EP 143: 2022 Summer Quickie Series - Burnout Tip #7

Show links:

• Join my book club on Fable!
• Burnout On-demand book club

More episodes in this series:

• EP 142: 2022 Summer Quickie Series - Burnout Tip #6
• EP 141: 2022 Summer Quickie Series - Burnout Tip #5
• EP 140: 2022 Summer Quickie Series - Burnout Tip #4
• EP 139: 2022 Summer Quickie Series - Burnout Tip #3
• EP 138: 2022 Summer Quickie Series - Burnout Tip #2
• EP 137: 2022 Summer Quickie Series - Burnout Tip #1

Transcript:

Welcome back to the summer quickie series friends. I am sharing this summer short, actual self-care exercises and tips so that you can reduce your stress and get the hell out of burnout. It's been burnout babe, summer so far, and we need to knock it off.

We're getting out of the burnout by completing the stress cycle. Woo. What we do now is gonna help us feel better this summer and beyond. So without further a do a reminder that we are basically unlocking the stress cycle by. Digging into the tips provided by the book Burnout by Amelia Nagoski and Emily Nagoski. If you haven't read the book yet, it's amazing.

If you would like to join in on the discussion, I have an on demand book club for the book over on my website. You can check it out. I would love to hear your reaction to the book and also to hear how you are processing your stress this summer. Okay.

So today's episode, we're gonna review real quick, the stress cycle. Remember there's two parts. The part that annoys you, the stressor, the thing that you think, oh my God. Why is that getting me all worked up, even if you're cool as a cucumber and you're super professional and you don't have a poker face, excuse me. And you do. I'm a poker face. Unlike me who you can pretty much read everything right there on my face.

Once that stressor is gone, once your asshole boss has walked outta the room or lost his job or whatever, guess what? You're still dealing with the aftermath of having your nervous system freak out and it's your job to, to calm it.

And here's why man, chronic stress can mess up your long term health, chronic stress can make you feel like shit, chronic stress can zap your energy, make you feel like you don't have enough time or enough money, or enough, enough, enough, enough, enough, and these simple, but not easy tips to getting you to complete the stress cycle or my little gift to you this summer.

Because even if you're having the easiest no stress. Kind of summer. Congratulations, please call me and tell me how you do that. That's great. There's good news and bad news. And the bad news is that we all have a stress debt, which means most of us have been living on this planet under a great amount of stress.

But what we didn't know is that once the, once the stressor was gone, we quit the job. We graduated, we, we got the divorce, we, whatever. We were like, oh, this stress is gone. We all figured, oh, that's where it stops that I'm cool now. Oh, shit. It turns out. And this is the bad news is that you have however many years you're alive worth of stress debt that hasn't been processed.

So it's time to take the stress, the, the completing the stress cycle by the reins and getting on with yourself. Okay. So a reminder. The other episodes in this series have included a reminder that moving your body is the most efficient way to complete the stress cycle. That's the first episode in the summer quickie series meditation.

Another way to complete the stress cycle, progressive relaxation in the body. Another way, cuz you're just chilling that nervous system out and reassuring your inner a. That? No, you are not in danger, right? This second positively, socially positive social interaction. Again tells a nervous system we're not in this alone.

Look at all these friendly faces around me, laughing until you cry, crying, tell you laugh. And today's one of my favorite. Okay. I always say that this is my favorite tip. This is my favorite tip, but this is one of my favorite tips. And. There is an asterisk on this tip. And that is, this is this, and this is audience participation.

This involves other people. A lot of times this tip is participating in deeper affection.

So what does that mean? It means practicing a 22nd hug. Super hard to say 22nd hug. So what you do is you say to your people. That you love. Hi daughter, son, spouse, partner, girlfriend, best friend, whatever you say to them, Hey, uh, let's complete our stress cycle together and they go, I don't know what that is.

And you're like, don't worry about it. Just come here. I wanna do this thing. And then you say, can I hug you for an uncomfortably long time? And they might laugh. In which case, depending on who it is, you could go back to that laughing until you cry. But this is the thing it's probably been a really long time.

Maybe never, that you've hugged somebody for 20 seconds. So your assignment is to get consent, but then to set a timer and see how long it takes in the 20 seconds for one or both of the participants to feel like, huh? How long does it take to have that physical downshift into? Oh, okay. Now I'm relaxed a little bit for me.

We've been doing this for a while here at home. For me, it's usually in the last five seconds of the 22nd hug that I'm like, oh, okay. And I will say, because my kid is, she's been on board with this whole thing for the whole time. She's been practicing guilt-free self-care for a lifetime. She likes to set it either for 40 seconds, the timer to do these hugs, or she will just, after she hears or feels me downshift in, in like relaxation a little bit into that, that she'll hit repeat, and we'll do it again.

So the 22nd hug can be done solo as well. I know what you can hug yourself, friends. It sounds weird, but hear me out, your body does not know where's that hug is originating. So if nobody's around, you could like bear, hug yourself by wrapping your arms around yourself and giving yourself a squeeze. And again, maybe doing that, like I'm just doing that now.

You can probably hear my hands on my arms. You can rub your arms and you can tell yourself, oh, it's gonna be okay. We got you. I got you. The idea again, is back to those ancestors our long ago, relatives out wherever the saber tooth tigers were, which is probably not in the city you're living in, but right.

So a long time ago, the idea is you wouldn't, your inner ancestor would not let somebody who's gonna harm you into your personal space bubble for that long, unless you were safe. So this a lot of this stress cycle completion is just us like going into our, our nervous system and being like, Hey, I know that was really scary that email the bus almost hitting us, almost falling off our bike, whatever, whatever the stressor was that jerk at work.

God, I wanna say that again. Okay. So I will the jerk at work. We're just going in behind that stressful activity and saying, Hey, I see you. That was awful. You, you need, looks like you need a hug friend, right? So you're either doing this alone or with a partner. Am my cat, just give a little Meow she's like, or maybe to.

But again, consent. So if you wanna spice it up a little bit, there is another deeper affection and that is the, this is a hard one to say six second kiss. S I X second kiss. Meaning you lay one on your sweetie for six seconds and you might think I've got this in the bag again. I want you to set a timer.

And kiss your partner for six seconds. It might be nice if it's been a while, since you've had this like sort of I'm giving the romantic face, like, ah, this really deep connection with your person, if you've been like, you know, living through a pandemic in a really stressful time in history, all that jazz, maybe you haven't had a lot of romance.

You might wanna say, partner, I love you. I heard about this new thing that both of us need to do, which is completing the stress cycle so that we can live healthy, happier, and longer and, and be more connected to our people. And here it is, and say, I would like permission to test this out with you. Do you wanna do this experiment with me?

And they may be like, okay, that was a lot of talking when all you have to do is say, let's make out. But set a timer to see how long six seconds is. And what I have found again is this deeper affection really does build connection with your people, and it really can feel uncomfortable unless you talk about it.

So there is the tip for this week for reducing stress and completing the stress cycle is to practice deeper affection with those people who, you know, love and trust. And to bring them into your personal space bubble and to practice consent conversations as well as deeper affection. So I would love to know how your make out session with your partners going and how your stress busting long hugs are going with your family.

I can't wait to hear from you and you can tell me how your summer is going of completing the stress cycle, looking forward to talking to you soon. And until then, remember that you matter too.