Latest / The You Project / #2248 How Burnout Works - Dr. Olivia Ong

Transcript

#2248 How Burnout Works - Dr. Olivia Ong · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: G'day team. I hope you're bloody terrific.
0:02
Speaker 2: Before we get underway today, I want to tell you
0:05
Speaker 2: about my new life workshop. It's coming up November 8th
0:08
Speaker 2: at Deakin Uni in Melbourne. It's called Life on Purpose.
0:12
Speaker 2: And as the title suggests, we're going to explore living
0:16
Speaker 2: life on purpose. And by that, I mean a life with.
0:19
Speaker 3: Intention and direction and passion and even strategy. And while
0:23
Speaker 3: we're at it, we'll also explore the idea of living
0:26
Speaker 3: in purpose. And by that, I mean, living a life
0:29
Speaker 3: which aligns with our beliefs, goals and values. In other words,
0:34
Speaker 3: the things that matter most to us. It's been my
0:37
Speaker 3: experience and observation over the years that many people are
0:40
Speaker 3: living a somewhat unintentional and unconscious existence, kind of day-to-day
0:48
Speaker 3: doing what doesn't really work, what doesn't really make them
0:50
Speaker 3: happy and doesn't really produce the kind of results they
0:55
Speaker 3: want to see in the world.
0:56
Speaker 2: Kind of like a Groundhog Day existence, which makes it
1:01
Speaker 2: predictable and familiar, but not necessarily fulfilling or rewarding or joyful.
1:09
Speaker 2: And having worked with thousands of people over four decades,
1:12
Speaker 2: I'm fascinated with potential and possibilities, and of course, human behavior.
1:19
Speaker 2: All the stuff we're going to do a deep dive
1:20
Speaker 2: on on November 8th at Melbourne's Deakin Uni. So I
1:26
Speaker 2: would love to see you there to book in or
1:28
Speaker 2: to learn more, just go to my website, craigharper.net, and
1:31
Speaker 2: take a squizzeroonie.
1:32
Speaker 4: See you there.
1:34
Speaker 1: Or not. And now, I'm with the show. G'day, team.
1:39
Speaker 2: It's You Project. It's Harps. One of our recent favourites,
1:43
Speaker 2: Dr Olivia Ong, is back on You Project.
1:46
Speaker 1: Hi, Doc. Good morning. How are you?
1:48
Speaker 5: I am well, thank you, Craig.
1:51
Speaker 1: What are you up to? What's going on? It's 7.30.
1:54
Speaker 2: It's a very early time. Why are we doing this
1:57
Speaker 2: so early? My God, what time do you get up?
2:01
Speaker 5: Well, I get up around 5am just because purely I'm
2:05
Speaker 5: an early morning person and I sleep really early. I'm
2:09
Speaker 5: like a grandma. I sleep at like 9pm. So I'm
2:12
Speaker 5: not sure how I'm going to survive in all the
2:15
Speaker 5: concerts I'm attending next year where I It actually starts
2:18
Speaker 5: at 8 p.m. and finishes at 11 p.m. So I'll
2:21
Speaker 5: be really curious to see how I fare in all
2:24
Speaker 5: my BTS concerts and Bruno Mars and Bon Jovi now.
2:28
Speaker 5: There's like five concerts back to back. It's insane in Melbourne.
2:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're going to be so euphoric. You're going to
2:34
Speaker 2: be on such a high. I think to see all
2:37
Speaker 2: your favourite bands, it's a small sacrifice to make, but...
2:41
Speaker 2: Do you think that's a thing that some people, you
2:44
Speaker 2: know how people go, I'm a morning person and other
2:47
Speaker 2: people say to me, like, I've got friends that they
2:50
Speaker 2: reckon that their brain starts to work optimally about eight
2:53
Speaker 2: o'clock at night. Like, it seems like a lot of academics,
2:58
Speaker 2: a lot of my colleagues when I was doing, you know,
3:03
Speaker 2: my PhD, a lot of them are, you know, they,
3:06
Speaker 2: kind of, they come to life between nine o'clock and 4am.
3:10
Speaker 2: I'm like, what on hell on earth? Yeah, that's when
3:13
Speaker 2: I do my best work. Do you think there's something
3:16
Speaker 2: in that?
3:18
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's the way our sleep clock or,
3:23
Speaker 5: you know, been wired since we were young. So I
3:27
Speaker 5: can talk about myself, of course, in a sense that
3:30
Speaker 5: since I was a kid, I'm always someone who has
3:34
Speaker 5: always slept early and wake up early. That's kind of
3:36
Speaker 5: a habitual thing. So maybe one of it is a
3:39
Speaker 5: sleep clock in our brain. And secondly, it's a habit.
3:43
Speaker 5: Like for me, it's like 30 years of habit where
3:45
Speaker 5: I'll sleep early. Um, and then I'll wake up early
3:48
Speaker 5: to read a book. So, and hence, you know, like, um,
3:52
Speaker 5: cause that's probably the only time I feel there's quiet
3:55
Speaker 5: and there's stillness, even as a, at a young age. Um,
3:58
Speaker 5: and I really love to hear the birds chirping and
4:00
Speaker 5: all these things and the sunrise it's, It's great.
4:04
Speaker 1: So I think it's an.
4:06
Speaker 5: Awe thing. I'm really awed by the wonders of nature.
4:11
Speaker 5: I think in the morning you can kind of get that.
4:13
Speaker 5: So there's many reasons why I think my nervous system
4:16
Speaker 5: just chose morning. But my husband is the opposite. He's
4:21
Speaker 5: a night owl. He'll watch Netflix till 11, 12 o'clock. midnight,
4:25
Speaker 5: you know, and he's been wired like that since he
4:27
Speaker 5: was a kid as well. He'll watch shows too. And
4:31
Speaker 5: he's a night person. He's a night owl. So he
4:32
Speaker 5: will sometimes burn the midnight oil to get projects done
4:36
Speaker 5: and things like that.
4:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
4:37
Speaker 1: Surely part of that is DNA, right? That's just how
4:40
Speaker 1: we are.
4:40
Speaker 2: I mean, some people, it's funny because like my previous life,
4:47
Speaker 2: when I was working in gyms and owning gyms and
4:50
Speaker 2: training athletes and, It's like some people would literally be
4:54
Speaker 2: quite stronger in the morning. Yes. Like, cause I'd work
4:58
Speaker 2: with the same people all the time. You know, like
5:01
Speaker 2: I had clients that I worked with for years and
5:04
Speaker 2: years and I know, oh, if I train this person
5:08
Speaker 2: at 7am or 8am or whatever it is, they perform
5:13
Speaker 2: better literally consistently than.
5:16
Speaker 1: If I train them at 6pm.
5:19
Speaker 2: And the only, you know, I guess we might say, oh,
5:22
Speaker 2: you know, maybe they get a bit tired through the
5:25
Speaker 2: day and their gas tank's low by the time they
5:27
Speaker 2: arrive at six. But then conversely, there are other people
5:33
Speaker 2: who would show up and they do their best workout
5:37
Speaker 2: or they seem to be stronger or they seem to
5:40
Speaker 2: be more alert at 7pm, which makes no sense in
5:44
Speaker 2: a way. But that would just be you know, their
5:48
Speaker 2: genetic predisposition. That is, they seem to work better. And like,
5:52
Speaker 2: so too, even cognitively, like I'm way better.
5:57
Speaker 1: I would say, you.
5:59
Speaker 2: Know, I feel functionally smarter before about 2pm than after 2pm.
6:07
Speaker 5: Yeah, I tend to agree. I'm just reflecting on My
6:11
Speaker 5: young days in university when I used to wake up
6:13
Speaker 5: early because I'm an early riser and I remember just
6:16
Speaker 5: rocking up to, do you remember Fitness First?
6:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course.
6:20
Speaker 5: Fitness First gym. I think that was the gym where
6:22
Speaker 5: I went to a lot. It was really popular in
6:25
Speaker 5: the late 2000s, as we all remember. And I'll rock
6:28
Speaker 5: up to like a 6 a.m. spin class or I
6:31
Speaker 5: think there was even 6 a.m. body pump gym. And
6:36
Speaker 5: I won't be the only one. It looks like there
6:37
Speaker 5: were quite a few of us who were morning people.
6:39
Speaker 5: And I tried it at 6 p.m. I was a
6:42
Speaker 5: mess at 6 p.m. I was so exhausted. And I
6:47
Speaker 5: just ended up eating lots of food after class and
6:51
Speaker 5: burned like twice as much calories because I was just
6:55
Speaker 5: so tired. I went, oh, I'm just going to like
6:57
Speaker 5: eat my heart out after that. So it didn't work
7:00
Speaker 5: out so well in that regard. So I just stuck
7:02
Speaker 5: to my morning routine. I think even in exercise, like
7:06
Speaker 5: what you said, Craig, I think that as you have
7:08
Speaker 5: your experience in the gym, I can definitely relate to that.
7:11
Speaker 5: And I think some of the listeners can relate to
7:14
Speaker 5: working out in the morning as well. And they really
7:18
Speaker 5: thrive in the morning versus the evening where it's a struggle.
7:22
Speaker 2: Yeah.
7:23
Speaker 1: Yeah.
7:23
Speaker 2: And I think like Olivia said, with all of this,
7:29
Speaker 2: we get very preoccupied in health and wellness and exercise programming, medicine,
7:36
Speaker 2: that there's this kind of generic best approach, or this
7:39
Speaker 2: is the best way to exercise, or this is the
7:41
Speaker 2: best pill for you for that, or this is the
7:44
Speaker 2: best diet, or this is the best number of hours.
7:48
Speaker 1: Of sleep, or this is.
7:51
Speaker 2: You know, while there are some things which are broadly
7:54
Speaker 2: kind of true and relevant, like on an individual Craig
7:58
Speaker 2: Harper level, you know, or Olivia Ong or insert name
8:03
Speaker 2: of listener, you know, it's like, well, that works great
8:07
Speaker 2: for them, but that doesn't work at all for me. So,
8:11
Speaker 2: you know, layering on top of the research and the science,
8:15
Speaker 2: which obviously is not about an individual, it's about.
8:20
Speaker 1: It's about a.
8:20
Speaker 2: Huge number of participants in a study, perhaps, you know,
8:25
Speaker 2: to go, yeah, but individually, what do I know? Like,
8:28
Speaker 2: what is my body telling me? what is that interoception?
8:33
Speaker 2: What's the biofeedback that I'm getting from my physiology and
8:38
Speaker 2: biology where I don't care what the research says.
8:43
Speaker 1: I don't care.
8:43
Speaker 2: I know that I need eight hours sleep. I know
8:46
Speaker 2: it says seven is enough for most people. I'm like that.
8:50
Speaker 2: If I don't have about eight hours sleep, I can
8:55
Speaker 2: do six, I can do seven, but I'm not good.
8:58
Speaker 1: I'm not optimal.
9:00
Speaker 2: And I know that if I eat past a certain
9:03
Speaker 2: time at night, I'm no good. I know that if
9:07
Speaker 2: I drink too close to bed, I'm going to get
9:10
Speaker 2: up and have three wheeze. But if I don't do that,
9:13
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean? It's like, what is
9:15
Speaker 2: my body teaching me? And am I paying attention? And
9:20
Speaker 2: even when it comes down to What is my brain
9:24
Speaker 2: telling me about focus and attention and productivity and efficiency
9:29
Speaker 2: in terms of when I work best through the day?
9:33
Speaker 2: And then with that knowledge, how do I plan my day, right?
9:38
Speaker 2: Like if I know that I'm cognitively better between 5 a.m.
9:42
Speaker 2: and 2 p.m., I would be a dumbass to go,
9:45
Speaker 2: I'm going to do all this work tonight. You know,
9:49
Speaker 2: I don't think we trust ourselves enough. I think we listen. Oh,
9:54
Speaker 2: this is a dangerous thing to say. I don't think
9:57
Speaker 2: we listen too much to experts. But, for example, and
10:01
Speaker 2: I'll shut up after this because you're the guest, but
10:03
Speaker 2: when I go and sit with a doctor that I've
10:05
Speaker 2: never met for an eight-minute appointment, with all due respect...
10:11
Speaker 2: There's no way that that person understands me.
10:15
Speaker 1: At all, right, at all.
10:18
Speaker 2: So I will, you know, I will ask lots of
10:21
Speaker 2: questions because, of course, they have knowledge I don't. But,
10:26
Speaker 2: you know, like I think being wise, paying attention to
10:31
Speaker 2: obviously the doctors and all the relevant medical professionals, but.
10:36
Speaker 1: At the same time paying attention to your body.
10:41
Speaker 5: I think, Craig, you mentioned about self-trust and you mentioned
10:47
Speaker 5: the word interoception. I've been utilizing a lot of nervous
10:51
Speaker 5: system tools myself, especially when I was writing my book,
10:55
Speaker 5: Back on My Feet, because it's a memoir about how
10:58
Speaker 5: I walked again after spinal cord injury and there were
11:00
Speaker 5: some traumatic moments in there. It was hard. And I
11:04
Speaker 5: remember just using those tools, the interoceptive, and all those
11:08
Speaker 5: tools just to find inner safety to get back to
11:10
Speaker 5: writing again. Because there were moments where I'm like, oh,
11:12
Speaker 5: I think I better step away. This is a bit
11:14
Speaker 5: too much. I feel unsafe even writing this memoir. So
11:19
Speaker 5: on that note, not just about writing, I think just,
11:23
Speaker 5: you know, like you talked about, you know, trusting yourself
11:28
Speaker 5: and not trying to listen to a lot of experts.
11:29
Speaker 5: I actually agree with that. I think we as people,
11:33
Speaker 5: people here. We need to trust ourselves a lot more,
11:36
Speaker 5: but obviously the process to doing that will be starting
11:39
Speaker 5: with introception, finding inner safety. And that's, I guess, a
11:44
Speaker 5: big part of what I do in my work in
11:47
Speaker 5: the burnout space, because I acknowledge that, or I realized
11:51
Speaker 5: that there was a lot of burnout in the healthcare
11:53
Speaker 5: industry and no one was actually talking about it. Remember
11:56
Speaker 5: we had COVID and lockdowns and the pandemic and everything else.
12:01
Speaker 5: And no one was talking about it. So I started
12:04
Speaker 5: talking a lot about that, like burnout in medicine and
12:08
Speaker 5: as a whole quite, quite actively during the pandemic period.
12:15
Speaker 5: And I think it wasn't just me. There were a
12:17
Speaker 5: lot of other physicians in America who talked like passionately
12:21
Speaker 5: and they really wanted to raise awareness about burnout in
12:25
Speaker 5: doctors because it led to so many suicides, especially in COVID.
12:28
Speaker 5: It was a lot of it. So the Americans have
12:32
Speaker 5: obviously paved the path in a way that they raised
12:36
Speaker 5: this awareness of burnout and physician suicide all the way
12:39
Speaker 5: to the politicians. And then they've made it a government
12:44
Speaker 5: act or legislation act to protect doctors and other healthcare professionals.
12:49
Speaker 5: If they have, you know, burnout or, mental health issues,
12:52
Speaker 5: if they let their colleagues know or their boss know,
12:56
Speaker 5: they shouldn't, you know, they wouldn't be penalized. They wouldn't
12:59
Speaker 5: lose their medical.
13:00
Speaker 4: Yes.
13:01
Speaker 5: Americans have done that. I don't know where we are
13:03
Speaker 5: with that in Australia, probably not there yet, but a
13:05
Speaker 5: lot of us are actually working on it.
13:08
Speaker 2: When you think about, and this is not a criticism
13:11
Speaker 2: of the system or the government, I don't want to
13:14
Speaker 2: get political, but when you– I've been in and out
13:17
Speaker 2: of hospitals all year, like all year with my mum
13:21
Speaker 2: and dad.
13:22
Speaker 1: I was in a hospital last week.
13:24
Speaker 2: Mum had a fall, smashed her head, got 30 stitches
13:29
Speaker 2: in her head, had a brain bleed, had a concussion, spent.
13:32
Speaker 1: Three days in hospital.
13:34
Speaker 2: You know, my dad was in and out of hospital
13:36
Speaker 2: all year, passed away about 10 weeks ago, you know,
13:40
Speaker 2: and I have– Yeah.
13:43
Speaker 1: Thank you.
13:44
Speaker 2: I have nothing but respect and admiration for the doctors
13:47
Speaker 2: and nurses. However, I look at the workload. I look
13:53
Speaker 2: at the demand. I look at the lack of beds
13:58
Speaker 2: and the pressure that all of these, like there's no
14:03
Speaker 2: one sitting on their ass doing nothing in a hospital.
14:06
Speaker 1: Like everyone's running.
14:08
Speaker 2: Maybe it's just the ones I've been in, but you know,
14:12
Speaker 2: La Trobe Regional Hospital, which is up in between Morwell
14:16
Speaker 2: and Terrelgan, where mum was last week. It's like, it's
14:20
Speaker 2: just mayhem. It's organised mayhem, but it's mayhem. Now that's
14:25
Speaker 2: not a, it's actually not an insult. What I'm saying
14:27
Speaker 2: is they are so busy. There is so much demand.
14:31
Speaker 2: Those medical professionals, they are under such pressure. I mean-
14:37
Speaker 2: It is an environment and a system that is an
14:41
Speaker 2: ideal breeding ground for burnout. It's like if you wanted
14:45
Speaker 2: to create an environment where people could be physically, mentally,
14:49
Speaker 2: and emotionally absolutely spent, you would just put them in
14:54
Speaker 2: that environment.
14:56
Speaker 5: Exactly, Craig. You spot on there. You know, like burnout
15:00
Speaker 5: in healthcare in general is, it's not just about the
15:03
Speaker 5: workload it's that you are right we are so under
15:06
Speaker 5: resourced and because we are also under resourced we're understaffed
15:10
Speaker 5: the decision fatigue we have to make so many decisions
15:14
Speaker 5: and then the responsibility for our patients and and the
15:18
Speaker 5: emotional labor and it's it's a lot um and not
15:21
Speaker 5: only that it's your our own internal pressure that we
15:24
Speaker 5: have to handle and then a lot of us have
15:26
Speaker 5: families at home and we've got to make sure we
15:29
Speaker 5: also meet their needs so i think um They always
15:33
Speaker 5: try to give us some well-being workshops to attend and,
15:39
Speaker 5: you know, productivity hacks. And I'm just like rolling my eyes. Sorry,
15:42
Speaker 5: no offense, but rolling my eyes.
15:43
Speaker 1: And I think productivity hacks. That's hilarious. I'm like, oh,
15:49
Speaker 1: my goodness.
15:50
Speaker 5: And you need to be more resilient. That's the other one.
15:53
Speaker 5: A lot of pushback when I hear that word. Because
15:56
Speaker 5: what ultimately we need is nervous system support because I
16:00
Speaker 5: think burnout is not a time management problem. The doctors
16:04
Speaker 5: who looked after your parents, they managed their time well.
16:08
Speaker 5: It's not a time management problem. It's also the physiological
16:11
Speaker 5: state where they are in as well.
16:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.
16:14
Speaker 5: Yeah, they're chronically under chronic stress and then they go
16:17
Speaker 5: into survival mode. You never see– those doctors and nurses
16:20
Speaker 5: are never happy, are they, Craig?
16:22
Speaker 1: They always look– No, they're all– I mean, you know,
16:25
Speaker 1: they do their best.
16:26
Speaker 2: But I– like at the end of the day, I mean,
16:30
Speaker 2: we're talking about life and death literally and you've got
16:34
Speaker 2: these well-meaning, well-intended, well-trained human beings– who are also exhausted
16:43
Speaker 2: and also stressed, maybe dealing with burnout, also got two
16:47
Speaker 2: kids at home, also got all their own issues that
16:51
Speaker 2: every human, emotional, psychological, behavioral issues, maybe addiction issues, who knows?
16:57
Speaker 2: They're just humans trying to be perfect in an imperfect
17:03
Speaker 2: environment in a situation that, that, can't produce perfect outcomes,
17:10
Speaker 2: which we understand, and expecting almost superhuman performance from regular
17:17
Speaker 2: human beings. And I know there's no quick fix for this,
17:20
Speaker 2: but when you say nervous system support, what does that mean?
17:25
Speaker 1: Like for us regular humans, what are you talking about?
17:27
Speaker 1: All right.
17:28
Speaker 5: So let's talk about context where, let's say we've been
17:32
Speaker 5: put under chronic stress for a very long time, like
17:35
Speaker 5: use doctors and nurses, for example, I can speak for
17:39
Speaker 5: myself because when I'm working in that environment, my nervous
17:43
Speaker 5: system goes into survival mode straight away. Boom. My cortisol increases.
17:48
Speaker 5: My brain scans for threat all the time. I become
17:51
Speaker 5: quite reactive, sometimes even snappy, irritable. And I reflect back.
17:57
Speaker 5: Sometimes that's the reason why I... tend to overthink on decisions.
18:01
Speaker 5: Many of my colleagues who are in survival mode do
18:03
Speaker 5: that too. And we struggle to switch off. Like we
18:07
Speaker 5: just keep thinking about work at home and we're with
18:10
Speaker 5: our children and we're still thinking about work. We just
18:13
Speaker 5: feel constantly on all the time. And sometimes we snap
18:18
Speaker 5: at people and then we feel bad about it later.
18:21
Speaker 5: And then, and then later we apologize to that colleague. Oh, sorry.
18:24
Speaker 5: I was just a little bit stressed. which is basically
18:28
Speaker 5: like the adult version of, oh, I just need a nap.
18:31
Speaker 5: Thank you.
18:32
Speaker 1: But here's the thing.
18:34
Speaker 5: You cannot think your way out of burnout. We always think, oh,
18:37
Speaker 5: you know, we can mindset our way of burnout, but
18:39
Speaker 5: not really. I think we need to regulate our way.
18:43
Speaker 2: Out of it.
18:44
Speaker 5: And there's a kind of approach that I teach my,
18:49
Speaker 5: not only just my patients, some of my clients, some
18:52
Speaker 5: of my clients as well, like the window of regulation.
18:55
Speaker 5: I wish we had a visual thing, but There's this
18:59
Speaker 5: concept of the window of regulation where inside a window
19:02
Speaker 5: in the middle, you know, we feel quite stable. We
19:05
Speaker 5: feel present. We feel regulated. So our arousal in there
19:09
Speaker 5: will naturally ebb and flow and we're likely to feel
19:12
Speaker 5: calmer there. We're able to connect and engage with others there.
19:17
Speaker 5: And this is where I think that's where the river flows. And,
19:20
Speaker 5: you know, there'll be differences in currents and ups and downs,
19:22
Speaker 5: but the river can still flow in the middle. But
19:25
Speaker 5: above the window is hyperarousal. This is where I'm talking
19:29
Speaker 5: about survival mode, where it can show up as anxiety, anger.
19:33
Speaker 5: We've seen angry colleagues. And there's a lot of angry
19:38
Speaker 5: doctors out there. And this can show up as agitation
19:42
Speaker 5: and a mobilization of our body and brain. In this
19:47
Speaker 5: hyper arousal window, we tend to be oversensitive to sensations
19:51
Speaker 5: or outer senses like sounds and smells. I'm sure that
19:53
Speaker 5: we've both been there. We know how it feels. And
19:56
Speaker 5: with a little bit of noise, we get irked by it.
19:59
Speaker 5: And we tend to be quite hypervigilant and experience high
20:02
Speaker 5: emotional reactivity. So life feels a bit chaotic on the top.
20:06
Speaker 5: Then below the window... We experience hypoarousal where this is
20:11
Speaker 5: the total opposite, where we are just shut down. We
20:15
Speaker 5: feel quite depressed. Apathy is the one that I see
20:18
Speaker 5: a lot these days. Apathy, just numb, don't care about anything.
20:22
Speaker 1: Disconnected. Kind of indifference. Correct.
20:25
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly. Just, I don't care, like that kind of feeling.
20:29
Speaker 5: And you just feel disconnected, and this is where burnout lives.
20:33
Speaker 5: Burnout actually lives in the hypoarousal state because by the time,
20:37
Speaker 5: you know, you keep going into survival mode, hypoarousal, but
20:41
Speaker 5: you eventually run off sympathetic energy.
20:43
Speaker 1: Hang on, let me just clear up.
20:45
Speaker 2: Did you say burnout lives in hypo, O, or E, hypo?
20:50
Speaker 1: Hypo, yeah.
20:52
Speaker 5: The reason why that's the case, burnout lives there because
20:55
Speaker 5: you will feel that when you've been burnt out, you
20:57
Speaker 5: just feel numb. You doom scroll. You just, I don't
21:00
Speaker 5: want to do anything that that's burnout basically. But that's
21:04
Speaker 5: because we run out of sympathetic energy. We've been survival
21:07
Speaker 5: mode way too long. And now our body just goes,
21:11
Speaker 5: I'm done. There's no more sympathetic energy left.
21:13
Speaker 1: That's it.
21:14
Speaker 5: And then there you go. And I think, you know,
21:18
Speaker 5: following periods of chronic and traumatic stress, this window in
21:22
Speaker 5: the middle just gets narrower and narrower. And obviously nervous
21:26
Speaker 5: system tools help us kind of widen that window. And
21:29
Speaker 5: all of us have different toolbox, I guess, for that
21:31
Speaker 5: nervous system support to widen the middle part.
21:36
Speaker 2: Yeah. Burnout is really interesting because, I mean, it's physiological,
21:44
Speaker 2: it's emotional. Correct me if I get any of this wrong.
21:47
Speaker 2: You're the expert. But it's psychological. It's sociological. You don't
21:52
Speaker 2: want to see other people maybe or you've got limited
21:55
Speaker 2: energy to connect with others because you're flat. You're feeling
21:59
Speaker 2: all the indifference, the apathy, the whatever. But the point
22:07
Speaker 2: at where one individual will experience burnouts compared to somebody
22:13
Speaker 2: doing the exact same role in this hypothetical I'm creating,
22:17
Speaker 2: like one person will experience burnout before another, depending on
22:22
Speaker 2: how their psychology, physiology, emotion interacts with that situation or
22:28
Speaker 2: those demands, or it would seem that some people, I'm
22:32
Speaker 2: not saying this is a good thing, but have a
22:34
Speaker 2: high threshold for that kind of pain.
22:38
Speaker 5: That's a good point you made, Craig. I've, Interestingly, I
22:44
Speaker 5: always have thought burnout is mainly physiological, but I've met
22:49
Speaker 5: quite a number of entrepreneurs throughout. Obviously, I've got a
22:52
Speaker 5: speaking and writing business. I met a few entrepreneurs who
22:56
Speaker 5: actually one of them told me she's never burnt out.
22:59
Speaker 5: Christina Carlson was someone I had in mind, the founder
23:01
Speaker 5: of Kikikei. I asked her like, have you ever experienced burnout?
23:05
Speaker 5: Cause I was speaking on burnout and she was obviously
23:07
Speaker 5: speaking about intention, dream big, all this, that particular topic.
23:11
Speaker 5: And she told me, no, I've never burnt out. So
23:13
Speaker 5: I was like shocked. Like you never burnt out. And
23:18
Speaker 5: this is her response to me. I never burnt out
23:20
Speaker 5: because I've been doing what I love all this while.
23:23
Speaker 5: So every time I hear that, I went, maybe some
23:25
Speaker 5: parts of why we burn out is because we are
23:27
Speaker 5: doing something that we don't love at all.
23:30
Speaker 1: Oh, that's so interesting.
23:31
Speaker 5: I know when she mentioned that, I was like, there
23:33
Speaker 5: was a mic, literally a mic just dropped. And I went,
23:37
Speaker 5: oh my gosh, that's so true. That is so true.
23:39
Speaker 5: And I think we do what we love. the chances
23:42
Speaker 5: of burning out is very little. I mean, we can
23:44
Speaker 5: burn out from maybe personal stuff at home, but if
23:48
Speaker 5: we do what we love in our business or in
23:50
Speaker 5: our career, we won't burn out as much.
23:53
Speaker 2: That's such a good point because everybody's told me for
23:57
Speaker 2: 30 years you work too much or you do, you know,
24:00
Speaker 2: it's like I literally have spent the last six years
24:02
Speaker 2: doing a PhD and working full time as a 60-year-old.
24:07
Speaker 1: But you love what you do, right? Yeah, you love
24:09
Speaker 1: what you do. Yeah, like people are like, what the
24:10
Speaker 1: fuck is wrong with you? I'm like, I love it.
24:15
Speaker 2: Like I didn't love, like the experience of a PhD,
24:19
Speaker 2: you know, doing is not a lot of fun, but overall.
24:23
Speaker 1: You know, and.
24:25
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I think that is really important. And also,
24:30
Speaker 2: you know, distress is not eustress, right?
24:33
Speaker 5: Exactly.
24:33
Speaker 2: It's like I've got lots of, well, not lots compared
24:37
Speaker 2: to some people, but I'm under a fair bit of pressure. Yes.
24:42
Speaker 2: that I don't experience as bad pressure. For me, that
24:45
Speaker 2: pressure is almost motivation. So I've got to do five
24:50
Speaker 2: podcasts a week. I've got to coach a bunch of
24:53
Speaker 2: people every week. I've got to generally do one corporate
24:57
Speaker 2: presentation a week. I've got to like straight after this,
25:00
Speaker 2: I'm on someone else's podcast, right?
25:03
Speaker 1: I've got to look after my mum.
25:05
Speaker 2: I've got to drive five hours, one or two days
25:08
Speaker 2: a week to be with mum. I've got to go
25:11
Speaker 2: to the gym every, you know, and all of these things,
25:14
Speaker 2: for me, they're not horrible or hard or undesirable. They're
25:18
Speaker 2: just things that I need to do. And I think
25:22
Speaker 2: because for the most part, honestly, most of the day
25:26
Speaker 2: I'm somewhere between somewhat happy and stimulated and curious and excited.
25:32
Speaker 2: And most of the day, uh, yeah, I don't expect,
25:36
Speaker 2: like I might get tired or I might get fatigued,
25:39
Speaker 2: but then I make sure my diet is good. My
25:41
Speaker 2: sleep is good. My hydration is good. Uh, I, I
25:44
Speaker 2: spend like I've built, I'm interested in this, right? I
25:49
Speaker 2: think a thing we don't talk about or maybe think
25:52
Speaker 2: about enough is the context and the environment that we
25:59
Speaker 2: work in, like a hospital environment.
26:02
Speaker 1: And of course it has to be this way, but
26:05
Speaker 1: it's stressful.
26:06
Speaker 2: It's clinical and there's a lot of pressure and it's
26:12
Speaker 2: not like, oh, the rooms are so beautiful. It's like,
26:16
Speaker 2: oh God, it's the environment that it needs to be.
26:20
Speaker 2: Whereas as I sit here now talking to you, working
26:24
Speaker 2: in inverted commas, I literally look out right there in
26:28
Speaker 2: front of my eyes is a great big window and
26:32
Speaker 2: all I can.
26:33
Speaker 1: See is trees.
26:34
Speaker 2: So I have 40-foot bamboo trees all around the perimeter
26:38
Speaker 2: of my garden.
26:39
Speaker 5: And some other trees.
26:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, so literally I'm just looking at nature and I'm sitting,
26:46
Speaker 2: pair of shorts, T-shirt, bare feet.
26:50
Speaker 1: I couldn't be more comfortable, you know. But I know that.
26:56
Speaker 2: If I was working in a different environment, even doing
27:00
Speaker 2: maybe the same job but in an environment that I
27:03
Speaker 2: don't enjoy, like if I had to drive into the city,
27:06
Speaker 2: sit in a studio, someone else's studio, and get dressed
27:12
Speaker 2: up and look a certain way and appear a certain way,
27:15
Speaker 2: present a certain way, and then go into the studio,
27:18
Speaker 2: then I had a producer in my ear saying, blah, blah.
27:21
Speaker 1: I'd fucking hate it because I don't want to do that.
27:25
Speaker 5: It's not authentically you, isn't it? It's not authentically you.
27:28
Speaker 5: You just want to be yourself.
27:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, so maybe we can be really busy and productive
27:34
Speaker 2: without being burnt out.
27:36
Speaker 5: Definitely, definitely.
27:37
Speaker 1: We do what we love, yes, 100%. Yes.
27:42
Speaker 2: So how might somebody know, and you kind of mentioned
27:47
Speaker 2: those feelings, but like if somebody's listening to this going,
27:50
Speaker 2: I wonder if I'm experiencing burnout, what should they think about?
27:55
Speaker 1: What might they pay attention to?
27:58
Speaker 5: Yeah, I talk about the three kind of phases of burnout.
28:02
Speaker 5: The first phase is usually emotional exhaustion. And every one
28:06
Speaker 5: of us will go, oh, it's very normal to feel tired.
28:08
Speaker 5: You know, we've been working really hard and all these things.
28:12
Speaker 5: And then the next stage or the next phase is
28:17
Speaker 5: probably the one that you start to notice some personality.
28:22
Speaker 5: We start to notice personality changes. In ourselves, we start
28:25
Speaker 5: being snappy. We're irritable at people. Or people have kind
28:31
Speaker 5: of gave us feedback. Oh, I think you're a bit,
28:33
Speaker 5: you know, a bit snappy these days. So it works
28:36
Speaker 5: out both ways. Personality changes, getting quite, yeah, as I said, irritable.
28:43
Speaker 5: That's depersonalization. And you just feel like, oh my gosh,
28:47
Speaker 5: like I'm not becoming myself anymore. And then the last...
28:54
Speaker 5: probably the last phase, which is probably the one that
28:55
Speaker 5: actually devastates people the most, is that loss of life purpose.
28:59
Speaker 5: That's actually part of burnout, that third phase. That's probably
29:03
Speaker 5: when people come to you for coaching as well, Craig,
29:05
Speaker 5: is when they go, oh, I'm in this third phase.
29:07
Speaker 5: I'm like, I don't know what to do. I want
29:08
Speaker 5: to quit my job. Should I quit my job? Should
29:10
Speaker 5: I quit this? Should I do this? Whatever. Because they've
29:13
Speaker 5: lost their life purpose, loss of direction. Unfortunately, by that stage,
29:17
Speaker 5: it's kind of too late. It will take a while
29:19
Speaker 5: to recover from burnout by that last symptom or last phase. Yes.
29:24
Speaker 5: So I think the key is to catch burnout early,
29:28
Speaker 5: but easier said than done. So I think some of
29:30
Speaker 5: us will have different barometers of recognizing that we are
29:34
Speaker 5: in burnout. For like for myself i'll know that i'll
29:37
Speaker 5: start to feel very exhausted and also i'm not i
29:40
Speaker 5: will not sleep well we're talking about sleep right i'll
29:43
Speaker 5: start waking up a fair bit throughout the night and
29:46
Speaker 5: just not sleeping well i'm a bit tired and i'm
29:48
Speaker 5: always waking up in the so many times at night
29:51
Speaker 5: maybe i'm feeling the the early signs of burnout and
29:55
Speaker 5: for some people it's something else maybe it's The exhaustion
29:58
Speaker 5: and then the snapping at people and everyone is so different.
30:02
Speaker 5: I think it kind of highlights important practice that we
30:06
Speaker 5: all need to do. I've been flying a lot recently
30:10
Speaker 5: for my book tour. So my family and I had
30:14
Speaker 5: the opportunity to look inside the cockpit of one of
30:16
Speaker 5: the planes.
30:17
Speaker 1: And boy, they had a lot of gadgets.
30:19
Speaker 5: These pilots had like.
30:21
Speaker 1: No shit.
30:23
Speaker 2: I'm glad there's a lot of gadgets because if there
30:25
Speaker 2: was like four buttons in the cockpit, I'd be worried.
30:28
Speaker 5: Exactly. And you think, oh my gosh, the pilots spend
30:30
Speaker 5: so much time, you know, safety check-ins, all that, of
30:34
Speaker 5: the planes before they, like, you know, they take off.
30:37
Speaker 5: Why can't we humans do the same?
30:39
Speaker 1: Yeah.
30:40
Speaker 5: Like, why can't we do that? Why can't we spend
30:42
Speaker 5: 10 minutes just doing a nervous system safety check-in every morning? Like,
30:46
Speaker 5: Where am I in my nervous system state and all
30:49
Speaker 5: these things? And I think it's really crucial. And I
30:52
Speaker 5: don't think we do enough of that, including, you know, me.
30:54
Speaker 5: I'm guilty as a charge as well, you know, like
30:58
Speaker 5: sometimes I don't do it regularly. I'm starting to be
31:01
Speaker 5: a bit better now. So how do we do that?
31:04
Speaker 5: That's great, theoretically. Yes, theoretically.
31:08
Speaker 2: 90% of my audience are going, yeah, cool, Doc, but
31:10
Speaker 2: what does that mean? How do I do that?
31:14
Speaker 5: First of all, we've got to schedule it in, in
31:16
Speaker 5: our phones. Secondly, we've got to choose, you know, the
31:18
Speaker 5: time that we are, we are best, like, you know,
31:21
Speaker 5: nervous system is alert. So for me, it's morning because
31:25
Speaker 5: it's when I get up, that's before I reach for
31:28
Speaker 5: my phone. I have, you know, like sometimes it's very
31:30
Speaker 5: tempting to look at, at your phone and check the emails.
31:32
Speaker 5: But I went, I got to do my nervous system check-in.
31:36
Speaker 5: So for some people early in the morning is good
31:38
Speaker 5: if they're morning people. And we are talking about the
31:40
Speaker 5: morning and nighttime people or evening people. So some people
31:43
Speaker 5: in the evening people, so they'll do it in the
31:46
Speaker 5: evening and they're.
31:46
Speaker 1: Probably, what is it? What is it?
31:48
Speaker 2: Not forget the, when forget the, when, what is a
31:52
Speaker 2: nervous system check-in check-in?
31:53
Speaker 1: Yeah.
31:54
Speaker 5: So I think you just spend about three minutes checking in, um,
31:59
Speaker 5: And ask yourself, where am I in this window of regulation?
32:02
Speaker 5: Am I in the middle? Am I in hyperarousal at
32:05
Speaker 5: the top or hyporousal at the bottom? You know, like
32:09
Speaker 5: it's kind of that kind of quick check-in. And then
32:13
Speaker 5: if you go, oh my gosh, I'm already feeling quite
32:16
Speaker 5: anxious this morning when I got up, then you know
32:17
Speaker 5: you're up there. And when you wake up, you go, oh,
32:20
Speaker 5: I don't want to go to work. Do I want
32:22
Speaker 5: to go to work? Oh, I don't really care. I
32:24
Speaker 5: have to prepare breakfast for my kids. Do I care?
32:26
Speaker 3: No.
32:27
Speaker 5: You know, that kind of thing. That's already apathy and
32:29
Speaker 5: like kind of setting in. So that's more hypo arousal.
32:33
Speaker 5: So kind of a good check in. And then and
32:36
Speaker 5: obviously there'll be many, many, many, many exercise that we
32:39
Speaker 5: can do to get you back to kind of in
32:43
Speaker 5: the middle ground. If you happen to be in. the
32:46
Speaker 5: the hyper arousal or hypo arousal um i just use
32:50
Speaker 5: a particular universal um tech technique which is a self-compassion
32:55
Speaker 5: technique where i just put my hand on my heart
32:58
Speaker 5: literally looks it sounds really lame like.
33:00
Speaker 4: Put your hand on your heart it's not it's not
33:03
Speaker 4: lame people it's not if you put my head you
33:05
Speaker 4: know like i've had doctors try to do that and
33:07
Speaker 4: they look at me like you want me to do
33:09
Speaker 4: what anyway um put your hand on your heart and
33:12
Speaker 4: then take three deep breaths that's it that's a quick
33:14
Speaker 4: reset I mean, we have, you know, breathing is, you know,
33:17
Speaker 4: we all are able to take breaths at work, right?
33:20
Speaker 1: So why not just do this.
33:22
Speaker 5: Practice, you know, when you do your safety check-in and then,
33:26
Speaker 5: you know, in a work day where you're stressed, do
33:28
Speaker 5: that as well. So I think that's a good practice
33:31
Speaker 5: reset exercise.
33:32
Speaker 2: I think some of the things that sound lame, as
33:35
Speaker 2: you said, right, like box breathing, I've had to say
33:41
Speaker 2: to executives, to elite athletes, to... I say I know
33:46
Speaker 2: this sounds like silly and like something that you'd get off.
33:50
Speaker 1: Instagram, right?
33:52
Speaker 2: But do this with me, right, where I would take
33:55
Speaker 2: them through a 90-second breathing activity and essentially– They go
34:03
Speaker 2: from sympathetic to parasympathetic.
34:05
Speaker 5: 100%.
34:07
Speaker 2: Like quite quickly. And they can feel their heart rate
34:12
Speaker 2: go down. They can feel their blood pressure drop. They
34:15
Speaker 2: can feel their breathing slow. And it's like, oh, yeah,
34:20
Speaker 2: I go because your mind, your psychology and your physiology
34:25
Speaker 2: and your emotions, they're one system, not three.
34:28
Speaker 1: And we treat them individually.
34:31
Speaker 2: But they are actually integrated all the time. So, you know,
34:38
Speaker 2: your thoughts don't operate independent of anything else.
34:42
Speaker 1: Like they're integrated. You think you're in trouble.
34:45
Speaker 2: Even if you're not, your body responds as though trouble
34:48
Speaker 2: is afoot.
34:50
Speaker 1: You know, so all that.
34:51
Speaker 2: And so, yeah, I think something as simple as putting
34:54
Speaker 2: your hand on your heart and doing that little, yes,
34:58
Speaker 2: it sounds weird, it sounds lame. The other thing too
35:02
Speaker 2: is like some of the most effective things are really simple.
35:09
Speaker 2: I feel like in medicine and in exercise, it's like
35:15
Speaker 2: I say, because people will say to me all the time,
35:18
Speaker 2: that sounds not all the time, but very often over
35:21
Speaker 2: the last 40 years as an exercise scientist, right? Yeah.
35:24
Speaker 1: What's the best way to basically, you know, get fit,
35:27
Speaker 1: get strong? What's the best program? What's the best?
35:30
Speaker 2: And I go, the one that you do consistently for decades, right?
35:35
Speaker 1: Exactly.
35:36
Speaker 2: And the problem is not that we don't have the
35:39
Speaker 2: right program. The right program is important. But what is
35:43
Speaker 2: more important is that you are doing some strength training,
35:48
Speaker 2: some cardiovascular exercise regularly. some flexibility work, some balance, some
35:54
Speaker 2: coordination that you are stimulating your body. Now, if it's
35:59
Speaker 2: not an optimal program for your physiology, it's not as
36:03
Speaker 2: important as literally doing something that is of value consistently
36:08
Speaker 2: and indefinitely. The reason that people tend to not get
36:13
Speaker 2: the results they want with their exercise is simply because
36:16
Speaker 2: they stop. The vast majority of people, and I mean
36:20
Speaker 2: well over 70% or 80%, who start a new exercise
36:24
Speaker 2: program today will stop before the end of the– well,
36:28
Speaker 2: maybe not before the end of the year, but within
36:30
Speaker 2: six months.
36:32
Speaker 1: I agree.
36:32
Speaker 2: Which is why gyms can sell way more memberships than
36:35
Speaker 2: the actual facility can accommodate because they know that people
36:40
Speaker 2: don't show up.
36:41
Speaker 5: That's correct. And yeah, I agree with that. It's so
36:44
Speaker 5: hard to build a consistent habit of exercising. I've noticed
36:48
Speaker 5: that because I'm a pain physician in my patient cohort
36:52
Speaker 5: as well. Unless they have accountability, it's really hard for
36:57
Speaker 5: them to, there's only like a small percentage who will
36:59
Speaker 5: be committed and dedicated. Then everyone else just needs accountability, nudging.
37:05
Speaker 5: and all of that. Yeah, it's really hard to be
37:06
Speaker 5: consistent with exercise.
37:08
Speaker 1: Very hard. Well, here's the key, Doc. I'm going to
37:11
Speaker 1: teach you something. Yeah, please. It's for myself as well.
37:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'm saying, it's like people say to me
37:19
Speaker 2: reasonably regularly, how do you stay so disciplined and motivated?
37:22
Speaker 1: And I say, I don't. I don't.
37:24
Speaker 2: Because for me, exercise is a hard, wide, ingrained, subconsciously
37:29
Speaker 2: programmed habit. So I don't need to get up and think,
37:33
Speaker 2: will I train, won't I train? I don't need to go, oh, God,
37:37
Speaker 2: I'm not motivated, I'm not inspired, because I just do
37:41
Speaker 2: it every day, just like most people shower every day.
37:44
Speaker 2: Most people eat breakfast every day. These are not things
37:47
Speaker 2: that we decide on day to day.
37:48
Speaker 1: Will I shower today?
37:50
Speaker 2: No, that's a silly concept because it's just part of
37:54
Speaker 2: your operating system. Now, when exercise becomes a typical thing,
38:00
Speaker 2: everyday part of your operating system.
38:03
Speaker 1: You don't need willpower.
38:04
Speaker 2: You don't need self-control or discipline or hyper-motivation because you
38:09
Speaker 2: do it on autopilot. So the challenge is to recognize
38:13
Speaker 2: what are the behaviors which support my goals and my
38:17
Speaker 2: overall wellbeing that need to be truly habitual, not things
38:22
Speaker 2: that I do when I'm in the zone.
38:24
Speaker 5: Exactly. Spot on. I like that. That's very good tips.
38:28
Speaker 1: Love it.
38:29
Speaker 2: All right.
38:29
Speaker 1: Now I want to go back. You're welcome, everyone. You
38:31
Speaker 1: can embrace that.
38:32
Speaker 2: Now I want to ask you, I wrote down three
38:35
Speaker 2: terms before that we didn't get to in regard to burnout. Yes.
38:39
Speaker 2: And the three terms were, and this is what I've
38:42
Speaker 2: experienced with some clients, overwhelm, helplessness, feeling of helplessness, feeling
38:48
Speaker 2: of hopelessness.
38:49
Speaker 1: Do they intersect with overwhelm? Yeah, I think overwhelm... Or
38:54
Speaker 1: is that different? Different.
38:56
Speaker 5: I think overwhelm happens when you oscillate. Like your nervous
39:00
Speaker 5: system just keeps oscillating between hyperarousal and hypoarousal. It's just
39:05
Speaker 5: like a yo-yo. You go... You know, like... That's how
39:09
Speaker 5: you feel when you're overwhelmed. You just feel like... If
39:11
Speaker 5: you think about a cartoon, you're like... Okay, I'm making
39:13
Speaker 5: sound effects.
39:14
Speaker 1: Here, but it's like that.
39:16
Speaker 5: Whereas helplessness and hopelessness... I feel these two particular symptoms
39:22
Speaker 5: fall under hypoarousal because it's that feeling of, oh, I
39:25
Speaker 5: can't do anything. Help, I can't do anything. It's hypoarousal. Yes.
39:32
Speaker 5: It's that bottom window. So I think, yeah, those are
39:36
Speaker 5: the key differences.
39:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
39:39
Speaker 2: So let's say somebody recognises right now that, okay, I
39:44
Speaker 2: might be in.
39:46
Speaker 1: A degree of burnout. or I might be heading into that.
39:50
Speaker 2: And apart from the kind of the checking in in
39:52
Speaker 2: the morning, and like you said, we can't think our
39:58
Speaker 2: way out of these things, right?
39:59
Speaker 1: Yeah. I feel like we need to do our way
40:02
Speaker 1: out of them. Yeah, 100%.
40:05
Speaker 2: And that might mean making practical decisions about what your
40:10
Speaker 2: life looks like. or about how much time and energy
40:14
Speaker 2: you devote. Now, of course, everyone, I understand that this
40:17
Speaker 2: is not possible for everyone. It's situation, person, and context dependent. But,
40:25
Speaker 2: you know, I've made, like I used to do seven
40:27
Speaker 2: shows a week. So every day of the year, 365
40:30
Speaker 2: days a year. That's a lot of shows.
40:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. I know.
40:35
Speaker 2: And at one stage I was doing a second podcast.
40:37
Speaker 2: So I was doing 14 a week, right, which is crazy.
40:41
Speaker 2: But I just got to the point, obviously, it was
40:44
Speaker 2: a stupid idea, but where I went, I can't do that.
40:47
Speaker 2: I can do that, but it's no good. The quality
40:49
Speaker 2: of the podcast won't be great. I won't be great, blah.
40:52
Speaker 1: Blah, blah.
40:54
Speaker 2: And even though five seems like a lot, and sometimes
40:56
Speaker 2: it's four, this week it's going to be four because
41:00
Speaker 2: someone dropped out very late.
41:02
Speaker 1: But anyway, that's fine.
41:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, but sometimes it's about going, oh, recognising something and
41:08
Speaker 2: then making a decision and changing the practical reality of
41:12
Speaker 2: your commitments and your schedule and your to-do list, I guess.
41:18
Speaker 5: This is why I think, because I've coached quite a
41:22
Speaker 5: number of doctors and healthcare professionals through burnout, one of
41:26
Speaker 5: the things I notice, which is that it's going to
41:29
Speaker 5: be helpful for people who are already in burnout, is
41:33
Speaker 5: it's actually to make sure they do the tools to
41:37
Speaker 5: regulate their nervous system first, before they receive any kind
41:40
Speaker 5: of coaching, mindset coaching, executive coaching. Once their nervous system
41:44
Speaker 5: is regulated, that's when I think the prefrontal cortex is
41:48
Speaker 5: open to ideas and coaching or executive function again. So
41:53
Speaker 5: I think that's when the coaching can step in. So
41:56
Speaker 5: I think as coaches, we need to do a combination
41:59
Speaker 5: of both. But some of your clients who are very
42:02
Speaker 5: burnt out, even if you try to coach them, I've
42:06
Speaker 5: been there. I've tried to coach these very burnt out
42:08
Speaker 5: doctors who unfortunately, you know, didn't end up very well,
42:12
Speaker 5: in fact, because their nervous system was so dysregulated. They
42:16
Speaker 5: were not open to coaching at all. I had to
42:19
Speaker 5: learn that the hard way. So I think my tip
42:23
Speaker 5: will be to get the nervous system stable first or regulated,
42:28
Speaker 5: then the coaching happens. So we can do a big
42:30
Speaker 5: combination of coaches. We can do both of them.
42:33
Speaker 1: Yes, yes.
42:35
Speaker 2: I think about, I've been thinking about my mum lately
42:39
Speaker 2: and the reality of her last year, like with dad,
42:41
Speaker 2: where she was dad's carer. Now, mum is 87, right?
42:48
Speaker 2: Mum weighs less than 40 kilos, right? Which is crazy,
42:52
Speaker 2: I know. She's only about, I think she used to
42:55
Speaker 2: be 5'1. I reckon she's like 4'10. Now, she's tiny.
42:58
Speaker 2: But And I did as much as I could, but
43:02
Speaker 2: they live in the country.
43:03
Speaker 1: I live in Melbourne. And so all the support, am
43:08
Speaker 1: I being honest? Yeah, I think I am.
43:12
Speaker 2: I probably could have done more, but I'm not a
43:14
Speaker 2: bad son, right? I'm the only kid, so it falls
43:17
Speaker 2: on me. So I did the very best that I
43:20
Speaker 2: could do to support both of them in lots of ways.
43:24
Speaker 2: But ultimately, 99% of the load was on mum. And
43:29
Speaker 2: mum would be, I don't want to get into too
43:32
Speaker 2: much detail, everyone, but you can imagine the needs and
43:35
Speaker 2: requirements of a husband who is suffering from dementia and
43:43
Speaker 2: Parkinson's and severe diabetes and a whole lot of other conditions.
43:49
Speaker 2: So mum was really a carer times five, 24-7. And
43:57
Speaker 2: I would say, like she was in a constant state
44:03
Speaker 2: of burnout. She wouldn't even know that word, right? But
44:07
Speaker 2: there are some people like my mum and parents, especially
44:14
Speaker 2: mums who have maybe got kids with disabilities that It's like, oh,
44:18
Speaker 2: this is all well and good, Craig and Olivia, but
44:22
Speaker 2: I can't change this component.
44:24
Speaker 1: Neither do I want to, of course.
44:26
Speaker 2: But where the inevitable, unavoidable reality of your life is
44:32
Speaker 2: perhaps caring for someone with these kind of very specific needs.
44:39
Speaker 2: it's like that's tough, right? Because you can't say, oh,
44:43
Speaker 2: I'm just going to do less of that. Or you
44:46
Speaker 2: can't say, I'm going to take four weeks in Queensland. Yeah,
44:49
Speaker 2: so I don't have an answer and probably neither do you,
44:54
Speaker 2: but I'd love your thoughts around that. Yeah.
44:58
Speaker 5: Caregiver burnout is very real. My husband went through that
45:02
Speaker 5: looking after me when I had my spinal cord injury
45:04
Speaker 5: and he was young, you know. I can't imagine what
45:08
Speaker 5: it's like for your mom who's in her 80s with
45:12
Speaker 5: quite a lot of health needs herself, having to take
45:15
Speaker 5: on that kind of responsibility.
45:17
Speaker 1: And you're right.
45:18
Speaker 5: Your mom was probably in a state of burnout. And
45:21
Speaker 5: many caregivers out there were looking after probably terminal neurological conditions. Like,
45:26
Speaker 5: I mean, motor neurone disease is one I can think of.
45:29
Speaker 2: Yes.
45:30
Speaker 5: Like the caring, the caregiving is, it's ongoing. It's for years.
45:33
Speaker 1: And yeah.
45:35
Speaker 5: And I had the opportunity to speak at the MND
45:37
Speaker 5: conference last year. And one of the things that they
45:41
Speaker 5: wanted me to address was the caregiver burnout. And there
45:45
Speaker 5: were many caregivers in the audience. What I spoke about
45:49
Speaker 5: was self-compassion. Because I told them, look, I don't know
45:51
Speaker 5: what you've been through. I can only talk to you
45:56
Speaker 5: from what my husband went through when he looked after
45:58
Speaker 5: me with spinal cord injury. But what all of you
46:01
Speaker 5: can practice every day is practice the, you know, the self-compassion,
46:06
Speaker 5: but there's three things to self-compassion. It's not like, I'm
46:08
Speaker 5: just going to be compassionate towards myself. It's not that
46:11
Speaker 5: kind of thing. You know, there's three stages to it.
46:14
Speaker 5: The first stage, I love my rule of threes. That's
46:16
Speaker 5: because as doctors, we just look, we like rule of
46:19
Speaker 5: threes in general.
46:20
Speaker 1: And you like, you like for formula.
46:23
Speaker 5: Oh, we like formula. And there is a formula for self-compassion.
46:26
Speaker 5: So it's, I guess the first step is mindfulness. And
46:31
Speaker 5: we all know about mindfulness. That's such a buzzword, right?
46:33
Speaker 5: What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is also the fact that you
46:38
Speaker 5: are aware that you are suffering from caregiver burnout. Because
46:41
Speaker 5: as you said, your mom probably was not there. She
46:45
Speaker 5: was just pushing through, looking after dad, nonstop, 24-7. She
46:48
Speaker 5: probably wasn't even there. So actually, that's the first stage.
46:51
Speaker 5: You have to know that you're suffering from caregiver burnout
46:54
Speaker 5: or you're suffering full stop. And then the second stage
46:57
Speaker 5: after that will be common humanity, knowing that we are
47:02
Speaker 5: not in this alone. We are all in this together.
47:05
Speaker 5: We're all going through lots of different sufferings one way
47:08
Speaker 5: or another. And you can feel very isolating. I think
47:13
Speaker 5: your mom probably felt very isolated as well. And common
47:16
Speaker 5: humanity is that experience that we are all in this
47:19
Speaker 5: together and we're not alone. And the last stage is self-kindness,
47:23
Speaker 5: which is the hardest. I found that the hardest for myself.
47:26
Speaker 5: I had to undo years of being really harsh on myself.
47:30
Speaker 5: And that's how I grew up. And that's what med
47:32
Speaker 5: school was like. That's what medicine undergraduate training, postgraduate training,
47:37
Speaker 5: it's all the same. It's being hard on ourselves because
47:40
Speaker 5: our bosses are very hard on us as well. Self-kindness
47:43
Speaker 5: is the last stage and also the hardest for many, many,
47:47
Speaker 5: many people. But once they kind of go through these
47:50
Speaker 5: three stages of self-compassion, when they can be compassionate to
47:54
Speaker 5: themselves is when they can be compassionate to others as well.
47:57
Speaker 5: So I think that there is, that was what I
48:01
Speaker 5: talked about in that particular keynote. And it resonated a
48:04
Speaker 5: lot with the caregivers because this is something that they
48:07
Speaker 5: probably didn't realize that they needed to do.
48:09
Speaker 4: Yes.
48:10
Speaker 2: Yes.
48:10
Speaker 1: It's, it's been, thank you for that.
48:14
Speaker 2: It's been interesting as, since dad passed away and mom's
48:19
Speaker 2: gone into a care facility, which that's, I'm so grateful.
48:23
Speaker 2: It's a really good care facility. So it's actually a
48:26
Speaker 2: nice place with nice staff. The caregivers are awesome. The
48:30
Speaker 2: nurses are awesome. And it's, you know, she likes it there,
48:35
Speaker 2: which makes me happy.
48:37
Speaker 1: She's got a great room, blah, blah, blah.
48:39
Speaker 2: But what's been, apart from the little hiccup with her falling,
48:44
Speaker 2: apart from that hiccup, what has been amazing is all
48:48
Speaker 2: of a sudden mum can sleep all night without Just that.
48:54
Speaker 1: Like she hasn't been able to do.
48:56
Speaker 2: That for years because dad would wake up through the
48:59
Speaker 2: night or there would be other challenges that I won't
49:02
Speaker 2: mention through the night. And, you know, she hasn't had
49:09
Speaker 2: to be hyper-focused on anyone but herself. The physical requirements
49:16
Speaker 2: of her day have greatly diminished, like as in she
49:21
Speaker 2: was physically exhausted because she was working.
49:24
Speaker 1: I mean, she was cleaning.
49:26
Speaker 2: She was, you know, changing bed linen every day. She
49:29
Speaker 2: was washing clothes. She was preparing meals. She was now
49:33
Speaker 2: all of that is gone. And, you know, she can
49:37
Speaker 2: do as much or as little as she wants, but
49:39
Speaker 2: she spends her day talking with other people. walking around,
49:43
Speaker 2: you know, turning up for breakfast, lunch, dinner, reading books.
49:47
Speaker 2: She gets lots of visitors because everyone wants to go
49:49
Speaker 2: see her. Her favorite child, her only child comes up
49:53
Speaker 2: one or two days a week, you know, but she's
49:57
Speaker 2: gone from nine and a half stress to zero stress,
50:02
Speaker 2: you know, and it's really taken her a minute to
50:07
Speaker 2: adjust to a life where She keeps like worrying about
50:13
Speaker 2: this or worrying about that. I go, mum, that's irrelevant
50:15
Speaker 2: now or you don't need to do that or even
50:17
Speaker 2: with bills and stuff because I take care of like everything.
50:21
Speaker 2: She doesn't have to pay a bill. She doesn't have
50:23
Speaker 2: to get the mail. She doesn't have to go to meetings.
50:27
Speaker 2: She doesn't have to solve any problems, you know. And
50:31
Speaker 2: that's not to say we just want to put her
50:33
Speaker 2: on a shelf and let her bloody, you know, she
50:35
Speaker 2: still uses her brain, she's still thinking and she's still
50:38
Speaker 2: interacting and solving problems in her own way. But the
50:43
Speaker 2: pressure to have to get stuff done and do, that's
50:47
Speaker 2: all gone now.
50:48
Speaker 1: And I.
50:50
Speaker 2: I have a photo of her, which I might send
50:54
Speaker 2: you actually after this, but I have a photo of
50:58
Speaker 2: her about three months before dad died. Then I have
51:01
Speaker 2: a photo of her a few weeks ago, a couple
51:05
Speaker 2: of weeks ago, and she looks 10 years younger.
51:08
Speaker 4: Yeah.
51:09
Speaker 1: It's such a contrast.
51:11
Speaker 2: And even just looking at a picture, in photo one,
51:16
Speaker 2: her energy looks like minus four out of 10. Yeah.
51:20
Speaker 1: And in the second photo, you just see this energy. Yes,
51:24
Speaker 1: this smile, this energy, this, yeah.
51:27
Speaker 2: So it's been for me to see that and to see, oh,
51:31
Speaker 2: when you change, and of course, you know, the sadness
51:37
Speaker 2: and grief that comes with losing a husband and a dad,
51:39
Speaker 2: I get all of that, but just the, and that still,
51:42
Speaker 2: you know, affects me.
51:45
Speaker 1: Both of us.
51:46
Speaker 2: But just the practical reality of her life now, it's
51:50
Speaker 2: like she's like a little flower that has just been
51:53
Speaker 2: watered for the first time in three months. And she's
51:57
Speaker 2: blossoming a little bit, which is.
51:59
Speaker 5: Yeah, she's finally healing, isn't it? And finally she doesn't
52:03
Speaker 5: have to put, she can finally put herself first. I
52:05
Speaker 5: guess that's the, and focus on her, which is great.
52:09
Speaker 5: I'm glad to hear your mom is doing. really well
52:11
Speaker 5: i think um that's really crucial like putting herself first
52:14
Speaker 5: that's she's probably she probably hasn't done that for years.
52:17
Speaker 2: Yes she hasn't she hasn't and she tries to boss
52:21
Speaker 2: me around tries to boss me around like i go
52:24
Speaker 2: i'll see you on saturday oh the i don't think
52:27
Speaker 2: the weather's good on saturday i don't really want you
52:29
Speaker 2: driving in the rain like she says that to me
52:31
Speaker 2: i don't want you driving in the rain i go
52:33
Speaker 2: mom i've been driving for a hundred years I've been
52:36
Speaker 2: driving for 100 years and my car's waterproof and I've
52:39
Speaker 2: got wipers.
52:40
Speaker 1: We're all good, you know.
52:41
Speaker 2: So, yeah, that is very funny. But all right. So
52:48
Speaker 2: the book is called Back on My Feet, Everybody, Dr.
52:50
Speaker 1: Olivia Ong. So go and buy five copies of that
52:54
Speaker 1: for Christmas.
52:55
Speaker 2: Where can people connect with you, Doc, and follow you
52:57
Speaker 2: and check you out online?
53:00
Speaker 5: Absolutely. So people can connect with me through my website
53:04
Speaker 5: at DrOliviaLeong.com or feel free to just send me a
53:07
Speaker 5: message on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook. I'm quite active on
53:12
Speaker 5: those platforms.
53:14
Speaker 1: Very much so.
53:15
Speaker 2: It's always good chatting with you. You need to come
53:17
Speaker 2: up with another topic. You need to come up with
53:20
Speaker 2: another topic. We'll do a deep dive on something else.
53:23
Speaker 2: I like the freestyleness of it all.
53:25
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely.
53:27
Speaker 1: Thanks, everybody. Hope you enjoyed that. We'll see you next time.