Speaker 1: You know, at the end of Lap thirty one, we've
Speaker 1: talked a little bit about political burnout, but I think
Speaker 1: we were just really playing it a little too cute.
Speaker 1: I think it's time to call a spade a spade.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I'm dropping the cloak
Speaker 1: of shame and I'm here to say your girl is
Speaker 1: burnt out.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm constantly tired. I feel
Speaker 2: like I go to sleep tired, and I wake up tired,
Speaker 2: and all day I'm just tired. And the news doesn't
Speaker 2: help being quarantined and working from home for some folks
Speaker 2: not working from home right because they lost their jobs, right.
Speaker 1: And then the pressure just to level up during quarantine.
Speaker 2: I saw that meme at the beginning of quarantine where
Speaker 2: it was like, Okay, that business idea you had, now
Speaker 2: you got the time to do it. I was like,
Speaker 2: this is a lot of pressure.
Speaker 1: I've heard you described this as a life avalanche. Everything's
Speaker 1: just piling up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you feel like you have so many balls in
Speaker 2: the air and then they all just come crashing down
Speaker 2: at some point.
Speaker 1: Well, it's time to talk about burnout. It's impacting us
Speaker 1: in so many different ways, let's get into it. I'm
Speaker 1: TT and I'm Zachiah and from Spotify. This is Dope Labs.
Speaker 2: Let's really get into all the different types of burnout
Speaker 2: that we have been experiencing just in this year. I
Speaker 2: don't know if it's our generation or what, but it's
Speaker 2: just like every free moment you have, you should be
Speaker 2: dedicating it to some type of grind and you can
Speaker 2: sleep when you're dead. And I'm just like, oh, I
Speaker 2: feel like this is gonna kill me too soon.
Speaker 1: Well that just means that this episode couldn't have come
Speaker 1: at a better time.
Speaker 2: In this lab, we're talking all of about burnout.
Speaker 1: So let's get into the recitation. What do we know?
Speaker 1: We know burnout is not unique to me and you. No,
Speaker 1: I'm having lots of conversations. I see everybody else talking
Speaker 1: about it. People are exhausted.
Speaker 2: Especially now. I think since everybody at home and quarantining
Speaker 2: and social distancing, I feel like a lot of people
Speaker 2: have been talking about it more because for the folks
Speaker 2: that are at home and working, they're like, okay, I
Speaker 2: am living at work now, and then folks that have kids.
Speaker 2: I don't know how y'all are doing it. I really don't.
Speaker 1: I also feel like there are levels to burn out,
Speaker 1: you know. Sometimes I get burned out on a specific topic.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I get burned out on a whole platform. Like
Speaker 1: I'm done with Instagram, right, I'm just tired of it.
Speaker 2: Folks will be like, oh, I'm taking a break from Instagram.
Speaker 2: I'm tired of seeing people only posting like the best
Speaker 2: part of themselves and it's making me feel bad about myself.
Speaker 2: So they get burnt out on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Social media burnout, yeah, or like some people be.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, I'm not gonna be I'm not going to
Speaker 2: watch the news anymore.
Speaker 1: The news. Burnout is real.
Speaker 2: Burnout is just the big umbrella. Where do you feel
Speaker 2: it the most?
Speaker 1: C Hm. I feel it with work, just because all
Speaker 1: the uncertainty and the role I have. I face a
Speaker 1: lot of people right so income and grad students. I
Speaker 1: don't know what's happening. I want to be able to
Speaker 1: give them complete information. So then I feel almost like
Speaker 1: in limbo, like where I have all these tasks, these
Speaker 1: things I need to get done, but I don't have
Speaker 1: all the information I need, and these people are waiting
Speaker 1: on me, and these other people are expecting to hear
Speaker 1: from me. And it feels like a lot to manage
Speaker 1: at the same time, and I don't want to let
Speaker 1: anybody down, but I also don't want to give people
Speaker 1: incorrect information, you know, And so it puts me in
Speaker 1: this really tricky position.
Speaker 2: If you're listening on the Spotify app, you have the
Speaker 2: opportunity to tell us exactly how you're feeling and what
Speaker 2: you're burning out on. On our episode page. There's a
Speaker 2: poll that you can take right now, and we want
Speaker 2: to hear what you're burning out on. What do we
Speaker 2: want to know?
Speaker 1: What is burnout? I know these feelings, but like, what
Speaker 1: is it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Is this something that a doctor can say, I'm
Speaker 2: going to diagnose you with burnout? Like what are the
Speaker 2: symptoms of it? And what are the causes of it?
Speaker 1: And you know, you raised a really good point you said,
Speaker 1: is this something that's just specific to our generation? My
Speaker 1: grandma was never burned out, or at least she never
Speaker 1: said it. So what happened? Am I just built weak?
Speaker 2: I feel like we got a lot more responsibility now.
Speaker 2: I feel like back then you could just you know,
Speaker 2: live off the land, but now you got to do
Speaker 2: all this extra stuff and everybody's expecting you to be,
Speaker 2: you know, president of the United States and also own
Speaker 2: twelve businesses and make sure your hair look good. And
Speaker 2: you got that crooked tooth, don't forget to fix that.
Speaker 2: I don't got enough time or space or energy to
Speaker 2: do it all.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how you spent your summers. But
Speaker 1: living off the land is hard. Have you ever tried
Speaker 1: to make souer kraut from thirty heads of cabbage and
Speaker 1: one hoe just chopping? It's hard.
Speaker 2: My friend has done it all. She's done it all.
Speaker 1: You just don't want to be a pieeer woman.
Speaker 2: I'm burnt out.
Speaker 1: Let's jump into the dissection.
Speaker 2: Our guest for today's lab is doctor Ann Helen Peterson.
Speaker 3: My name is Ann Helen Peterson. I have my PhD
Speaker 3: and Media studies from the University of Texas and my
Speaker 3: book is called Can't Even How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation.
Speaker 1: Doctor Peterson's book takes a deep dive into understanding the
Speaker 1: origins and signs of burnout and connecting it to American
Speaker 1: capitalism and parenting.
Speaker 2: And our first question was how does she define burnout?
Speaker 1: You hit the wall.
Speaker 3: You work so hard for so long, but instead of
Speaker 3: collapsing and stopping what you're doing, you scale the.
Speaker 1: Wall, and then you keep going some more.
Speaker 3: You just keep going with that low grade exhaustion as
Speaker 3: the background to every component of your life.
Speaker 2: So it's similar to hitting the wall while you're running
Speaker 2: a marathon and your body basically like shuts down and
Speaker 2: they'll be running and then all of a sudden, their
Speaker 2: legs it's like their legs don't work, and they'll hit
Speaker 2: the ground, but then they'll still be trying to run,
Speaker 2: and every time they try and stand up, they just
Speaker 2: fall back down.
Speaker 1: So basically there's zombies and we are too. Yes, So
Speaker 1: our next question is what causes burnout.
Speaker 3: The foundation of our current form of burnout is procarity.
Speaker 2: Precarity is defined as the state of having insecure employment
Speaker 2: or income.
Speaker 3: And that means pricarity in your standing in americanciety, economic procarity,
Speaker 3: social precarity, just constantly being worried in many different capacities
Speaker 3: about your safety, your financial safety, and what's going to
Speaker 3: happen with your kids, all these sorts of things, and
Speaker 3: we resort to all sorts of coping mechanisms and behaviors
Speaker 3: in order to counteract that lack of safety net.
Speaker 1: This is realer than ever as a black woman in America,
Speaker 1: existing during this time where so many people are without homes,
Speaker 1: without jobs, in our current political climate.
Speaker 2: So many unknowns that can cause a lot of stress.
Speaker 1: And a little stress here and there. That's fine, But
Speaker 1: the thing about burnout is that it feels like chronic stress.
Speaker 1: It just keeps going on and on.
Speaker 2: Right, You're building up a big burnout house with all
Speaker 2: these stress bricks, so percarity, that feeling of insecurity is
Speaker 2: what triggers the behaviors that lead to burnout.
Speaker 1: Doctor Peterson told us that surveillance at work can be
Speaker 1: another thing that triggers burnout. This can be anything from
Speaker 1: regular check ins to documentation of daily activities, to cameras
Speaker 1: in the workplace. We're supposed to have all these tools,
Speaker 1: like digital things to help us stay on task and
Speaker 1: to keep track, but sometimes those things almost feel like surveillance,
Speaker 1: like you're being monitored and tracked as you do your work.
Speaker 1: If your boss is regularly checking in wanting you to
Speaker 1: document your daily activities, micro managing, you keep your camera
Speaker 1: on on zoom so I can see you all day working.
Speaker 2: No way, I got PJS on.
Speaker 1: Not if you work with me, I want everybody to
Speaker 1: be relaxed. Don't turn that camera on. I don't need
Speaker 1: to see it.
Speaker 3: There are these modes of surveillance that are supposed to
Speaker 3: be there in order to incentivize productivity or I don't know,
Speaker 3: like there's just this underlying thesis to them that workers
Speaker 3: are lazy and we'll always do bad things.
Speaker 2: Doctor Peterson told us about studies that show a lower
Speaker 2: quality of work from people who are working under surveillance.
Speaker 2: So it's actually doing the opposite of what it's meant
Speaker 2: to do in the first place. And she says that
Speaker 2: has a lot to do with this internalized anxiety about
Speaker 2: being watched.
Speaker 1: So when you take all these things together, the insecurity,
Speaker 1: the surveillance, all of this just sets the stage for burnout.
Speaker 1: And we really want to know, what are some indicators
Speaker 1: that you might be burned out burnout behaviors? What are they?
Speaker 3: So one of the biggest ones, and our parents adopted
Speaker 3: this as well in the seventies and eighties, is you
Speaker 3: just work more. Right, if you work harder, if you
Speaker 3: work longer hours, if you try to prove yourself and capacity,
Speaker 3: then maybe you'll find that stability. But when that stability
Speaker 3: is elusive and you just keep working. You know, that's burnout.
Speaker 2: Another burnout behavior might be this desire to totally check out.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's Love Island or Twitter or Instagram or TikTok
Speaker 2: or in doctor Peterson's case, I.
Speaker 3: Got really into the super dumb Candy Crush style game,
Speaker 3: and I would play it like at all the points
Speaker 3: when I would rather be like, oh, I should go
Speaker 3: take a walk, or I should, you know, just cook something,
Speaker 3: or I should read a book like this fiction book
Speaker 3: that has been on my nightstand that I really want
Speaker 3: to read, and be.
Speaker 1: Like, no, I really needed to play my game.
Speaker 3: I found myself going back to it because I was
Speaker 3: craving that sort of numb broad space.
Speaker 1: I think we all do that. My friend has her
Speaker 1: own What's your game? TT tell the world.
Speaker 2: She's trying to out me and embarrass me. But I
Speaker 2: stand by this game. I've been playing playing it for
Speaker 2: very many years, and it is called Smurf Village.
Speaker 1: My friend has been playing Smurfs since and I.
Speaker 2: Love them very much. They work very hard, and I
Speaker 2: work very hard as well to build these different villages
Speaker 2: all over and even on different planets. You know, it
Speaker 2: gets like that. So now that you tell the Folks,
Speaker 2: which you've been playing since grad school.
Speaker 1: I've been playing Township, which is like this farm game
Speaker 1: where you plant crops, you have factories, you you know,
Speaker 1: feed your cows. The cows make milk, You collect the milk,
Speaker 1: You take the milk to the dairy factory. You make cheese,
Speaker 1: You use the cheese that you're also using to make
Speaker 1: cheeseburgers over here in the fast food restaurant, and then
Speaker 1: you sell those things. Right, you're doing all this stuff.
Speaker 2: I didn't even recognize that as burnout, and I thought
Speaker 2: I was just bored and needed something else to do.
Speaker 1: I didn't either until we talked to doctor Peterson, and
Speaker 1: it was clear as day. When I'm the most stressed,
Speaker 1: when I have the most things on my plate and
Speaker 1: I feel overwhelmed, Smurf Village cows, I'm here to milk you.
Speaker 3: But I think the big thing about it for me
Speaker 3: was instead of getting mad at myself, I was just like,
Speaker 3: I see this, I see what my body in my
Speaker 3: mind is asking for, and how can I start to
Speaker 3: slowly change some things so that I don't need this
Speaker 3: game anymore?
Speaker 2: But the thing is playing Angry Bird or Smurf Village
Speaker 2: for an hour might help you escape, but it's not
Speaker 2: necessarily relaxing. It's just throwing a blanket over the atomic bomb.
Speaker 2: Doctor Peterson says. Instead of going after that numb feeling,
Speaker 2: what might be more helpful in decreasing burnout is cultivating
Speaker 2: a new hobby.
Speaker 3: What a real hobby can do is give you's that
Speaker 3: mindless space. Right. It can be something that you are
Speaker 3: dedicated for, that you are not optimizing for anyone else,
Speaker 3: but that you are just like out there doing the weeding,
Speaker 3: you know, depending on whatever your hobby is. But a
Speaker 3: lot of us have failed or lost that capacity to
Speaker 3: seek that space in hobbies.
Speaker 2: My recent hobby has been gardening, and if you go
Speaker 2: on our Instagram, you can see me and my friend
Speaker 2: Zakia when she came over to my house masked of course,
Speaker 2: and we did some gardening in my yard. It didn't
Speaker 2: go well. It went actually it went very well, but
Speaker 2: there were parts where I didn't know what I was
Speaker 2: doing and I almost hurt myself.
Speaker 1: But you made it out alive. Riding my bike. That's
Speaker 1: my hobby. I'm out here, add me on Strava. I
Speaker 1: love it.
Speaker 2: My friend be hitting it.
Speaker 1: It's so free.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great. To get outside, get some fresh air,
Speaker 2: and do some things that you know aren't related to
Speaker 2: work that just make you happy.
Speaker 1: But sometimes I feel guilty about having these hobbies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes when I'm doing stuff like that, I feel
Speaker 2: like you should be working, or you should be you know,
Speaker 2: doing something else. You should be reading the Wall Street
Speaker 2: Journal or the dictionary, learning some new words.
Speaker 1: I'm like, ah, right, how did we get to this point?
Speaker 1: We asked doctor Peterson about the history of burnout and
Speaker 1: how we as a society got here.
Speaker 3: So, a lot of millennials, grandparents, maybe great grandparents, the
Speaker 3: people who came out of World War Two, they enjoyed
Speaker 3: this brief period that's sometimes referred to as like the
Speaker 3: Golden Age of American capitalism, where a lot of people
Speaker 3: working class people were able to join the middle class.
Speaker 3: And then that starts to fade away. There's a series
Speaker 3: of like mini recessions in the seventies and eighties, and
Speaker 3: these people who had grown up in this Golden Age
Speaker 3: of American capitalism they turn into adults and they enter
Speaker 3: the workplace and they're like, well, I have to either
Speaker 3: finally reach the middle class if my parents hadn't done that,
Speaker 3: or sustain my place in the middle class. And I'm
Speaker 3: so desperate for that that I'm going to start working
Speaker 3: all the time, and I'm going to try to instill
Speaker 3: in my kids this attitude that they need to work
Speaker 3: all the time.
Speaker 2: So this is our parents' fault and our granny's and
Speaker 2: grandpa fault.
Speaker 1: I don't know that my family was middle class coming
Speaker 1: out of World War Two, But I also don't feel
Speaker 1: like I had this attitude that we had to work
Speaker 1: all the time. Do you feel like you your parents?
Speaker 2: And still my parents worked a lot, Like my mom
Speaker 2: had two jobs. My dad he worked a lot. He
Speaker 2: had one job, but he worked a lot. I don't
Speaker 2: know if they ever explicitly said you have to work hard.
Speaker 2: I think it was just like leading by example.
Speaker 1: I think working hard was value. But it seemed like
Speaker 1: our parents worked hard. But they also seemed like they
Speaker 1: worked hard and it was effortless, like they worked hard.
Speaker 1: And every weekend we went to my grandma's house, we
Speaker 1: drove a long way and we did like I'm tired,
Speaker 1: aren't you tired? When I look back at it, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: how are you going to work? And then talking to me.
Speaker 2: Right after my age, my mother pretty much had three kids,
Speaker 2: I couldn't imagine just having my little chihuahuah Daisy is
Speaker 2: stressing me out. And so I guess now present day,
Speaker 2: we're using them as our models for what we should
Speaker 2: be doing, and that means to run ourselves ragged.
Speaker 3: Slowly over the course of our lifetimes. In the eighties
Speaker 3: and nineties transformed childhood into something that used to be
Speaker 3: like a space for play and imagination and personality formation
Speaker 3: into for a lot of people, one long series of
Speaker 3: resume building activities. And that can be really really hard
Speaker 3: when you just think of yourself as a resume instead
Speaker 3: of like as a person with a soul and a
Speaker 3: heart and all those things.
Speaker 1: Then you get these eighties babies and these parents who
Speaker 1: grew up with like more economic mobility. I mean, we
Speaker 1: see it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Parents are like, once you graduate from college, you should
Speaker 1: have a job, and I'm like, that's not how anymore.
Speaker 1: I know, plenty of people with degrees and degrees is
Speaker 1: still no job.
Speaker 2: Right or lots of degrees, all the degrees still can't
Speaker 2: get a job.
Speaker 1: Or these jobs that don't value the work that they're doing.
Speaker 1: And so I think some of this is around what
Speaker 1: the economy and what the workforce looked like for our parents' generations,
Speaker 1: and then they project those expectations on you and you're like, nah.
Speaker 3: There is this particular millennial experience that is represented as universal,
Speaker 3: and there are so many different ways to be a millennial,
Speaker 3: and just because burnout is kind of the unifying experience,
Speaker 3: there are different ways that they came to that point,
Speaker 3: and a lot of it has to do with who
Speaker 3: your parents were and how they decided to raise you,
Speaker 3: but also stuff like urban and rural backgrounds, like are
Speaker 3: you a first generation immigrant? Like all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 2: So the millennial generation goes from people being born in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one to people born in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 2: I was born in nineteen eighty seven. I don't have
Speaker 2: nothing in common with something somebody that was born in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 1: I mean, we laugh and joke about our differences and
Speaker 1: it's only two years.
Speaker 2: Tt exactly because it's like we grew up in two
Speaker 2: different states. We have parents that were in different fields,
Speaker 2: like we had different interests, Like my millennial and your
Speaker 2: millennial are not the same. So the things that may
Speaker 2: stress me out and cause me to burn out later
Speaker 2: be the same for you or you know, not even
Speaker 2: from maybe the same times, the same people in the
Speaker 2: same house, like even your siblings, like just your birth
Speaker 2: order may change things, your relationship with your parents may
Speaker 2: change things, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think what we forget is layering these identities
Speaker 1: right and how those burnouts can stack up.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, there's so much nuance when it comes to burnout.
Speaker 1: Let's take a break and then we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about specific industries and types of jobs that are most
Speaker 1: at risk for burning out. We're back. So we've already
Speaker 1: talked about the origins of burnout and how to recognize
Speaker 1: it when it's happening. We ask doctor and Helen Peterson
Speaker 1: if there are any particular industries that are especially vulnerable
Speaker 1: to work or burn and out, and it came as
Speaker 1: no surprise that academia and higher education are at the
Speaker 1: top of the list.
Speaker 3: There's just so many different ways that the precarity of
Speaker 3: academia right now is coming to bear on people. And
Speaker 3: I think that some people at this point in their lives,
Speaker 3: in their mid late thirties, are like, I can't do
Speaker 3: this for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2: That's such a good point. And even within higher education
Speaker 2: there is nuance in there and the types of burnout
Speaker 2: that a person can experience, Like if you're talking about
Speaker 2: a faculty member, professor, the burnout that they may experience
Speaker 2: is going to be very different from a student who
Speaker 2: has multiple classes and things like that, right.
Speaker 1: And they may not know are they still having classes,
Speaker 1: what do they do about tuition? All those things lead
Speaker 1: to that same kind of insecurity.
Speaker 2: And like we said earlier, insecurity is a trigger of burnout,
Speaker 2: and that insecurity can take many forms, including an inconsistent schedule.
Speaker 3: I cite a lot of research from work that's been
Speaker 3: done on retail workers and how things like lack of
Speaker 3: an advanced schedule can lead to so many different types
Speaker 3: of burn on. Part of that is just like if
Speaker 3: you think about your life and you have no ability
Speaker 3: to schedule it, Like psychologically that's hard, but it also
Speaker 3: makes everything else in your life hard, like scheduling childcare
Speaker 3: when you don't get your schedule until a week in advance.
Speaker 1: This really makes me think about the gig economy, Like
Speaker 1: this idea of just ditching all these jobs together to
Speaker 1: create enough income to live.
Speaker 2: The amount of money that they're making per month can
Speaker 2: vary from month to month. That can be very stressful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and even just when the work has to be
Speaker 1: done right. It's different if you know you have a
Speaker 1: nine to five every day and you're blocking that nine
Speaker 1: to five off. Having that schedule consistently can be useful.
Speaker 1: But if you don't have a schedule and you're just
Speaker 1: at somebody else's whim and so you just don't have
Speaker 1: any ability to really plan what your days are going
Speaker 1: to look like, and that can wear you down.
Speaker 3: How can you like try to have a steady social
Speaker 3: life where you can cultivate meaningful relationships or hobbies when, again,
Speaker 3: you don't have a steady schedule.
Speaker 1: Doctor Peterson says that industries that are super specialized can
Speaker 1: also be a risk.
Speaker 3: What I was really surprised where there's a lot of
Speaker 3: burnout is zookeeping. There's a great academic paper on this
Speaker 3: that zookeepers, like a lot of other professions that attract
Speaker 3: people who are they can't think of themselves as doing
Speaker 3: anything else, right, A zookeeper really really really wants to
Speaker 3: be a zookeeper, and a lot of academics show that
Speaker 3: as well. But you know, doctors, some librarians, teachers this
Speaker 3: sort of thing, and because it is such a desirable job.
Speaker 3: In a lot of ways, their passion can be exploited
Speaker 3: and means that there are few positions, and those positions
Speaker 3: oftentimes are not that well paid.
Speaker 1: But they stay with the.
Speaker 3: Job even as they get more and more exploited and
Speaker 3: have less and less stability, because it is a calling.
Speaker 3: It's something that they feel like they have to do.
Speaker 1: This felt like what we saw in Tiger King.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, Joe exotic or knows he loved those
Speaker 2: animals and he was very broke.
Speaker 1: And so was you remember that other guy that they
Speaker 1: showed and he was training those young women up. They
Speaker 1: were definitely being exploited. Doc Antl Okay, doc Antl was
Speaker 1: doing the same thing, exploiting those folks. That woman was
Speaker 1: saying she wasn't even getting paid. They had to work
Speaker 1: all these long, crazy hours, and it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's because you're the only person. You're passionate, You're the
Speaker 1: only person that can save these tigers. That's wild.
Speaker 2: And I mean we see that with our teachers right now.
Speaker 2: And even like we're always saying teachers aren't getting paid enough,
Speaker 2: but they still continue to not be paid enough, even
Speaker 2: though they deserve to be paid more. And teachers are
Speaker 2: usually nine times out of ten, people who are very
Speaker 2: dedicated to their students and they can't see themselves as
Speaker 2: anything else. Like most teachers, they stay teachers twenty thirty
Speaker 2: forty years. Yeah, and they continued to take this low
Speaker 2: pay because they're being you know, exploited for their the
Speaker 2: love of their work.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Doctor Peterson also says there's another group that we might
Speaker 1: not be thinking about, and that's parents.
Speaker 3: You know, the thing that I keep coming back to,
Speaker 3: and I'm not a parent myself, And part of the
Speaker 3: book is about why. But is there are these stats
Speaker 3: at looking at how much labor women are putting in
Speaker 3: in the home and how since women went back to
Speaker 3: like went en mass into the workplace in the nineteen
Speaker 3: sixties and seventies, the amount of work that women do
Speaker 3: in the home, so the amount of work that they
Speaker 3: do in the home and also taking care of children,
Speaker 3: supervising children, instead of going down as you would expect,
Speaker 3: it has actually gone up. And that I think is
Speaker 3: in particular, is why a lot of women who are
Speaker 3: in partnerships or women who are parents in particular are
Speaker 3: feeling exhaustion so acutely.
Speaker 1: Because of gender inequality. There is a different load that
Speaker 1: women bear in the household when it comes to this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, and it means that they are unable
Speaker 1: to participate in the workforce at the same levels. We
Speaker 1: have some additional information about that in the show notes
Speaker 1: thirty nine percent of the workforce is women, but of
Speaker 1: people that have lost jobs after the coronavirus, fifty four
Speaker 1: percent are women.
Speaker 2: Yeah, being a woman, they expect so much more of
Speaker 2: you as a person, like you need to be able
Speaker 2: to work and then also take care of your family.
Speaker 2: But then they also hold you back within the workforce
Speaker 2: because you are a woman, Like it doesn't make sense
Speaker 2: at all. Another group of people that we need to
Speaker 2: consider are folks that are lower income.
Speaker 3: When you don't have money to throw out a problem
Speaker 3: in this society, it just compounds even more so when
Speaker 3: you're so tired from working all the time. Do you
Speaker 3: want to go to the store make a meal with
Speaker 3: fresh vegetables that takes a long time and that maybe
Speaker 3: your kids won't eat, or do you want to take
Speaker 3: five minutes, go through that drive through and get something
Speaker 3: right away that you know that your kids are going
Speaker 3: to eat. And I think we oftentimes judge those decisions
Speaker 3: as like bad decisions when what they are is they're
Speaker 3: exhausted decisions.
Speaker 1: Or even under resource decisions.
Speaker 2: Exactly you are expensive it is to get fresh fruits
Speaker 2: and vegetables and all the nutritious stuff. Our society isn't
Speaker 2: set up for low income people to have good nutrition.
Speaker 1: And don't even get us started on the things that
Speaker 1: are in place if you need help getting food, and
Speaker 1: how it actually limits you from really high nutritional value foods. Right,
Speaker 1: And that's actually the topic of our next lab. We
Speaker 1: are talking all about food systems, and we actually want
Speaker 1: to hear from you. What did you see missing from
Speaker 1: your food system when the pandemic hit? Call us at
Speaker 1: two zero two five six seven seven zero two eight
Speaker 1: and leave a message to let us know. So, when
Speaker 1: you consider all this stuff, all these different ways you
Speaker 1: can be burned out? What do you do when you
Speaker 1: are burned out?
Speaker 2: How do you doubt those flames?
Speaker 3: Now? I try to resist in the book giving any
Speaker 3: sort of like list of things that you can do,
Speaker 3: because I think oftentimes what we as millennials have done
Speaker 3: is we've sought out ways to fix whatever part of
Speaker 3: us we see has broken, and turn of like our
Speaker 3: ability to work all the time. So we're like, how
Speaker 3: can I get unburnt out so that I can work more? Right,
Speaker 3: which is like, that's the problem, is that you want
Speaker 3: to fix yourself to work more, when really the solution
Speaker 3: almost all of the time is figuring out how you
Speaker 3: can work less.
Speaker 1: I talk about this all the time, Like part of
Speaker 1: my time management and kind of self management is I
Speaker 1: schedule these little blocks of like fifteen minutes just to
Speaker 1: do nothing that's not a lot of time is in
Speaker 1: the middle of the day is so useful, and I
Speaker 1: don't I'm not apologizing for no, and you shouldn't, friend.
Speaker 2: So for me to battle burn out, what I try
Speaker 2: and do is be very very strict about what my
Speaker 2: cutoff time is for when I'm going to be like, okay,
Speaker 2: this is tee tee time, Like I'm not doing anything else,
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about me. So that means that from you know,
Speaker 2: six thirty to seven thirty, I'm doing all the things
Speaker 2: that I want to do, the things that make me happy,
Speaker 2: whether that's reading a book, gardening, or you know, call
Speaker 2: in my sisters or whatever whatever it is, it's tta time.
Speaker 2: So and I don't let anybody encroach on TTI time.
Speaker 1: One of the things that doctor Peterson also said is
Speaker 1: that you can't thinks burn out alone. You know, this
Speaker 1: is a system.
Speaker 3: This is the kind of a message of the book
Speaker 3: is that it's not about us making any personal changes.
Speaker 3: Although there are small things you can do and you
Speaker 3: can recognize about yourself. We have to vote and act
Speaker 3: and talk and believe as a society that we want
Speaker 3: everyone to be less burnt out, and we need to
Speaker 3: elect leaders who want to put protections in place, who
Speaker 3: want to make it so that someone can, you know,
Speaker 3: work forty hours and still survive in America, Like, there
Speaker 3: are all of these different ways that we can restitch
Speaker 3: that safety net, and it's going to take massive societal
Speaker 3: effort and it's not going to happen at once, but
Speaker 3: we just have to admit, like, it doesn't have to
Speaker 3: be this way. We can change it.
Speaker 2: All of us us are struggling. Everybody is struggling with
Speaker 2: burnout right now, and so we just need to take
Speaker 2: that into account that even if somebody has a nasty
Speaker 2: attitude directly to you in an email and it's work,
Speaker 2: sometimes you just got to be like, I don't know
Speaker 2: what's going on at home for them.
Speaker 1: Some of the indicators for burnout are also indicators for
Speaker 1: other things. And you know, burnout is not a pure
Speaker 1: medical condition, like it's not a classified medical condition or diagnosis, right,
Speaker 1: but it's linked to other mental health concerns, right, like depression, anxiety,
Speaker 1: and so I think we always want to check in.
Speaker 2: So if you're feeling particularly burnt out and you're feeling
Speaker 2: like it's affecting you more mentally than anything else, definitely
Speaker 2: try and reach out to somebody that you can talk to.
Speaker 2: Talkspace dot com is a great resource. This isn't an
Speaker 2: ad these are just resources that we know of, But
Speaker 2: definitely try and reach out to somebody and talk about
Speaker 2: the things that you're experiencing.
Speaker 1: I have to say, you know, tt, I'm really grateful
Speaker 1: for you because I I think you're really good at
Speaker 1: making me stop and think and not overload myself with
Speaker 1: things to do.
Speaker 2: Lots of people come into lots of situations trying to
Speaker 2: be a superhero like yes I can handle this, Yes
Speaker 2: I can handle this, And we always want to say
Speaker 2: yes because we don't want to block an opportunity and
Speaker 2: we don't want to make it seem like, oh I
Speaker 2: can't handle the pressure. But that's not what it is like.
Speaker 2: Sometimes your play is legit full and in order to
Speaker 2: give one hundred percent to something and give the highest
Speaker 2: quality work, you need the time and you need the space,
Speaker 2: and we need to start granting ourselves that space. That's
Speaker 2: it for Lap thirty two, But we have so much
Speaker 2: more for you to dig into on our website, so
Speaker 2: head on over to Dope labspodcast dot com or not
Speaker 2: you need the rest friend.
Speaker 1: On our website, you can find a cheat sheet for today,
Speaker 1: along with a ton of other links and resources in
Speaker 1: the show notes.
Speaker 2: And if you want to stay in the know with
Speaker 2: what's going on with Dope Labs, don't forget to sign
Speaker 2: up for our newsletter on our side too. No pressure though,
Speaker 2: you don't got to do any of this, get you
Speaker 2: some rest.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to our guest expert doctor and Helen Peterson.
Speaker 1: Her book Can't Even How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation
Speaker 1: is available now wherever books are sold.
Speaker 2: You can find even more links to her work in
Speaker 2: our show notes, but you don't got to go there
Speaker 2: if you don't want to.
Speaker 1: Also, we love hearing from you. What did you think
Speaker 1: about today's lab? Do you have ideas for future labs?
Speaker 1: Call us at two zero two five six seven seven
Speaker 1: zero two eight and let us know.
Speaker 2: You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at Dope Labs.
Speaker 2: Podcast tt is on Twitter at dr Underscore Tsho, and
Speaker 2: you can find Zakiya at z Said So follow us
Speaker 2: on Spotify or wherever else you listen to podcasts. Dope
Speaker 2: Labs is produced by Jenny rattlet Mast and Lydia Smith
Speaker 2: of waver Runner Studios.
Speaker 1: Mixing in sound design are by HANNS. Brown.
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiura,
Speaker 2: with additional music by Elijah Alex Harvey.
Speaker 1: Dope Labs is a production of Spotify and Mega Oh
Speaker 1: Media Group, and it's executive produced by us T T Show,
Speaker 1: Dia and Zakiyah Watley. You want to know another One
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