SHAKE IT OFF

“Dear Stress, I would like a divorce please understand it is not you, it is me.” Thomas E. Rojo Aubry

Some of my good friends would tell you that I am very good at giving advice; helpful, actionable advice. However, they would also tell you that when it comes to ME following my own advice, well that is something I need to work on. I am really good at telling others how to address their stressors and resolve their challenges but when it comes to addressing my own, I am often deaf to my own words.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog about burnout. The impending feeling of burnout coming on and how most people show the signs and react to burnout. At the same time as I was writing, I was also feeling the impending signs of burnout and for once in my life, I listened to my own inner voice. I took a break from writing this blog, I gave myself the grace that I tell everyone else to give to themselves. For the first time in 30 some weeks, I just stopped. I released myself of the burdensome feeling that I needed to post something every week, that I had some kind of responsibility to anyone else but me for this “passion project” that truly was designed to be nothing but a creative outlet for my personal passion of helping others. For once, I took my own advice.

This morning when I woke, I decided that it was time to start again. No pressure to post by Saturday morning since today is Sunday and let’s be honest, no one really cares when this post goes up anyway.

In the last few weeks, I have been burnt out. Travelling to Las Vegas for a week, then California for a week, dealing with the impending holiday season and plans. Supporting my family along with a number of stressful work situations. These stressful work situations have been piled on top of a challenging end to a fiscal year approaching and an even more challenging fiscal year that is about to begin.

As we all work through the feeling of burnout, thankfully there are strategies we can use to “complete the stress cycle” as described in the book BURNOUT, The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski, PhD and Amelia Nagoski, DMA. The book itself is a highly recommended read but for the purpose of a quick helpful tidbit, I will recap the most helpful advice that I took from the read; thankfully it was at the beginning of the book!

The biggest takeaway for me was as follows “Dealing with your stress is a separate process from dealing with the things that cause your stress. To deal with your stress, you have to complete the cycle.” The authors provide an example from nature that when certain animals are chased by something, and their life is at risk, they will freeze and play dead or hide in plain sight using camouflage. By doing so, they evade the attack and live to survive another day, in other words they have dealt with the “thing” that was causing their stress (the stressor) by evading the attack; however, they have yet to deal with the actual stress. That is when mother nature kicks in. Once the stressor has gone, an animal that is “frozen” will go into a full on shaking almost seizure like reaction. An intense physical “shaking off” of the stress through tensing of muscles and releasing of the adrenaline left within their nervous systems. Mother nature put this mechanism in place to allow these animals to “complete the stress cycle”.

In our everyday lives, we do not have the benefit of mother nature to step in and help us “shake it off” when it comes to stress. We work to resolve the stressor and once that is handled, our brains mistakenly believe that we have handled the stress. In reality, the stress lingers, it builds, it metastasizes within our physical bodies until we do something to complete the stress cycle or until our brains and bodies go into full on burnout brought on by the burden of stress that was never unloaded.

Thankfully the book provides detailed directions on ways to complete the stress cycle. A few of my favorites include 20 to 60 minutes of physical activity a day, this can include a walk, swim, dancing (physically shaking it off), running etc. Although physical activity is described as the “first line of defense against stress buildup”, there are also other ways described which include, breathing deeply and slowly, positive social interaction, laughter, affection (for example hug someone you love and trust for 20 seconds while standing on equal footing), a big ol’ cry and finally creative expression.

If you are caught in the stress cycle like most of us these days, I highly recommend reading the first few chapters of BURNOUT to get you started on your burnout recovery journey. In the meantime, turn on some Taylor Swift “Shake it Off”, physically shake it off and remind yourself that just because you have resolved the external stressor doesn’t mean that you have resolved the internal stress. Taking steps every day to complete the stress cycle is the best form of self-care and no one can take better care of you than you.