If you are wondering “why am I so burned out?” If you ever feel like you want to hide under the covers and avoid life- you are not alone. This is how I always used to feel in residency- and recently how I’ve been feeling since my accident. Essentially it’s this feeling of self-induced isolation and disconnection, that meditation teacher Tara Brach refers to as “severed belonging”. In today’s episode, I talk about….
- Why we experience severed belonging
- How the trauma of working in healthcare during covid likely impacted your nervous system
- How to start downregulating your nervous system so you can move out of survival mode
Use the audio player above to listen, or tune in on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
If you want to learn 21 tools for downregulating your nervous system and relieving your stress- come join me for Stress-Free September.
Wondering Why am I so burned out?
There could be so many answers to the question “why am I so burned out?”. But one of the most common reasons is that your nervous system is dysregulated. Your nervous system becomes dysregulated when you are met with chronic stressors faster than your nervous system can process them. Your sympathetic nervous system is chronically activated and you are essentially living in survival mode. When you are living in survival mode you are not thriving on multiple levels.
Threatening stimuli and survival mode
Studies done by neuroscientists have demonstrated the negative impact of threatening stimuli on the ability to engage in spontaneous play. These studies looked at rat pups who were playing spontaneously for four days. On the fifth day, the researchers introduced a minimally threatening stimulus, cat hair. Once the hair was introduced into the rat pen they immediately stopped playing. The hair was left in there for 24 hours, but even after it was removed the spontaneous play never returned to its normal level.
This is the impact that threatening stimuli have on our nervous systems. So if you are wondering why am I so burned out, it’s likely because you have been exposed to threatening stimuli and your nervous system hasn’t fully processed it.
Why am I so burned out and isolated?
During my medical training, I kept wondering “why am I so burned out?”. When I got home from work all I wanted to do was sit on the couch and watch Netflix and zone out. Even though I’m generally a fairly sociable and extroverted person, I didn’t want to socialize with anyone. Essentially I was self-isolating. Now I realize, this was because my nervous system was dysregulated. I was in a chronic state of fight/ or flight and was not able to activate my social engagement system. I didn’t feel safe socializing, because other people felt threatened me.
But the problem is, that this creates a vicious cycle because social interaction helps you downregulate your nervous system. Self-isolation further perpetuates the chronic sympathetic activation causing a feeling of severed belonging.
Why am I so burned out in healthcare?
The healthcare system is full of threatening stimuli. Our sympathetic nervous system is constantly activated at the hospital dealing with life or death situations. The most obvious example of this was during the pandemic. Healthcare workers were going to work every day fearing for their lives. Friends, family, and coworkers were getting sick and dying. Sensationalized reports on the news exacerbated the feelings of fear on the ground. So if you are a healthcare worker wondering why am I so burned out, it’s likely because of the collective trauma of covid to your nervous system. For weeks your sympathetic nervous system was activated and you weren’t able to process the stress because the stressors kept coming.
So what’s the solution?
So far, we have answered the question “why am I so burned out?” It’s because your nervous system is dysregulated from the chronic stress of working in healthcare. But what do we do about it? You have to learn how to downregulate your nervous system. This means shifting from sympathetic to parasympathetic. There are certain tools and practices that allow the body to know that you are safe. These tools help you move from sympathetic to parasympathetic.
I am holding a free training series called Stress Free September where I going to teach you 21 tools and practices for downregulating your nervous system. This will help you relieve stress and burnout as you shift from sympathetic to parasympathetic mode. To join the training go to coachchelsmd.com/stressfree
I can so relate to this podcast Chels has brilliantly put together! On my last 2 years I have seen myself change so so much as a health care professional; I became closed off, stress increased which is still affecting my health until today and I feel demotivated to do anything! I am now going to join stress free september to help shift my nervous system from a sympathetic to a para sympathetic so that I may make better choices in my life to help shift my life forward!