Speaker 2: team mascot Gritty, a huge furry orange thing whose lore
Speaker 2: involves being disturbed from his secret hideout while the Wells
Speaker 2: Fargo Stadium was being built, you definitely have grit because
Speaker 2: Gritty gets his name from the grit of the Flyers team.
Speaker 2: Because when you're from Philly, you go through things like
Speaker 2: corrupt public officials and winter. Now, Gritty looks kind of
Speaker 2: like a Jim Henson character who owns more than one bong,
Speaker 2: and he was designed to represent someone that you'd high
Speaker 2: five but not hug, and they really got that dialed in.
Speaker 2: So gritty has grit. Maybe you're not gritty, but you
Speaker 2: have grit. There's a test for that. It's called the
Speaker 2: Grit Scale, and grit I just learned this. It's not
Speaker 2: just about like someone who'd rubbed dirt, no wound. It
Speaker 2: actually stands for something that stands for growth, resilience, instinct,
Speaker 2: and tenacity and this scholar author and psychologist doctor Angela
Speaker 2: Duckworth pioneered a test for it, which includes statements like
Speaker 2: setbacks don't discourage me. I finish whatever I begin. And
Speaker 2: this quiz tragically honestly reads like a reverse assessment for ADHD,
Speaker 2: which we cover in depth on our three part ADHD
Speaker 2: episode linked in the show notes with doctor Russell Barkley,
Speaker 2: and we'll also cover NERD divergence later in this episode.
Speaker 2: So the Grid Scale, though has its critics, scores are
Speaker 2: kind of said to be in line with higher GPAs
Speaker 2: for students and spelling beach championships and military academy success.
Speaker 2: But as doctor Ween's explains, it's not an immunity amulet
Speaker 2: to future despair.
Speaker 3: But in my case, I thought, you know what, I'm
Speaker 3: a really gritty person. I'm kind of off the scales
Speaker 3: when it comes to grit. But why did I get
Speaker 3: burned out? Well, my theory and what I found through
Speaker 3: my research is that grit without self awareness can get
Speaker 3: you in trouble. Oh, it may serve us really well
Speaker 3: to get through things like medical school or whatever, these
Speaker 3: hard things are that you're working for, but then at
Speaker 3: some point that pattern and those ways of working become
Speaker 3: so ingrained in us that we lose track of loose
Speaker 3: sight of the fact that it's actually pretty unhealthy for
Speaker 3: us to keep going at that pace.
Speaker 2: When you do research on this, how do you approach that?
Speaker 2: Do you have to go and find subjects? Where do
Speaker 2: you even start? I imagine people who are going through
Speaker 2: a burnout are like, I don't have time to talk to you.
Speaker 3: Oh, totally. I was worried about that. Actually, when I
Speaker 3: started my first study, which was my dissertation, I thought, Okay,
Speaker 3: here's what I want to do. I want to find
Speaker 3: people who are in probably one of the most stressful
Speaker 3: jobs I've ever been exposed to. And a lot of
Speaker 3: my clients were really busy on physicians and clinicians. And
Speaker 3: then there are a number of physicians who have both
Speaker 3: clinical responsibility and then they also have leadership responsibility. So
Speaker 3: I thought, Okay, let me study chief medical officers because
Speaker 3: I know I've worked with a number of them and
Speaker 3: they just the pressure and the demands on them is
Speaker 3: just like so extreme. So I thought, but wait, they're
Speaker 3: probably not going to talk to me or it will
Speaker 3: be extremely hard to get on their calendar. Well, I
Speaker 3: was actually surprised because many of them wanted to sign
Speaker 3: up when they heard that I was studying stress and burnout.
Speaker 3: They were like, oh, let's talk about that. I have
Speaker 3: some thoughts. I want to tell you my experience. So
Speaker 3: I started studying that group of people, and the findings
Speaker 3: were really the basis of what turned into more research.
Speaker 3: The next big study I did was with over two
Speaker 3: hundred police chiefs and other senior law enforcement officers. So
Speaker 3: again I went after what profession do I think has
Speaker 3: you know, very regular, very high stress for very long
Speaker 3: periods of time. And sure enough, you know, when I
Speaker 3: studied police chiefs along with the chief medical officers, what
Speaker 3: I would have them do was first tell me, like,
Speaker 3: on a scale of one to ten, how would you
Speaker 3: characterize your stress with ten being worst possible, zero no stress,
Speaker 3: and the ones who showed up as a seven or above,
Speaker 3: which think about that for a second. They were telling
Speaker 3: me that their stress for a long period of time
Speaker 3: is severe, very severe, or worse possible, And then I
Speaker 3: have them, I actually measure them. I have a psychometric
Speaker 3: tool that a lot of researchers use.
Speaker 2: So this quiz is the burnout Risk Assessment, and it's
Speaker 2: included in her book, and it asks participants to rate
Speaker 2: their degree of agreement or disagreement with statements like I
Speaker 2: feel comfortable asking others for help when I'm stressed out.
Speaker 2: I'm experiencing a lot of conflict with other people at work,
Speaker 2: I'm working longer and harder than I want to. My
Speaker 2: stress level does not feel sustainable, and I feel emotionally
Speaker 2: exhausted at the end.
Speaker 3: Of the workday.
Speaker 2: So this burnout risk assessment, it's kind of like a
Speaker 2: quiz in a magazine about like should I have a threesome?
Speaker 2: But instead it's used to determine feelings like does my
Speaker 2: life stress make me wish I was a box turtle
Speaker 2: so I can hibernate five months out of the year.
Speaker 2: That's what it boils down to.
Speaker 3: So I found that there's this unique population of people
Speaker 3: who have this high level seven or above stress for
Speaker 3: a long period of time, but they're not burned out.
Speaker 3: So then I conduct very in depth interviews with them,
Speaker 3: sometimes speak to them multiple times or follow them over
Speaker 3: a couple of months period to really dig in and
Speaker 3: understand what are they doing to protect themselves. And that's
Speaker 3: really the basis of the research. But aside from these
Speaker 3: really high stress jobs, I also interview people who are
Speaker 3: frontline workers and bartenders and barristas and babysitters, people who
Speaker 3: just experience everyday stress that a lot of people can
Speaker 3: relate to.
Speaker 2: And we're going to talk about money issues in a bit.
Speaker 2: Especially in the medical field. I've heard from so many
Speaker 2: friends who are going through med school. It's just beyond
Speaker 2: I mean, you're learning everything for the first time, you're studying,
Speaker 2: you're on the floor, you're expected to work twenty hour shifts.
Speaker 2: How does the medical field come into this when a
Speaker 2: lot of the culture and the work around it is
Speaker 2: already pretty fucked up.
Speaker 3: It is really and this is one of the things
Speaker 3: that some of my colleagues and I have really been
Speaker 3: looking at is I did a study with a number
Speaker 3: of physicians who wanted to look at you know, why
Speaker 3: are our residents and fellows getting so burned out. Why
Speaker 3: is the rate so high and why are they not
Speaker 3: coming forward to ask for help? First of all, in
Speaker 3: the medical professions, there's a lot of stigma around coming
Speaker 3: forward about mental health issues, and there's a lot of
Speaker 3: concern that if I raise my hand and ask for help,
Speaker 3: that's like shameful. I should not be asking for help.
Speaker 3: I should be an expert. I've been getting straight e's
Speaker 3: throughout college and medical school, and now I don't know
Speaker 3: what the fuck I'm doing. And then there's a lot
Speaker 3: of pressure on me. And so if I'm the one
Speaker 3: out of these other twelve residents who raises my hand
Speaker 3: and asks for help, what is that going to say
Speaker 3: about me? And so there's that kind of culture, and
Speaker 3: I'm seeing it change in some institutions, which is a
Speaker 3: good sign. But we need more research on this. We
Speaker 3: need more just awareness of what's going on. What are
Speaker 3: the cultural conditions that are really both causing the burnout
Speaker 3: but also preventing people from coming forward and asking for help.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of folks too who just
Speaker 2: are feeling so burned out from you know, four and
Speaker 2: a half years of a pandemic from lockdown, from increased
Speaker 2: screen time, from decreased social interactions. For more on some
Speaker 2: current stressors too, you can see our episode on Genocideology
Speaker 2: with genocide expert doctor Dirkmosis, or just look at the
Speaker 2: news in any capacity. So we've been trained to be
Speaker 2: on high alert looking for information at all hours of
Speaker 2: the day and night. Is there something about the way
Speaker 2: that we are so tethered to devices that doesn't allow
Speaker 2: us to rest the part of our brains or our
Speaker 2: souls that need it.
Speaker 3: Totally? Yeah, totally. It's become so common like if you
Speaker 3: walk through any airport, I mean just about any where
Speaker 3: you go a bus or train stations or whatever, you
Speaker 3: see people on their phones. Like how often do you
Speaker 3: actually go through a public place where more people are
Speaker 3: engaging and talking to each other. It's much more common
Speaker 3: that people are looking at their devices. So there's that
Speaker 3: there's not enough time for people to really take their
Speaker 3: brains offline, because when our brains are always online, even
Speaker 3: if we're consuming good productive content, it's not allowing your
Speaker 3: brain or your psyche enough time to rest and burnout
Speaker 3: for the most part, is a psychological syndrome. And so
Speaker 3: when we're not giving our psyche a break, it's more
Speaker 3: likely that we're going to be susceptible to burnout.
Speaker 2: And you can see our recent episode about fun with
Speaker 2: Catherine Price, who also wrote the book How To Break
Speaker 2: Up with Your Phone, The Thirty Day Plan to take
Speaker 2: Back Your Life. What about working hours? Because our open
Speaker 2: signs are just kind of always on. We're like, I
Speaker 2: go my phone on me, Like we're always at a
Speaker 2: computer because it's in our pocket. Has it been helpful
Speaker 2: for some people to be like I start work at
Speaker 2: nine and I'm off at five point thirty and no
Speaker 2: one can tell me otherwise. Although even if you did that,
Speaker 2: what have you got kids and they're like need food
Speaker 2: and bathing. It's like, this is obviously from someone who's
Speaker 2: dog is asleep very gently in the corner because I
Speaker 2: could not handle kids. But like, where do you start
Speaker 2: to put limits on it so that your psyche can
Speaker 2: sort of repair itself.
Speaker 3: That's that's the question of the day that each of
Speaker 3: us needs to really do some soul searching on. Here's
Speaker 3: how I look at it and how I think about it.
Speaker 3: This has been one of the most helpful things for
Speaker 3: me because during this research, which I consider to be
Speaker 3: action research, meaning that when I was researching people, I
Speaker 3: was applying this stuff on myself. So one of the
Speaker 3: things I've learned and I still use to this day
Speaker 3: is to do just a daily or for me sometimes
Speaker 3: it's even a couple of times a day, just to
Speaker 3: quick check in, like where am I on my stress curve?
Speaker 3: So if you think about like we all need a
Speaker 3: little bit of stress or even some good amount of
Speaker 3: stress to feel motivated and engaged in all of that.
Speaker 3: It gets us motivated and makes us want to perform
Speaker 3: and do good things for the world and other people
Speaker 3: and all that. But then at some point we get
Speaker 3: way too much stress, like way more things to do
Speaker 3: with all the kids and all the home things and
Speaker 3: all that that we get out of what we call
Speaker 3: the sweet spot of stress. So the exercise where I
Speaker 3: really find a lot about value is just checking in
Speaker 3: to see have I tipped over past my sweet spot
Speaker 3: of stress? Not just today, but like if I were
Speaker 3: to think about this past week and how it's gone
Speaker 3: for me, what am I doing and what is it
Speaker 3: really doing to me? So what am I doing to
Speaker 3: take care of myself and how is that really helping
Speaker 3: me create conditions to keep me in a zone in
Speaker 3: a sweet spot of stress where I'm really challenged and engaged,
Speaker 3: but I'm not flipping out and breaking down and burning out,
Speaker 3: or what am I doing that's not good for me?
Speaker 3: Maybe huh okay, turns out that I'm saying yes to everything,
Speaker 3: I'm not setting boundaries, or I set boundaries, but I
Speaker 3: don't uphold them. How can I focus on the things
Speaker 3: I can control to keep myself in that zone of
Speaker 3: sweet spot of stress?
Speaker 2: So what if you're in a sour spot? Not sweet
Speaker 2: at all? So Doctor Weans writes in her book that
Speaker 2: optimism can prolong longevity if you do want to live longer.
Speaker 2: But also optimism going into stress can help you make
Speaker 2: choices that kind of better equip you to handle the stress.
Speaker 2: And some of those choices are like engaging in more
Speaker 2: movement or less alcohol or tobacco consumption. And if doctor
Speaker 2: Weans knows she's going to have a tough week, like
Speaker 2: the day we recorded this, she had a few important meetings,
Speaker 2: and then right after we stopped recording this, she was
Speaker 2: headed straight to a big book signing event. Or if
Speaker 2: she feels overloaded, she dials down some things and adds others,
Speaker 2: you know, not.
Speaker 3: Drinking, eating really well, exercise, and getting enough sleep. I
Speaker 3: know those things for sure will set me up for
Speaker 3: a day or two of just good clarity and good
Speaker 3: a good ability to focus, and a good ability to
Speaker 3: tolerate stress that I knew was going to come along.
Speaker 3: And sure enough, today is one of those days where
Speaker 3: I've got both the bad kind of stress, the threat
Speaker 3: response kind of stress, as well as some good challenge
Speaker 3: response kind of stress coming on. So I feel good
Speaker 3: about what I did the last several days just to
Speaker 3: help set myself up to be able to handle today
Speaker 3: really well. And then I also know that at the
Speaker 3: end of today, because it's going to be a long
Speaker 3: day and there's a lot going on, I know that
Speaker 3: I have a really fun dinner to look forward to.
Speaker 3: Right it will be a long day, but I get
Speaker 3: to go do a book signing that I'm looking forward to,
Speaker 3: and I get toep dinner with three people that I
Speaker 3: absolutely love in a door. So those are just like
Speaker 3: for example, for me, it's all about not just how
Speaker 3: do you manage stress in the moment or how do
Speaker 3: you take care of yourself afterwards, but it's also what
Speaker 3: do you do to set yourself up when you know
Speaker 3: you're going to go into a period of high stress.
Speaker 3: M hm.
Speaker 2: That makes total sense. Can I ask you some questions
Speaker 2: from lastener?
Speaker 3: Sure, it's okay.
Speaker 2: We have a lot because I think a lot a
Speaker 2: lot of people are feeling very burned out. But before
Speaker 2: we get to your questions about capitalism and neurodivergence and
Speaker 2: prevention of burnout, we're going to donate to a charity
Speaker 2: of doctor Bean's choice, and she selected the Lorna Breen
Speaker 2: Heroes Foundation, whose mission is to reduce burnout of healthcare
Speaker 2: professionals and to safeguard their well being and their job satisfaction.
Speaker 2: And they also worked to pass in twenty twenty two
Speaker 2: the Doctor Laurna Breen Healthcare Provider Protection Act, which supported
Speaker 2: healthcare workers' mental health and wellbeing. And we're actually going
Speaker 2: to hear a little bit more about that backstory in
Speaker 2: a few minutes, but they're linked in the show notes
Speaker 2: at doctor Laurnabreen dot org. And that donation was made
Speaker 2: possible by sponsors of the show, who you may hear
Speaker 2: about now. Okay, on to your questions. This one's right
Speaker 2: on the money. A lot of people Jess Sidney Knig, Anna,
Speaker 2: Lauren Jacob Shepherd, Olivia Rermple, Earli Gramlkin, Jennifer Farrow, Brianna
Speaker 2: l Vanessa Adams, Dana Coohello. All wanted to know, in
Speaker 2: Jesse's words, how do you deal with it when you
Speaker 2: got to have a job to, you know, live this
Speaker 2: capitalist world? And I asked about is burnout primarily a
Speaker 2: phenomenon of living working in such an intensely capitalist system?
Speaker 2: Does burnout exist outside of capitalism?
Speaker 3: Well? I need the names of everybody who submitted that
Speaker 3: question because I want to send them all a handwritten
Speaker 3: thank you note for asking that question, because those are
Speaker 3: the kind of questions that we need to be asking.
Speaker 3: And I would say one is to focus on what
Speaker 3: I call meaningful connections. And so for people who actually
Speaker 3: in these kinds of experiences like their jobs, they might
Speaker 3: even love their jobs, but there's just too much of
Speaker 3: it and there's not enough breaks, and they feel the
Speaker 3: capitalism sort of pressure is to be very clear about
Speaker 3: the things and the people in your life that bring.
Speaker 4: Meaning to you.
Speaker 3: And that means getting super clear on what your values are.
Speaker 3: And values might be really small things like I value
Speaker 3: a good night's sleep. I need to get at least
Speaker 3: six seven hours of sleep a night or more, or
Speaker 3: a big value like I value quality time with my
Speaker 3: partner or with my pets, even just sitting down with
Speaker 3: my dog for half an hour every day, and just
Speaker 3: like connecting with my dog.
Speaker 2: Or your human children, doctor Weens has three of them.
Speaker 2: Or maybe it's volunteering at a raccoon rehab center, or whittling,
Speaker 2: or bird watching or coding or reading about sci fi apocalypses,
Speaker 2: whatever makes you go, ah, that's so good. I like this.
Speaker 3: And maybe the big thing for all of us to
Speaker 3: be thinking about is that for many of us, the
Speaker 3: type of companies that we work in are not going
Speaker 3: to change the fact that they are capitalist oriented organizations.
Speaker 3: They just it's not going to happen overnight. So how
Speaker 3: do we continue to operate and survive in these conditions?
Speaker 3: Will also creating workplaces where there are microcultures that support
Speaker 3: people to raise their hands when they need help, to
Speaker 3: not make them feel bad when they need to take
Speaker 3: a mental health day off.
Speaker 2: So if you run a company or if you manage people,
Speaker 2: you can be part of the solution rather than the problem. Now,
Speaker 2: if you're undergoing this, Also if you're on the receiving
Speaker 2: side and you feel like you have no power, consider
Speaker 2: asking other employees if they're having similar experiences, and maybe
Speaker 2: approach management as a unified force and you can remind
Speaker 2: your bosses that more burnout leads to higher turnover and
Speaker 2: staff and also reduced efficiency at your job. Now, what
Speaker 2: if you were raised Catholic like me? So many patrons
Speaker 2: asked about guilt, such as Jennifer Frow who said, why
Speaker 2: do I feel so much guilt when not working full time? Mom?
Speaker 2: And author Sam Wise asked about this, Rebecca Fitchett, Sarah
Speaker 2: Man's and Mims, who asked, how do you stop yourself
Speaker 2: from feeling guilty about needing a break? Asking for me
Speaker 2: Mims not alone. A bunch of people wanted to know,
Speaker 2: in when Constantini's words, how can people deal with the
Speaker 2: shame and guilt that comes with literally not being able
Speaker 2: to be productive? Mouse Pakston wan show any tips on
Speaker 2: feeling guilty when you're too burned out to do things
Speaker 2: with people?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was my experience for a long period of time,
Speaker 3: and I felt like I should not be raising my
Speaker 3: hand because everybody else around me is going through the
Speaker 3: grind and performing in there. They don't see him burned out.
Speaker 3: So I was carrying that shame, and then the shame
Speaker 3: creates more stress. So it's a total vicious cycle which
Speaker 3: you've got to get up yourself off that hamster wheel
Speaker 3: as quick as you can, the sooner you can find
Speaker 3: someone to connect with, you know, whether it's someone that's
Speaker 3: currently in our circle of relationships or a professional that
Speaker 3: we can reach out to. It's sometimes really just starts
Speaker 3: with one conversation with the right person to get a
Speaker 3: head start on the support and the help that you need.
Speaker 2: And in her book, doctor Weans explains that excess pressure
Speaker 2: on yourself like should statements impose a set of expectations
Speaker 2: that aren't likely to be met because they aren't grouded
Speaker 2: in reality, like it's not possible to make zero mistakes,
Speaker 2: and believing that you should be flawless just sets you
Speaker 2: up for a lot of self blame and shame and guilt.
Speaker 2: And she calls this a form of thinking trap or
Speaker 2: a cognitive distortion that you pull on yourself. And it's
Speaker 2: about as effective, from my experience as punching yourself and
Speaker 2: the kidneys.
Speaker 3: So what do you.
Speaker 2: Do if misplaced guilt is ruining your life? Doctor Wiens
Speaker 2: tells a story of a physician's assistant she met who
Speaker 2: went through therapy and learned that her work guilt was
Speaker 2: itself a stress response and it stemmed from a traumatic
Speaker 2: event from childhood, which helped her tap into self compassion instead,
Speaker 2: so she was able to brush it off and not
Speaker 2: take the guilt seriously giving herself a damn break, because again,
Speaker 2: giving yourself a break and some self compassion and lowering
Speaker 2: the stakes could actually save your own life. And on
Speaker 2: that note, Daniel opdah Mean, Kelly Dueling, Si Rue and
Speaker 2: sugar Puff Dadykins asked, in sugar Puff Daddykins's words, can
Speaker 2: we please talk about mental illness and burnout? Yes, let's
Speaker 2: a bunch of people did kind of of ask about
Speaker 2: that mental health aspect too, and about reaching out, And
Speaker 2: like Cleb and Fearn, wanted to know if there are
Speaker 2: links between burnout and suicide. We just did a suicideology episode,
Speaker 2: So could burnout ever lead to suicidal ideation for people?
Speaker 3: It does? Yeah, there is a correlation there, you know,
Speaker 3: studies are showing that. But we've also heard stories of
Speaker 3: individuals who are suicidal with previous history of expressing stress
Speaker 3: and burnout issues, and we do see higher rates within
Speaker 3: the medical profession for examples. That's where some of these
Speaker 3: studies have been done. And I hear actual stories like
Speaker 3: this is really sad, but I hear I would say,
Speaker 3: at least one story a year from someone that's close
Speaker 3: to me, someone that I work with, that I know well,
Speaker 3: telling me that someone who's a resident or a fellow
Speaker 3: that they know of or mentored or something like that,
Speaker 3: you know, died by suicide. Fortunately, we've got some organizations
Speaker 3: out there that are working of as hard as they
Speaker 3: possibly can, and they have some really dedicated, talented people,
Speaker 3: like the Lorna Breen Foundation. It's one that I'm starting
Speaker 3: to get involved in.
Speaker 2: And doctor Lorna Breen, who we talked about and whose
Speaker 2: foundation we donated to, was an emergency medicine physician who
Speaker 2: died by suicide in late April of twenty twenty. After
Speaker 2: being on the front lines of COVID and despite having
Speaker 2: no known mental health difficulties prior, experienced a burnout and
Speaker 2: a fear of poor performance that was so intense that
Speaker 2: it led to her taking her own life, and the
Speaker 2: foundation started in her honor. States that in the US,
Speaker 2: four hundred physicians die each year by suicide. And female
Speaker 2: physicians are more at risk, especially in emergency medicine. And
Speaker 2: for more on these statistics you can see the twenty
Speaker 2: ten study Burnout, Hopelessness and Suicide Risk in Medical Doctors,
Speaker 2: which concluded that even fifteen years ago, people in charge
Speaker 2: of workers' health should pay particular attention to the burnout
Speaker 2: and doctors and interview with changes in the work environment.
Speaker 2: Another twenty twelve study titled high Risk Occupations for Suicide
Speaker 2: found that there were increases in rates of suicide in
Speaker 2: the occupations of coal mining and construction laborers too. And
Speaker 2: I've gotten questions in the past about veterinary medicine and
Speaker 2: mental health, and there was a twenty fifteen paper suicide
Speaker 2: in Veterinary Medicine, Let's talk about it and its cites.
Speaker 2: The rate of suicide in the veterinary profession has been
Speaker 2: pegged at more than twice that of the medical profession
Speaker 2: and four times the rate of the general population, and
Speaker 2: the American Veterinary Medical Association said that burnout among animal
Speaker 2: healthcare workers is even higher lately due to higher expectations
Speaker 2: for pet owners, overwhelming workloads, the impact of the global pandemic,
Speaker 2: educational debts, and this was surprising instances of cyberbullying are
Speaker 2: taking a toll, which then leads to compassion fatigue, which
Speaker 2: is this physical and emotional exhaustion that can result from
Speaker 2: caring too much about your job. High stakes matters and
Speaker 2: from vets to vet's. Military personnel are also experiencing post
Speaker 2: traumatic stressors and burnout, and we go more into depth
Speaker 2: on that in the Traumatology episode too, which we'll link
Speaker 2: in the show notes. So jobs are hard in a
Speaker 2: lot of sectors. The world is tough, and of course
Speaker 2: people are trying to help. The helpers like the doctor
Speaker 2: Laura Bring Heroes Foundation Doctor Wing continues and.
Speaker 3: That foundation is doing some incredible research and some incredible
Speaker 3: just like philanthropy, work to change the way hospitals evaluate
Speaker 3: their physicians and the types of conditions that physicians work under.
Speaker 2: You mentioned working with police chiefs and medical residents and
Speaker 2: chief medical officers. What do we see about burnout On
Speaker 2: the other side of the finance scale, where, like Tyler
Speaker 2: Bates asked, how does one balance not working extra because
Speaker 2: of burnout but when you low key need the money.
Speaker 2: Tao also known as Nasty garden Rat says, what's the
Speaker 2: effect of money or financial stability on burnout. My job
Speaker 2: had me so exhausted at eighteen dollars an hour, but
Speaker 2: much less so a twenty even though I'm doing the
Speaker 2: same work. Still burned out though woof, they say, Dave
Speaker 2: Cannon want to know, would winning the lotto help burnout?
Speaker 2: Or is it something deeper? When you've got to grind
Speaker 2: or you need that grit because you're working three jobs,
Speaker 2: how can you even begin to start to balance that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, I would say, first of all, I think
Speaker 3: one of the things we haven't really talked about is
Speaker 3: that oftentimes people characterize what they're feeling and experiencing is burnout.
Speaker 3: When these examples you just shared, I wonder a little
Speaker 3: bit it may not be burnout. It may actually be overwhelmed, overwork, overfunctioning,
Speaker 3: meaning that you have just way too much work, not
Speaker 3: enough resources, not enough time, not enough support. A lot
Speaker 3: of those people are just overworked and overextended. The remedy
Speaker 3: for people who are overworked is oftentimes more recovery time
Speaker 3: in the form of not just I don't mean just
Speaker 3: like vacations or spot days and all that, I mean
Speaker 3: micro recoveries where you're truly take a mental, physical, psychological
Speaker 3: break and you are forcing yourself, like really intentionally creating
Speaker 3: space in your life where you are connecting to the
Speaker 3: things and the people in your life. You're giving yourself
Speaker 3: positive energy to offset the feelings of overwork so that
Speaker 3: you can create have that psychological capacity so you can
Speaker 3: go to your boss and say, I've been working seventy
Speaker 3: hour weeks for the last however long, I can't do
Speaker 3: it anymore, like this is what it's doing to me.
Speaker 3: So the goal is to help people get the psychological
Speaker 3: strength to go to their leaders or whoever and say,
Speaker 3: here's what I need in order to be my most
Speaker 3: effective at work.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, if you're thinking every day, one day, I'll
Speaker 2: just go to an island for a week and I
Speaker 2: will fix all of this, it's actually easier than that.
Speaker 2: I mean, yes, it's wonderful to have something to look
Speaker 2: forward to, and this positive anticipation has been shown in
Speaker 2: studies to fight depression. But it doesn't have to be
Speaker 2: an exp bensive escape to a piece of land in
Speaker 2: an ocean. You can create a tiny, little safe space
Speaker 2: every day, even for ten minutes, sitting and meditating, listening
Speaker 2: to chill music and closing your eyes, breathing deeply reading
Speaker 2: a chapter in a book or doing a craft. And
Speaker 2: I know it might feel more stressful at the beginning
Speaker 2: to carve that time out. Trust me, you're like, I
Speaker 2: have no time, How can I possibly do this? Or
Speaker 2: maybe you have to wake up a little earlier than
Speaker 2: your kids or work, or you have to ask for
Speaker 2: support to carve out that time. It might not feel
Speaker 2: like it's helping immediately, but the routine of doing something,
Speaker 2: even for ten minutes a day that feels chill and
Speaker 2: feels like a treat that's not scrolling, helps you know
Speaker 2: that you have that little respite daily reliably and that
Speaker 2: you have your own back. And I wanted to get
Speaker 2: back to this because you were mentioning the people who
Speaker 2: don't experience burn out even though they're in the seven
Speaker 2: to ten scale. What did you find in your research
Speaker 2: that was common to that. I'm like, are they just associopaths?
Speaker 2: Do they not feel me emotions?
Speaker 4: Or do they have like really good recovery systems?
Speaker 3: Exactly? That's what I wonder too, Like who are these
Speaker 3: people they have? Like I don't know, were they raised
Speaker 3: by unusually cool headed parents or they have like Jedi
Speaker 3: mind tricks that they play on themselves so that they
Speaker 3: can survive in some crazy stressful environment. I mean, that's
Speaker 3: exactly what I went after in my research. That was
Speaker 3: my primary research question. So a lot of it has
Speaker 3: to do with our emotional intelligence. That's the whole basis
Speaker 3: of my research in the book, is that stress creates
Speaker 3: emotional responses. So it's learning as much as we possibly
Speaker 3: can about how we respond emotionally to different types of stressors.
Speaker 3: That includes things like understanding what triggers my stress, and
Speaker 3: not just what triggers me and ticks me off, but
Speaker 3: what's underneath that, where did that come from, what happened
Speaker 3: in my past that led me to have this trigger.
Speaker 2: So it's not just about avoiding stress and highly but
Speaker 2: understanding and clocking your own reactions to it and your
Speaker 2: own unique sensitivities to it.
Speaker 3: So emotional self awareness is a big attribute that these
Speaker 3: people with burnout immunity have. They're very in tune with
Speaker 3: their emotional response to stress, very clear on what their
Speaker 3: triggers are, what ticks them off. They're also clear on
Speaker 3: what makes them tick, you know, what motivates them, what
Speaker 3: gives them good positive energy, and then they're able to regulate.
Speaker 3: This is the emotional regulation part of emotional intelligence. They're
Speaker 3: able to regulate their emotions, their thoughts, and their behaviors
Speaker 3: working in very stressful conditions. But just emotional self awareness
Speaker 3: and emotional regulation are some of the big cornerstones of
Speaker 3: creating burnout immunity. But it's also things like staying really
Speaker 3: connected to your values, to people that you love, meaningful relationships.
Speaker 3: It also has a lot to do with your outlook
Speaker 3: on life. Some people thrive in certain conditions better because
Speaker 3: they're look on that type of end environment is more positive,
Speaker 3: and so that passion, that calling that they felt is
Speaker 3: protective our general mindset and the way we think about
Speaker 3: the world, the way we think about work.
Speaker 2: So emotional awareness and regulation being the cornerstone of burnout
Speaker 2: immunity means a bit more challenge to folks who are neurodivergent.
Speaker 2: My hand is raised right now now. The National Institutes
Speaker 2: of Health ADHD Support Toolkit recommends people wanting to support
Speaker 2: someone with ADHD up their empathy and refrain from blaming
Speaker 2: and shaming someone who's struggling to handle a heavy load
Speaker 2: with executive function issues. So be patient, be empathetic, and
Speaker 2: it encourages for those with ADHD to take short breaks
Speaker 2: during tasks that require continued focus. And there's this brand
Speaker 2: new study in twenty twenty four titled Executive Function Deficits
Speaker 2: mediate the relationship between employees, ADHD and job burnout and
Speaker 2: have found that hell yeah, lower executive function contributes to
Speaker 2: faster burnout and fatigue. Not to mention masking, which is
Speaker 2: a term that means you spend a ton of your
Speaker 2: energy pretending to be neurotypical in a world built for
Speaker 2: this productive grind of working like ten hours a day,
Speaker 2: usually sitting at a desk, and this masking is common
Speaker 2: in autistic adults and kids as well, and Stanford Medical
Speaker 2: School has a neurodiversity project and one presenter, Katie Oswald,
Speaker 2: laid out that autistic burnout arises from chronic life stress
Speaker 2: and this mismatch of expectations and abilities without adequate support.
Speaker 2: And symptoms include long term, typically over three months, exhaustion
Speaker 2: and loss of function and a reduced response to stimuli.
Speaker 2: And some causes of this autistic burnout are life stressors
Speaker 2: and masking and cumulative overwhelm, lack of empathy and dismissal
Speaker 2: of struggles, and lack of support from others but it
Speaker 2: recommends some interventions like pure led support groups and meditation
Speaker 2: and exercise, Trauma informed care, art therapy, animal assisted therapy,
Speaker 2: and interventions that are pure led help a lot. So
Speaker 2: without this kind of support and empathy shown from others
Speaker 2: and ourselves, it's much harder to maintain this optimism and
Speaker 2: self confidence and self care like rest and time away
Speaker 2: from screens and healthy hobbies that we need to avoid burnout.
Speaker 2: But for all of us, Doctor Ween's has a chapter
Speaker 2: that details how to recover from burnout using what she's
Speaker 2: coined the three R prescription or a three RX, and
Speaker 2: that means recover, reconnect, and reimagine. And she acknowledges with
Speaker 2: the recovery that a certain painful irony exists that comes
Speaker 2: along with recommending tips and strategies for making a full
Speaker 2: burnout recovery, because the ultimate responsibility for burnout recovery and
Speaker 2: certainly prevention lies with the employer, she writes, not the employee.
Speaker 2: But we can try to do what's in our control.
Speaker 2: And sometimes you can't get better in the environ that's
Speaker 2: making you sick, in which case you got a balance,
Speaker 2: but you can try to change your mindset and set
Speaker 2: boundaries and the reconnect R involves getting in touch with
Speaker 2: things outside of work like people and hobbies and downtime
Speaker 2: and group activities, or even your values or your vision
Speaker 2: of your ideal self. And then the third R helps
Speaker 2: you reimagine your life going forward. So she details all
Speaker 2: these strategies in her book, but they can help you
Speaker 2: regulate your approach to stress and the emotions that come
Speaker 2: up from it to lessen the impact on your life
Speaker 2: and your brain and your body. An emotional regulation, I understand,
Speaker 2: is not the same thing as stuffing your feelings down
Speaker 2: and not feeling that.
Speaker 3: That was me and a lot of us saying oh well,
Speaker 3: that will just make it all go away if I
Speaker 3: if I stuff it. I have one guy tell me,
Speaker 3: one of my research participants, he was a chief medical officer,
Speaker 3: told me that he was a professional stuffer, like stuff
Speaker 3: to stress like crazy until hand it up with diverticulitis,
Speaker 3: which is like really bad things happening to your intestines.
Speaker 2: Not to mention, of course, cardiac and metabolic disease and
Speaker 2: autoimmune diseases. And there was one study, a twenty eighteen
Speaker 2: paper association of stress related disorders with subsequent autoimmune disease
Speaker 2: and it found that yes, it's stress related disorders were
Speaker 2: significantly associated with increased risk of autoimmune disease. So being
Speaker 2: exposed to high stress and not having the outlets to
Speaker 2: cope or to explore it, or to get support, or
Speaker 2: essentially developing what psychologists call emotional intelligence or regulation can
Speaker 2: be deadly. Yeah. OI, no better to deal with the
Speaker 2: emotions than whatever's going on in them guts, you know.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I was like, I have an idea. What
Speaker 2: if I just don't feel the bad feelings and I
Speaker 2: scroll instead? Poof, I made them disappear.
Speaker 4: You didn't until they come back again and they hat
Speaker 4: you exactly.
Speaker 2: Well, this is okay, this is my last listener question,
Speaker 2: Matthew Walker, I mean so many people. Lady is a geek.
Speaker 2: KATIEB already wanted to know, in the lady's words, does
Speaker 2: burnout leave a scar? If you've had one burnout, are
Speaker 2: you more likely to have another or experience it more easily?
Speaker 2: Same thing? Katie had that question too. If you get
Speaker 2: at once, are you more predisposed to it?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: It depends what you do with that information. Totally depends
Speaker 3: on how you were able to recover from that burnout experience.
Speaker 3: And what did you learn from it? What do you
Speaker 3: not want to do again? Because all of us, when
Speaker 3: we're burned out, all of a sudden it becomes clear like,
Speaker 3: oh that's what was causing the burnout. Oh that's you
Speaker 3: know what triggered me. Oh that's what I wasn't doing,
Speaker 3: or that's what I was doing that made me more vulnerable.
Speaker 3: So it depends what you choose to do with that information.
Speaker 3: In my case, I was like hell bent on not
Speaker 3: ever getting burned out again. And I you know, like
Speaker 3: I said, when I was nine or ten, I never
Speaker 3: wanted to be a burnout expert. I never crossed my mind.
Speaker 3: But now I'm glad that I am because it forces
Speaker 3: me to really pay attention and I made a commitment
Speaker 3: to myself. I'm not going to let that happen again.
Speaker 3: I want to live a full, happy life while I'm here.
Speaker 3: I want to have stress in my life. I actually
Speaker 3: want to have good stress and stress that will challenge
Speaker 3: me and help me learn and grow. But I also know,
Speaker 3: like I have a limit. I need to be really
Speaker 3: really aware of what that limit is, and it's my
Speaker 3: responsibility to get myself out of it. And that doesn't
Speaker 3: mean and I get it. People might be wondering, well,
Speaker 3: I don't have the luxury of getting myself out of it.
Speaker 3: I didn't feel like I had the luxury either when
Speaker 3: I was burned out, so I took my time. It
Speaker 3: took me a couple of years for me to create
Speaker 3: an exit ramp and a path, a new plan for
Speaker 3: myself where I was going in a direction that I
Speaker 3: knew was going to be right for me and wasn't
Speaker 3: going to cause burnout for me.
Speaker 2: I think it's also interesting that everyone else can see
Speaker 2: you on an absolute crash course a mile away and
Speaker 2: you're like, nah, I got this. And a lot of
Speaker 2: times there's at least you know one or two people
Speaker 2: in your life that are like, you're going to burn out,
Speaker 2: and you're like, other people might burn out, not me,
Speaker 2: watch this, and then you're just in a day crying.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, denial. It's a thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I always ask people the worst thing about their job,
Speaker 2: and I am wondering, what is the hardest thing about
Speaker 2: your work in burnout?
Speaker 4: Oh, and not getting burned out?
Speaker 3: That's a Oh, it's a hard one, but maybe it's
Speaker 3: maybe it's actually an easy one. The hardest part for
Speaker 3: me is, well, I feel, really, I guess blessed that
Speaker 3: I get to hear that people feel comfortable opening up
Speaker 3: to me about their burnout experiences, and I feel honored
Speaker 3: that they do. So that's a good thing. But at
Speaker 3: the same time, the hard part about it is I
Speaker 3: want to help everybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would love.
Speaker 3: To take everybody under my wing and just say, you know,
Speaker 3: follow me, let's do these things and you're going to
Speaker 3: be just fine, and I promise you we're going to
Speaker 3: get you out of this. And I just I can't
Speaker 3: do that. I mean, I help as many people as
Speaker 3: I can, and then I also have my limits where
Speaker 3: it's just that that's what can cause me to burn
Speaker 3: out because I'm expressing so much empathy and compassion for
Speaker 3: other people that then it turns into me not having
Speaker 3: good boundaries for myself.
Speaker 2: What about the best thing about what you do?
Speaker 3: The best thing, I think is really just bringing awareness
Speaker 3: to something that so many people are struggling with. And
Speaker 3: after a speaking event or a podcaster and people will
Speaker 3: reach out and say, you know, your story really resonated
Speaker 3: with me. I felt like you were in my head.
Speaker 3: And I just feel super honored that people are opening
Speaker 3: up more about it. And my hope is that the
Speaker 3: more we talk about it, the more we bring awareness
Speaker 3: to it and try to really decrease the stigma associated
Speaker 3: with it, that we will start to see cultures change.
Speaker 3: But it's going to take people like me and you
Speaker 3: and others who have been burned out and recovered to
Speaker 3: get back in there and say, look, there are ways
Speaker 3: to create cultures where we can expect, you know, really
Speaker 3: high performance out of people, but also not to the
Speaker 3: point where we're going to lose them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2: I think speaking out about it is so helpful for
Speaker 2: me to hear other people talk about it and to
Speaker 2: that it's not just like a moral failing. I'm so
Speaker 2: glad I got a chance to talk to you. I
Speaker 2: imagine there's so many avenues you can go down. Do
Speaker 2: you see yourself doing this? Just wanting to ask and
Speaker 2: answer questions for you know, as long as you can.
Speaker 3: It's so fun and like that is one of the
Speaker 3: best parts in my job too. Like I've always been
Speaker 3: someone who's just naturally curious. I mean, I love researching itself,
Speaker 3: to go in there and dig into people's lives and
Speaker 3: really truly understand at an empirical level what is going
Speaker 3: on burnout is a phenomenon. So it's one of those
Speaker 3: things that we can get in there and study by time.
Speaker 3: But we need to talk to people and hear about
Speaker 3: their life experiences, and that's pretty fun.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's no shortage of need or examples.
Speaker 3: That's great, that's true.
Speaker 2: You are guaranteed a job in this culture and economy.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's a good thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, So ask experts amateur questions, because honestly, it
Speaker 2: might save your life. Now, this was recorded a month
Speaker 2: to a go when optimism and hope may have been
Speaker 2: easier to come by, so it might seem like easier
Speaker 2: said than done, which, let's be honest, that's like most
Speaker 2: things in life. But unfortunately, keeping tabs on your mental
Speaker 2: health is more important than ever because you're an ape
Speaker 2: wearing a shirt and you're really not built for this.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry to say so. Part of combating global stress
Speaker 2: is learning when it's getting to be too much and
Speaker 2: taking care of yourself in constructive and not just numbing
Speaker 2: and dissociating ways. Trust me, scrolling is not helping you,
Speaker 2: so heed my warnings please, And for more info, you
Speaker 2: can pick up Candy Ween's book Burnout Immunity, which will
Speaker 2: link in the show notes and will also link where
Speaker 2: you can follow and find out more about her work.
Speaker 2: So thank you so much for me and on Dr
Speaker 2: Ween's so you can learn more about Ologies and you
Speaker 2: can follow us at Ologies on Blue Sky and Instagram.
Speaker 2: You can find me at Ali Ward on both platforms.
Speaker 2: We also have a shorter kid friendly episode available in
Speaker 2: their own podcast feed. It's called Smologies. Wherever we get podcasts,
Speaker 2: you can look for the new green logo, which was
Speaker 2: designed by Portland artist's Body Dutch. We also have Ologies
Speaker 2: Merch available at ologiesmerch dot com, where they'll link in
Speaker 2: the show notes. Aaron Telbert adminsiologies podcast Facebook group. Aveline
Speaker 2: Malick makes our professional transcripts. Noel Dilworth is our scheduling producer.
Speaker 2: Kelly Ardwyer makes the website. Susan Hale managing directs the
Speaker 2: whole Shippang Jake Chafe co edits a show and lead
Speaker 2: editor and Canadian who is trying not to burn out
Speaker 2: with American and global genocide stressors is Mercedes Maitland of
Speaker 2: Maitland Audio. Nick thorburn Nick Thorp Burnout made the theme
Speaker 2: music and if you stick around until the end of
Speaker 2: the episode, I tell you secret. In this week it's
Speaker 2: I'm the ghost of Burnout, past and future, and I'm
Speaker 2: here to tell you, no matter how strong you are,
Speaker 2: or how good at suffering, or how much you want
Speaker 2: to fix the world, you have to take care of
Speaker 2: yourself or you will possibly be sick and sadder and
Speaker 2: less a able to do the things you want to
Speaker 2: to change the world. So I have been through that.
Speaker 2: I thought I was tougher than anyone else, and I
Speaker 2: thought I could just get through things. As you might know,
Speaker 2: last summer, I had an excruciating burnout that landed me
Speaker 2: in the hospital a few times, and then I had
Speaker 2: to take a bunch of time off and relearn how
Speaker 2: to talk to my own brain. So everyone warned me
Speaker 2: for years ahead of time I was going to burn out.
Speaker 2: I love this job. I love a lot of the
Speaker 2: jobs that I have and have had all at once,
Speaker 2: and I just didn't know how to live like a
Speaker 2: normal person. I was like, I'm a robot. I'm a machine.
Speaker 2: I keep work. No, so you're a person if you're
Speaker 2: listening to this, unless you're an AI, which is weird.
Speaker 2: But you're a person, and you got to take care
Speaker 2: of yourself. So when I do, which has been helping
Speaker 2: me a ton. I mentioned this in another episode, but
Speaker 2: I have a list of things that I do to
Speaker 2: keep myself alive, and I print it out. I check
Speaker 2: it off every day. It's helped so much in the
Speaker 2: last few months. Again, I print out a new shee
Speaker 2: every week. Each day I get a point for things
Speaker 2: like drinking at least sixty four ounces of water, or meditating,
Speaker 2: or going on a walk, or reading a book even
Speaker 2: one page, journaling, avoiding too much caffeine, avoiding alcohol, avoiding scrolling,
Speaker 2: doing a hobby. I love cross stitch because I can't
Speaker 2: use my phone and it's zero stakes, and for some
Speaker 2: reason it calms my nervous system. I literally get a
Speaker 2: point for showering and then I add up the points
Speaker 2: of the day to see how I'm doing. And it's
Speaker 2: kind of like a game to play. But doing something
Speaker 2: if you need to gamify it, if you need to
Speaker 2: have a checklist of stuff you do, don't do it
Speaker 2: because you have to do it, because you deserve to
Speaker 2: do it, and it'll start becoming a routine that helps.
Speaker 2: So checking in with yourself and giving your little ape brain.
Speaker 2: The comfort that you need takes less time than what
Speaker 2: you would spend staring into space and worrying. Whatever you
Speaker 2: want to do to contribute to a more just world,
Speaker 2: you'll be able to do it if you're nice to
Speaker 2: yourself first. So there is my secret. There's my advice
Speaker 2: to not grind yourself into a nub. The world needs
Speaker 2: you to take your survival and your health seriously, and I, honestly,
Speaker 2: as your dad, board as your internet dad, let me
Speaker 2: be a cautionary tale that it just doesn't work long term.
Speaker 2: You will nose dive at one point, and you deserve it.
Speaker 2: Every single person deserves to take care of themselves. So
Speaker 2: if you're still sitting under that tree or lying on
Speaker 2: the carpet, just think of things that make you happy
Speaker 2: and make you feel better, and please do them for yourself.
Speaker 2: Doesn't have to be a vacation. Okay, go drink some water,
Speaker 2: all right?
Speaker 3: Byebye?
Speaker 2: Pacodermatology, homeology, r doo zoology, lithology and technology, meteorology, paratology, napology, seriology, selenology.
Speaker 3: We all agree that you deserve a break.