Burnout: Unlocking the Stress Cycle

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

• The book deconstructs stress experienced by women, offering science-based advice for release and relief.
• It aims at women who feel overwhelmed and worry they are not doing enough.
• Readers have told Emily Nagoski that the stress and emotion processing information has been life-changing.
• Burnout is described as more than stress, but more about connection, and recognizes that humans are not built to do big things alone.
• In 1975, Herbert Freudenberger defined burnout including emotional exhaustion (fatigue from caring too much), depersonalization (depleted empathy), and a decreased sense of accomplishment (futility).
• Burnout affects 20-30% of teachers, and can be as high as 52% among medical professionals.
• Emotions involve neurochemical releases to stimulus, triggering physiological changes.
• Emotions are instantaneous, automatic and affect everything, with many felt simultaneously.
• Emotions are like tunnels; completing them leads to resolution.
• Exhaustion results from becoming "stuck" in an emotion due to constant exposure or inability to find a way through.
• "Helping professions" and parenting may lead to overwhelm for these reasons.
• Human Giver Syndrome expects women to give time, bodies, and attention to others and they are not allowed to show messy emotions or needs.
• The Human Giver Syndrome says that a female’s self-preservation is selfish, leading to punishment.
• The book divides into three sections: "What You Take with You," "The Real Enemy," and "Wax On, Wax Off."
• The first three chapters of Burnout are about the stress response cycle, "the Monitor", and meaning in life. Meaning provides a reason to go through tunnels.
• "The Real Enemy" refers to systemic oppression and a chapter normally left out of female self-help books..
• The final section suggests concrete actions to defeat these enemies drawn from the science of connection, rest, and self-compassion
• Book stories follow Julie, an overwhelmed teacher, and Sophie, an engineer fighting the patriarchy; composite characters that explain science on more than the individual level.
• Each chapter ends with a "tl;dr" list of key points to share or disprove myths.
• Science is the best idea humanity has ever had, it is ultimately a specialized way of being wrong and not offering perfect truth. Researchers use approaches reinforced and established over decades.
• Social science assesses averages of diverse populations with individual variability, it doesn't capture every situation.
• Scientific findings can also be influenced by funding, and may not include contrary evidence. Studies studying women typically study cis-gendered individuals.
• Storytelling is used to communicate science effectively in this book.

Complete the Cycle

• The chapter answers the question of "What is completing the cycle?"
• Dealing with stress is separate from dealing with stressors.
• Stressors are what activate the stress response in body.
• They can be external (work, money) or internal (self-criticism, memories).
• Stress is the neurological and physiological shift to potential threats, evolutionarily adaptive responses.
• A cascade of neurological and hormonal activity initiates physiological changes to help survival .
• Epinephrine pushes blood into muscles, glucocorticoids keep you going, endorphins help you ignore discomfort.
• Heart beats faster, blood pressure increases, and breathing quickens.
• Muscles tense, pain sensitivity diminishes, and attention focuses on short-term thinking.
• Organ systems get deprioritized, including digestion and immunity.
• The complex, multisystem response has one goal: move oxygen and fuel into muscles for escape so non-relevant processes postpone.
• After the threat, a stress response cycle is complete, and the world feels safe.
• However, just because a stressor has been dealt with does not mean the stress itself has been dealt with.
• This can be illustrated by an example: The lion is struck by lightning before you are eaten. But your body hasn't been signaled by the brain that you are safe.
• In this case, the digestive system, immune, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and reproductive systems will never get signals that they're safe.
• In another common scenario, you cannot react (fight, flee) in a socially appropriate way and instead soak in stress.
• Chronically activated stress response is chronically increased blood pressure, a firehose instead of gentle stream that leads to life-threatening illness.
• The modern stress itself will kill you faster than the stressor unless you complete the cycle through activation.
• The chapter outlined 3 reasons why the cycles might not complete, namely chronic stressors, social appropriateness and "safe" survival strategies.
• When your brain is in middle of the stress cycle, it may lose ability to recognize that the fox is gone.
• Freeze happens when the brain assesses the threat and decides you're too slow to run and small to fight, and so your best hope for survival is to “play dead” until the threat goes away or someone comes along to help you.
• Words that describe emotion of "freeze": Shut down, Numb, Immobilized, Disconnected, Petrified.
• Freezing needs processing to avoid staying "frozen" i.e. shaking, shuddering, muscle stretching and if you dont know what it is, it can feel scary. This is called "the feels" and it is perfectly normal to experience.
• The most efficient way to complete the cycle is physical which helps you to dance, run or swim,
• From there, you can continue to complete the cycle with breathing, positive social interaction, laughter, affection, crying or creative expression

#Persist

• Manages stressors, knowing to persist when past capabilities, or when to quit with focus on "the Monitor."
• "The Monitor"; a brain mechanism that manages a gap between where are and where we are going which varies from person to person with varying effects.
• For example, imagine you are working towards something simple and you know you're making good progress you're happy, however if you're stuck you begin to get elevated and frustrated finally exploding as rage Monitor
• However, you sit with this long enough and emotional shift happens as assessment of goal switches to "unattainable" and pushed you off an emotional cliff into its pit of despair.
• You can also use planning with planful problem solving or positive reappraisal (recognize worth is worth it in difficult) so you're actually not doing a good job.
• But what if, as well, do something that gives you better progress and make you more likely to succeed.
• "So, Emily presented a couple of decades' worth of peer-reviewed science to Amelia, who had no problem with the first two steps: first, acknowledge when things are difficult; then, acknowledge that the difficulty is worth it. Pessimists assume everything is hard and will require work, so that's easy. The hard part is acknowledging that those difficulties are actually opportunities"
• You can change the effort invest as it moves forward or they'll reduce frustration by keeping you motivated and that is used to make small goal
• With clear clearly find concrete goals you can reduce frustration
• Also redefine failing as establish a nonstandard relationship with winning by creating a situation where you are setting up "post it notes" and finding good glue while someone tried and was failed to accomplish something new.
  • Standing our ground is important in principle and can be effective when we're not overwhelmed, but not when we're stressed and out of control. When you're still fighting even while you're overwhelmed, it's less a valiant struggle and more that you have your back to the wall and are surrounded on all sides. Ask for help instead.

• Remember, Emily intuitively understood completing the cycle from early-adolescence, were to do more when and Amelia, genetically identical and raised in the same household, didn't even begin to understand until after years of therapy, two hospitalizations for stress-induced inflammation, formal meditation training, and explicit instruction from her health educator sister. So we know everybody's different.

• So how do you actually know when it's "time to go", and Science also has and so now how do you listen to what you're doing? Make 4 distinct parts:

  • 1. What are benefits of continuing?
  • 2. What are the benefits of stopping?
  • 3. What are costs of continuing?
  • 4. What happens if you stop

• There is also something people called"what is also called the "headwinds/tailwinds Asymmetry"

• "Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren made news when, as she was attempting to speak in the Senate, she was silenced to do so by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Senator Warren's goal, when McConnell stopped her, was to read a letter from Coretta Scott King about now the racist judicial record of then-Senator Jeff Sessions. McConnell and then said, in what would become a notorious comment, “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”"

• Also, people should have "meaning above themselves"

Meaning

• Goals give life direction, with "meaning" the reason for accomplishment.
• A heroine feels called by something, in that she should be able to answer the call of something that is larger than themselves.
• Science has established that “meaning in life” is good for us, the way leafy green vegetables and exercise and sleep are good for us.
• "Meaning" helps resist and recover; a woman's want for“meaning in life” not too far from a man, the obstacles in between women is so much more different from her.
• Researchers take"meaning" in many ways including:"Positive psychology that can lead to spearhead
• Some research even goes so far as saying“meaningful to take or use of the best in one" even to people who are seeking pleasure
• Many approaches agree the meaning of life offers a "positive final value that can exhibit for individual life"
• Third, the meaning is always continuous, the moments feel intensely meaningful while other times you just don't care to feel one
• Whether sustains thriving or the person is coping,meaning is very good"So where does that come from?" that

This guide deconstructs stress in women, offering science-based advice for release and relief. It addresses feeling overwhelmed and the worry of not doing enough. It defines burnout and explores emotions, triggers, and physiological changes.