Back in 2020 I discovered a book that I now refer to as my “burnout bible” or simply The Burnout Book and in this post I’ll give you my official Burnout Book Summary which I’m sure will inspire you to read it for yourself.
Ok, so the first question you may have is… what book are you talking about? Let me explain.
If you are anything like me, you love to understand your problems on a cognitive level (aka obsessively reading as much as you can about them). So after I personally experienced and recovered from burnout, I decided to read all the available books on burnout.
Partly I was curious about wtf happened to me and I also wanted to be sure I never experienced burnout like that again.
Of all the books I read during that time, the only one that provided real, life changing guidance was “Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle” by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski.
But before you just click over and read the book for yourself, you need to understand WHY this book was such a game changer for me.
Today, I’ll do more than just provide a burnout book summary, I’ll dive deeply into the key takeaways and insights that have been most helpful for me and also my burnout coaching clients.
Takeaway # 1: There is a difference between stressors and the stress response
Since leaving medicine and starting my work as a burnout coach, I’ve been learning how to process stress. Previously (aka before reading the burnout book), my method included a lot of journaling and mindset work.
I spent so much time reframing old limiting beliefs into more empowering stories. While this can be effective in lessening feelings of stress, it is not the whole story. What I learned from reading this book, is that mindset work alone isn’t enough.
Stress is something that occurs on a biological and physiological level. Meaning that it happens in the body.
In order to properly deal with all of the negative repercussions of stress, we must do just that: get out of the mind and into the body. We must take physical actions in order to create the physiologic shifts in our body necessary to process and relieve our stress.
And first, we must understand the difference between stressors and the stress response.
Stressors
Stressors are essentially anything our mind perceives as threatening. These could be external events or situations like not having enough money in your bank account to pay your bills or being in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language.
They could also be purely internal and take the form of negative self talk or criticism “you’re never going to reach your goals”, “people are going to find out you have no idea what you are doing.”
All of these events can send a distress signal out to your brain to tell you that something is threatening you. It basically says “help we are in danger”. And that is when the stressor (the thing we perceive as threatening) activates the stress response.
Stress response
In direct response to the stressor, our bodies release a cascade of chemical messengers (neurotransmitters and hormones) that cause a series of physiologic changes throughout the body designed to keep us ALIVE. These physiologic changes make up the stress response.
It is important to remember that the goal of the stress response is to help us escape the stressor and survive. It’s also important to remember it’s a very primal system.
What this looks like on a physical level is that our sympathetic nervous system is turned on; we rev up our fight or flight response.
Epinephrine and norepinephrine are released into our bloodstream causing our heart rates to increase, our pupils to dilate, the small airways in our lungs to dilate and blood flow is shunted towards the most essential organs to allow us to escape the immediate threat.
On down the line, cortisol is also released into the bloodstream causing further physiologic shifts characteristic of the stress response.
When my stress response is activated: my mind starts racing and I feel a general sense of restlessness and unease. Instead of listing out all the physiologic changes, I think what is important is to tune into your own body and notice what this stress response looks like for you personally.
Basically our whole body is gearing up to fight or flight. And our bodies stay in this revved up state until they receive a signal of safety. We must learn how to give our bodies these signals so that our body knows its safe and shuts down the stress response. Otherwise our stress response will stay chronically activated.
Dealing with the stressor doesn’t mean you have dealt with the stress response
What is really important to note here is the stressor and the stress response are separate entities. Dealing with the stressor, whatever triggered this sequence of events, doesn’t necessarily deal with the stress response in your physical body.
Dealing with the stressor could look like: reframing your negative thoughts and replacing them with positive affirmations, having a difficult conversation with your boss or family to stop their insensitive remarks, spending less time on social media.
Dealing with the actual stress response itself is different and requires totally separate activities. We must learn how to shut off the stress response in our bodies or the chronic activation of stress can start to build up and cause some serious dysfunction in our lives.
In today’s modern world, most of us have chronic stressors that are staples in our lives. The constant fear of not being good enough, the incessant worry about our loved ones’ safety, the comparisons of people who pop up in your social feed who seem to be further along than you.
When we are repeatedly exposed to stressors, our stress response system is unable to shut off naturally because it is continually being re-stimulated and reactivated. This creates a state of constant physiologic stress in our body.
Many of us have years of chronic stress stored in our bodies at a cellular level. Stress that we never properly released or dealt with. This is why stress management for doctors is so important.
I used to think I didn’t have time to deal with stress. I was too busy dealing with all of my stressors to take time to process and release the stress accumulating in my body. But the thing is, when we have all this unresolved stress building up in our body, it starts to affect our performance and actually makes us less effective in dealing with the stressors in our lives.
So by taking the time to deal with the stress, I make myself better equipped to deal with the stressors too.
Takeaway #2 What Happens when we don’t deal with stress
Dealing with the stress is also important for your overall happiness and wellbeing as a human. Here are some things that start to happen when you let the stress pile up:
#1 You Overreact
Have you ever had a dramatic outburst that was way out of proportion to what was going on?
You burst into tears because your dog won’t come sit on your lap (sad I know, but full on tears?).
You scream and pound on your steering wheel because the person in front of you is going too slow which causes you to miss a green light. Any of these sounds familiar?
These overreactions are generally a sign there is a lot of unresolved stress and emotion buried underneath the surface looking for a way to escape. It’s time to open the pressure valve and release what’s in there.
#2 You just can’t
Do you spend your time off work laying around in your sweats, either zoning out watching netflix or mindlessly scrolling through your social media feed? Essentially hiding out from life.
While I totally support rest, relaxation and self care, there is a difference between intentional rest and this zombie like trance. Hiding out and not being able to handle life is a huge sign that you’ve got some stress demons to face.
#3 Everything hurts
Do you have weird, unexplained chronic pain in your body or seem to get sick really easily?
I’ve totally experienced this before. In medical school I suffered from chronic neck pain. Instead of dealing with the root cause by doing some yoga, stretching, or carving out time for stress relief, I would slap a heating pad on it, pop some ibuprofen and keep trucking along. Bandaid city, my friends.
This can also look like constantly being sick with minor illnesses like colds, sore throats, etc. Pain and discomfort in your body can all be signs that we have chronic stress stored at a cellular level that it’s time to release.
Takeaway #3: There are small daily actions that help you recover from burnout
Ok so maybe now you are starting to get that stress is bad and we need to take some time to make a burnout recovery plan.
The next question then becomes…. How? What exactly do we need to do to end the burnout cycle?
This is one of my favorite parts of the book and why I wanted to write a burnout book summary. It gives so many practical burnout exercises that you can start implementing on a daily basis.
Because shutting off your stress response requires action on your part. Consistent, daily action.
The science of burnout recovery
To shut off the stress response we have to activate our vagus nerve. Yes, all of that basic science information you learned in your studies is actually applicable in the case of burnout.
As you probably know, the sympathetic nervous system is geared towards activating a flight or fight response. The opposite version of this is called the Parasympathetic Nervous System, which is all about “rest and digest”.
The Sympathetic Nervous System is activated when we come into contact with a stressor. It pulls the trigger that activates our stress response which is what helps us run from all the metaphorical saber tooth tigers.
In order to turn off our stress response, we must turn off our Sympathetic Nervous System. We can do this by turning ON our Parasympathetic Nervous System. The main, key player in our Parasympathetic Nervous System is the vagus nerve.
The more we turn on our vagal nerve and increase our “vagal tone”, the more we turn off our stress response and can feel good and peaceful again.
What does this look like in everyday life?
Most of us experience stressors everyday and therefore our stress response is probably activated in some capacity every single day. With that in mind, it would greatly benefit us to spend time every day flexing our vagus nerve to increase that vagal tone. We don’t have to wait until we feel stressed we can do this proactively and preventively.
There are so many activities we can do to increase our vagal tone and its important to experiment with what works for you. The best practices are the ones that you will actually do, so be realistic with yourself.
The easiest and most straightforward one is exercise. 20-60 minute of moderate intensity exercise every day works for most people to down regulate their stress response. I know it’s nothing new or ground breaking that exercise is important, but for me connecting exercise to its ability to shut off the stress response in my body has helped increase my motivation to exercise.
Another thing that has worked well for me, that I haven’t seen on any list, is tapping, or Emotional Freedom Technique. I wrote all about this in my April Personal Growth Blog Post, so feel free to check out my tapping resources there. If you’ve been meaning to try tapping, here is another reason to help motivate you.
Some other activities that can help increase your vagal tone include:
- Deep belly breathing/ breathwork. Breathing in for 5 seconds, holding for 5 seconds, exhaling for 10 seconds, and holding the exhale for 5 seconds. To be most effective it is important for the exhale to be longer than the inhale.
- Cold immersion. Taking an ice cold shower, jumping into freezing cold water or maybe bringing back the ALS ice bucket challenge?
- Singing/ humming/ gargling. Using your vocal chords in this way stimulates the vagus nerve. Bonus points if you sing it out in a freezing cold shower.
- Meditating. Yupp another reason to start meditating.
- Socialization and laughter. Watch a funny youtube video, schedule a hangout sesh with your besties, and even just reflecting on positive social encounters can be effective in increasing your vagal tone.
Experiment with these practices and see what works best for you. I find it really helpful to tune in and notice how I am feeling before doing one of these activities and then notice how I feel afterwards.
Beforehand, if my stress response is activated, I feel a sense of tightness and anxiety in my chest, a restlessness in my body and my thoughts are generally racing.
Once I’ve dealt with my stress response and effectively turned up my vagal tone, it feels like a full body sigh of relief, a sense of mental calmness and clarity. My thoughts stop racing and I feel more present.
Noticing this shift in how you feel is helpful in teaching your body that these techniques actually work and will make you more likely to continue doing them.
Burnout Book Summary: why reading this book is a MUST
Now, as you can see from this burnout book summary, reading this book is truly a game changer when it comes to planning out your burnout recovery plan.
All of the science around burnout and nervous system regulation have been ridiculously helpful in managing my own stress. Plus all of the practical tips and the consistent daily actions found within the book serve as a manual for both my burnout coaching clients and myself.
But there’s another aspect of the book that I haven’t even touched on. The book also covers the sociology of burnout- essentially it dives deep into how societal factors such as the patriarchy create the conditions for burnout to occur.
Understanding the deeper implications of what was causing my burnout was crucial for me for this one reason. I realized it wasn’t my fault that I was burned out.
And it’s the same for you too.
It’s not your fault that you are burned out. AND it IS your responsibility to make a change.
Approaching burnout recovery from this perspective has helped me to extend so much grace and compassion to myself on this journey and I hope it helps you do the same.
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