Latest / Health Tech & Wellness Podcast / Why You Feel Mentally Exhausted All the Time (Finding Peace in Chaos)
Transcript
- John Adams: Welcome to another week of the Health Tech and Wellness Podcast. I'm Jon Adams. Crystal Nevedale: And I'm Crystal Nevidale. John Adams: Do you ever feel mentally exhausted, even though you didn't really do anything that day? Like your brain just feels overloaded. You can't focus. You're irritated so easy. You feel drained, restless, mentally foggy. And the crazy part is this. A lot of us have gotten so used to that consistent and constant noise, we don't even realize how overstimulated that we are every single day. Because think about this, the second there's silence, what do most people do? We talk about it all the time. We grab our phone, we turn on the TV. music, TV, scrolling, notifications everywhere, videos, podcasts, which about the healthiest part you can do with the whole thing as long as you're listening to something healthy, right? But we're looking for background noise, constant input all day long. We don't take that moment to rest. So honestly, we talked about that last week. You need that moment, right? I don't think our brains were designed for this much noise. We know it wasn't right back before all of this. Heck, when I was a kid, we didn't even have cable. We were the last people on the block. I was the channel changer. Johnny, get up and turn the channel. U-H-F-V-H-S, click, click, click, right? You didn't have all this noise. So today, Crystal and I just kind of want to talk about that overstimulation and what it's doing to us mentally. Why so many of us feel like... so emotionally exhausted all day even when nothing else is happening and how to actually create moments of peace in a world designed to steal all of our attention away. I really think this is one of the biggest mental health struggles that people don't talk about enough. The world never shuts off anymore. I was struggling for topics this week and you threw this one right out to me, Crystal, and I think this was a an amazing topic because we don't talk about this enough, right? Because it's coming from every different direction. We talk about it when it comes to the phone and scrolling and stuff, but it comes from everywhere, right? Crystal Nevedale: It does. John Adams: breaking news on the TV, text messages, emails, arguments with your spouse or family or employees or your landlord, alerts, all that stuff that's just coming at us constantly. And most people are consuming all of it. And at the same time, your TV's on still in the background, you're still scrolling on your phone, you still got music playing. You're thinking about work or what you need to do tomorrow or, I got to prep my meals for tomorrow. I got to do all of this. And then, wait a minute, this email just came in and every minute it's just go and go and go. And, you know, we're recording, it's 1.50 right now and you've already done a million things today, right? So now you add on all of that other stuff. So our brains are just exhausted. You could take a full week's vacation and then you come back. and you're still exhausted because you spent the whole time thinking about work. It's not because we're lazy. We're overstimulated a lot of times. Crystal Nevedale: I think too, to get rid of some of the over-stimulation for myself, I mean, everybody's different, but do you feel like when you exercise, like that helps? Literally, it takes the edge off. If I'm anxious, if I'm irritable, like if I just put in 20 minutes of movement and music, I'm good to go. I think it's everybody finding that thing to help lessen that. John Adams: Yeah, if it's working out, if it's something that you enjoy, and I'm not talking about like playing a video game or something, but if it's something that you truly enjoy, heck, building a puzzle can be so relaxing and so non, like over stimulation, right? It's the simple things. Working out's a huge one because yes, I go into it more... Crystal Nevedale: But the. John Adams: anxious before I go in, but then I come out of it, it's like, wow, I feel amazing. Crystal Nevedale: I feel like though when you're like over stimulated and you have all this coming in that you need physical activity. Like you need to move whether it's dance, walk, ⁓ something. I just like the word over stimulated has to be to solve an over simulation problem you need some kind of movement. Putting things down and moving. For me that is. John Adams: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of times it does. I think when you've got like a ADHD thing, a lot of times that really helps getting out and kind of moving. But you got to think like a lot of that that we are overstimulated with today is a modern thing, right? You know, I said that earlier. I had the clicking, you know, click knob TV. We didn't have all of this stuff back then. So Crystal Nevedale: ⁓ huh. Mm-hmm. Right. John Adams: I think a lot of this is what maybe... 25 years, it's kind of really ramped up maybe in the last 10. And then COVID, it even got worse, right? Because we all got kind of locked in. ⁓ So kind of where you're at, Crystal, in your life with your family and everything, I know we are kind of more in tuned and we're kind of getting closer to where we feel like we can tell when we're tense and when we're overstimulated. But do you think that the majority of the people out there kind of realize how mentally overwhelmed and overloaded that they are anymore? Crystal Nevedale: Thank No, and I'm pretty aware and I'm going to tell you about a situation that just happened to me. And I'm really aware of my, I'm reflecting all day long about my feelings and my emotions and my body and all the things. I was in a situation the other day and I was in a big facility and there was a lot of people and there was a lot going on. And I was with Emily and ⁓ she wanted to do something, speak to somebody and I was. I didn't know what was wrong with me at that moment, but I needed to get out. I needed to leave. And we did or whatever. And I felt really bad about that because I pushed her out the door, like wanting her to go when she had something to finish. But it was that moment that made me realize what was going on with my body. I didn't know why I was so anxious. Nothing happened. There was nothing going on that was like, ⁓ Well, that's what it was. None of that. It was literally just too much stimulation for me. And I think that's the first time in my life that I put words to what was really happening. And so it was like the next day, I processed it all day or all night and the next afternoon. And then when I talked to her once, was like, you know, I don't think I should have been that way with you. I'm sorry if I was short with you, because she never said a word about it. I think that I was too much and I just needed to get out of the building. But so if I'm this aware and it happens to me and I can't differentiate what's going on, I can't imagine for someone who doesn't think about. and either feelings or emotion or their body, I can't even imagine. So yes, I think people miss it all the time. They don't realize how overstimulated they really are. It comes out in frustration. It comes out in anger. It comes out in impatience. It doesn't always come out as just, you know, you're overloaded. Like there's all these different behaviors connected to it. So I mean, absolutely. I struggle, but I'm glad that it happened to me. I'm glad that I... John Adams: Yeah. Crystal Nevedale: figured that out and I know now like when that feeling happens inside me what's really going on. John Adams: So ⁓ I think, and I've never been physically diagnosed, but the more I did a little bit of research and looking into it, I honestly think I might've been a little bit on the spectrum as a young child because I learned a long time ago when that overstimulation thing is kicking in, because to me, and I don't know if you felt this way that day or not, but it almost feels like an out-of-body experience. Everything around you is hyper, like almost like, volume turned up to a thousand. Everything is just like the lights are brighter. Everything is, and I just kind of had. calm down, do my breathing exercises, just kind of step back for a minute, let that pass, because I know what's happening now. And then I can... But yeah, it used to happen to me as a kid. My mom actually, because I didn't know how to explain it as a kid. And I don't think like, ⁓ like autism or even any form of the spectrum was really talked about as much back then. And my mom had my ears checked. I went and sat one of those big rooms where they put the thing on and you listen for the... Crystal Nevedale: Right. John Adams: At the end of the day, I didn't know what was going on. And a lot of it was over stimulation and just... To me, it felt, I call it an aura. It just feels like an out of body experience. Crystal Nevedale: It feels like you don't have control you just need to move away from whatever it is Yeah, I think it's so important to talk about this kind of stuff though, too Because I don't think that I don't think that all of us are like as aware as we think we are like until like a moment happens like that and you're like Wow, like I thought I would be able to detect that before it even happened But I was unable to even understand what was happening in my body. I just knew it didn't feel good John Adams: Yeah. Crystal Nevedale: and I needed to remove myself from where I was. Like when I tell you that there was nothing going on, like there was nothing going on. It was maybe loud and stuff like that, but it was very strange. It was the first time that I was able to put words to that happening now. So I'm so happy that it did, because now I'm going to be aware when I start to get that feeling. Instead of getting us both out the door, I can go, hey, you know what? I'm not really feeling real great. I'm going to go get some fresh air. John Adams: Yeah, let me just step outside for a second. Crystal Nevedale: or you don't come up with a different plan. John Adams: Yeah, it's, when I finally realized that, I mean, I spent years with it. And when I finally realized that and I was able to kind of just step back and it's not always easy. There's sometimes it'll last 20 minutes. And I'm just, even when I walk outside, even the car horns, it's just, but that overstimulation thing is real and we don't talk about it. we, you you hear people say, you know, autism or you hear people say whatever, and it's a stigmatized thing. But at the end of the day, there's different. levels to stuff and a lot of the over stimulation, you know comes with the things that are already around us But then now let's let's spin this just a little bit else I think a big part of why And I'm not saying me in particular or your instance, but just a lot of people I think a lot of reasons why we get so overstimulated Especially in the world that we're in where we can't have in we have to have things going on in the background ⁓ Crystal Nevedale: right. John Adams: I don't know if you've ever been this way, but I've been, know, especially after I fell from the train and, you know, I was just in a dark spot in my head. A lot of times, you get really uncomfortable with silence. You gotta have just something because you get into your head. And sometimes in that spot, that could be not a fun place to be. So I think a lot of us go to that stuff because... In those moments you don't want that silence. Do you think that you've ever experienced somebody like that or can you, what's your thoughts on that I guess? Crystal Nevedale: ⁓ I think that's a thing. think people definitely have a problem with silence and understanding how silence is healthy and feels good because sometimes it doesn't feel good because if you are a person like myself, I do overthink things too. ⁓ So when I want silence but I'm afraid that I already have too many things going on, I have too many thoughts, because it's really hard to bring silence into my life at 1 p.m. because I've already been stimulated, I've already had, went through a full day of activities. So my two best times for silence for me as a human wanting to have real silence is first thing in the morning when I'm like really fresh and there's not a lot of noise and first, know, right when I'm getting ready to go to bed. Those are my two times where I really enjoy silence. Now I'll tell you something that's new for me too. For the last four years, have slept, well, last six years, give or take a month or two, I have ⁓ slept with noise to sleep. I have not for now ⁓ three months. Emily asked me one day, why do I have noise on? Why do I listen to distant thunderstorms when I sleep? And I said, well, it's just a habit. It wasn't my habit. It was a habit that I picked up from someone else. And I've just done it. And I said, and you know, I said that it was because I snore and I didn't want to keep my partner awake because that was like, was the reason that I kept it on with her, you know, in the beginning of our relationship. And she's like, yeah, it doesn't matter to me. Like you don't like your story is like nothing. It's like, it's like a purr or whatever. I'm like, thank you for your purr. I've been called a chainsaw, but all right. I'm like, all right, I'll take it if I just purr, you know? So I. John Adams: Yeah. Right. Crystal Nevedale: Turn it off and you know I haven't slept with noise at all and it has not bothered me one bit. I love it. Now if there's like something going on outside and I need to get to sleep, say that there's there's a lot of ⁓ like dump trucks and things out here sometimes where I have to put on some noise that like to take a nap if I wanted to take a nap or something like that. But for sleep no more. So that's that's kind of a nice adjustment. John Adams: Yeah, you're lucky there. need a lot of times, like I said, that's why I do the meditation stuff and everything to try to go to sleep, because a lot of times it's so hard to shut off my brain. So having that noise in the background really does help me. ⁓ I'm going to try it. I'm going to give myself a challenge. I'm going to try it a couple of nights and just try it and see what happens. Crystal Nevedale: Yeah, it's crazy because you know what? We have trains right here and we have the emergency siren that goes off at night and it doesn't even bother me. It's kind of liberating honestly. Yeah, like to not have to have it like I. I thought to myself why go places and I never have noise like why do I need noise at home? You know, like if I'm sleeping at someone's house, I'm not putting on distant thunderstorms. You know, or if I'm splitting I had a friend's house. I'm not doing that. John Adams: Yeah. Crystal Nevedale: So I really do feel good about not doing that now. John Adams: Yeah, no, I'm gonna try that because... Crystal Nevedale: Do you have any other sleep rituals? Like, do you do like a guided meditation to go to sleep ever? John Adams: I do, I do, but I still have to have some kind of, even if it's maybe a guided meditation playing in my ear or a noise in the background, like just white noise. Sometimes, my best to falling asleep, which is stupid, because it works when I'm trying to really watch a movie, it works better when I'm going to, I turn the TV on. If the TV's on, I mean, I'll, gone. I don't know why, maybe because I'm thinking about that and I'm not thinking about the 50 other things in my head. ⁓ But yeah, no, I do guided meditations. I do white noise. I mean, I've always had a hard time shutting off my brain at night. I'll toss and turn. Crystal Nevedale: What about Cindy? Does she need something to sleep or do you just put it in your own ears only? John Adams: No, she's usually pretty good when she hits the head, the bed, gone. But recently though, ⁓ she's just between age, she's 50. ⁓ So get that. And then ⁓ with everything with her mom, she has a hard time, you know. But ⁓ that's just recent though. I don't think that's a normal ongoing thing usually for her. Crystal Nevedale: Look up Jason Stevenson and maybe some of our listeners would enjoy it too. He does guided meditation and some of them are like three hours. So you literally just put it on and you follow his directions and you're asleep before you know it. Sometimes it doesn't take me five minutes. I haven't done it in a long time. Like, but when I used to have trouble sleeping, I'd put him on it. Like his voice was very soothing. They need to be telling you, take five breaths and do this and feel your toes and all these things. And by the time you know it, It'd be four minutes and you're asleep. You're like, feel my toes. I can't even think about my toes. I'm going to sleep. Yeah. You've never done that before? John Adams: Yeah, that's some extreme guided meditation. Wow. Okay, I like that. So not that extreme. I've never listened to a three-hour. Dang. No. Wow. Okay. Crystal Nevedale: ⁓ yeah, so it's meant so that you can sleep through the night. it's, some of it's to help work with... John Adams: And I'm wondering if there's not subliminal stuff for while you're in your rim. Yeah, that actually makes, okay, I'll definitely, usually mine kick off. think the longest one I've had, maybe 10. ⁓ that'd be a full sleep cycle, wow. Okay, I'll check it out. I didn't write it down. I've got it in the show notes, so we should be good. ⁓ Sorry, I apologize, my phone. People are blowing up mine, even though it's on Do Not Disturb. Crystal Nevedale: It is. It is. Yeah. I think he has an eight hour one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. John Adams: If you call more than once, which my neighbor does, it still comes through. So I apologize. Okay. So yeah, let's get a little bit back to the topic we were going with. But it's kind of in the same category as noise and stuff when we're sleeping. Have you ever caught yourself, you know, you're in one of those situations like you were in the other day where you're just a little overstimulated or maybe You know, you just flew, okay? You're standing in line at the airport and there's just chaos going on. And did you fly out by yourself or were you with people? Crystal Nevedale: ⁓ no, I flew out with one of my friends from here. John Adams: Okay, so you're with your friend. You're in line, you're getting up to TSA or whatever, and I'm sure you got your phone in your hand anyway because of the ticket. Did you find yourself looking for something to occupy your mind while all that's going on while you're waiting in line, even though you were with your friend? No? Good. ⁓ wow, okay. You're old school. Crystal Nevedale: No, I didn't have my phone out. I always do pay for tickets. Yeah, yeah, because you know what? It keeps me from my phone in my hand. It's so much easier for me. It's just I've always traveled with tickets like I sometimes I'll pre check just to get a cheaper bag or whatever, but I still go get tickets. And I fly a lot. They see me come and they're like here she comes again. John Adams: Yeah, it's smart. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Crystal Nevedale: Don't know how to their phone. think I know how to use it. just don't want to use it. John Adams: Yeah, I use it for everything. I've got every, I've even got my ID on there now. I just, I don't like going into my wallet for stuff. I don't like carrying it. I like the convenience. I walk up to the pump, I just go, dink. It's just convenient for me. But on that token, a lot of that overstimulation comes from that same thing. Crystal Nevedale: Because when you get in there to pull those things up you get a notification What are you and you're on it the next thing know you're sitting at the pump for 15 minutes looking at something You have no business looking at it's a whole thing. Yeah, I try to really just limit it if I can I mean, I'm not graded at all the time. Don't get me wrong John Adams: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, I'm never going to get to the point where I could, you know, throw my phone in the lake, you know, and walk away completely because I'm so used to it. But, you know, and that's not realistic, but we do need that time to decompress to just kind of get away from it, right? So, you know, some of the... Crystal Nevedale: Bye. John Adams: good things. You do almost every one of these, taking those walks, getting outside, without music sometimes. Now, for me, that's hard, especially the time of the morning that I'm out driving, especially if I'm between customers. I got to have a podcast or music. I usually turn off my podcast and music when I pick up people just because I don't know what they like and don't like. And I've had people get in. If I had country on, I don't... country if I got, you know, rock on, ⁓ my god, you're listening to Satan's music, you know. So I don't do it anymore. just, when I pull up, I turn it off. It's just not worth the argument. But driving without music, those quiet mornings. Here, you were talking a minute, a little bit ago about ⁓ when you do want that silent time, that quiet time. ⁓ For me, I don't really get that as much as I used to because I don't have that nine to five, but man. Crystal Nevedale: Yeah. Right. John Adams: I'd be at work and I'm talking to people all day long and I'm dealing with chaos all day long and things literally breaking or just systems breaking and I gotta fix things and I'm dealing with stuff and I come home and Cindy would want to talk and I'm just like, just give me five minutes, please give me five minutes just to think, right? And that's rude. It was terrible. I should never do that. It's the worst thing in the world for your relationship. But I did because I talked all day long. I just needed to decompress. I had the whole stinking 30 minute ride home. That wasn't enough. You know, I just got home and I needed that time. Just give me two seconds. Let me. You know, but in the same token. It's a lot less rude of a thing to think about. We need those social media breaks, too. You need that five minutes away from it. Just get rid of it. Leave it in the car, like you said, or put it outside of your room when you're going to bed. Crystal Nevedale: Thank you. Okay. Have you tried outside your room yet? My remember, we have everything is plugged out here. Our watch is everything. Because you know, that's another thing that people don't realize. The watch is now even got you. John Adams: I need to. Yeah. Well, so I don't wear my watch to bed because I put it on as soon as I get up and I don't, they're supposed to charge in 20 minutes. So apparently while you're taking your shower, it should be charged up. don't trust it. So I take my watch off at night, but I do have my phone next to me. Hopefully when I get out of this building phase, I'll put it outside of my room. But yeah. Crystal Nevedale: Yeah. John Adams: It's a bad, bad, bad thing and I just gotta get to that point. I gotta leave it out of there. ⁓ But for now, I'm not gonna lie, that's a work in progress. But, you know, no, but here, at the end of the day, Crystal Nevedale: Fair enough. John Adams: Peace is a skill, right? It's a skill that you build over time. Crystal Nevedale: It is. John Adams: Not every moment needs to be filled with stuff, chaos, your phone, your computer, your whatever. Sometimes you just need that moment to get just that five minutes, whatever it is. ⁓ So. Crystal, tell me about some things other than, you we know leaving your phone out of the room and stuff like that, but like even that moment or maybe what you're thinking about the next time when you have those moments where you're just overly stimulated, you need that mental rest, you just need to kind of get out of that situation. Have you thought about some of your best practices to go forward in one of those situations? Crystal Nevedale: Yeah, so there's a lot of things now that I've thought about. ⁓ three things help me when I'm in any situation regarding stress, overwhelm, whatever you want to call it. One is taking my shoes off and putting my feet on the ground, whether it be in the sand, the dirt, the grass, whatever it is, but actually taking my shoes and socks off, taking a couple of deep breaths, closing my eyes. Closing my eyes is really important too. Like so that you're not looking at everything and you don't have anything else coming in. Eyes closed, deep breaths, feet on the ground. So I mean, that's a simple grounding practice. That's something that I ⁓ do in any situation of anxiety. Submerge myself in nature, whether it's a walk on a trail, whether it's a visit to the beach. ⁓ I really try to make sure physical activity and nature are the two things that I really. gravitate towards when I need it. But grounding is huge. mean, seven minutes in the grass with your eyes closed, deep breathing and barefoot. When your eyes open after that seven minutes, it'll be hard to tell if you even know where you're at. John Adams: Yeah, I'm gonna be honest. That's one I'll probably never do, because I don't... Even though my family was from Kentucky, I've got the feet of what's the guy that laid on the... or the lady that laid on the bed and felt the pee. I can't walk on gravel in bare feet. I can't walk on grass in bare feet. can't... I come in the house, I take off my shoes, but I cannot... I can't even... I can't walk on my front concrete porch in bare feet. I... call me sensitive. But... Yeah. But sand is hot! Crystal Nevedale: So put yourself in sand, Johnny. Go to the beach and put your feet in sand. I'm telling you. No, no, it's freezing right now. But you need grounding. It might really, I'm not playing around. It might really help your feet. It might really help your sleep. I know that, have you heard about the grounding pads? I don't really, I don't do them. I've got them, I tried them, and the real earth is where it's at. John Adams: No, I know what you mean. Trust me, I get it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, yeah, I've heard about it. just... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe in the dirt. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe in the dirt. Without any rocks or pebbles. ⁓ No, listen. Crystal Nevedale: I don't, I never felt any different of it when I used it. I can't walk on pebbles either. When you reach like 25, there's no pebble walking anymore. John Adams: I watch these people at, no, watch, people in this neighborhood, and we don't really have gravel driveways, but you just out on the sidewalk and they're bare feet and they're stepping on stone. No, my feet would kill me. can't, anyway. Crystal Nevedale: I can't. I have sensitive feet. John Adams: So let's wrap this one up this week, guys. I just want us all, ⁓ whether it's getting one of those grounded moments or just taking a moment to yourself, I want you to create one intentional moment of quiet this week, whatever it is. No scrolling, no TV, no background noise, no multitasking, no sitting there writing down what you need to do tomorrow, no taking notes, just intentional moments. Five minutes outside, a quiet drive, sitting with your coffee, if you drink, whatever, just sitting outside on the porch, wherever it happens to be. Take a walk without headphones, leave them at home, one time. Just get that intentional moment of quiet. Hear the birds. They'll give you enough. Just give your brain that moment to breathe. That's all I want you to do this week. Drop it in the comments if you get one of those times. What's that one thing that helped you mentally decompress this week? I'm not gonna do a plug for us this week. Crystal, I just want everybody to just take that time for themselves this week and hopefully take something from this episode that they're going to get out of this episode and relax. Get that one moment. I'm not saying quit. I'm not saying... Don't do anything. I'm not saying throw your plan out the window. I'm just saying take one intentional moment for yourself, for your spouse, for your relationship to just breathe. That's really it. Anything else for you, Crystal? Yes. Crystal Nevedale: I have one thing. Art. Art is huge. If you are an over thinker or you need quiet time because I'm an artist. So when I get in my art, sometimes I'm lost. It'll be two or three hours. I don't even know. mean, so if you are, if you could be simple as taking a sketch pad to the lake and sitting there and drawing or do whatever your art is, it could be whatever. But I wanted to leave that, you know, to make sure that people think about even just an art project would be something to help decompress. And that's it. John Adams: No, that's awesome. Yeah, that was kind of my idea with the puzzle earlier. If you're not quote unquote artistic, but you know, a puzzle is very relaxing sometimes. So that's it guys. As always, stay healthy and keep driving forward. We'll see you next time. Crystal Nevedale: Thank you. Stay balanced. That was a good one! John Adams: That was a great one, yes. ⁓