WIRED and TIRED

This episode starts with an experience I had the other day, that we can all relate to.  The friend that says yes to too many things, the burnout you see on their face and hear in their voice.  We all know it but they can't seem to see it's destroying them from the inside out.  I'll end by giving you a simple and real life tool to carry with you daily, to use when you are feeling the burnout of your own life. This episode is short but packed with truths we all encounter.

Transcript

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I have to laugh because it is three o'clock in the morning, and while I normally wake up at four, I'm awake right now because uh honestly someone was weighing on my mind, and I figured instead of just tossing and turning, why not get up and talk about it? So yesterday I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, and what I saw well, the dark circles under her eyes were a bit darker than usual. And while I was listening to her talk, I noticed that she wasn't really breathing while she was talking, or more yelling. I guess it was that kind of I need to get this off my chest, but it makes me so mad or sad or just pissed off kind of loud. She wasn't really changing subjects as she explained to me the million things that were going wrong in her life. It really just sounded like one big run-on sentence about her overwhelm. And it was almost like the louder she yelled slash talked to me, I realized that the volume was probably due to the fact that she does not feel heard by anybody. And she was upping the volume in hopes that maybe someone would understand what it is that she's going through. So for background, she's a type of friend that says yes to absolutely everything. Because, well, she's good. Her heart is genuinely just good. But she's also the friend that forgets her own health and her own needs in pursuit of what I really don't know. I don't know a better world, recognition, control. I mean, what is it that any of us are actually saying yes to? I think in some small way we know that by saying yes to everything and doing everything and controlling everything, it is slowly killing us. And in some way, adding small levels of stress to our plate, on their own, the tasks that we agree to are doable and small. But as a whole, the more we add, the more we do in the bigger picture. Well, I guess that equals the dark circles from lack of sleep, the headaches, the common cold that keep creeping in, the unexplained muscle aches that we explain away as I must have slept wrong or something, the random midnight wakeups with a bad dream or worrying that most of the time is unnecessary. And the irony in all this is I am taking great care not to expose the identity of the friend that I'm talking about because I think she would be mortified. But I sit here and realize that any one of my friends listening to this episode could actually think that I'm talking about them. And I'm gonna guess that you probably feel this way sometimes too. So I really didn't know that this is where I was gonna go with this episode, but I guess it just seems really fitting. So let's talk nervous system. Right now, I'm not gonna get into all the science-y stuff, but more just focus on the sympathetic nervous system, which is our body's ability to go into active overdrive. And this system was designed perfectly for a real threat that might need to make you flee a situation or actually fight for your life. What this body's system was not designed for is the modern stressors that have become chronic and constant. The system was not meant to stay activated long term. And more importantly, when it is activated long term, when the body is in a state of releasing ongoing cortisol, it's actually keeping you stuck in survival mode. The effects of this on the body over time are things like anxiety, getting irritated at things that you wouldn't normally be irritated at, sleep deprivation, difficulty concentrating, burnout, increased heart rate, poor digestion, increased inflammation in the body, rapid weight gain or rapid weight loss. I think all of these things people face today, you can at least name two or three of these that are happening to you right now. And we often brush these things off, hoping that things will settle down eventually. And the problem with that is that these things are important. It's literally our body giving us feedback. The body is basically saying, please let me rest. I'll give you the energy you need for all the things that you agree to, but I need rest too. And if you don't give it to me, I am just gonna keep sending you new signals that will make it so that you have to slow down. I am very well aware that daily life stressors sometimes cannot be avoided. But what we can do is take a few minutes a day just to give the body the reset that it needs. And those few minutes don't need to be a dream or far reach. This is literally necessary for our bodies to continue going the way that we put pressure on them to do. And because we're all busy, and sometimes we just need something really quick to do the job, and no, I do not have a pill to offer you for this. Let's start with something really small that you can do at any time during the day. Personally, I love to do this right before bed. It's a really simple breathwork routine that is designed to slow the heart rate, reduce stress, and shuts down the fight or flight in our system. I like to look at this like it's basically a natural tranquilizer for the nervous system. And it's super simple. So again, you can do this at any time during the day, whatever that looks like for you. If you have to do it standing, you can sit, you can lay down, doesn't matter. You're just gonna start by inhaling to the count of four through the nose. I actually, when I do this, I say one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi. And that way I'm getting the actual counts. After you breathe in for four, you're gonna hold for a count of seven, and you're gonna breathe out through the mouth as slowly as you can for a count of eight. And you just continue to do this. Breathe in for four, hold for seven, and breathe out for eight. And whenever you find yourself talking to a friend, overexplaining or talking too fast, or feeling your heart rate go or yell talking, take a minute, step away, and try this. I have literally done this in as little as 10 of these breaths and felt the results of my heart rate slowing down. So it doesn't have to be more than a few minutes. If you have the time, you can definitely make it more than a few minutes. But give it a try and feel free to leave me some feedback about it. Anyways, thanks for joining me today and letting me share what's weighing on my mind. Till next time, everyone.