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Speaker 1: Welcome to Healthy Ish. Thank you for tuning into this

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Speaker 1: daily podcast from Body and Soul. I am Felicity Halle.

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Speaker 1: Tell me how conscious are you of your quarter soul

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Speaker 1: levels throughout the day? Are you tapped into them? Do

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Speaker 1: you need a bit of a hand? I'm joined today

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Speaker 1: by Sheena Shuey. She's a therapist and business mentor specializing

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Speaker 1: in burnout and anxiety, and she's going to discuss why

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Speaker 1: everyone is obsessed with quarter sol levels right now and

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Speaker 1: how you can tap into yours and in turn lower

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Speaker 1: them to reduce your overall stress. Now. I also recommend

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Speaker 1: you listen to our sister pod, Extra Healthy Issue, where

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Speaker 1: Sena talks about the difference between burnout versus anxiety and

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Speaker 1: what to do if you fall into either of those camps.

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Speaker 1: You can grab that wherever you get your podcasts. Shena,

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Speaker 1: thank you for joining us on the podcast us today.

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Speaker 1: Oh so happy to be here now. Codasol, I feel

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Speaker 1: like this is such a buzzword at the moment. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I mean on social media, everyone's talking about it. I

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Speaker 1: feel like we used to talk about stress and now

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Speaker 1: it's about what are your cortisol levels doing?

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Speaker 2: What?

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Speaker 1: I mean, why are we so obsessed with this.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen it. Two cortisol diets, the TikTok trends,

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Speaker 2: you know, all of that. I think the real reason,

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Speaker 2: to be honest, is that cortisole. You know, a lot

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Speaker 2: of us have known about it for such a long time.

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Speaker 2: But I think you know as well, this gurus start

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Speaker 2: to discover the word, they try to legitimize what they

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Speaker 2: do by using the proper words and all of that.

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Speaker 2: So I think that that's part of why it's so

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Speaker 2: in the mainstream of like, oh, my cortisol levels is

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Speaker 2: so high. But also I think it actually is an

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Speaker 2: important issue. So cortisol is that stress chemical that is

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Speaker 2: released when we've got high levels of stress, high levels

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Speaker 2: of anxiety. But what we have discovered from neuroscience over

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Speaker 2: the last ten to twenty years that corterzole actually does

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Speaker 2: damage the brain, and it actually does damage the nervous system.

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Speaker 1: Oh interesting, So too much of it can damage that

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Speaker 1: in the long term. Is that is that over a

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Speaker 1: period of time. I mean, obviously we need corterzole. I

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Speaker 1: mean we need our stress response to trigger. I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's how I've evolved, isn't it. So over time this

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Speaker 1: can happen.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So an example that we often give is going

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Speaker 2: back to the hunter gatherer days. You know, we needed

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Speaker 2: that corterzole to fight the tiger, to run away from

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Speaker 2: a predator, to run away from maybe another tribe who's

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Speaker 2: coming in for attack. We needed sort of short bursts

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Speaker 2: of lots of energy adrenaline, you know, that really kind

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Speaker 2: of high anxiety feeling. We needed that to survive. So

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Speaker 2: obviously we needed those short bursts. Now we're having that

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Speaker 2: same cortisole reaction over an email from your boss being like, hey,

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Speaker 2: I need to talk to you later this afternoon. We're

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Speaker 2: not reacting to the tiger. We're reacting to that. But

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Speaker 2: I think it's also as well. You know, a really

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Speaker 2: interesting statistic I share from Stolen Focus, the book by

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Speaker 2: Johann Hari. It's amazing, but well, one of the stats

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Speaker 2: I love from it is that he shares that in

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Speaker 2: two thousand and seven, so this is still quite a

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Speaker 2: while ago, it would have increased by them. But back

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Speaker 2: in two thousand and seven, we were getting one hundred

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Speaker 2: and seventy four newspaper's worth of information in a day

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Speaker 2: a day, and so obviously it would have gone up

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Speaker 2: by now and I think that's what we need to

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Speaker 2: understand too, is that not long ago, literally a generation ago,

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Speaker 2: we didn't know what was happening in every single country

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Speaker 2: in the world, every single country's problems, conflicts, And you know,

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Speaker 2: it's hard because on the one hand, we want to

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Speaker 2: be educated, we want to be informed on world matters,

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Speaker 2: but what can we do as individuals. It's that balance

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Speaker 2: between being informed but reducing how much news and media

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Speaker 2: we intake because it really does affect our quartersole levels.

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Speaker 2: You know, those things, those little things stress us out.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I think that's a really important point.

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Speaker 1: I mean the environment that we're in, I mean, in

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Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, that is not long ago. I

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Speaker 1: mean I met my husband in that year. I think

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Speaker 1: it was two thousand and six. That wasn't long ago.

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Speaker 1: And the environment was so different back then to what

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Speaker 1: it is now. How and sometimes I think I feel

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Speaker 1: like I'm just running on this high quartersole stress state

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Speaker 1: the whole time. Between everything that I'm doing. How can

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Speaker 1: we better recognize in we're both our body and mind,

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Speaker 1: because that's your specialty. Whether we're running on this quartersole

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Speaker 1: high all of the time, or you know, where are

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Speaker 1: we dipping or whether it's becoming concern.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely so. I often tell my clients there's two

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Speaker 2: states that we're in when we are feeling stress. There's

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Speaker 2: a high per around state, which is really cortisole fueled,

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Speaker 2: adrenaline fueled, and then there's a high po around state.

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Speaker 2: So this is when you're so done, you're over it,

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Speaker 2: you're shutting down. This is where the burnout depression, that

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Speaker 2: kind of stuff starts to come in. But that adrenaline

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Speaker 2: fueled state, it's when you're not cool, calm, collected, or connected.

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Speaker 2: That's what we try to say. So everyone has stress

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Speaker 2: in their day, but let's say something. You've got a

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Speaker 2: stressful text message right now. If you're not fueled by quartersole,

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Speaker 2: like it's literally just normal stress, you'll be able to go, Okay,

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Speaker 2: I've got a situation here, but that's okay, I'll respond

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Speaker 2: to it. You're not reacting to it, you're responding to it.

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Speaker 2: You're still able to go Okay, that's still stressful, but

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Speaker 2: I can manage it. It's also you feel like connecting

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Speaker 2: with people. So often when we're we might be stressed,

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Speaker 2: but we still feel like going to lunch with our

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Speaker 2: colleagues or catching up with people after work. If we

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Speaker 2: are hyper around, we tend to want to connect less.

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Speaker 2: We're like, nah, I'm done with people today, Like I'm

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Speaker 2: too a way too make Netflix. Yeah, that's and that's

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Speaker 2: where you've been in high per state adrenaline fueled for

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Speaker 2: so long that you end up dipping into the other state.

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Speaker 2: I talked about hypo where you're like, I'm done, And

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Speaker 2: this is where we start to see a drenal fatigue burnout.

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Speaker 2: It's where you've lived in that state for so long

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Speaker 2: that your body almost can't produce it anymore. Your nervous

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Speaker 2: system is literally frying, and it's like I can't keep

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Speaker 2: going like this.

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Speaker 1: So what do we do? We feel like we are

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Speaker 1: living in that state? I mean, what's is it just

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Speaker 1: if we're living in that state? We feel like we're

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Speaker 1: in that permanent state for a long period of time.

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Speaker 1: What can we do to recognize the state and reduce

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Speaker 1: in turn, reduce our cortisol levels bring us down to

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Speaker 1: karmas of mind.

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Speaker 2: A lot of people forget what it's actually like to

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Speaker 2: slow down and be calm, like their base level is

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Speaker 2: already up at a ten. If you go, what's your

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Speaker 2: normal state? They're like, I'm just I'm just high strung.

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Speaker 2: I'm just like that, I'm type A all the time.

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Speaker 2: But actually, when you do work with a therapist, not

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Speaker 2: a life coach, not a mindset coach, a therapist, Right,

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Speaker 2: So I'm talking psychologists, social worker, counselor what we look

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Speaker 2: at is why do you feel the need to be

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Speaker 2: on all the time? What is driving that you know,

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Speaker 2: because often the reason that we can't turn off shut

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Speaker 2: down is often a worthiness thing. There might be attachment thing,

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Speaker 2: there might be achievement as my self worth, maybe your

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Speaker 2: identity is through work, Like you don't know who you

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Speaker 2: are outside of doing things for other people at work,

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Speaker 2: doing things as a mum, doing things as a whe

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Speaker 2: whatever that might be. It's like, who are you outside

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Speaker 2: of all of that? And if you don't know the

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Speaker 2: answer to that, you're probably trying to get your worth

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Speaker 2: by serving others rather than serving yourself.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, some great questions there, very very point and I

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Speaker 1: was like, yeah, yep, yep, Sheina, thank you for coming

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Speaker 1: on healthy ish.

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Speaker 2: No worries it all.

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Speaker 1: Thanks listening to this chat with that Sheena. I hope

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Speaker 1: it's shed some light on well cor asol levels and

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Speaker 1: how They're showing up for you every day. Where are

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Speaker 1: they at, How are you feeling right now? Questions to

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Speaker 1: ask yourself, if you did enjoy it, if you've got

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Speaker 1: something out of it, tell us, rate and review this podcast,

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Speaker 1: Subscribe as well. Make sure you are so following Body

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Speaker 1: and Soul on social media. Grow a print edition which

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Speaker 1: is out in your local Sunday paper. Body Andsoul dot

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Speaker 1: com dot you is the place to go for more info.

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Speaker 1: Have a great day and stay healthy ish