The secrets no one teaches us about breaking out of burnout
Friends, as I wrote about last week: when we’re burnt out, it’s a sign things aren’t working, and it’s time to #DoItDifferently — to slow down enough to disrupt our entrenched habits, and create space for a new future. Readers asked how to practically work with burnout — especially as we navigate the pandemic — and this week’s post is a synthesis of lessons I wish I’d learned years ago. Warmly, M.
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When we’re burnt out, being radically honest enough to acknowledge what’s unsustainable and reimagine our future isn’t easy.
There are usually very good reasons we haven’t changed the thing(s) burning us out — often protective, life-saving ones that helped us get to where we are today.
Plus, when we’re burnt out, stress hormones jam up our higher brain — making it hard to see the big picture — and we operate from our fearful and change-averse reptile brain.
So how do we begin to recover from burnout to see the changes we need to make?
The secret: we need to complete the stress cycle.
You see, stress has a beginning, middle, and end. At the start, there’s the stressor that triggers our stress response. Then there’s our reaction — fight, flight, freeze, or people please. And finally we metabolize the experience once the body realizes that the stressor has passed.
Now our bodies evolved to handle acute stress — to mobilize long enough to escape predators like lions. And once we know the stressor has passed, the body can relax (e.g., collapse, sleep), metabolize the experience (e.g., cry, shake the experience off), and return to a state of relaxed aliveness.
But in our modern world, most stressors are chronic (e.g., endless emails, 24/7 fearful news, systemic racism); and our bodies don’t get the signal that the stressors have passed. As a result, we get stuck in chronic fight/flight/freeze until we consciously complete the stress cycle by:
helping our body realize we’re safe,
physically metabolizing our experience, and
emotionally digesting the past so we can move on.
Doing so helps us shift from “high gear” (aka, the sympathetic nervous system’s fight/flight) to “low gear” (aka, the parasympathetic nervous system’s rest & digest).
How do we practically complete the stress cycle?
1. To help the body realize we’re safe, we need to cultivate cues of safety & connection.
The more signals of safety and belonging (i.e., the opposite of triggers), the easier it is to shift into a nervous system state of calm groundedness (aka, the ventral vagal state).
The fastest things we can do here are:
Consciously change our breathing. Our nervous system changes gears — from threat to rest & digest — when we extend our exhale, and rhythmically breathe from our diaphragm.
Positive social interactions. This is the first external sign that the world is safe. It can be as simple as chatting up a store clerk, petting our cats/dogs, or deep belly laughs. Laughter especially helps us tap ancient evolutionary systems developed to maintain social bonds and co-regulate our emotions.
But, if we’re really burnt out, then we’ll likely need:
Supportive touch from someone we trust. This is enormously reassuring to our body because it tells us we’re safe with our tribe — e.g., a 20 second hug that releases oxytocin, a 6 second kiss to establish deep connection. (This is also one reason why the pandemic has been so difficult!)
Spiritual connection and practice. When we feel safe, loved, and supported by higher purpose or power(s), we feel connected to a strong but invisible tribe.
2. To metabolize stressors, we need to physically work them out of our body.
Physically, exercise is the most effective way to break down stress hormones, burn the fuel mobilized under stress, and release feel-good neurochemicals (endorphins and dopamine) that help the body return to rest & digest!
And if we’re reversing long-term burnout, then body work (e.g., massage, cranial sacral) is critical to helping release contracted patterns of holding stress and toxins.
3. Most importantly, we need to emotionally digest past experiences so we can move on.
“Emotional metabolism” is the single most important step we’re never taught about, and that I notice keeps the teams I coach stuck. It’s also been a game changer for me.
Similar to how we need to digest food, emotions need to be processed too. When we’ve got a backlog of emotions that have been unfelt and unexpressed, it usually leads to emotional constipation.
In the words of legendary neuroscientist Dr. Candace Pert who discovered the opiate receptor and the molecular mechanism of how emotions work:
“A feeling sparked in our mind or body will translate as a peptide being released somewhere. [Organs, tissues, skin, muscle, and endocrine glands] all have peptide receptors …and can access and store emotional information. This means emotional memory is stored in many places in the body, not just the brain. …Unexpressed emotions are literally lodged in the body… [until they’re] integrated.”
That is, our body is where our unprocessed emotional history is stored. And until emotions get metabolized, receptor sites will remain bound up and prevent the free flow of information in the body. Hence, the importance of feeling and expressing them so the body can return to health.
Now there are two ways to metabolize emotions — top-down, and bottom-up.
Top-down approaches use the mind to influence the body. For example:
Noticing & naming emotions. By acknowledging emotions, we signal to the body that we’re ready to start releasing them — even old emotions stored in bodily memory.
Journaling or talking it out (e.g., with a trusted friend, coach or therapist). Doing so helps us face previously inhibited emotions, and build an on-going relationship with our emotions (vs. letting them back up).
While top-down approaches can start the process, I’ve found deeper transformation requires bottom-up approaches starting from the body:
Feeling our feelings. Once our emotions have bubbled up and get worked all the way through (e.g., through cathartic tears, screams, or sitting with the discomfort of grief), receptors release the peptides associated with stressful experiences, and the natural wisdom of our body’s restorative processes take over.
If we have a hard time accessing our emotions, movies or playlists matched to our mood can help us move through the emotional cycle too. When we watch a character or artist go through an emotional arc, our bodies go through it with them! Great artists are really emotional leaders that we follow.
Giving expression to our emotions. If you’ve ever seen an animal after being chased, most literally shake off the stress to complete the stress cycle. Similarly, as humans, we need to give expression to our emotional impulses — e.g., through movement (running away), vocalization (saying what needs to be said), or visualization (imagining an alternate ending to a stressful situation).
But when society doesn’t approve of expressing our emotions (e.g., punching our boss), the arts offer a context that celebrates big emotions and their release. It’s a cultural loophole where we don’t need to worry about playing nice. So dance, singing/humming/chanting, and the visual arts are all powerful channels for individual and social healing.
In short, nothing stifles possibility more than unconsciously dragging the past into the future. And it’s remarkable how often once the old is metabolized and released, the next thing presents itself.
So, what do you need to complete the stress cycle?
Melissa’s Reading & Watch List
Burnout, by Emily & Amelia Nagoski
In their recent book, the Nagoski sisters go deeper into the process of completing the stress cycle. Importantly, they note:
"Wellness is not a state of being — it’s a state of action. It’s the freedom to oscillate through the cycles of being human. Real-world wellness is messy, complicated, and not always accessible. If you feel overwhelmed and exhausted, that doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong; it just means you’re moving through the process. Grant your body permission to be imperfect and listen to your own experience.”
Their 2019 TED-style talk does a good job of summarizing the burnout cycle (YouTube, 23 min).
As does this podcast interview they did with Brene Brown (Spotify, 63 min).
Managing Transitions, by William Bridges
Burnout is usually a sign that something has already ended for us, but we’re not yet honoring that ending.
To consciously move from the old, we often first need to grieve what’s been outworn. It’s amazing the number of times I’ve said to leaders I coach, “Hey, you’re grieving. What do you need to let go of?” And how once properly grieved, it creates space for the new.
And in case you missed it…
The Truth about Burnout? It’s really daring us to see beyond the status quo (5 min)
My last post about the systemic reasons we get burnt out on unsustainable paths.
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts, reactions, Q’s. Drop me an email, or a note in the comments. And to learn more about the leadership coaching and organizational change consulting work I do, you can find me here.
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