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Are you an aspiring leader who knows you have more to offer but you can't seem to get ahead? Do you frequently feel overwhelmed and undersupported? Listen to the Overcome to Become podcast as we talk about actionable tasks and mindsets that you can apply to begin leading yourself. Hi, my name is Angela Buckley, your host and author of the Strength in Nature Leadership series. I'm a mother, consultant, triathlete and author and overcome to become. I share with you the science, fact and experience proven lessons.
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I've learned in my own leadership journey to beat burnout. Thanks for listening. Hi everyone, welcome back. It is Season 2 of Overcome to Become. My name is Angela Buckley. I am your host here today. And for the next coming episodes of Overcome to Become our seasons work like this. We have eight seasons where we are talking about the topics of Overcome to Become their short format, 10 to 15 minutes.
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And then each season we listen to one client who has had some success and listened to their stories and the struggles that they have overcome to get to their success. And then one expert who also works in the field sometimes gives me tips. Sometimes it's someone I'm working with, sometimes it's somebody I am looking to learn from. So stick with us. We've got episodes that are exciting and this season we're going to be focusing on nature and nutrition. So today's topic is going to be on physical burnout and it's and a lesson from endurance athletes.
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I want to pause here for a moment and acknowledge that today's episode is made possible because of the ambassadorship that I get from Just Strong. It's a clothing line made for women. It's not just strong enough for a girl, but jJst Strong. So their entire focus on gym clothing and outdoor athletic wear, athleisure wear, is that we're empowering women and sending the message that you can be just strong. So check them out.
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You can find the links and the coupon codes in my shownotes. Thanks a lot. Talk to you soon.
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So many of you know that I am a triathlete and I participate specifically in the sports of aquathlon and aquabike where I find a little bit more success. The combination of bike and run is pretty hard on my back. I don't talk about it too openly frequently, but I have scoliosis and it's definitely an impact. But I don't want to take away from the fact that there are many people out there have a lot of struggles and the bike run. That combo was tough for all of us, so those are the things that I really have found success in, with aquathlon and aquabike just fitting for me, fitting for my timelines for working out and also just fun. I find a lot of joy in going out there testing my body, testing my mental metal and being out in nature and being out with other like minded people.
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And so one of the things that we want to talk about is that there is a lot of episodes of burnout for athletes and today we really want to talk about the physical elements of burnout because it helps us in the leadership world. When we're talking about burnout, you hear this and generally we're talking about the emotional part and the of mindset and burnout overwhelm, whereas there is in fact a true physical component of burnout.
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And So what are the lessons that we can learn from endurance athletes to help us overcome or even avoid ever getting to that point of burnout?
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So, Athletes, endurance athletes in particular have a habit of loving the numbers, chasing numbers and feeling guilty for taking down days or rest days? Um, this overpowering and continued focus on driving through the number can often cause what is called burnout, and it's measured specifically by elevated cortisol levels and to a point where they're not reducing. And so the same amount of effort is no longer bringing you the physical gains that you need and what we find.
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Is that once you're into this true burnout stage, it takes months of slow, debted, dedicated recovery in order to get your hormones and your entire system back in balance. And the way we do that is frankly by looking at 75 to 80% of effort being the maximum that you're going to be putting out for long periods of time while your body comes back to normal and heals. It's not just sleep or drink water, although those are important elements of overcoming the burnout episodes, but it's also highly nutritious, highly focused sleep.
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Focused exercise that is at a very low, low heart rate for most athletes and understanding that you have to put this program together truly following the science in order to overcome it, and it can sometimes take three and four months. Depends on how far you've let yourself get into a hole in order to heal.
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And it's, it's a chemical process that's actually occurring as you go through this. And so you're on the one hand training your brain, but on the other hand understanding that your metabolism needs this time to breathe, to heal, to.
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Rebuild all the cellular damage that's been done. Endurance athletes, when we go through our season, we took typically look at an A race as having 18 to 20 weeks of preparation for a long endurance, long term endurance race. What does that mean and why?
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We build into this 18 to 20 week plan ramps. So you're building, building, building 3 to 4 weeks up, and then we plateau for a week, another three to four weeks up and plateau for a week. These plateaus of volume and intensity allow our bodies to catch up, and it allows the inflammation that you're building into your body as you're building these strengths gains to catch up and to heal just a little bit so that you're prepared for the next load.
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The entire time you go through this, a successful athlete is also working with their coach, working with their bodies, feedback on stretching, and doing all of the other exercises that are important to avoid injury. Unfortunately, when we're in the workplace, we do not always have a coach that's checking in with you. Are you drinking enough water? Are you doing your exercises? Are you doing the mental things that are necessary to overcome that overwhelm? And what we find far too often is that projects are much longer than 20 weeks.
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They are significantly forced as far as the timelines are concerned, especially when the economy is ups and downs. Or if you're working in supply chain for the last two or three years in America or anywhere else in the world, supply chain has been absolutely interrupted. And these folks have been the heroes of manufacturing and pretty much every other part of the economy as well, trying to get things done. And it feels like there's no rest for the weary. And as soon as you start thinking of this phrase, no rest for the weary, you should be using that as a.
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Warning flag for yourself and for the people around you that you're approaching burnout. Because when you say there's no rest for the weary, your body is also indicating that it truly, truly needs the rest and it needs the rest now. Business is not built with a plan that includes ebb and flow. Our bodies, however, do require ebb and flow in order to grow, and we don't have that opportunity all the time in business unless we're intentional.
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About it, unless we focus on it, unless we understand what those red flags are and how we can build that so.
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What does it look like if you're in the workplace and you're starting to approach?
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The physical elements of burnout.
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Perhaps you're drinking more coffee than you were drinking before I started bringing decaf coffee into the office. I also have teas and other um herbal type elements because my office is cold and I enjoy drinking something warm throughout the day, so it's important for me to be drinking, but.
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Not coffee, not caffeine. Not that much caffeine all day long. So having this as an opportunity or having this as an option for myself works. However, I know that I'm.
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Approaching a burnout situation, if I find myself regularly drinking multiple cups of coffee in the afternoon, regularly saying wow, I need a cup of coffee to get through the day.
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Anytime that it's after 12:00 o'clock.
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In the mornings I have a cup of coffee before my workout and then I generally have another cup of coffee around 10:00 AM and those are my 2 cups of coffee. I start my day pretty early, around 4:00 or 5:00 o'clock. So I think that that's pretty OK for where I am. Everyone gets to choose, but I find myself saying every single day of the week I need to have another cup of coffee at 2:00 o'clock or three o'clock. I know that that's a warning sign for me.
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So my question to you is, "What are the warning signs?"
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What are the changes in your behavior that you would that would indicate that your body is far more fatigued than it should be in order to be healthy? That you're approaching that that ledge of overwhelm? Another sign that I find for myself is that I'm more willing to go out to eat. I like to pack. I like to eat a healthier foods if I can. They tend to be healthier when I pack from home.
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It also saves a little bit of money, but I just prefer having my food from the house. However, when I'm tired, that just seems like it's one detail that is too much for me to want to deal with, and it's a warning sign for myself if I'm eating out more than once during the week. I know that I'm approaching an overwhelmed situation and I need to make a change in my work day, So what can you do now to understand what that is going to look like for yourself?
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I've given you two of my examples if I start eating out too often or if I'm drinking coffee in the afternoon. So the question is, what is it for you? And now, once you've identified what some of those flags are, what are the things that we need to do in order to get yourself back to center? Drinking water is 1. Always making sure that you have a good hydration plan and trying to follow that. You'll hear me repeat that frequently. The other thing is.
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Taking a look at your intake of leafy greens, those are an important part of they offer the nutrients that are important in overcoming overwhelming.
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The darker the green, the more of the nutrients that are available for you and for your body to to take up in order to support your body's healing processes. So those are two things that we try to look at frequently when we're looking at the physical elements of overwhelm. And the other thing that you want to look at is your overall stress level and your overall sleeping patterns. If your sleeping patterns are consistently interrupted, there are many things that you can do to create a healthy sleep hygiene.
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And again, hydration is part of that, good nutrition as part of that. But then it's also trying to find a good sleep routine or if necessary, a meditation process in order to calm yourself down to get to that sleep part. Sleep is an important part of recovery. It helps us regulate our emotions on the following day, and it helps us give our body the time that's necessary to heal and fight the natural inflammation that occurs during the stress processes.
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So those are things that we can take a look at to overcome the overwhelm from a physical perspective when we're in the workplace.
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The rest of the season, we'll be talking about the other elements that we can learn relative to nature and nutrition, supporting our healing process in red flag identifications for overwhelm. Stick with us. Thank you for joining me today. I look forward to following up with you on some of these questions. If you want to send me a chat, you can do that on Instagram. You can find me at creatively efficient or at Angela J Buckley and you can find me on Facebook as well. Thank you very much. I look forward to talking to you.
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You've just concluded an episode of Overcome to Become a leadership podcast focusing on leading yourself first. Thanks for listening. I'm Angela Buckley with creatively efficient author of the Strength in Nature Leadership series. Please help me to continue these series by writing a review wherever you prefer to listen. Thank you for your time and interest. I appreciate your support.
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