Speaker 1: Mellow Calarco. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2: Great to be here.
Speaker 1: It is Spits And we met the other day in
Speaker 1: our village.
Speaker 3: So you are the first ever person on the podcast
Speaker 3: from the same village as we and but we actually
Speaker 3: I didn't know we lived in the same villages until
Speaker 3: we met a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: Ago, exactly exactly. And Amazon suggests that our two books
Speaker 2: are frequently bought together, so it says that often, and
Speaker 2: I thought, well, you live in the same village, we
Speaker 2: should get together for a couple and have a coffee
Speaker 2: together and tea together. So it worked out really well.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And so we are both best selling, multiple award winning.
Speaker 1: Authors from Mantle. You know what I think we did.
Speaker 3: See if there's a third one, it'd be good to
Speaker 3: have a trifecta in the village.
Speaker 2: Shout out to any award winning authors in Eliza please.
Speaker 3: So, man, before we get into talking about burnout, because
Speaker 3: you've written a book on burnout. You do coaching for
Speaker 3: seals and athletes and all of that sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: But you were telling me the other day you actually
Speaker 3: have a very interesting background. Younger years, like I did
Speaker 3: a lot of travel, but you cycle thirty thousand kilometers
Speaker 3: around the world.
Speaker 1: So tell me what inspired you to do that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and just talk our listeners through the journey.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, sure. So had the crazy idea to cycle
Speaker 2: trek and travel around the world for around about two
Speaker 2: or three years and end up through Africa and India.
Speaker 2: And actually there was five of us that had the idea,
Speaker 2: five or six of us, five of my mates. So
Speaker 2: let's go around the world on mountain bikes and let's
Speaker 2: go see the planet. And unfortunately, one by one they
Speaker 2: all bailed on me as we started. We started getting
Speaker 2: the mass as it got yeah, yeah, the reality setting.
Speaker 2: We got the maps, you know, the micheline maps of
Speaker 2: Africa and you know the Congo and Nigeria and all
Speaker 2: those sort of stuff. So one by one they sort
Speaker 2: of like stepped out on me and said, no, I'm
Speaker 2: not doing it, which put me in the position of like,
Speaker 2: do I do this solo or do I not do it?
Speaker 2: Do I bail myself? And I went for it, went
Speaker 2: and I went solo. So the inspiration was more like
Speaker 2: I just wanted more out of life. I wanted to
Speaker 2: see the planet, and I was practicing martial arts and
Speaker 2: meditation and things, and I wanted to go stay in
Speaker 2: monasteries and temples around the world to immerse myself in
Speaker 2: the spiritual practices. But I'm also very interested in indigenous
Speaker 2: cultures and different places of the world. So wherever I
Speaker 2: did stay, most of the time it was with indigenous people,
Speaker 2: and most of the time it was in monasteries and
Speaker 2: temples and churches and whatever it was around the world.
Speaker 2: So the inspiration was just to see the planet and
Speaker 2: get more out of life because I knew there was
Speaker 2: more to what I was doing too at the time.
Speaker 1: Wow, and how or what are you at the time?
Speaker 2: Twenty odd years ago? So disclosing my age in my thirties? Yeah, thirty?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, yeah, wow, So that that's amazing. And how
Speaker 3: long how long did it actually take you?
Speaker 1: How long were you away?
Speaker 2: Plans changed along the way a lot, So I caught
Speaker 2: malaria in Africa nearly killed.
Speaker 1: Me, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all sorts of funky as you can imagine living
Speaker 2: with indigenous people and eating their food.
Speaker 3: So but because we are we are in the west,
Speaker 3: we are just not robust, are we. I got all
Speaker 3: sorts of in the Amazon jungle, whereas the locals are
Speaker 3: just they're adapted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they are. We could talk about all those diseases
Speaker 2: all day, right, But yeah, so the plans changed along
Speaker 2: the way, and I did have to hang up my
Speaker 2: bike for a while and went up trekking through the Himalayas.
Speaker 2: But in short, in answer to that question, around about
Speaker 2: two and a half to three years of that trekking
Speaker 2: and cycling component of it, and then I ended up
Speaker 2: meeting my wife in Africa crossing the Western Sahara, and
Speaker 2: I ended up, as you not.
Speaker 1: A story that you hear every day.
Speaker 3: I mean, I met Kylie in Ecuador, but it wasn't
Speaker 3: crossing the sha Yeah.
Speaker 2: On the back on the back of one of these
Speaker 2: big orange trucks. I had to sort of throw my
Speaker 2: bike on there because it was a land mine area
Speaker 2: through Mauritania and Morocco. And yeah, she was a tour
Speaker 2: guy and on one of these trucks, one of those
Speaker 2: overland traveled trucks from the UK ah Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: we met there and we traveled then. So the trekking
Speaker 2: and cycling part was about two and a half years.
Speaker 2: Then Killer and I we cycled and trecked and did
Speaker 2: all sorts of crazy stuff together again for probably another
Speaker 2: four or five years actually, so all in all around
Speaker 2: about seven years of trekking the planet.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's amazing, and it goes I mean, I've done
Speaker 3: it for a bit of travel, not to the extent
Speaker 3: that you have, but it really does ship you, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: You cannot go and travel.
Speaker 3: Particularly in more Third world countries and indigenous cultures, you
Speaker 3: just can't spend time there and not be must affected.
Speaker 3: What were some of the big tear comes and lessons
Speaker 3: for you on that journey?
Speaker 2: Think about everything in life, resilience rising above adversity, all
Speaker 2: these lessons that I learned on the road, and that's
Speaker 2: where I definitely shaped who I am today. And in
Speaker 2: many ways, I'm actually glad I did it on my own.
Speaker 2: I'm glad the other five bailed on me because I
Speaker 2: could spend as much time as I liked in the
Speaker 2: villages and the places where it resonated with me. So
Speaker 2: there's all those lessons on resilience and making decisions and
Speaker 2: being clear. Believing in yourself was probably one of the
Speaker 2: biggest ones, Like really believing that I had the resources
Speaker 2: inside of me to get through any situation, no matter what,
Speaker 2: whether it was machine guns in my ribs in Rwanda,
Speaker 2: or whether it was a storm that I was stuck in.
Speaker 2: I had to meditate for twelve hours to survive this storm.
Speaker 2: But really believing in no matter what life throws at
Speaker 2: me on this adventure, but in life in general, I've
Speaker 2: always got the resources inside of me and I just
Speaker 2: have to really tap into that. So that definitely shaped way.
Speaker 2: And many people always ask me what was the hardest
Speaker 2: thing or what was the toughest thing, what was the
Speaker 2: most challenging. Yes, there was near death experiences, but I
Speaker 2: was also humbled by the kindness of strangers. I was
Speaker 2: humbled by some of these countries, these developing countries where
Speaker 2: they have absolutely nothing, but they invite you into their
Speaker 2: home and they look you in and next minute, you know,
Speaker 2: you're drinking yak butter tea in some funny little village,
Speaker 2: and I was really really surprised by that.
Speaker 3: Actually, it's really interesting the belief in yourself right, which
Speaker 3: leads us into a conversation around around burnout. And this
Speaker 3: may be a bit premature in the conversation, but the
Speaker 3: whole challenge and threat and how.
Speaker 1: People perceive stress is absolutely massive.
Speaker 3: And I was actually talking about this in a workshop
Speaker 3: yesterday that if there are two people, say me and you,
Speaker 3: presented with the same adversity, and I view it as
Speaker 3: a threat and you view it as a challenge, it
Speaker 3: completely changes our physiology, and it changes the motivation, it
Speaker 3: changes the behavior. Right, So having a challenge orientation is very,
Speaker 3: very protective against burnout. But and this is the thing
Speaker 3: that a lot.
Speaker 1: Of people don't talk about.
Speaker 3: You need to believe that you have the resources to
Speaker 3: be able to overcome it, right, And that's where doing
Speaker 3: hard stuff actually comes into it. That your life experiences
Speaker 3: that you've had then you hit the nail on the head,
Speaker 3: gives you your belief in yourself that you can actually
Speaker 3: overcome stuff because that then has a massive effect on
Speaker 3: how stress works. And I'm preaching to the converted to
Speaker 3: you because you've written a bloody book on burnout, right,
Speaker 3: But I think right from the start, getting the listeners
Speaker 3: aware of that is pretty key. But then leads into
Speaker 3: you know why some people bonote and some people don't bonoe.
Speaker 3: But before we dig into it, why did you decide
Speaker 3: to write a book on beating bonote and finding violent balance?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Originally it wasn't going to be that. Actually, to be honest,
Speaker 2: it was a bit of a journey in the process.
Speaker 2: So I've always helped people. I've always done work where
Speaker 2: I'm supporting people in different ways and shapes and forms,
Speaker 2: and mindfulness underpins a lot of the work that I do,
Speaker 2: so mindfulness is a big factor of what I do.
Speaker 2: So originally it was going to be a Mindfulness for
Speaker 2: Leadership actually in book when I first started thinking about it.
Speaker 2: But as I was writing it, I thought, you know what,
Speaker 2: this book's for everybody, and this book's all about finding
Speaker 2: balance and preventing burnout. So and it was born out
Speaker 2: of a mission to help more people because a lot
Speaker 2: of my work is probably similar to you. You know,
Speaker 2: I work in many corporate companies. I deliver workshops, programs, keynotes,
Speaker 2: and public speaking. So a lot of the work that
Speaker 2: I do is in house. You know, people know me
Speaker 2: in that company and people you know work and are
Speaker 2: familiar with it. But out in the big vast world,
Speaker 2: not many people know my work. So I thought, I
Speaker 2: want to get this book out to support as many
Speaker 2: people as possible, And so that's where the idea was born.
Speaker 2: Out of my mission to support and help a billion
Speaker 2: people on this planet. And I still get emails weekly
Speaker 2: from my book that says, you know, your books saved
Speaker 2: my life, or your books helped me through a cancer diagnosis,
Speaker 2: or your books helped me through a difficult time or
Speaker 2: a difficult marriage. So I think my book's doing what
Speaker 2: I wanted it to do, just to help as many
Speaker 2: people as possible. But I just wanted to get something
Speaker 2: out there in the public that people can't access me
Speaker 2: in the corporate world. They can access me through this
Speaker 2: sort of book and other TEDx talk that I did
Speaker 2: recently also, so just getting it out and then I
Speaker 2: think the world needed it. At the time, it was
Speaker 2: just post COVID, so I was after that, so a
Speaker 2: lot of mental health issues, a lot of the people
Speaker 2: around me were struggling, and I thought, if I've got
Speaker 2: some tools and techniques that can help people right now
Speaker 2: here it is, I'll put it in the book to share.
Speaker 1: And that post COVID, I think is is really relevant.
Speaker 3: I was writing some data the other day actually that
Speaker 3: between fifty and sixty five percent of people in the UK,
Speaker 3: United States, America, Singapore, India are all feeling signs of
Speaker 3: burnout post COVID because COVID, I think, in and of itself,
Speaker 3: was clearly a massive event that impacted people and impacted
Speaker 3: their stress. But I think one of the things that
Speaker 3: people don't really think about is that COVID made people
Speaker 3: hyper vigilant to stress and threat We know that if
Speaker 3: you're constantly exposed to stress as we were in COVID,
Speaker 3: particularly at Melbourne with two hundred and seventy three days
Speaker 3: a long time, it actually makes the amygdala grow and
Speaker 3: become more sensitive and hyper vigilant to stress and threats.
Speaker 3: So people's brains become more negative. And so the these
Speaker 3: are the bloody, lingering effects of COVID and particularly the
Speaker 3: lockdomet But let's just for the for the ontank. Most
Speaker 3: people have a sense of what bonot is, but give
Speaker 3: us your definition of bnot.
Speaker 2: We'll give you the who's definition first, and then you
Speaker 2: know my take on that. And you've probably heard it
Speaker 2: and probably seen it. Many people have heard this, you know,
Speaker 2: over the years. Here, So in twenty nineteen, this is
Speaker 2: their version and by the way, this is their eleventh revision,
Speaker 2: so actually they've changed it eleven times. So you know,
Speaker 2: burnout is a syndrome conceptualized as chronic workplace stress that
Speaker 2: has not been successfully managed. So that's their definition. I
Speaker 2: like it. It's getting closer. But the word workplace in there,
Speaker 2: you know, it doesn't have to be there. It could
Speaker 2: just be chronic stress. So it could be financial stress,
Speaker 2: it could be relationship stress, it could be family stress,
Speaker 2: it could be illness or whatever it is. So let's
Speaker 2: remove that word workplace or sort of fade it out.
Speaker 2: So it's essentially chronic stress that has not been successfully managed.
Speaker 2: And usually it's cumulative over a period of time, so
Speaker 2: it either sneaks up on you or it's sort of
Speaker 2: sneaking away in the background there, And it could be weeks,
Speaker 2: it could be months, it could be years. Some of
Speaker 2: my clients it could be an instant nervous breakdown, but
Speaker 2: it's been this accumulation of stress that they haven't managed.
Speaker 2: It turns into that alistatic stress or alostatic load, and
Speaker 2: then it's like burnout, and burnout is the end result.
Speaker 2: Of course, it's like dysfunctional, no longer functional. And the
Speaker 2: three main criteria probably aware of in terms of the
Speaker 2: WHO version is number one is that absolute sheer, exhaustion
Speaker 2: and depletion and fatigue, not just stress where you have
Speaker 2: a good night's sleep and you wake up the next
Speaker 2: day and you feel better. This is like, it doesn't
Speaker 2: matter how much sleep you get, you just got nothing left.
Speaker 2: So that absolute exhaustion. Number two is that feeling of detachment,
Speaker 2: feeling a bit disassociated with the world around you, not
Speaker 2: connected with your peers or your colleagues or your family,
Speaker 2: maybe a bit more cynical and complaining more than usual.
Speaker 2: So that's number two. And then number three is that
Speaker 2: lack of professional efficacy. So just a thing that would
Speaker 2: all be easy for you is just hard. It's difficult,
Speaker 2: it's challenging, and making more errors less efficient. So that's
Speaker 2: the three criteria, and I'm sure many of our listeners
Speaker 2: here have probably experienced one or two of those from
Speaker 2: time to time, but it is the prolonged sort of
Speaker 2: exposure to that, and then you know that constant cumulative
Speaker 2: effect that it has on us.
Speaker 3: And I think that's a really important point, that the cumulation.
Speaker 1: And you're saying it's not.
Speaker 3: Just workplace, right, because people can be going along and
Speaker 3: be in a reasonably stressful work environment but coping well
Speaker 3: and then all of a sudden one of their kids
Speaker 3: gets depression, right, and that just tips them over the edge,
Speaker 3: or they have a marriage breakup, or there's something there's
Speaker 3: financial stress. And this is the thing is that it's
Speaker 3: not just like you're just doesn't compartmentalize stress, right, It
Speaker 3: is cumulative. Or somebody gets a chronic health condition and
Speaker 3: that then increases the allo static load on the body.
Speaker 3: And so it's looking at all of the different sources
Speaker 3: of stress in your life is really really important, right,
Speaker 3: And it can be just a job that you could
Speaker 3: normally do, but then there's some significant life events or
Speaker 3: an ongoing stressful issue in your life that can actually
Speaker 3: tip you over the edge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And when we say tip you over the edge,
Speaker 2: that tipping point, it's there in the background anyway. You know,
Speaker 2: when I did write the book, and I interviewed around
Speaker 2: two hundred thought leaders, professionals, executives, athletes, whole range of
Speaker 2: different people, and ninety percent of them didn't even realize
Speaker 2: they were burning out until it was too late. Ninety
Speaker 2: percent didn't even realize they knew something wasn't quite right there,
Speaker 2: something was not quite right. I feel a bit tired
Speaker 2: or feel fatigued. And of the of the camp, the
Speaker 2: ones that did realize it a little bit, they either
Speaker 2: didn't have the tools or techniques to get out of it.
Speaker 2: They didn't know what to do, they didn't have any
Speaker 2: any support there or the other ones just kept powering
Speaker 2: on and charging on anyway. They knew something wasn't right,
Speaker 2: But I'm just going to keep you know, finish that
Speaker 2: last thing and keep doing that. So the self awareness
Speaker 2: piece is number one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely key, And I actually had that
Speaker 3: in a question for you about about the role.
Speaker 1: Of self for Warner.
Speaker 3: So let's let's do a deep dive into that, because
Speaker 3: what are and to your mind? And I can sort
Speaker 3: of chip in with some ideas as well here, But
Speaker 3: what are some of the signs and symptoms that you're
Speaker 3: starting to go down the slope?
Speaker 1: I actually use when I talk about but I use a.
Speaker 3: Whirlpools as the as the kind of descriptive, because the
Speaker 3: lower down you get, the stronger the downward poll actually becomes.
Speaker 1: Right, it's not like a slope, it's a pool dime.
Speaker 1: So what would some early sayings be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the earlier ones, usually the ones we notice are
Speaker 2: the physical ones, you know, usually we feel it physically.
Speaker 2: By then it's already like you're halfway down the whirlpool.
Speaker 2: To be honest, that's happening. So the physical things, it
Speaker 2: could be tightness in the shoulder, It could be tightness
Speaker 2: in the jaw. It could be clenching your jaw. Everybody
Speaker 2: feels stressed differently. It could be migraine's headaches. It could
Speaker 2: be even lower back pain or tension through the whole body.
Speaker 2: Of those typical fight and flight response things there that
Speaker 2: we feel in the body. So that's the physical ones.
Speaker 2: Also behavioral and emotion it could be just snappier, you know,
Speaker 2: like more reactive than usual, losing your temper, losing your
Speaker 2: cool more than you would you know, you might keep
Speaker 2: it together all day at work, but the moment you
Speaker 2: get home, yeah, it gets right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, that's right, because because it just it just
Speaker 3: builds and mills exactly.
Speaker 2: And also also it could be withdrawal. It could be
Speaker 2: like withdrawing from meetings and showing your face on the
Speaker 2: zom screen or not going to meetings, or withdrawing from
Speaker 2: any social activities. So all of these things are happening,
Speaker 2: but very often we notice these things and we just
Speaker 2: ignore them. I'll just keep going. I always use the
Speaker 2: analogy a bit like driving the car, you know, and
Speaker 2: the oil light pops up. That's fine, I'll just keep going. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then the temperature gauge lifts up. That's fine, I'll
Speaker 2: just keep going. So eventually you know that car is
Speaker 2: going to burn out and break down, same as us.
Speaker 2: But we see these little signs and we either ignore
Speaker 2: them or we just don't know what to do. We
Speaker 2: don't know how to get out of them. So it
Speaker 2: is about Number one is self awareness. And there's also
Speaker 2: for me when it comes to self awareness, there's like
Speaker 2: board or baseline self awareness, which is just like the
Speaker 2: usual things. You might notice the physical sensations in the body,
Speaker 2: you might notice how you're feeling or what you're thinking
Speaker 2: in some of your thoughts, but there's also a deeper
Speaker 2: self awareness, like this deeper level of self awareness, and
Speaker 2: then you know something's not right. So there's sort of
Speaker 2: almost like this gut feeling and you have to act
Speaker 2: on that. You have to do something about that.
Speaker 4: Often the early stages, like the really early stages before
Speaker 4: people notice, you know, people, they get sucked into mindless multitasking,
Speaker 4: right and and just procrastinating.
Speaker 1: That that's a sign that.
Speaker 3: That you're you're stressed often and that your brain is
Speaker 3: going O that ship over there is too hard, but
Speaker 3: I want to pretend that I'm doing stuff right, you
Speaker 3: end up doing this And I think another early sign
Speaker 3: is is just a bit of apathy. Right, we just
Speaker 3: kind of go I'm a bit bur right, and I
Speaker 3: think a lot of people will recognize that. I think
Speaker 3: that that is one of the early signs that stress
Speaker 3: is starting to take its toll on your body. And
Speaker 3: and then I think to throw in to add to
Speaker 3: your physical ones. I think that when you're sleep is
Speaker 3: starting to become effective, right right right, when you're you're
Speaker 3: knackered and you lie do to go to you think
Speaker 3: I'm going to be in sleep within five seconds, and
Speaker 3: then your brain goes on five right, that that is
Speaker 3: a sign. And waking up and being tired, I think
Speaker 3: we're starting to get down the vortex na.
Speaker 1: And often I.
Speaker 3: Think i'd throw in as well to your because you
Speaker 3: mentioned behaviors. When people start to self neglect, I think
Speaker 3: that's a big sign. When you know they know they
Speaker 3: should be exercising more and they just don't have the
Speaker 3: motivation to do it.
Speaker 1: Their diet starts to go to ratchet.
Speaker 3: Right, you're comfort eating, you're drinking a bit too much,
Speaker 3: and you're kind of going you know, I.
Speaker 1: Just need to get through this. I'll sort this out.
Speaker 3: That's when the world really starts to grab you and
Speaker 3: suck you down further.
Speaker 2: When you start letting go of those things that you
Speaker 2: need the most. It's like, you know, when that's the
Speaker 2: ironic thing. The more stress we get and the more
Speaker 2: we get caught up in this chronic stress and this
Speaker 2: busyness at work and whatever it is that's stimulating you,
Speaker 2: we often start letting go of those things that we
Speaker 2: need the most. I won't go to the gym tonight.
Speaker 2: I'm too tired, or I'm just going to grab some
Speaker 2: takeaway on the way home because I can't be bothered,
Speaker 2: you know, that sort of epathy and not caring exactly
Speaker 2: what you're saying. But it actually should be the other
Speaker 2: way around. It should be.
Speaker 3: Absolutely one hundred percent. And I often use the analogy
Speaker 3: of an athlete. That's whether it's you know, a World Cup,
Speaker 3: Rugby World Cup, soccer, World Cup, whatever, where they're having
Speaker 3: to perform at a high level and then get up
Speaker 3: and perform again and again and again. I tell you what,
Speaker 3: they're not coming home and going fucking hell, that was
Speaker 3: a hard day.
Speaker 1: I need a drink.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean that they are coming back
Speaker 3: and they are recovering effectively. And before we jump into
Speaker 3: some sort of solutions, I think it is worthwhile just
Speaker 3: diving into this these signs and symptoms a little bit more.
Speaker 3: When people are really starting to get pulled down and
Speaker 3: starting to get close to burnt.
Speaker 1: Is there.
Speaker 3: I think you mentioned social withdrawal. I think that's a
Speaker 3: massive one. Not just the meetings and the people not
Speaker 3: turn into compans, but when they socially withdraw when you're
Speaker 3: just like, you know, I don't want to go out
Speaker 3: and see my friends.
Speaker 2: I'll be bothered.
Speaker 1: That's a big red flag for me.
Speaker 2: Everything's too hard everything to The big red flag is
Speaker 2: this sort of overwhelmed. There's sort of overstimulation. So there's, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's healthy stress, we all know about that. There's the
Speaker 2: good stress that drives us, that motivates us. You know,
Speaker 2: there's chronic stress of course when we get caught up
Speaker 2: in it. But this tipping point is that overwhelmed where
Speaker 2: everything's just too hard, too much. And the reason I
Speaker 2: say this is I also work in psychiatric clinics, so
Speaker 2: I work in for mental health clinics, and I ask
Speaker 2: the patients when they come to my programs, what happened?
Speaker 2: How did you end up in here? And most of
Speaker 2: them will have a version of like, there's just too much.
Speaker 2: I couldn't take it anymore. So this overstimulated overwhelm and
Speaker 2: mind it's just everything's too hard, so they just stop
Speaker 2: doing everything, stop doing work, stop socializing, stop going out.
Speaker 2: Everything is too difficult. And then from there it's this
Speaker 2: slippery slope downwards into that fatigue and exhaustion, and then
Speaker 2: you've got no energy because you're not moving. So this
Speaker 2: tipping point of overwhelmed. So if you're hearing this language
Speaker 2: even in the workplace for some people at home and
Speaker 2: people are talking about too much is too much or
Speaker 2: not coping or man, it's a bit manic at the moment,
Speaker 2: it's a bit crazy at the moment. Chances are they're
Speaker 2: heading to that slippery slope. Chances are they're not cloaking.
Speaker 1: And to bring that back to the.
Speaker 3: Challenge and threat orientation, that's where everything starts to become
Speaker 3: a thres right. But with that overwhelm, no, I don't
Speaker 3: feed like I hub the resources to do this thing
Speaker 3: that I used to.
Speaker 1: Be able to do. Starting on my head I think.
Speaker 3: That is a massive flashing neon light to people.
Speaker 1: That they are just there.
Speaker 3: They're getting sucked into that burnout vortex because it's just
Speaker 3: it's affecting their their perception, and their perception then affects
Speaker 3: their motivation and their coping strategies that use and as
Speaker 3: you rightly pointed out, right then we start to get
Speaker 3: into maladaptive coping strategies.
Speaker 1: As well, such as alcohol, shit food. And we could
Speaker 1: justify all this to ourselves, can we?
Speaker 3: I think everybody's been there. We're just going and I
Speaker 3: think you said it, mellow. I'm just too tired. I'm
Speaker 3: just going to get take out and it's been a
Speaker 3: hard day. Psychologists talk about self care. I'm going to
Speaker 3: have half a bottle of wine or bottle of wine
Speaker 3: and what's Netflix.
Speaker 1: That's not breaking self care.
Speaker 3: Self care is exercising, good food and meditation and sleep.
Speaker 2: Higiene amen to that absolutely. But you're right that the
Speaker 2: migda that you said before, that is on this hyper
Speaker 2: vigilant it's on. So when we're on, when we're in
Speaker 2: this mode, everything's you know, we get better at stressing out.
Speaker 2: We actually build that amig deala muscle. It gets stronger,
Speaker 2: and we actually get more reactive. And that's addictive too,
Speaker 2: is sort of like we get addicted to that feeling.
Speaker 2: We're just going to keep going, keep moving, keep doing.
Speaker 2: But I always use the analogy of those you know,
Speaker 2: those neutribullets, you know, those neutribullets where you put your smoothie,
Speaker 2: you make you make smoothing. So the fight and flight
Speaker 2: response you know that you know, is handy. We need
Speaker 2: it to get through situations, but it's only designed for
Speaker 2: short term stimulus. It's only designed to get you through
Speaker 2: that thing. It's a bit like putting the nutrible on
Speaker 2: and just leaving it on, you know. Is that neutrible
Speaker 2: is designed to oscillate at a high frequency, so it
Speaker 2: makes you smoothie. But if you leave the neutrable it
Speaker 2: on for five minutes or ten minutes or twenty minutes,
Speaker 2: it's going to burn out. It's not designed for that.
Speaker 2: The same as the fight and flight response. The amigdala
Speaker 2: is not designed to be switched on twenty four or seven,
Speaker 2: you know, without any consequence. And one of the worst
Speaker 2: cases of burnout that I've seen in the work that
Speaker 2: I do is a one particular client was very sharp
Speaker 2: guy like men. He very sharp, very smart, smart guy
Speaker 2: operating and owning twenty seven businesses around the world and
Speaker 2: obviously need to be switched on to do that. Very successful.
Speaker 2: But he wore it as a badge of how busy
Speaker 2: he was, you know, like yeah, and he was working
Speaker 2: across multiple time zones. He was working the US, UK
Speaker 2: and Australian time zones and saying, oh, I slept on.
Speaker 2: I didn't get any sleep last night. I worked in
Speaker 2: the Quantus Lounge, and then I got to LAX and
Speaker 2: I worked in the LAX in Los Angeles, and then
Speaker 2: I got to my office in London and I didn't
Speaker 2: sleep at all. Two hours sleep, You know, I wore
Speaker 2: it as a badge, like, you know, how busy he was.
Speaker 2: His mind kept going, but his body said I had
Speaker 2: doing this anymore. Totally shut down. Multiple organ failure, like
Speaker 2: his pancreas spleen liver started shutting down, stopped producing his
Speaker 2: endocrime system was shot, stopped producing testosterone. He was hospitalized
Speaker 2: in intensive care for weeks and in hospital for months,
Speaker 2: Like at what point do you listen to the signs?
Speaker 2: At what point do you stop this machine.
Speaker 3: That that is severe clinical burnout, right, So there's a
Speaker 3: clinical and non clinical burnout.
Speaker 1: Actually, I think it's worthwhile double clicking.
Speaker 3: On that stress response and the hormones, right, because when
Speaker 3: we're in that challenge orientation, right, when you're dealing with stuff,
Speaker 3: it is it's your fight or flight, and it's the
Speaker 3: chemicals adrenaline and no adrenaline. And then when we get
Speaker 3: into threat response and overwhelm, cordisole comes in over the top, right,
Speaker 3: And and this is the thing for people to understand.
Speaker 3: When you're in challenge response, that adrenaline nor adrenaline that
Speaker 3: activates the fight part of fight, flight and freeze, right.
Speaker 3: It's engagement, right, it's being on the front foot. I'm
Speaker 3: all over this right, and you're motivated to do stuff.
Speaker 3: But when cordisole comes over the top of it, and
Speaker 3: that drives you into the flight avoidance freeze response as well,
Speaker 3: and chronic stress. And here's something that I only discovered
Speaker 3: lately is that the half life.
Speaker 1: Of adrenaline and noah adrenaline in the body is one
Speaker 1: to two minutes.
Speaker 3: Right, So if we're both faced with the same stressor
Speaker 3: use that example earlier on, you're in a challenge response
Speaker 3: as soon as that stressor has gone within minutes, your
Speaker 3: body is back to homeostasis.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: Cord Isol I hadn't realized until recently has a half
Speaker 3: life of one to two rs. So with me and
Speaker 3: the threat response, right, and that overwhelmed with the freezer whatever,
Speaker 3: even when that stressor goes ours later, I still have
Speaker 3: significant amounts of cortisol running through my body and brain,
Speaker 3: attacking my organs and attacking like a little bit of
Speaker 3: short term cortosol is good, but as you you well know,
Speaker 3: our solo when it's our metal. So when it when
Speaker 3: it's high and it's protracted, that's when it really creates damage. Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I knew you bringing this stuff to the table,
Speaker 2: which is good. You can explain all that so.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I can't. I can't help the geek in me.
Speaker 1: It's to bring it up.
Speaker 3: But it's I think it's really important for people to
Speaker 3: understand that that we have this beautifully designed stress response
Speaker 3: that has been honed over hundreds of thousands of years
Speaker 3: in Homeo sappiens. And if you look back, they evolution
Speaker 3: of our species millions of years, right, and and it's
Speaker 3: honged this beautifully to deal with stressors which were mostly
Speaker 3: intermittent and but sometimes severe and and you know that's
Speaker 3: the fight or flag response. But when stressors were prolonged
Speaker 3: and really severe, that's when the espai accesis and cordsole
Speaker 3: kicks in. And that's when the bad juju happens to
Speaker 3: your physical and mental health. Right when you're just you
Speaker 3: just become completely dysregulated and chronically elevated cortis are makes
Speaker 3: you fight, makes you sick, destroys your brain function, destroys
Speaker 3: your mental health, destroys your motivation, It just does horrible shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not designed to as I said, it's not
Speaker 2: designed to be switched on all the time. And many
Speaker 2: people are switching that that mechanism on the first thing
Speaker 2: in the morning. They pick up their telephone, they look
Speaker 2: at their emails, ping, it's on exactly left their bedroom yet,
Speaker 2: and they've created a stress response. And then they go
Speaker 2: through their day and it's this constant emails and pinging
Speaker 2: and the boss and it's just this constant overstimulation of
Speaker 2: that fight and flight response. It's not designed to be
Speaker 2: like that. With the work that I do, obviously, that's
Speaker 2: what's called that sympathetic activity. The work that I do
Speaker 2: is you know, to help people find balance between that
Speaker 2: sympathetic activity and the powa sympathetic yea, not many people
Speaker 2: switch on the relaxation response. They use that stress.
Speaker 1: Response absolutely critical. And you, I think you've hit the
Speaker 1: kneel on the.
Speaker 3: Head these people who wake up and if you look
Speaker 3: at your phone before your feet touch the.
Speaker 1: Ground, that's a problem. I agree that that is a problem.
Speaker 3: And you're getting inputs straight, especially if you're checking your
Speaker 3: freaking before you've even thought about the day, thought about
Speaker 3: who you want to be that day, you know, like
Speaker 3: the stoics would do, and and I'm sure you know
Speaker 3: you would be encouraging people to get up to be
Speaker 3: mindful as they start today. But it's that stimulation and
Speaker 3: then we bookend it our day with more stimulation, right,
Speaker 3: and people go, h, you know I'm recovering, I'm watching
Speaker 3: TV or I'm on social media. That's not recovery for
Speaker 3: your nervous system. That is stimulation for your sympathetic nervous system.
Speaker 3: So we're always on right And I think that's the
Speaker 3: major issue, or one of the big contributors should say
Speaker 3: is that even when people are not at work, they
Speaker 3: are not recovering, not right. And I think we're both
Speaker 3: seeing from the same m sheep here that there is
Speaker 3: a difference between relaxation and recovery.
Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah. And most people don't give themselves permission to stop.
Speaker 2: And most people don't, you know, switch off. They don't
Speaker 2: even know what downtime is anymore. The words not in
Speaker 2: our vocabulary. And that's what I always say. People are
Speaker 2: wound up all day, you know, wound up. There's constant
Speaker 2: overstimulation from the time they wake up. They're looking at
Speaker 2: their telephone. Every break they get, they pick up their phone,
Speaker 2: they scroll, or they do something, and there's no off time.
Speaker 2: You know, when it comes to the brain. You probably
Speaker 2: know a bit about this yourself. These different frequencies that
Speaker 2: the brain oscillates, and you have the beta, alpha, theta delta.
Speaker 2: Delta is you're dead, asleep, you know, you're out, and
Speaker 2: beta is you're on. You know, you're thinking, you're planning,
Speaker 2: your problem solving, decision making. All of these things when
Speaker 2: the brain is oscillating at like fifteen to forty hurts.
Speaker 2: So if beta was a drum, let's say, it'd be
Speaker 2: like boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom, boom
Speaker 2: working quite fast. The brain cannot be working that fast
Speaker 2: all day long, twenty four to seven. You need to
Speaker 2: drop into those alpha and theta states where it's meditation, relaxation, recovery,
Speaker 2: all these things where the brain slows down down to
Speaker 2: like seven to fourteen hurts. And that's where we can
Speaker 2: give our brain a little bit of a break. We're
Speaker 2: not designed to be switched on all the time without
Speaker 2: any consequence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for assuring me.
Speaker 3: And I think what the research chools is that high
Speaker 3: beta is associated with high cortis. Were right, So when
Speaker 3: you're in very high beater, that's anxiety, right. All anxiety
Speaker 3: is is a massive overstimulation of the sympathetic nervousness. But
Speaker 3: you then come into a point which is really your
Speaker 3: wheelhouse here, right, which is about mindfulness, which is something
Speaker 3: that I have wanted to do for many years but
Speaker 3: completely shit out. But the one thing that I found,
Speaker 3: actually two things that I have found att mellow and
Speaker 3: and and maybe you can give me and the other
Speaker 3: listeners some tips here, right, was I'm just fucking rubbish
Speaker 3: at trying to do any type of meditation, but I
Speaker 3: find that just focusing doing breath work, I can do
Speaker 3: that right, And the other thing that I adopted, and
Speaker 3: I think it was Carley manned nudge me, is I
Speaker 3: walk our dogs every morning and every evening when I'm
Speaker 3: when I'm here, and I like to go out.
Speaker 1: At sunrise and sunset.
Speaker 3: But I was occasionally going out and getting on the
Speaker 3: phone or listening to podcasts, and and Carley said to
Speaker 3: me one day, why don't you just go out and be?
Speaker 3: And I thought, actually, you're right, And so I've stopped
Speaker 3: taking taking my phone, stop taking my ear pods, and
Speaker 3: I just go out and just especially around sunrise and sunset.
Speaker 1: Right, there's just all the bird life and the changing.
Speaker 3: Colors in the skies and stuff like that, and its
Speaker 3: presence and its mindfulness. Right, So talk our listeners through
Speaker 3: mindfulness in its different gases. Why meditation particularly is very
Speaker 3: very good for us and maybe for the nupties like
Speaker 3: me who are just have tried and not doing it
Speaker 3: very well.
Speaker 1: What are sort some things that we can get.
Speaker 2: Sure and yees. Saying the word mindfulness, of saying the
Speaker 2: word meditation actually is like saying saying the word sport.
Speaker 2: You know, there's different types of sport, you know, when
Speaker 2: it comes to meditation, you know, there's different types of meditation,
Speaker 2: and mindfulness is an aspect of that. So for me,
Speaker 2: there's two main ways to practice mindfulness. First of all,
Speaker 2: number one is the stopping, the pausing, the closing your eyes,
Speaker 2: and doing the formal practice. So the formal practice is
Speaker 2: typically what you know is meditation, whether you're following your
Speaker 2: breath or you're doing a body scan or whatever. It is,
Speaker 2: just to get that presence to anchor yourself into yourself.
Speaker 2: So that's the formal practice of mindfulness. I do two
Speaker 2: formal practices every single day. Start my day with it.
Speaker 2: I'm the same as you. I get up quite early,
Speaker 2: take my dog for a walk, and then I do
Speaker 2: a meditation practice straight after that, get that serotonin production
Speaker 2: first of all with the sun, and then stop and pause.
Speaker 2: So that's the formal practice. Whether that's two minute meditation practice,
Speaker 2: whether it's a five minute, whether it's a twenty minute,
Speaker 2: whatever it is for you. The duration. The other practice
Speaker 2: of mindfulness is also what's called the non formal practice.
Speaker 2: And the non formal practice is doing all those things
Speaker 2: you do in the day, but you do then more mindfully.
Speaker 2: You know, from the time you get up in the morning,
Speaker 2: you know doing some breath work, maybe getting out of
Speaker 2: the bed, mindfully, brushing your teeth, having a shower, eating
Speaker 2: your food, going for a walk, whatever it is. These
Speaker 2: are all washing washing dishes exactly. These are all mindfulness
Speaker 2: practices on their own. And the trouble is, you know,
Speaker 2: people think, oh, yeah, I've done my ten minutes and
Speaker 2: mindfulness this morning, and then the rest of the day
Speaker 2: is crap. The rest of the day is reactive and
Speaker 2: the rest of the day is busy because you're not
Speaker 2: taking it off the mat. It's a bit like going
Speaker 2: to the gym every morning. Yeah, it's like going to
Speaker 2: the gym. You do a thirty minute workout in the gym,
Speaker 2: but the rest of the day you eat burghers and
Speaker 2: chips and whatever. It's the same as that. So you're
Speaker 2: want to take it off the mat. And I always
Speaker 2: encourage people to do both, like I actually think they're
Speaker 2: we equally weighted. So the way you do something. So
Speaker 2: for example, let's just talk about eating. For example, So
Speaker 2: you know, eating you can eat in front of the computer,
Speaker 2: you can eat what you're scrolling on your telephone, or
Speaker 2: you can just eat and just enjoy the flavors and
Speaker 2: the aromas and the tastes. And the more you do that,
Speaker 2: the more you appreciate your food, of course, and you're
Speaker 2: more mindful and you engage all the sensors there. But
Speaker 2: if you're someone that eats distracted all the time and
Speaker 2: you're scrolling on your telephone, you're actually training your brain
Speaker 2: to be distracted. You're not taking those cues that you're satisfied,
Speaker 2: and your chances are you eat more.
Speaker 3: And you'll active eat your sympathetics, which inhibits digestion.
Speaker 2: And brain access. It is not connected there. So I
Speaker 2: always say, the way you do something is the way
Speaker 2: you do everything. So if you're doing these things in
Speaker 2: a distractor's state, how can you focus for longer periods
Speaker 2: of time. So mindfulness essentially is at tension training and
Speaker 2: being present in the moment. And when I was traveling,
Speaker 2: when I was cycling around the world, I was staying
Speaker 2: in monasteries, as I mentioned, and I was staying in
Speaker 2: one particular monastery in Vietnam, and it's a Buddhist monastery,
Speaker 2: and the practice there was more about the non formal
Speaker 2: practice to be honest, so you could talk. It wasn't
Speaker 2: one of these meditation retreats where you couldn't speak at all.
Speaker 2: You could speak, but you could only speak about the
Speaker 2: thing that you were doing. So if I was chopping
Speaker 2: the vegetables, I could only talk about the vegetables. Oh wow,
Speaker 2: look at my carrot today, or look at the smell
Speaker 2: of my onion, and just only about the veget You
Speaker 2: couldn't be chopping the vegetables talking about the weather or
Speaker 2: anything else. When you're eating your meal, you could only
Speaker 2: talk about the flavors, the aromas. And like you said,
Speaker 2: when you're washing the dishes, you could only talk about
Speaker 2: the dishes or the scent of the soap or the
Speaker 2: temperature of the water. And for me myself, it was
Speaker 2: already a mindfulness practition. I've been meditating for thirty plus years.
Speaker 2: That was also like wow, I didn't realize how not
Speaker 2: present I was doing all of these little daily things,
Speaker 2: and it taught me. It was difficult at first, but
Speaker 2: it taught me that everything is a mindfulness practice. Everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's actually very cool, you know that.
Speaker 3: It was actually as you were saying that there's one
Speaker 3: thing that I probably do mindfully other than that going
Speaker 3: for the walk, and that's weeding the guard beautiful and
Speaker 3: after that commend I'll talk to my kids about I
Speaker 3: freaking amazing guitar in the respect that I have for them,
Speaker 3: the resilience, and I'm like, oh, yeah, this weed here,
Speaker 3: this one's got the little root I can put out out.
Speaker 1: My kids are like, you're crazy. But it reminds me Melowo.
Speaker 3: When I was a kid, I was trying to get
Speaker 3: into Zen Buddhism, and I was reading stuff on Zen
Speaker 3: Buddhism and Zan Cohen's.
Speaker 1: And I remember one that stuck in my head where.
Speaker 3: This and there was this, this the student who wanted
Speaker 3: enlightenment and he went to his master and said, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, my master, how can I be enlightened?
Speaker 1: And he said The master said.
Speaker 3: To him, have you had your breakfast? And he said yes,
Speaker 3: and he said we'll go wash your bowl. And that
Speaker 3: was it, right, And I was like, what the hell
Speaker 3: does that mean? And it was only twenty years later
Speaker 3: that I had I remembered it. I had a little
Speaker 3: light bulb moment that it was just about being totally
Speaker 3: in the.
Speaker 1: Moment, right, And all you've got to do to see
Speaker 1: this is go and watch a Japanese chef.
Speaker 2: Yeah perfect, and that yeah, perfect.
Speaker 1: The attention to detail that they have when they're putting
Speaker 1: stuff together is just amazing.
Speaker 3: They are so mindful whenever they're actually preparing their beings.
Speaker 3: But I think that's a really good point, is and
Speaker 3: I love your concept of taking it off the matt
Speaker 3: and just bringing it into your every day life.
Speaker 1: But it ties it with to self awareness totally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's the very first point. You can't change
Speaker 2: what you don't notice, so we have to notice. At first,
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that I eat in a distracted stat
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that I do think about all the
Speaker 2: things you do in your day, you know, from commuting
Speaker 2: to driving, to getting to work to listening to people.
Speaker 2: Are you really listening? There are so many opportunities that
Speaker 2: we could bring more mindfulness to that, but it actually
Speaker 2: takes training. It actually takes work, and most people don't
Speaker 2: have the discipline to do the work.
Speaker 1: It's a bit yeah, And as you rightly say, this
Speaker 1: is attention.
Speaker 2: It's attention training.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I actually like this concept that of checking it
Speaker 3: off the mat that every time you even do a
Speaker 3: minute of stuff right, you're actually doing good for your
Speaker 3: brand because when we are fully engrossed and stuff, it
Speaker 3: changes our briand patterns and it does help us to recover.
Speaker 3: So even you know, turning your bloody computer off just
Speaker 3: for five minutes to sit and eat your lunch mindfully,
Speaker 3: to cheer your food, you know, and think about the
Speaker 3: chewing that you're doing, thinking about the food.
Speaker 1: All of that is actually recovery, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It is. And research says that forty seven percent of
Speaker 2: the time our mind is elsewhere, it's flicking away somewhere else. So,
Speaker 2: like you said, when you're doing something for a minute,
Speaker 2: half of that minute, your brain could be flicking away.
Speaker 2: And these are what's called the task performance network versus
Speaker 2: the default mode network.
Speaker 1: Yes, oh, top, top, Yeah, let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 2: It's what you're talking about there. It's about you know,
Speaker 2: when you're on task, when you're doing something, your mind
Speaker 2: is on there and you're switching on certain pathways through
Speaker 2: the brain, which is your task performance network, and you're
Speaker 2: focusing on that. That's mindfulness too. So think about those
Speaker 2: things that you do in the day and you know
Speaker 2: you're really present, you're really there, you're really enjoying it.
Speaker 2: That's you're switching on that network versus what's called the
Speaker 2: default mode network, where the brain starts drifting off and
Speaker 2: starts thinking about other things. It could be flicking into
Speaker 2: the future, catestrophizing about something that hasn't even happened, or
Speaker 2: it could go into the past. And this default mode
Speaker 2: network can run wild. You know the research and the
Speaker 2: research you've probably heard of through Harvard there where the
Speaker 2: research paper was called a wandering mind can be an
Speaker 2: unhappy mind.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is the Dalai Lama. I
Speaker 3: think because he used to do this Mind and Life
Speaker 3: conference where there was a bunch of neuroscientists and a
Speaker 3: bunch of Tibetan monks.
Speaker 1: Talking about this.
Speaker 3: The overlaps between the two disciplines, and when I think
Speaker 3: it's Richard J. Dividson when he told the Dalai Lama
Speaker 3: about the default mode network.
Speaker 1: You'll be familiar with Richard J. Davidson, right.
Speaker 3: The Dalai Lama was like, ah, you mean monkey mind,
Speaker 3: Yabba yaba yaba yaba, right, And but that monkey mind
Speaker 3: leads to an on happy mind. To your point, when
Speaker 3: we're constantly multitasking, thinking about other shit and not being focused,
Speaker 3: it leads to unhappiness.
Speaker 2: Totally totally, and it can go run wild. It can
Speaker 2: be running wild all day and we're not even aware
Speaker 2: of it. We have thousands and thousands of thoughts for
Speaker 2: the day just constantly rolling away in our head. Most
Speaker 2: of those are negative. Most of those are the ones
Speaker 2: the same ones we had yesterday. And that's where it
Speaker 2: comes back to that self awareness piece. So mindfulness is
Speaker 2: training our self awareness when you sit in stillness and
Speaker 2: you just sit there. So going back to the formal practice,
Speaker 2: the one where you stop and sit. When you sit there,
Speaker 2: very often when you close your eyes, your mind just
Speaker 2: goes wild. It starts thinking about all of these things.
Speaker 2: And that's where people say it doesn't work. Meditation doesn't
Speaker 2: work for me. That's actually working. That's actually showing you
Speaker 2: how busy your mind is. That's actually showing you how
Speaker 2: much out of control you are. So the more you
Speaker 2: practice this, you notice how he comes a thought, What
Speaker 2: am I thinking about? It might be planning thought, planning
Speaker 2: a day. Well, he comes another thought, and you're just
Speaker 2: letting those thoughts be there in the background, and you're
Speaker 2: just letting them come and go. And the longer you practice,
Speaker 2: the space between the thoughts becomes bigger. It's not non
Speaker 2: thinking like there is. People think the meditation you close
Speaker 2: your eyes is like this blanket blissful state, like it's
Speaker 2: actually observing your thoughts as an observer, not attaching to
Speaker 2: them non judgmentally, and just let them come and go.
Speaker 2: And the more you practice, it's about the space between,
Speaker 2: and that's the space we like to sit in. I
Speaker 2: often teach, and I always teach, actually not often. I
Speaker 2: always teach a ninety second breath break first, as opposed.
Speaker 2: So if I'm getting a new meditation client or an
Speaker 2: executive or a CEO, first of all, I don't use
Speaker 2: the word mindfulness of meditation because I think, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I'm not doing that exactly. So I'll use you word
Speaker 2: focus and attention. And instead of teaching them initially a
Speaker 2: ten minute or twenty minute of practice, which is good,
Speaker 2: but I teach them these ninety second breath breaks, so
Speaker 2: they actually start learning how to downregulate the immiguey, they
Speaker 2: start learning how to control their physiology through their psychology
Speaker 2: and vice versa. So I would rather somebody did five
Speaker 2: lots of ninety second breath breaks, which is basically just
Speaker 2: stopping and following your breath for ninety seconds doing deep
Speaker 2: dire breath diaphragm breathing I'd rather someone did five of
Speaker 2: those in the day because they're learning how to switch
Speaker 2: off that busy mind. They're learning how to use that,
Speaker 2: and the more they practice, they start learning how to
Speaker 2: switch it off quicker. And I've been practicing for many years,
Speaker 2: I could probably access that deeper alpha theta alpha theta
Speaker 2: states in two or three breaths because my physiology understands, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm closing my eyes, I'm safe, I'm breathing deep, I'm safe,
Speaker 2: and it initiates that relaxation response really quickly. So most
Speaker 2: of us are up in that sympathetic nervous system all
Speaker 2: the time. We don't know how to even act. We
Speaker 2: don't even know what it feels like to feel that
Speaker 2: deeper state. So I encourage when I'm starting out, let's
Speaker 2: get lots of ninety second breath breaks going. And then
Speaker 2: once you get that going, let's extend the duration. It's
Speaker 2: a bit like exercise, you know, Sam, you start increasing
Speaker 2: intensity and duration same thing, and you start extending it.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I can sit now for five minutes. I
Speaker 2: can sit for seven minutes. I can sit for ten minutes.
Speaker 2: So it's about training your body and mind to understand
Speaker 2: what the pole opposite of the fighting flight response feels.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, and that's a really I like that. You
Speaker 1: do that with the breath break and the slow controlled
Speaker 1: atraumatic breathing.
Speaker 3: Just to add a bit of geeky science, when you
Speaker 3: do that, you switch on the vegus nerve and the
Speaker 3: phrenic nerve, and you switch you activating the vegus nerve,
Speaker 3: which is your parasympathetic from the bottom up, because there's
Speaker 3: lots of projections into the heart and the lungs, and
Speaker 3: it reduces your heart rate, increases your heart rate variability,
Speaker 3: which is your parasympathetic nervous system, and brings your brain
Speaker 3: out of a stress. And it's like taking your brain
Speaker 3: out and plugging into a wall for a recharge, isn't it.
Speaker 3: But you reminded me when you say about the no
Speaker 3: mind stuff, because that's what I was trying to do
Speaker 3: in my use right. And I was in Cambodia, and
Speaker 3: I was traveling alone, and I wanted to go.
Speaker 1: And visit this monastery. So I went and visited.
Speaker 3: I know it wasn't Yeah, there was an old monastery
Speaker 3: that wasn't inhabiting, but yeah, ruins, And I had a
Speaker 3: guy took me on the back of a motorbike and
Speaker 3: took me out there and went up there, and there
Speaker 3: was a female monk there who she was there meditating,
Speaker 3: and I had a conversation with her through the guide
Speaker 3: he was translating, and she was there for a month
Speaker 3: of meditation. She had rice and she'd just go down
Speaker 3: and up and get what she needed. And I said,
Speaker 3: I'll get some advice off her. And I said, I'm
Speaker 3: trying to do no mind meditation to empty my mind.
Speaker 1: And she laughed for.
Speaker 3: About a minute, right, and then she through the interpreter,
Speaker 3: she just told him, tell him not to worry about that.
Speaker 1: He just needs to be the watcher. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Nice, Yeah, yeah, And it was that exactly what you're
Speaker 3: saying is you just watch your thoughts non judgmentally. And
Speaker 3: Cardi does a meditation about leaves on a stream. They're
Speaker 3: just leaves passing on a stream and you just let
Speaker 3: them go because that and it really is quite simple
Speaker 3: when you think of it like that. But it also
Speaker 3: reminded me something that might be helpful for people like
Speaker 3: me who have wanted to do it but are shit.
Speaker 1: Is a guided meditation. Can you know ups like Bootify.
Speaker 2: And insight Time. Yeah, inside.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's lots of them out there that have little
Speaker 3: short meditations one minute, two minute, five minute, ten minutes,
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes, and that can be useful for getting the
Speaker 3: uninitiated income.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I recommend that when you're starting out, like, it's
Speaker 2: good to do both of course. And I have some
Speaker 2: free meditations on inside time orrap for example. And one
Speaker 2: it is a nine minute body scan meditation, which is great.
Speaker 2: It talks you through your whole body from the top
Speaker 2: of your head all the way down to your tone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a protecular.
Speaker 2: Yeah, really good for athletes also to sort of get
Speaker 2: in tune with their body. So I teach that I
Speaker 2: have a ninety second breath break on there because some
Speaker 2: people don't have ten minutes. But the way I view
Speaker 2: guided meditation is great, it's fantastic and it will help
Speaker 2: you stay in that present state of awareness. But eventually
Speaker 2: it's a bit like riding the bike with training wheels.
Speaker 2: Eventually it's good to take the training wheels off, like
Speaker 2: what happens when I switch it off. So if you
Speaker 2: are doing guided meditation at home, maybe after the guided meditation,
Speaker 2: spend two minutes just in silence. Just yeah, just stop
Speaker 2: to train that because you're in that state, and just
Speaker 2: to train, and then eventually it might be three minutes
Speaker 2: and five minutes guided. Then it might be you know,
Speaker 2: two minutes just to set you up, and then you know,
Speaker 2: so you start extending the silent meditation part because yes,
Speaker 2: it's you know, when you are riding a bike with
Speaker 2: training wheels, it's an easy experience, but when you take
Speaker 2: the training wheels off, it's less pleasant. But what's what's
Speaker 2: going to make you a better rider in the long
Speaker 2: run is to take them off. So I recommend both,
Speaker 2: a good mix of both, and everybody's different too. By
Speaker 2: the way, it's not a one size fits all when
Speaker 2: it comes to breathing techniques. It's not a one size
Speaker 2: fits all when it comes to different types of meditation.
Speaker 2: So finding what resonates with you. For some people, that
Speaker 2: might be counting your breath. That might be you know,
Speaker 2: as we said before, a prolonged out breath, so you
Speaker 2: might have a breath of one, two, three, four, five
Speaker 2: six on the way in, then make sure you just
Speaker 2: breathe out for eight, seven, six, So it might be counting.
Speaker 2: It might be box breathing, as you're probably familiar with
Speaker 2: counting one, two, three, four, holding your breath. So it's
Speaker 2: not a one size fits all, find the one that
Speaker 2: you work with most. And I also teach moving meditation,
Speaker 2: and I teach chigong and tai chi practices because someone
Speaker 2: for example, with ADHD a very busy mind or something,
Speaker 2: it's really hard to get them straight from full on
Speaker 2: to stop. So I'll tune into their body first, do
Speaker 2: exercises coordinated with breath, which acts as neuromodulator. So then
Speaker 2: they slow down and they connect with their body. Once
Speaker 2: they connect with their body, they connect with their breath
Speaker 2: and they connect with their mind. Then you can sit
Speaker 2: in stillness for a little bit. But just that movement
Speaker 2: aspect is just a great portal to get into the practice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think I told you when we had coffee,
Speaker 3: Me and Carli when we were in Scotland did tai
Speaker 3: chi for a while and it was brilliant. I loved
Speaker 3: it and have been looking over here for some sort
Speaker 3: of tai chi or chigung. But because we live in
Speaker 3: the Peninsul, there's nobody apart from you.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to jump in me and that one
Speaker 1: we are going to lock in.
Speaker 3: And you also have a chapter in your book where
Speaker 3: you talk about gratitude, and I'm a gratitude geek, So
Speaker 3: let's talk gratitude and the role that it has in
Speaker 3: combating burnout, and just some practical things that people can
Speaker 3: do around it, because again, it's one of those things
Speaker 3: that some people look at it and go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's a bit fluffy.
Speaker 1: But that shit ain't flying.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Often when I'm presenting gratitude and compassion and kindness
Speaker 2: things in a corporate seminar, I can see the eyes
Speaker 2: roll immediately. Here we go, oh, you know, sort of
Speaker 2: thing against that idea of it is not fluffy. There's
Speaker 2: reams of research around it, as you know, practicing gratitude
Speaker 2: releasing all those good chemicals instead of those bad chemicals
Speaker 2: oxytocin and all those nice sedating chemicals. So what I
Speaker 2: do typically is I add a little flavor of gratitude
Speaker 2: into my practices. So we've got a mind from his practice,
Speaker 2: you know, towards the end of the mindful of practice,
Speaker 2: I'll add some compassion, kindness, gratitude, And there's varying degrees
Speaker 2: of this. Sometimes, if I've got more time, I'll do
Speaker 2: what's called a meta meditation, where you're actually being compassionate
Speaker 2: and kind to yourself, compassionate kind to others, sending out
Speaker 2: love and compassion to the greater world and all sent
Speaker 2: in beings. But sometimes it's just as simple as like
Speaker 2: just being grateful of running water. It like being grateful
Speaker 2: of the sun on my face, the comfortable house. But
Speaker 2: practicing this on a daily basis, it starts wiring yourself
Speaker 2: to actually notice it more so, over rule that I
Speaker 2: can't say the same thing twice like I have to
Speaker 2: like every day and imagine gratitude pspect it's so typical.
Speaker 2: So I love my family, and I love my kids,
Speaker 2: and I love my wife, and I'm grateful for them,
Speaker 2: and that's easy. But then you start like digging a
Speaker 2: bit deeper when you can't say the same thing two
Speaker 2: days in a row, and you start looking for that.
Speaker 2: You start your actual reticular activating system starts looking for
Speaker 2: more gratitude, and you start noticing more gratitude, and you
Speaker 2: start noticing the barista that smiles at you, or you
Speaker 2: notice the guy that opens the door for you. You
Speaker 2: start noticing things more So it's just wiring your brain
Speaker 2: to see it, practice it, and actually it fires up
Speaker 2: as you know, different brain regions. You've probably heard that
Speaker 2: going back to Davidson actually the research where he did
Speaker 2: the study on what's his name, Mattu Ricard.
Speaker 1: The.
Speaker 3: Monk.
Speaker 1: I've seen him speak, actually.
Speaker 2: Awesome and he's someone you know. So they put like
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty six senses on his brain and
Speaker 2: they measured him for a twelve year study and they
Speaker 2: realized that because he practices compassion and kindness in his meditation,
Speaker 2: that had abnormal regions of his brain that exercise that area,
Speaker 2: plus abnormal regions of his brain for gamma activity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's right. And this gets the point.
Speaker 3: And it's like we talked about right at the start
Speaker 3: that when you're constantly stressed, you're a MiG dealer growth bigger.
Speaker 1: Like our body is so pliable and plastic to environmental impact. Right,
Speaker 1: you do nothing on your muscles, they waste away. Right.
Speaker 3: The Harvard the Dallas bed rest study show putting people
Speaker 3: in bed rest for three weeks aged their heart by
Speaker 3: thirty freaking years in three weeks of bad rest. Right,
Speaker 3: But you train the muscles, they get better. You expose
Speaker 3: yourself to lots of stress, you're amig dealar gross, Right,
Speaker 3: You do lots of gratitude or self regulation stuff, those
Speaker 3: parts of.
Speaker 1: The brains actually grow.
Speaker 3: And that's such a good point because regular gratitude actually
Speaker 3: primes your brain for positivity, and for me, that is
Speaker 3: the thing that's combating the amygdala. Constantly being stressed, you
Speaker 3: develop a negativity bias. So I believe that gratitude is hugely,
Speaker 3: hugely important. And I love that you said running water
Speaker 3: because often I'll do that. I'll turn the tap on
Speaker 3: and I'll go, how fucking cool is like when you
Speaker 3: combine gratitude with awe And that's when magic starts to happen.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I'll turn a light on and.
Speaker 2: Go, how fucking cool is that?
Speaker 3: Right? If you think about like all this shit, and
Speaker 3: then you go out into nature, and there's so much
Speaker 3: stuff that if we would just slow down a little
Speaker 3: bit and notice and then just be grateful for stuff.
Speaker 3: And as I always say to people, right, if you've
Speaker 3: got running water, a roof over your head, electricity, food, security, hating, cooling,
Speaker 3: and you have safety. If you've got all of those things,
Speaker 3: you've probably got better than ninety nine percent of Homo
Speaker 3: sapiens that ever walk this earth. And how about we
Speaker 3: wake up in the morning and go, I'm in the
Speaker 3: luckiest one percent of Homo sapiens that have ever walked
Speaker 3: this earth, Right. I think it's a game change psychologically
Speaker 3: because you know all the shit that we then get
Speaker 3: worried about, you go, yeah, it's not that big really whenever.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't live in a freaking war zone
Speaker 1: right now, you know.
Speaker 3: And it's but we kind of default to what we
Speaker 3: have when we start to take it for granted, right,
Speaker 3: And that's why I think gratitude is so so.
Speaker 2: Important totally, and also does reflection in general. I think
Speaker 2: like a lot of people that have there to do
Speaker 2: this for the week ahead. You know, I've got to
Speaker 2: do this, and I've got to achieve this, and I've
Speaker 2: got to do this to make my week successful. But
Speaker 2: they get to the end of the week and they
Speaker 2: crash because they're exhausted, and then they do it again
Speaker 2: the next week and they keep going and going and going.
Speaker 2: So one practice that I do at the end of
Speaker 2: my week every week is I just have a little
Speaker 2: almost like my mini performance review reflection. It's like, what
Speaker 2: was my presence like this week, what was my energy
Speaker 2: like this week? What was my diet like what was
Speaker 2: my meditation, like what was my family commitment, what was
Speaker 2: my social and just measuring that and reflecting on that
Speaker 2: with a bit of gratitude. I'm grateful for doing that.
Speaker 2: That's a fantastic practice, just to remind yourself like every
Speaker 2: week's unique and every week you don't realize how many
Speaker 2: amazing things happened in the week, and putting that sort
Speaker 2: of lens on it, reflect and then reset your intentions
Speaker 2: for the following week and just exercising that. Going back
Speaker 2: to that negative bias, we're often looking for the stuff,
Speaker 2: you know that's like the bad stuff in the week.
Speaker 2: And you know, there's a research that I was looking at.
Speaker 2: I don't know the exact details exactly, but there was
Speaker 2: a company that actually had they had to keep a journal,
Speaker 2: and they had to keep a journal for thirty days,
Speaker 2: I believe, and there was three different groups and one
Speaker 2: group had to actually write down all the bad things
Speaker 2: that happened that week. You know, all the got caught
Speaker 2: in traffic or you know, the cold coffee that they got,
Speaker 2: all the bad email. That was group one. Group two
Speaker 2: was just write down things but with no emotion or
Speaker 2: no biased negative or positive. Just have to write down
Speaker 2: the facts and figures that happened in the week. And
Speaker 2: the third group had to practice gratitude three things they
Speaker 2: were grateful full at the end of the day and
Speaker 2: write down all the good things that happened in their week.
Speaker 2: It's all the nice things that happened, the nice email,
Speaker 2: the good call that went well, or the lunch they
Speaker 2: had with a friend. The ones that did the negative one,
Speaker 2: many of them actually felt physically sick. They actually felt
Speaker 2: they some of them didn't finish this study. They just
Speaker 2: felt physically sick. The ones that actually practiced the gratitude obviously,
Speaker 2: the middle group probably not much change at all. But
Speaker 2: the ones that practiced the gratitude, they were more productive,
Speaker 2: their performance enhanced, they were happier at work obviously. So
Speaker 2: just by doing that simple little practice, it can just
Speaker 2: change your world. And something we forget about how simple
Speaker 2: is you can't have You can't have gratitude and anger
Speaker 2: in the same body, you know, like yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I like it. And then I love that.
Speaker 3: I love that performance review because what gets measure or
Speaker 3: gets managed right, and yeah, that makes it's just it's
Speaker 3: performance one on one, isn't it from from And I
Speaker 3: think it's it's adapting some of the tools that you
Speaker 3: use in elite sport and just adapting them.
Speaker 1: For for for our lives. So we need to wrap
Speaker 1: up in a minute.
Speaker 3: But is there anything else that that kind of jumps
Speaker 3: out to you that people can can use, or practices
Speaker 3: or things that they can do if they feel like
Speaker 3: they're in that overwhelmed space and they want to avoid
Speaker 3: being a burnt out basket kiss.
Speaker 2: Two things I'll say basically in closing. One will be
Speaker 2: give yourself permission to stop. Yeah, like, give yourself permission
Speaker 2: to pause. And most people don't. They think I'll have
Speaker 2: a break when I finished this next bit. After this bit,
Speaker 2: I'll have a break. But give yourself permission to pause.
Speaker 2: Punctuate your day with periods of renewal and recovery and
Speaker 2: periods of on so that on and off. So give
Speaker 2: yourself permission to stop. Most people wont. The other thing
Speaker 2: I say is to ask yourself this one question every
Speaker 2: single day. What have I done for me today? What
Speaker 2: have I done that fills up my cup? What have
Speaker 2: I done that energizes me? Write it down, put on
Speaker 2: a sticky note or something, and make sure you're doing
Speaker 2: something for you before you, before you switch on your telephone,
Speaker 2: before you jump into the world. There, what have I
Speaker 2: done for me today?
Speaker 1: Awesome? So Mellow.
Speaker 3: So for people who want to read the book, it's
Speaker 3: called Beating Burnout, Finding Balance by Mellow Calarco, and we
Speaker 3: will stick a link to it in the podcast. But
Speaker 3: also if somebody wants some coaching for you, so you
Speaker 3: do coaching, presumably these days you do it virtually as well,
Speaker 3: so they don't have to live, they don't have to
Speaker 3: be one of our neighbors at Manteliza.
Speaker 1: And so what what else? Where can people go?
Speaker 3: Where should we send them in order to reveal of
Speaker 3: your services?
Speaker 2: So probably the best portal will be my website meloclaco
Speaker 2: dot com m E l O c A l A
Speaker 2: r c o dot com. I'm sure we'll put that
Speaker 2: in the show notes. And yeah, also I have a
Speaker 2: free sample chapter of my book on that on that website.
Speaker 2: You can jump on there and have a little Actually,
Speaker 2: the first chapter, ironically is on self awareness, so that's
Speaker 2: what we've been talking about, and it actually talks about
Speaker 2: a situation where I had to meditate for twelve hours
Speaker 2: in a storm and survive it. So that might be
Speaker 2: room for a next podcast, so jump on there. I
Speaker 2: also have some free meditations on there. LinkedIn is another
Speaker 2: area I'm on the socials, but probably out of all
Speaker 2: of them, LinkedIn is probably my most active one there,
Speaker 2: And yeah, jump on in. Say hi, happy to support,
Speaker 2: happy to help wherever I can.
Speaker 1: Awesome Melop and thank you for your time.
Speaker 2: I have agreed, Thanks Ball, take care everybody,