Burnout is a highly complicated state of self. It is more than feeling tired in your place of work – it is also about having prolonged stress, mental exhaustion, and emotional imbalance. Dr. Sylvia Morris and Dr. Angela Walker discuss how to recognize burnout and take the right stress management approach to stop it in its tracks. They break down the difference between good and bad stress, as well as five practical steps to effectively protect your well-being. If you ever feel exhausted, discontent with your work, or disconnected from the people around you, this episode is a must-listen.
Music courtesy of Dealer’s Choice Sound Recordings, Inc.
Music artist: djezi
—
Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Addressing Burnout: More Than Just Feeling Tired
Drs. Morris & Walker Talk Burnout & Stress
Here, in the show, we share real stories and real strategies to help women make bold moves and live with purpose. In this episode, we’re diving into a topic that touches so many of us, which is burnout and stress management.
What Is Burnout (And How It Can Manifest In Your Life)
If you have ever felt exhausted, no matter how much sleep you get, disconnected from work or people you love, or you are running on empty, then this episode is for you. We’re going to break down what burnout is, how to recognize it, the causes of good stress and bad stress, and most importantly, the five practical steps that you can start using to manage stress and protect your well-being. Angela, let’s go ahead and get started talking about burnout. What is burnout?
It’s a good start to define it. Burnout is more than just being tired. It has so many components. It’s a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion. It’s caused by prolonged stress. It’s typically not just one event that causes burnout. If you look at definitions, the World Health Organization defines it as a workplace phenomenon with three key features. One is exhaustion, which we can all relate to. Another is cynicism and detachment, which you often see.
That’s a bad one.
Because of all that, there’s reduced effectiveness in your job. I don’t know that I can resonate with that one, but maybe I don’t want to admit it. We have both exhibited some signs of burnout along the way. What do you think?
I have been burned out several times in my career. I first thought about it when I finished training. We go to medical school, and then we do residency training. I was on call every fourth night. You in OB/GYN were on call every third night, which is crazy. To give a little clarity around what being on call means, we trained in the dark ages, which was the late ‘90s. When you were on call, that meant you would show up at work at 8:00 in the morning, and then you would work all day and all night.
Your call would end at 8:00 AM the next morning. However, you still have work to do. Remember, we are taking care of people or human beings. You had to complete your work. There would be some days that I would leave the hospital until 5:00 or 6:00 in the evening. That means that I have been up for at least 36 hours. I remember driving home, getting home, and thinking, “Was that light red or green?”
Reduced effectiveness.
When we talk about exhaustion, it does have an impact on how we are able to work effectively. When were you burned out, or when was your earliest recognition that you were burned out?
The first time was when my girls were probably in elementary and middle school. I was in my second practice. We were super busy, delivering a lot of babies. My frequency of calls had changed. I was, at the most, every 6th, but it was up to every 8th, which was good. When you were on call, it was very busy. I didn’t have the day off the next day to rest, so it was similar to that residency feel. I realized when I got home, I was short. It’s not my nature to be snippy with my girls. I wasn’t happy. I took stock of what was going on in the midst of this system of production. The more you do, the more you make.
You eat what you kill is what you introduced to us.
I was trying not to use those terms.
It’s effective.
I realized, “I have control here. I can either continue to work like this, make a lot more money, be unhappy, and cause my family to be unhappy, or I can say, ‘I know my value, and I also know my limits.’” That’s when I went in and said, “I need to put a limit on how many deliveries I can do in a month. These are the things that I need.” It affected my revenue. It affected how much money I made, but I couldn’t have been happier. I was more present. I was more present at kids’ events.
If we do not make burnout tangible, we cannot make an effective change and live our best lives. Share on XI realized that was my first moment of agency. I was like, “I have power here. I can change what I’m doing.” I’m in a position where I could say that and do that. If I had to leave, I could and get another job. I know that everybody can’t necessarily do that, but I was more proud of myself for realizing that I needed to make a change. That was first. We can talk more, but in terms of what has come after that, probably during the pandemic was the second realization.
Let’s talk about that. I know one of the reasons that we started this show is because not only did we want to talk to amazing women, and we are doing that, but also because we wanted something different for our lives. We also wanted to be able to continue to be in service and use our experience and knowledge in a way that pays it forward for the next generation of leaders, physicians, and women physicians in particular, or women in general. When we talk about Boss Leap, we are offering other opportunities. How are you going to live a little bit differently? If you are burned out, how can you envision your life differently? We try to give a few anecdotes about that. Talk about the importance of the show on your burnout journey.
It is a fuel in my tank every episode. There are so many stories and a lot of commonality in the messages that are woven through the stories about staying encouraged, knowing when to say no, knowing your value, and the importance of having a sisterhood of support for one another instead of competing with each other in terms of collaboration and community. That’s important.
Talking about burnout in general, if you’re highly successful, it’s not one of the things you’re supposed to be talking about in terms of being someone that someone else looks up to, but if we don’t talk about it or we don’t make it tangible, real, or something that people can see, then how do we make effective change so people are living their best lives? That is the way I look at it.
I couldn’t agree with you more. We have heard of women who were suffering in silence and decided to take their own lives or use other methods that are maladaptive coping mechanisms, which we will get to.
How To Recognize Burnout In Your Life
Why don’t we get into that? Why don’t we talk about how you recognize burnout or how you can know if that’s you? There are some common symptoms, like persistent fatigue. It doesn’t improve. You rest and sleep, but you still feel very tired and fatigued all the time.
Irritability, hard to focus and concentrate, and patience. I’m impatient by nature, but I mean being outwardly impatient and not being able to self-regulate. The offering of grace, which I learn all the time from you, is another symptom of burnout.
Loss of motivation or feeling checked out. No matter what’s going on, you’re checked out because you don’t have the emotional capacity anymore to deal with those things. Let’s talk about physical symptoms. People come in. Sometimes, this is what we uncover in the office. They’re complaining of headaches, problems with sleeping, or GI issues. If you take a good history in physical and talk about what else is going on, sometimes, it will lead you back to the actual stressors in somebody’s life.
People would come in and say, “Every Sunday night, I’m feeling a little more anxious. I have difficulty sleeping.” I remember pre-call all of those feelings of gloom and doom. It’s not something that goes away with, “I’m going to go on vacation for seven days. I’m going to come back, and I’m going to be refreshed.” No amount of vacation helps with burnout. They have to be intentional about, “How am I living my life? Who am I in community with?” in order to tackle this.
Lastly, in terms of how to recognize it, for me, it’s when I’m starting to withdraw from work because I love work. I love the people that I serve. I love helping women through whatever it may be, whether it be pregnancy, menopause, adolescence, or all those changes. You start to withdraw from what used to bring you joy, like withdrawing from family. You’re like, “I don’t have the time. I don’t want to stay on the phone.” For me, it is forgetting about the joy I got from hobbies, like painting. I would rather check out and watch Netflix. Those are signs that people can recognize in themselves, hopefully, that something is going on. Take your temperature, see what’s going on, and take inventory.
During the pandemic, I can relate to feeling overwhelmed with that alone, but a job in which we were seeing so many patients in a day, as well as all the additional responsibilities of seeing patients and all the additional paperwork that we had to do. It was more than a reasonable amount. I tell this story all the time. I was leaving the office, sitting in my car, and had tears rolling down my face. I was like, “I don’t know what’s going on, but this is not joyful anymore. It doesn’t feel right. It’s not serving me.” You wake up the next day, and you don’t want to go to work. That was the moment I realized, “Something has to change.”
There is some overlap. What I’m also hearing is depression or some other symptoms that butt up against burnout. We want to take this moment to say it’s important that you talk with your healthcare provider, physician, mental health provider, therapist, psychotherapist, psychiatrist, or whomever it is. The most important thing is knowing that you are not alone and that there is an opportunity to improve.
Common Causes Of Burnout And Stress
We spent a lot of time on the symptoms of burnout. I also want us to talk about what causes burnout. We’ve talked about work. Work can be in the home or outside of the home. The caregivers who are caring for elders in our families or our community. Certainly, people in the armed forces. Burnout can affect people in different locations, not necessarily the work environment.
There are other factors that cause it. A lot of times, you’ll see this with people in our profession. Perfectionism. You want to do your very best, but in all aspects of your life, it can’t always be perfect. There’s difficulty in saying no. It’s like, “Can you do this?” “Absolutely. I can do it.” For some, it gets them up the ladder in their career, but for others, it feeds their self-worth. They’re like, “I am always willing,” but in some circumstances, it becomes a source of burnout.
Burnout can affect people in different locations, not necessarily their work environment. Share on XMay I add something here? I’ve started saying to myself, “I can do this, but do I need to do it? Must I do it? There must be someone else.” My ego tells me, “I’m the only person who can get this done. I can do this.” My evolved, hopefully, higher self says, “You’re not the only person who can do this. Let somebody else do this. Don’t go volunteering first. Let that email sit for 24 hours. It will be A-okay because what is for me is for me.” That’s what I’ve been trying to do.
If you’re not sure at that moment, how about, “Can I get back with you on that?”
If you’re not sure, the answer is probably no.
Agreed. Maybe you’ll land a little easier on somebody. The other important thing that we should bring out in terms of causes can be a lack of support, whether it’s in a work environment or a home relationship. That’s huge. That makes all the difference in the world, having a supportive environment to do what you’re doing.
I know that I have been guilty of this. I have an internal sense of responsibility. I get used to carrying, doing, and saying yes that people respond to that. I’m teaching people how to treat me. They’re like, “She always says yes. She’s got it. She doesn’t need our help.” Surely, I do. Saying no and saying please and thank you, which are my magic words, people then learn how they can show up for me, and we teach them, especially with my partner, how I need to be supported and cared for.
Support is huge. What you said is not only having it, but asking for it and making it known that you need it. You’re not always the person that people are like, “She’s got it all together.” People sometimes stay too long in toxic environments. That could be all of the facets we talked about, like work, personal friendships, and all of those things. It’s trying to navigate through and either being able to eliminate those or work through to create more positive cultures around you.
We got to know when to leave. We got to know when to let go. I, too, could have hung on to jobs a little bit too long in my prior life.
We all have.
Healthy And Positive Ways To Manage Burnout
Now that we know what causes burnout and what some of the symptoms are, what are some healthy ways and positive ways that we can manage burnout and stress?
Let’s talk about some actionable steps that we can take to manage stress. Before we do that, there are two different types of stress. There’s a good stress called eustress.
It’s not bad.
Distress is what we’re trying to address here. Eustress is that stress you get before a presentation that motivates you to prepare for that speech. It’s the stress before you propose to a partner. It’s the good stress that’s used positively. The distress is negative. That is what we’re talking about. We talked about addressing five actionable steps.
One is to pause and notice. It could be using mindfulness or breathing techniques to ground yourself. You’re resetting and taking a deep breath. What’s going on? Why do you have a headache? Why all of a sudden do you feel like you’re panicking? What’s going on? We tend to use the Calm app for our guided meditation. If you have 7 or 8 minutes, do a quick meditation. Have a moment where you can close your eyes.
Headspace does it in a moment. It takes you through some breathing exercises.
There are so many things that we can use, but just pausing. Step away, go to the bathroom, close the stall, and do whatever you need to do other than taking care of personal things. Pause and reflect on what is going on in this moment. It’s taking time to be aware of what’s causing you to feel the way you’re feeling.
I love that. Pausing. One of my favorites is setting boundaries. We talked about learning how to say no. I’m very protective of my evening time. I typically don’t talk on the phone after about 9:00 at night because I need to get ready to go to bed. The next thing I need to do is set boundaries on social media. I need to put the phone down and stop doomscrolling at that time as well. Those are works in progress. We talked about pausing and setting boundaries. What else?
I love that. Boundaries can also be with work.
Don’t answer an email at 8:00 at night.
If it’s something that can wait until 8:00 in the morning, number one, are you going to be your best at 8:00 at night?
I might be a little snarky at 8:00 PM, but that’s me.
You have a different, bright outlook in the morning. Setting boundaries in all aspects of life and learning to say no is number two. That’s a big one. Number three is move. We talk about that all the time. Move your body, even if it’s for ten minutes. Before we did the show, I knew I didn’t have time to take a long walk, but I did a 10-minute walk, which turned into a 15-minute walk.
I had the time to decompress, reflect on the things that we thought we wanted to talk about that were important, and let other things go so that I would be fully present. I also got my vitamin D. I got my ten minutes of sunshine. Move. If you’re at work, take the stairs to get up and down. Instead of fussing about not being able to find a parking spot, park as far away as you can and walk wherever you need to go. It gives you that extra time to decompress or reset. It’s also a movement, so it reduces some of the stress hormones naturally. Find your favorite way to move.
I love that. Some people dance. Some people do Pilates. Some people play pickleball or tennis.
There are so many things. Some people go swimming.
Some people go walking. That brings us to our next stress management step, which is connecting with others. I think of this as a community. There are lots of ways in which we can connect. We know there’s texting, emailing, and calling. I’m a huge fan of handwritten notes. It can be a postcard that says, “Thinking of you.”
I have them everywhere. You’re so thoughtful.
I probably use three words in most of my cards. Sometimes, I’m a little more loquacious in my writing.
It’s very intentional.
Pause and reflect on what is going on in the present moment to address burnout. Take time to be aware of what is causing you to feel that way. Share on XI love a handwritten note that says, “I’m thinking of you.” There are some people that I talk to on their way to work. I know that they are driving between 8:00 AM and 8:55. I say, “How are you?” I do try to keep it light when I talk to people on their way to work because heavy conversations so early in the morning are too much. How do you connect with others?
I love being one-on-one with somebody, so over a meal is great. What we do together, connecting and talking about Boss Leap. On girls’ trips and connecting. Being intentional with my kids. FaceTime is so much better than talking or texting. I always cherish that. Spending time with my husband after work, trying to decompress from the day. It’s just making time. We’re so busy.
What about Seby? Seby sent me a text and was like, “I’m not getting any love. There’s no connection with me.”
Seb gets all the love. He’s so easy, other than his high-maintenance skin issues. Animals are good connectors. They sense our emotions, and they tend to respond in ways that sometimes people can’t. It’s taking all of that in. It’s being intentional about when you speak to somebody. As you said, which was something I had to teach my husband, the morning time before going to school is not the time to reprimand. That’s the start of a day.
People don’t realize sometimes how they’re affecting others. That’s a good point to make. You don’t want to unload on somebody. I try to remember connecting. With you, you are that person who will not necessarily say, “I’m not feeling good,” but sometimes, I hear something in your text, or something is missing.
Sometimes, my text is loud.
Trying to be intentional about checking in on others is what I’m trying to say. Connecting is checking in with others, not always being the person to download. You know somebody is a good listener because they’re checking in on them.
We’ve known each other for so long. You’re right. Oftentimes, there’s a thing that’s missing that you’re like, “Let me call and find out.” We’ve talked about pausing, setting boundaries, movement, connection, and then finally, rest. Rest is resistance. We know that has been in the vernacular. There’s a book. Talk to us about rest. How do you rest?
Sleep. For me, it’s relatively easy to sleep. It always has been. That, I know, is a gift from God because I know everybody doesn’t have that. When you are with a partner, their habits may be different than yours. Overall, the most important thing in terms of resting is sleep. That’s one. Come up with a routine that works for everyone. What you mentioned is trying to turn off screens before bedtime and doing things that are relaxing. I would love to have a nice cup of chamomile tea right before going to bed, but then I know for sure I’ll be up in the middle of the night.
Get a routine in terms of what helps you to sleep. For me, it’s the ocean sounds. I have two snores, my husband and the bulldog, so I have to have the ocean sounds going. It’s interesting how if I’m away and I don’t have that sound, it’s harder. You get into these things that you may think, “That’s not going to work,” or “That doesn’t work,” but once you make it a habit, it does tend to work.
Nutrition is important. What you put in your body, how you eat, and making sure you’re hydrated, help with that rest and recovery component when you’re recovering from the day. Do reflecting practices. I love Sheia’s notion of reflecting on the day. This was one of our guests, Sheia Grant Gibbs, who has a book. Forgive me because I can’t remember.
It’s The Process.
She talked about her habit. She’s not necessarily rehashing the day, like, “I wish I had done this or this differently.” If there was a circumstance that she thought she could have responded to differently, she’s rehearsing how she would do that, because things come up again.
We learn the lesson and keep showing up.
You do not have to deal with burnout all by yourself. Start small. Share on XReflective practices are important. We’re not just moving on to the next day, but reflecting on what went well. You’re sharing your wins with yourself, but then also thinking about what you’d like to do differently tomorrow.
I’m going to add in naps. I’m a big napper.
Naps are great.
I love a late afternoon nap. It helps me feel restored. It gives me a little bit of respite during the day that I can then go into my evening and get my additional walk and all of the things. I love a nap.
Do you have a time constraint on your nap? How much is too long?
I usually don’t have that kind of time. I like a 45-minute nap. I was reading that somewhere around 20 minutes or so is optimal.
I don’t get that. I don’t know how people do that.
That’s not long enough for me. I like 45 minutes, and it has to be before 6:00.
Episode Wrap-up And Closing Words
Otherwise, you’re going to bed. This was great. I hope you guys have heard something that resonates with you and, most importantly, realized that burnout doesn’t happen overnight. It builds slowly. The truth is, it can happen to any one of us. It has happened to us multiple times. The good news is, with awareness, boundaries, and simple daily practices, there are ways that we can manage stress and help us to ultimately thrive instead of just being in the practice of surviving until the next day.
Remember, you don’t have to do this all on your own. You don’t have to carry burnout solo. Start small. Choose one step from this conversation and put it into practice.
We want to thank you for joining us on the show. If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend who might need it, too. Don’t forget to follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Until next time, take good care of yourself. Keep leaping boldly, and most importantly, may you be well.
May you be well.
Important Links
- Dr. Angela Walker
- Sylvia Morris on Instagram
- Boss Leap Podcast on Instagram
- The Journey Through Life’s Messy Middle: Finding Clarity In The Process With Sheia Gibbs
- The Process
- Calm
- Headspace