Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #233| Your Body Might Know You’re Overwhelmed Before You Do
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: Your body knows you're overwhelmed before your mind ever admits it.
- 0:08Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:15Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:20Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences.
- 0:25Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
- 0:35Michelle Gauthier: Thanks for joining today.
- 0:36Michelle Gauthier: It's good to have you back.
- 0:37Michelle Gauthier: Today we're going to be talking about stress and overwhelm showing up in our body.
- 0:42Michelle Gauthier: When we think about stress, we feel like it's a problem in our mind.
- 0:46Michelle Gauthier: It's our thoughts and we're over worrying and overthinking.
- 0:49Michelle Gauthier: And I do think that is true.
- 0:51Michelle Gauthier: But also I think when we ignore those thoughts and those feelings, that we end up feeling it in our body.
- 0:57Michelle Gauthier: So today we're going to talk about the ways that stress can show up in your body before you're maybe even consciously aware that stress, overwhelm, or burnout is happening, why high achievers and people pleasers tend to ignore those signals from the body and what happens when stress builds up in your body and your body finally forces you to slow down.
- 1:17Michelle Gauthier: Speaking of our bodies, today's episode is sponsored by Inspire Wellness, a St.
- 1:22Michelle Gauthier: Louis-based, woman-owned supplement and health company.
- 1:26Michelle Gauthier: And this is where I get my supplements.
- 1:28Michelle Gauthier: I subscribe to them so they just show up on my front porch.
- 1:31Michelle Gauthier: It makes it very easy for me to be consistent in taking them every single day.
- 1:36Michelle Gauthier: One of the things that I subscribe to and take every day in my coffee is creatine.
- 1:41Michelle Gauthier: Now, when I first heard about creatine, I was picturing like Arnold Schwarzenegger of the 80s and other bodybuilders, and that those were the people who took creatine.
- 1:49Michelle Gauthier: But creatine is something that is naturally occurring in our bodies.
- 1:52Michelle Gauthier: It's one of the most studied supplements and it's very safe and has been proven beneficial to women, especially in the perimenopause and menopausal stages.
- 2:01Michelle Gauthier: I'm raising my hand because that's me.
- 2:03Michelle Gauthier: I have really seen an increase in my overall energy and energy during workouts.
- 2:08Michelle Gauthier: Plus, it's good for cognitive health.
- 2:10Michelle Gauthier: So it really has helped clear up some brain fog that I was having as well.
- 2:14Michelle Gauthier: Our bodies naturally produce creatine, but less as we age.
- 2:18Michelle Gauthier: So you could get it from eating meat or fish, but you'd have to eat like three pounds of meat per day to get the necessary dose of creatine.
- 2:25Michelle Gauthier: Who's got time to eat three pounds of meat a day?
- 2:27Michelle Gauthier: That's what I want to know.
- 2:28Michelle Gauthier: So go to inspirewellness.com slash OWW for overwhelmed working woman, and you will get 15% off when you subscribe to the bestseller bundle, which is creatine and collagen, another thing I love.
- 2:43Michelle Gauthier: Okay, let's get back to talking about stress in our mind and our body.
- 2:47Michelle Gauthier: The part of our brain called the amygdala evaluates whether something feels threatening or overwhelming, like a looming deadline or a conflict with someone or uncertainty or perceived failure, whatever it is, our brain reacts to that and then it activates the body.
- 3:02Michelle Gauthier: And that's where you will hear about having an adrenaline surge or having cortisol.
- 3:07Michelle Gauthier: And those physical changes can cause us to have a faster heart rate or faster breathing or tense muscles, increased blood sugar, all these different things that can happen within our body.
- 3:17Michelle Gauthier: So although we tend to think of stress as something that happens in our mind, it does start there, but it also goes to our bodies.
- 3:25Michelle Gauthier: When you're in a phase where you're just used to pushing through stress, or maybe you would even consider that you've been on high alert or in fight or flight for some extended amount of time.
- 3:36Michelle Gauthier: You might get used to feeling that stress in your mind, but something that usually will really stand out is when stress becomes a whole body experience.
- 3:46Michelle Gauthier: When your brain is feeling stress, it will often show up in different places in your body as well.
- 3:51Michelle Gauthier: I can tell you for sure, I can think of two past times in my life.
- 3:54Michelle Gauthier: One was right before I got divorced and while I was getting divorced.
- 3:57Michelle Gauthier: And the other was when there was something really stressful that was going on.
- 4:00Michelle Gauthier: The company that I was working for was being sold, everything was moving so quickly, it was very stressful.
- 4:05Michelle Gauthier: And during those times, I had a persistent low back pain.
- 4:10Michelle Gauthier: And during the work one, I would just feel sick during the day.
- 4:13Michelle Gauthier: Like I thought a couple of times that I had the stomach flu, but then it would go away at night.
- 4:18Michelle Gauthier: So obviously it wasn't the stomach flu.
- 4:20Michelle Gauthier: The way that I like to think about it is that our brain is offering us thoughts and feelings.
- 4:26Michelle Gauthier: And sometimes when we ignore those, our body will also let us know, hey, something isn't right.
- 4:31Michelle Gauthier: Something is going wrong here.
- 4:33Michelle Gauthier: You might notice tight shoulders or neck pain, frequent headaches, some kind of digestive issues, like I was talking about, feeling wired but exhausted.
- 4:43Michelle Gauthier: Whatever it is for you, there's probably some place in your body that those feelings are showing up, maybe even before you've consciously noticed that you're feeling stressed or overwhelmed.
- 4:53Michelle Gauthier: And this can be a good thing because these physical signals are often a body's early warning system.
- 4:59Michelle Gauthier: Now, today my life is completely different than it was seven or eight years ago when I was getting divorced.
- 5:04Michelle Gauthier: But every once in a while I'll get that low back pain.
- 5:07Michelle Gauthier: And it's so helpful to me because I'm like, oh gosh, what is going on?
- 5:10Michelle Gauthier: What am I worried about that I haven't consciously brought to light for myself?
- 5:14Michelle Gauthier: And that's when I get out my journal and I figure out what is going on.
- 5:18Michelle Gauthier: The second thing I want to talk about is that high achievers and people pleasers learn to ignore their bodies.
- 5:24Michelle Gauthier: So if you're a responsible, hardworking, high achieving person, chances are you've been rewarded for pushing through discomfort.
- 5:31Michelle Gauthier: So that means even when you're exhausted, dehydrated, and brain dead, you can still pull it out of yourself to do just a little bit more work.
- 5:39Michelle Gauthier: And you're so used to being dependable that a lot of times you just push through and be like, I'll rest later, or I just need to get through this next project, or next week will be easier.
- 5:48Michelle Gauthier: So even though our brain and our body are telling us, hey, you need a rest, or hey, things are not going well here.
- 5:55Michelle Gauthier: You really need to look into this.
- 5:57Michelle Gauthier: We learn to push past it because we're so attached to getting things done.
- 6:02Michelle Gauthier: Also, if you're a people pleaser, you're so focused on taking care of everyone else's needs that it becomes very easy to disconnect from your own.
- 6:09Michelle Gauthier: You might have the aching lower back or the constant tension in your neck, but you're just used to pushing past it because you override those signals.
- 6:18Michelle Gauthier: If you're listening to me saying this and thinking, do I do that?
- 6:21Michelle Gauthier: You can easily just close your eyes unless you're driving, then don't.
- 6:25Michelle Gauthier: And do a quick body scan.
- 6:26Michelle Gauthier: Start at the top of your head, go to the muscles in your face and your jaw, your neck, your shoulders, just go all the way down and see if there's somewhere that you feel pain or tenseness in your body because you could be carrying around physical discomfort and just moving past it all the time.
- 6:43Michelle Gauthier: And if you're thinking, mm-hmm, yeah, I do move past it all the time.
- 6:46Michelle Gauthier: So what?
- 6:47Michelle Gauthier: I'm doing it.
- 6:48Michelle Gauthier: It's just fine.
- 6:48Michelle Gauthier: Just remember, and I'm not trying to be negative, but the body keeps score.
- 6:52Michelle Gauthier: You can only do that for so long.
- 6:54Michelle Gauthier: Which brings me to my third point, which is eventually your body's gonna force a reset.
- 6:58Michelle Gauthier: I've had a couple guests on the podcast.
- 7:00Michelle Gauthier: I can think of three right off the top of my head, where their story begins with them having a panic attack or ending up in the hospital or becoming so fatigued that they have to take weeks off of work.
- 7:11Michelle Gauthier: There's only so much tension that our body and our brain can be under until our body has to pull out all the stops and really force a rest that we weren't willing to take.
- 7:22Michelle Gauthier: A lot of times people say, I didn't see this coming, or I was really stressed out, but I didn't realize it was this bad.
- 7:28Michelle Gauthier: So the reason why I'm talking about this today is because your body is trying to protect you.
- 7:33Michelle Gauthier: So if you tune into it and try to listen to what it's saying and notice where you're holding tension or where your body and your mind are feeling off, you could get an early warning sign that could help you from becoming too stressed or sick or whatever could happen when you keep holding on to that stress and overwhelm, both in your brain and your body.
- 7:52Michelle Gauthier: If something that I said today is speaking with you, maybe just take a minute to check in with yourself, check in with your body, how are you actually feeling?
- 8:00Michelle Gauthier: And remember that sometimes our most important information isn't coming from our thoughts, but it's coming from the signals that your body is sending all along.
- 8:10Michelle Gauthier: So don't forget stress can show up in the body.
- 8:12Michelle Gauthier: We can often notice stress in our body before we even consciously notice it in our brain.
- 8:17Michelle Gauthier: High achievers and people pleasers should be on high alert for this because we learn to ignore the signals coming from our body.
- 8:24Michelle Gauthier: And eventually your body will force a reset.
- 8:27Michelle Gauthier: It will force you to slow down if you won't slow down yourself.
- 8:30Michelle Gauthier: If you need help with any of this, I would love to help you.
- 8:34Michelle Gauthier: I can teach you how to really connect your brain to your body, how to interpret what is going on and how to slow down to solve not only that spinning feeling in your brain, but also a lot of the things going on in your body as well.
- 8:47Michelle Gauthier: I have a spot open for one-on-one coaching.
- 8:49Michelle Gauthier: And if you're interested in that spot, I would love to talk to you.
- 8:52Michelle Gauthier: I will put a link in the show notes and I will see you next week.
- 8:57Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 9:04Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier.com.
- 9:10Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.