A Guide to Burnout Recovery with Dr. Neha Sangwan

Thank goodness someone outside me had the courage to say, hey Doc, are you okay? And I feel like that is one of the most important things we need to do for each other. We're swimming in a world of stress, moving so fast, maybe we're not seeing what other people can see a little more clearly.

Hey there friends. Welcome to Happiness Squad. This is the podcast dedicated to helping you unlock your full potential by mastering the art and science of happiness. We bring on the best leading experts on these topics to help you unlock your true potential and live with more joy, health, love and meaning in your life. Your host is no other than the star combo of Ashish Kothari and Anil Ramjiani who are both on a mission to provide you with an unfair advantage to be the masters of your experience and leaders in your industry. Get ready to be moved, challenged and enlightened on this podcast. It may change your life. Thanks for being here and joining the squad.

Hey Happiness Squad. It's great to have you with Ashish.

And I as we host guests who are industry leaders helping individuals and organizations unlock inner happiness and flourishing. Are you ready to discuss Burnout? You may already know this, but Burnout.

Is a wake up call to get.

Clear on what matters most to you and make a plan to get and stay in alignment. Meet Dr. Neha Sangwon, a mechanical and biomedical engineer as well as an internal medicine physician. After a decade of caring for hospitalized patients, she realized she could be of service to people long before they show up in the emergency room. In 2008 she left her partnership and founded her own company, Intuitive Intelligence. As an entrepreneur, speaker, author and executive coach, Neha combines the art of communication with the science of medicine to transform workplace cultures. She combines the science of medicine with the art of communication to bridge health, happiness and performance. She's a three time TEDx speaker and the author of Talk Rx and Powered by Me, her most recent book. In this session we discuss the triad of burnout and in the three phases. What we discuss may actually surprise you. Your feelings of stress, anxiety and your coping mechanisms may actually be draining rather than gaining you energy. Neha, Ashish and I share personal examples and specific tips that you can integrate from today to improve your wellbeing and not only prevent your burnout, but also cite and address the same for the loved ones around you. Join Ashish and I as we welcome Neha to the Happiness Squad podcast.

Foreign.

It's a pleasure to be with both of you. Neha, thank you for taking the time to join us.

What an honor to Be with you both. I've been really excited about this.

Such a pleasure. So much overlap, Neha, in our works, in the amazing things you're doing. I think this is gonna be such an amazing conversation and I just wanna pick up on, you know, the conversation before the conversation we were having. And you said you've been asked to write a book on engineering happiness. So the first question is, what is your definition of happiness and how has that changed since your younger years?

Boy, it has done a 180. What I'd say is when I was young, I spent the first three decades of my life leading from the outside in. And to me, the true definition of happiness is not always getting it right and not always having smooth sailing relationships and everything going great, but it is leading from the inside out. And it's knowing what I value and using those values to make my decisions. Even if some of them are a mistake or some of them don't go right. At least I've made those decisions based on what matters most to me. So I would definitely say that it's also my happiness comes from feeling aligned so that my body, what I'm thinking, what I'm doing, what I'm saying, what I'm feeling, they're all in alignment with one another. And I allow that way of showing up in the world to attract the right people to me.

Yeah, it's so beautiful, right? This notion of alignment, this notion of leading, living from within. Right. Inside out. 80% of the world lives outside in. This is research from Harvard around stage of development. 80% live outside in. And we're constantly hustling, working harder, longer, stronger, power, fame, control, to be happier. And then we get there and then we start hustling again.

Yeah. We wonder why it's such an empty experience, you know?

Yeah. Like we go from like high point to high point and forget that the high points, if you added all the high points, they'd make up less than 5% of our lives. So might as well enjoy the journey and more importantly, define the high points from our inside out. Because if you're doing it, then you're continuously, you know, if you enjoy the journey, then you're winning every day because you're walking forward.

Yeah. And I think the trick there is, you know, shifting, at least for me, it's been shifting from when something doesn't go as I had planned or expected that I don't consider it something I need to control or change. I shift into curiosity and I ask myself, what was I supposed to learn here? The moment I realized that this interaction, this experience, this whatever situation I'm in, sometimes I say to myself, oh, I guess I wasn't supposed to get that job. I guess it was just batting practice for when I get my dream job or my dream interview. You know, I almost reframe things, but not before I feel the disappointment. Like, I sure to feel that. Cry it out, yell it out, whatever I need to do to say what, this wasn't fair. I get to feel it. And then there comes, like, this calm or this space where I shift into, okay, I wonder what that person or that experience was supposed to teach me.

You know, one of the things I recall when I hear you say that is you wake up, today's gonna be a great day. Gonna be a great day, right? We woke up, we were able to eat, we're able to drink, we're able to sleep, we're able to walk on.

Our own two feet.

You know, and then things may go as expected or better than expected. And you're like, okay, thumbs up. Things may go not as expected or worse than expected. So. But it's like, every day is a great day. How can we remind ourselves of that? And, you know, we had Sri Kumar Rao on professor with us a couple weeks ago. And one thing I kid you not, Neha, I remind myself daily is the universe is my friend. So if that didn't go the way I thought it would, it's not happening to me. It's happening for me. And my switch is from worry to wonder. And I love how yours is curiosity, because as soon as you look up and not down of what am I missing? Like, what are the possibilities? Suddenly there's so much more through what's possible. And so what you manifest, what you put out is what you'll get back in return. And that's powerful, you know, insight for me as I spoke to Ash, as I hear you, and as I spoke to Professor Rao. The more we think that way, it just opens up possibilities.

You bet. And, you know, I like how you said it's from worry to wonder. Because I'm going to now say it's from control to curiosity. Because I have spent a lot of my life as a doctor saying no one's dying in this hospital on my watch. Like, everything's about me controlling it. And that is. Wow, that is exhausting.

That is delusional. No, like 95% of. Seriously, it's delusional. I think there's a lot of, you know, work with a lot of CEOs and senior leaders and they're like. I'm like, dude, you do not understand 95% of what is gonna happen out there. You don't control. No, no, I can't. I think you can't. You cannot because you don't control three levels down how somebody's gonna execute it. You don't control what the competitor's gonna do. You don't control what nature is gonna give you as a gift in terms of an ecological disaster. You didn't control the pandemic that completely enveloped the world. You don't control the war that broke out in the Middle east overnight and is not stopping. And what time are you going to wake up and realize that you actually do not control anything other than your actions? That's it. You do not control your outcomes. I think we live in this constant. And to me, Nehad, as you said, that's at the heart of so much of our stress and anxiety because we try to control a world that has gotten more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, and we wonder, why not live differently.

Yeah. And I think, really, if we get down to the heart of it, what people are really trying to control is that they don't have to experience pain and disappointment, that they're not surprised by whatever is happening. And I'm going to go a little deep here fast, but I think that's our own unhealed trauma.

Yes.

That we're trying to avoid having to feel again. Let me give you an example of what I mean. When I was a young girl, you know how in the Indian culture, the extended family raises children. And it's like, you know, you hand it to your sister, you hand the baby to your grand, you know, to the grandparent, and we don't think anything of them being with them for months or years. Well, when I was little, I was born and raised in the. In Michigan in the United States. And at three months old, my grandmother took me to Africa to live with my grandfather because he had been stationed there for the United nations for an assignment, off I went for two years. And when my sister. My older sister, who was three and a half at the time, and my mother came to pick me up, and they brought me home, I didn't know who they were. I didn't care. But I felt like I had just been taken from my parents. Right. Who were my grandparents. Well, it wasn't until years later that I finally understood that every time I said goodbye to a patient and their family after an experience, every time I got off a plane and had a great conversation with someone, every Time I met someone really incredible, even if it was for 15 minutes or an hour, I got tearful when I was leaving them. And you know what that was? When I tried not to let people leave me that control. That was that little two year old with the unhealed abandonment that didn't want the world to abandon her again because she feels that unhealed wound every time something happens, even if it's much less significant. And so I think that's part of our biology. Our biology is we don't want to feel the discomfort of challenging emotions, disappointment, you know, devastation. As soon as we feel those things in our lives, our amygdala inside our brain records that and says it's constantly scanning for nothing that resembles leaving. Not for Neha. Neha can't Neha know what kind of pain that is? And so I think what's interesting is oftentimes the reason people become CEOs and get to the C suite and do all of these things is their ability to command and control, not feeling. And so when you don't feel, you can be externally focused to the nth degree because nothing shakes you from making next quarter's earnings and, you know, whatever it is. And boy, have people gotten addicted to a society that rewards them for creating in the external world.

It is so beautiful, Neha, right? Because if what you're highlighting that your younger child, right, the younger part of you, when we face conflict, sometimes we go back to regress to a younger part of us, and we all have it. And at the heart of it, you know, if you even look at Maslow's hierarchy, right, once our need for food and safety, you know, food is met and safety, right, the next level up is, is belonging. Because, and it's so evolutionary, right? If you didn't belong, you didn't survive. You couldn't survive alone. It's not the case today. Even though today when you look at the biggest source of suffering, right, loneliness, so much research on loneliness, and even more worse for you than cigarettes. But there's so many who are lonely. But when you think about that element of connection, and that feels, feeling like I don't belong. So many people hustle for that through worthiness rise, you know, if I'm not worthy, I'm not gonna be, you know, nobody's. Why will anybody want me? And how do I earn my worth? I earn my worth through work.

That's what society has taught us. And so what I really believe is that we have collectively used our minds to speed up the external world. What's the goal of every company. Faster is better, do more with less profit over people. I mean, how many people believe these outdated. We're immersed in outdated beliefs.

And that is at the heart so much of the burnout crisis that we are encountering in the world. You know, I talk about this book, Hardwired for Happiness started as From Fear to Freedom. I fundamentally left my job at McKinsey. It was because of my bigger why Nehab, where I recognized that the reason we are in a space for the first time in humanity where we have a deepening crisis at every level. Every level, humanitarian, ecological, economic, political. In every level, we are actually suffering. We are dying under the weight of our own prosperity. Despite us being the most prosperous generation is because of what we are talking about. We are wired for fear. It's evolutionary. And because through our mind and actions we've speeded the world so much faster and created the complexity. Man, our fear circuits are constantly on because six, eight times in a day we are triggered because of things happening that we are not able to control. Things happening that were not planned because they're not part of my plan. Right. It can be suppliers not delivering something or customers canceling an order or inflation not where I need to be, or employees quitting or all of that notion. We are running on stress. We were running constantly on this adrenaline and cortisol. And the price we pay for this hustle of belonging from earning our worth out there is burnout, which is the topic I want to get to next Leha and I want to get to this topic and I want to tie it to your own story. It sent chills down my spine this morning when I was listening to one of your podcasts that you did recently. And the reason it sent chill down my spine is you were a doctor, you were treating patients for burnout. And In June of 2004, you burnt out and you didn't even recognize it. You didn't even recognize it. And I remember, you know, this story where you talk about, you know, your nurse asking you, hey, are you okay? Talk a little bit about that story. Because, you know, I think one of the biggest issues right now is most leaders and individuals are burnt out or close to burnt out and they don't even recognize it. So I want to get into that a little bit, your story and the signs of burnout, because I want our listeners to actually check, notice if those markers are present for you.

Wonderful. You know, one thing I'd say that our ancestors had that we don't in speeding up our external world is that they listened to their body, they revered their heart racing, stomach turning, intuition. They were tuned inward. That's how they survived. And what we've done is a few things. We've sped things up externally, we've minimized and tuned out of our bodies which has then caused us not to want to or know how to navigate emotions. So when you speed things up outside, you're surprised, you're trying to control things but you don't want to deal with your emotions and you don't pick up signals early in your body because you're so, so externally focused. You become me.

Exactly. You know, Anea and I'll add to that. Not only have we done that, I think there is something else that we have done which is worse. What is that we have created mechanisms that are so easily accessible that we can use to numb the feeling versus feel the feeling. Our ancestors didn't have 10,000 shows to binge. They didn't have Red Bulls bread bowl food available right in the, you know, I can gorge myself with ice cream tubs all day long. I didn't have alcohol. There was so many of those things. So like when you to your point, when you tuned in and you feel something, you have no other recourse than to deal with it.

Yeah, that's right. I think that's, that's really key. So it's, I just want people to know it's a system, you know, the way I think of things is me.

We world, I love it, me, we world.

So it's like heal me. And when I go deep in healing me, like for me it was that abandonment, communication, learning to navigate my emotions as a child. But I didn't do it until I was in my 30s. But if I know what my greatest pain point is, which for me it was that abandonment and shutting down my emotions and tuning out of my body. Then once I work on healing me, it becomes very clear to me how I can serve we. Yes, and change and impact the world. But we can't do that until we start with knowing ourselves and being able to navigate ourselves. Because you don't surprise this and this is going to come into the story I'm going to talk about next. But when we are surprised by something you've heard people say, whatever you do, don't surprise me, okay? I don't want to be surprised. Why? Because it's a short lived emotion that amplifies anything that comes after it. So if what you're going to give me is bad news, don't be Surprising me because it's not just going to be bad news. It's going to amplify my devastation, my upset, my whatever it is. All right, so all of this leads into this. I am a very good Indian child. I'm a mechanical and biomedical engineer. I'm an internal medicine physician. I did what mom wanted, what dad wanted, what the Indian community wanted. I checked all the boxes and I was so tuned into everybody else's needs. My grandparents, anyone I met, I could read what they needed from me. Now, some of my thoughts around why that is is I think that little girl never wanted to be sent away again. She didn't know why she was the one who was sent away and why she had to go through that pain. So I think I went into protect measures where I realize maybe if I make the outside world really happy, I can stay, I can belong. But here's the trick. When I turn myself into a pretzel to make sure that you love me, you like me, I'm indispensable to you. When you do like me, it's not really me you like, it's a pretzel version of me. That's all concorded. So I lose in the end anyway. So growing up, my father really wanted a son. He ended up with three girls. And I want you to know that in the end, the story is happy. He got a granddaughter and now he has a five year old grandson. He got his wish. I knew as a little girl that he really wanted a son and he wanted a son that was an engineer. Check. Couldn't be the son, but I could sure be the engineer. My mom, I heard that her parents didn't allow her to become a surgeon because they said, what kind of a mother and wife will you be? Always on call. So she went into biochemistry and became a researcher. Now I heard in passing her longing to be a doctor. And I thought, okay, well, those two aren't mutually exclusive. We can do both of those. So at 33 years old, I found myself in a hospital as a hospitalist. You know, I had become an engineer, worked for Motorola in the 90s, I was manufacturing engineer for them, went back to med school, became an internal medicine physician, and here I am as a hospital physician. So I found myself in the hospital, 33 years old, 18 patients hospitalized, patients, last day of my rotation. So this is June 17, 2004. I walk in, I know it's going to be a hectic, crazy day, and someone says, hey, someone called out today on the team, will you take the alpha pager? Too, meaning air traffic control from all neighboring hospitals of incoming admissions. I didn't even check in. I didn't even check into my own exhaustion. I answered automatically, reflexively, of course, sure. And I took the pager. Well, now, five hours into my shift, it's 6am that I started. It's now 11am and I turn to the nurse and I say, nina, could you please get me 40ml equivalents of IV potassium for the gentleman in 636? And she looks at me a little confused and she says, Dr. Sanglan, are you okay? And that was my first indication I might not be. And I said, yeah, why? And she said, that's the fourth time in under five minutes you've asked me that same question. And I've answered you every time. And so what's interesting, in that moment, not only was I surprised, which magnified my, what do you mean? What is going on here? I had no recollection of that happening. That's how crazy incoming data was for me. And I also realized that how high functioning was I. I didn't say, where was the bathroom? I said, could you please get 40 milliliters equivalents of IV potassium to the gentleman in 630? I mean, that's quite high functioning. And at the same time, I was completely decompensating. I was hitting, you know, a wall that I didn't even realize that thank goodness someone outside me had the courage to say, hey, doc, are you okay? And I feel like that is one of the most important things we need to do for each other. We're swimming in a world of stress, moving so fast, maybe we're not seeing what other people can see a little more clearly.

And you know, you had something that was happening, Neha, which was wonderful. You work in a location, interacting continuously through the day through a set of people you're working with, right? So they're seeing you. So that nurse could notice that this was the fourth time you ask that, friends, if you are in the business world, think about how many back to back to back to back meetings that we are in, constantly jumping from one to the other. Many times the people you're interacting with might not even be able to give you the science, because also, we don't want to appear to be struggling, Right?

We want to appear perfect. This is like, look at me, look how together I am.

You know, the most common word of check in. You notice, talked about checking in, you know, taking care of each other, even when we check in. How are you? Fine. How are you? Fine. Okay. Wonderful. Let's go. Even when we do check in, we don't really check in because I don't really want to check into you. I'm so busy. We don't really have time for chit chatter. And I always invite the clients at counsel to say, hey, just take that moment. Just use that moment of how are you? As a check in. But really check in, check into you, check into them, sense it, so you can take action. My question to you, Neha, is there are three signs for burnout that we can all check into and recognize if we are struggling from those. Talk to us a little bit about those three signs of burnout because most people don't even know them. They don't know them.

Yeah, well, the triad of burnout is exhaustion. So physical, mental, emotional exhaustion. And it's not like you wake up in the morning and you're fine and by the evening you're burned out. No, no, no. Mother nature is much more sophisticated than that. And so are you. So physical, mental, emotional exhaustion has been going on over time and you have been using certain coping mechanisms to adjust. So let's say you suddenly started needing a half a cup of coffee or a cup of coffee in the morning and after a few months or years, you need two. Make it a double, please. That's how simply that coping mechanism moves into a higher level. And you've been adjusting. Maybe it's I need a glass of wine after work to take the edge off. Boy, that was a rough day. Maybe it's the sugar caffeine buzz strategy. Perhaps like you said, it's the Netflix binge strategy or you know, the snooze it off strategy or the work even harder strategy for me in the hospital to stay awake for 36 hours in a row. It was a time tested equation that worked every single time. 2 ice cold 16 ounce Mountain Dews plus a king size Snickers bar and you can have me wide awake for 36 hours. Now I'm not saying that's a good strategy, but here's what I'm saying. In that moment, it was better than me falling asleep and not taking care of the hospital. So when people say, is burnout your fault? I want to say I contributed to my burnout. But no, burnout wasn't my fault. I am kind of genius when I look back at my 33 year old self. Someone just told you you have to go against your biology for this long. You came up with the sugar caffeine buzz strategy. Okay, but what I want everyone listening first is to notice how they get over that deadline. Notice exactly what the strategy is that helps you push through when your body's saying no. How do you, to the outside world say yes?

You know, I love, I actually love that, Neha. And maybe an invitation to the listeners because I see myself in you. You know, I noticed there was something wrong when, and in fact, you know, my body had started to shut down. I, I didn't even realize it and I had, you know, my thyroid had shut down and I, I now take a levothyroxine every day. But I was like working through my, it was shut down to 90%. Like my, you know, the, I forget the name. They were like so high. Like they were like 10x where they needed to be.

Yep.

And you know how I was muscling through. My colleague heard me on the phone and he's like, hey, I was at Starbucks at 6:30am asking for a venti latte with three extra shots.

Wow.

That's six shots of espresso.

Wow.

And that wasn't even my first one.

Yep.

That was my second drink. Right. So this notion of we caffeine our way, he's like, hey, are you okay? He's like, yeah, I'm just tired, but I'll be fine. This is the regimen, right? This is the regimen. This is what we do. This is how we don our armors to go fight the good fight. Except, I mean, I love it. So the first is exhaustion. So friends, if you're listening, first sign exhaustion and a very simple way to really check into your exhaustion. I'm just going to hack something based on what you're just saying. If you take caffeine, which by the.

Way boosts your cortisol, so there's adrenaline, short acting, stress fighter and then there's long acting, which is cortisol. What caffeine does is it pushes your body to make more cortisol, which is.

So corrosive, allows you to take action in the moment, but so corrosive. So here's what I want you to do because you will be telling yourself that you're not exhausted because you can get through your day. Maybe for the next 10 days, try and not have caffeine or have half of what you do and notice how you feel because you will notice the exhaustion. You will notice the exhaustion.

I'm not sure they need 10 days. If we even had them do it off for one day, they're going to notice.

No, I'm 10 days off caffeine. Ironically, I'm just no Go ahead, keep going. Ashish, ironically. So I'm sensing and feeling what you're saying. I'm actually feeling the exhaustion in a good way. I feel a lot calmer in a good way. And I'm sleeping sounder at night in a good way. So no, keep, keep going, though. But I, I'm on that 10 days, so it's ironic.

So here's the thing. If someone says, oh, no, that's like too big of a thing to ask me to do. Here's what I'd say. Have some green tea. Have something that. Because you, you may end up with a pretty bad headache and you may end up with some other symptoms. But a way to kind of wean yourself off is to have a cup of green tea that has about half of the amount of caffeine that you would get in coffee. And so you want to bring yourself down. And it depends on how loud of a signal you need from your body to believe this. Some people are like the extremes. They're like all or nothing. If you know that's you do the all or nothing and see what happens.

But if not, taper it down. But just notice if you're exhausted, I think is the big message. Talk to us about the second one.

Sure. And one last thing there. Noticing you're exhausted in how your body actually communicates with you is a really important thing because each of us has a unique language of physical signals that our body uses to communicate with you, with us. So mine is throat constriction and stomach turning almost. I feel a quicksand, sinking feeling in my stomach and my throat is constricted. That's how I knew I was really exhausted. What about you, Ashish? How do you know in your body that you're exhausted? What is the physical signal?

You know, for me, the physical signal is just. It's brain fog. Right. I start to not think very clearly. And the other part for me is just a level of, you know, I'll start to feel all of a sudden tightness right. In the lower back or like all of a sudden because everything else starts to kind of compensate.

Yeah.

We start. I, you know, I can't pretzel myself, but I think I'm probably doing some version of the pretzel. Right. Those are the things that happen to us.

Yeah. And Anil, how does yours. You're on a 10 day off of. Off of this. So tell me what your body's feeling.

Hi, friends. We hope you're enjoying the tips discussed in this episode. If you're on the Career treadmill, seeking the next promotion, experiencing stress and anxiety or reach the top of your career and wondering if the sacrifices to get there were worth it. Ashish and I have been there and we're ready to support you. The happiness squad rewire program is designed to integrate the nine hardwired for happiness practices into your day. Within five minutes form proven habits to experience more success, resilience, satisfaction and creativity. You won't be alone in your journey. Check out the rewire link in the show notes. Make happiness your competitive edge to achieve your goals.

Now back to the episode. So I also like Ashish. I get the brain fog and I actually feel pains in my chest. I'll feel a bit of anxiousness, apprehension and I. So mine more metastasizes. Now, I will be honest with you. I weight train run pretty much every day. I do some sort of physical activity, stretching and all, but I do still will notice at night I will just hit a wall and I will. I will not be able to function and that it's just that emotional, that sensation in my body that takes over.

All right, so the first thing I want to make sure everyone knows that's listening. Any new symptom or signal in your body, you have to get a clean bill of health first. Don't be kind of brainstorming about it being burnout before you've gotten a clean bill of health, a clean bill of physical health, then you can say, oh, okay, if the doctor says I'm fine, but I don't feel fine. Now you're thinking about triad. You know, leg number one was physical, mental, emotional exhaustion. Okay? It's been going on over time. You've been using coping mechanisms and it's, it's not getting better. In fact, it's getting a little worse because here comes the second leg of the triad. Cynicism. Cynicism creeps in and it's like the. These. It's almost think of it like an undertow. When you're walking on the beach, you can't see it, but boy, you can feel it. It's that moment when your own mind starts saying, you know what? It doesn't really matter how hard I work. It doesn't even matter how, how much effort I put in, how much I try. It's not going to make a difference. This is not worth all that I'm putting in. And your own thoughts start to undermine your already chronic exhaustion. And then this isolation that you're speaking about, which is this chronic epidemic that we're having all over the world. I May need and want connection, but just not have the energy to put forth to make that happen. And that's called depersonalization as well, where we're distancing ourselves. We're also like I was calling the gentleman. I didn't say Mr. Jones, I. I said the person in 6:36. Like, I start to distance myself because I can't care that much. I'm trying to conserve my energy so that I can continue. And then the third leg of the triad is ineffectiveness. You start to realize that you're just not as effective at things that you are pretty good at. You start to have that happen. So the triad of burnout is exhaustion, cynicism and, and ineffectiveness. Now, I told you, it doesn't happen all at once. So what are the phases one would go through? And how would you recognize those of you listening? How would you recognize. And what am I looking for as a doctor, as I listen to you? Well, there's three phases. There's the alarm phase, chronic adaptation and exhaustion. And yes, exhaustion gets used twice, once in the triad. And what's in the phases? The alarm phase. The alarm phase is like things have a new level of stress has happened. So maybe it would have been in March of 20, 2020, when you were already stretching yourself, really, you know, and now we're at a new level. So it's like the alarm phase. It's like I'm getting on a treadmill that's moving a little too fast. I get that shot of adrenaline, I'm awake, my heart's racing, I'm a little irritable. I might be defensive, I might snap at other people. I might have some gut issues going on where my nerves are channeling through, you know, constipation, diarrhea, whatever. My stomach is unsettled. I might not be sleeping well at night. Okay, then I'm noticing, wow, I'm a little forgetful. I'm late when I'm not normally late. I'm making mistakes I don't really make usually. So you're a little surprised by your own behavior. Now, if you continue that, and that goes on for some time, you use some triple shot, your triple six shots of espresso. Now you're all the way up there. Now you're in chronic adaptation, where it has now become a way of life to be on that treadmill. And in fact, you are the one turning up the speed of. Yeah, I'll take that. I'll do that. I'll. Right, we're now moving into a space and it Might be because you want to become partner. It might be because you. You want that next, you know, level of the job so you can support your family in a better way, or kids going to college, whatever it is. So you're doing it for a noble cause. But you have now made running on a treadmill way too fast your way.

Of living your norm. You've made it your norm, right? In many cases. You know, Neha, what I find is sometimes people feel that if they don't, they'll get fired. That comes with the territory. So many executives, they're like, come on balance, like, isn't this what we signed up for? And I go like, no, actually, you didn't. And by the way, if you're operating there, you're operating at 30% of what you're really capable of, in addition to a high cost you're paying to yourself and to your family and everything else.

Well, it's just that our biology doesn't work that way. Yes, we live in a world that wants us to exceed expectations, be excellent. Faster is better, you know, more with less, all of this. And our biology requires rest and routine. And so we need to hold that paradox, which is, how do we do good and do well in the world while we also include ourselves in our own biology and our family in the equation? And so the alarm phase, which was the surprising phase, right, moves into that chronic adaptation phase. And there is where you have the cynicism and you're distancing yourselves, socially withdrawing. And here's where I know we're getting to the end of the chronic adaptation phase. When you start not caring, when apathy starts coming in, when you're using more and more of that coping mechanism just to get the same effect. Now you're in chronic adaptation. And then it takes one more thing where someone hands me the pager, someone has that last phone call that I got that kind of tripped me me into this experience, and I go into the exhaustion phase, and I'm sliding down the slippery slope of burnout to ineffectiveness, where literally that day in the hospital, I was ineffective. And I'll never forget, I called a colleague and I spent an hour with him, a psychiatric colleague. I went and talked to him about this, and he said to me, neha, you have become a people pleaser. You are trying to take care of every gap in our hospital system. The culture you're in is one of bullying, and you are absorbing all of that. And the policies of the hospital to make budget are to understaff as a way to make the numbers match. So that's me, we, world. So when someone says to me, am I a failure? Is this my fault? What I say is, it's a wake up call. It's a wake up call in your life for you to look at what strategies, people, environment, job that you may have outgrown, that you've learned the lessons you came here to learn, and you might be outgrowing them now. So it's a wake up call. But when we go to places where we're blaming people or we're trying to pin, you know, project onto other people, it's your fault. Look at you. You're weak. You can't do it. All of those judgments. What I say is, as a collective world, the gift that the pandemic gave us is it taught us that invisible things matter, things that may not be able to be measured, like a virus that can cross continents and, you know, doesn't need a passport. Emotions, like within us matter. They might be invisible, but I don't know anyone who wasn't on an emotional roller coaster during that year and ever since. And so I think some of the lessons we learned as what I call it as a doctor through our global heart attack, which to me was the pandemic, was it's time to pay attention within us and around us, become kind of mindful of who we are, what we value and how we're working and living and being in the world.

You know, doc, this is so powerful. So I'm going to summarize here for folks, right, because you covered a lot, and I want you to do this assessment right now. I asked these three questions, by the way, the three measures you measured. Christina Maslach. It's the Maslach Burnout Inventory. It's the validated measure of burnout. It's been around from the 80s. People don't look at that. People don't recognize. I had a call with an executive three, four weeks ago. I asked him, and he was describing many of the symptoms, right? And I was that nurse for him. And I said, hey, I'm gonna ask you three questions, one to five, I want you to kind of tell me where you are. And he did it. And he was like, wow. I said, my friend, you're close to burnout or burnt out. These are like the three biggest ones. So friends, think about it. Do your own measure from 1 to 5.

And it's a spectrum, right? Where the spectrum from burned out to fully charged at work and in life. The other thing that I'd be happy to give you is it's not the Christina Mosloch double blinded placebo controlled trials that I'm sure she did to, you know, make this all validated. But I will give everybody an additional. This is something I gave on my book tour. Powered by me from burned out to fully charged at work and in life. It's an assessment that you use. Not only you answer questions using your brain, but you also have to tap into your body. Is is your body when you're saying, yeah, my food's fine, my on a physical level, my food's fine, my sleep's fine. Yeah, my energy's fine, I'm fine. Meanwhile, you're using a triple espresso to keep it all going. But your body, you also watch what you answer on the assessment and then you have to tune into your body and you have to say, as I'm filling this physical energy section out, is my body tight, heavy, constricted, or is my body open, relaxed and at ease? And you have to use not just your mind to answer something, but also.

Tune into how you're feeling, how your body is feeling. Right?

And so that I will give you It's Intuitive Intelligence Inc.com burnout Rx we'll.

Add that in our show notes, friends, so please do check it out, but do this assessment. Think about this now, right? Number one, where are you on your level of exhaustion? Do you feel you don't matter? What you're doing is not going to make a difference. You just got to have to, you know, like cynicism. This is how it is. This is how the leadership is. This is what's expected. Just stay with it, Keep running. Cynicism and depersonalization, right? And then third is around effectiveness. You feel you're getting less done even though you're putting in longer hours and you're just compensating it by working longer and longer and longer. If these three are real for you, you need to take action. You really need to take action. And I want to turn a little bit to actions and share with us, you know, what are some things you highlight.

All right, so if you're somebody who's listening to this podcast and you're thinking to yourself, I don't even know what they're talking about tuning into my body. The first thing I want to say to you is, congratulations, you are a master of the external world. So you have literally tuned out of your own body in order to perform in the world. So what I'd say is if you're someone who wants to Tune in. All you have to do is grab a smooth stone, an airpod case, a lipstick case, anything that's small and fits in your. There it is. Hold it in your hand. And when something changes in a meeting, when something surprises you, when something unexpected happens, tune in and just notice in your body what's going on. And if you can't feel anything here, say to yourself, oh, I can feel this in my hand. And after you do that a few times, pretty soon you're going to be like, oh, my jaw is a little tight. Oh, my right shoulder. Oh, oh, I have tightness in my back, whatever it is. So now, tuning you in, you're going to want to know, well, what do I do, Neha? Why would I want to know about the discomfort in my body? Doesn't that slow me down? No, it's in fact going to speed you up. And I think our world needs to slow down in order to speed up, which we need to now know how to breathe through that discomfort. So what I have are definitely some resources in powered by me, which is. It sounds silly, but soft belly breathing is not just for yoga. It's literally to help the discomfort in your body move through you, help disappointment and emotions move through you. Now, scientifically, what's happening is if you feel. I want you guys right now to feel your rib cage. Put your hands on your clavicle and then move down the front of your chest and see how it then splits the rib cage, goes the way all, all the way down, all the way around to your back. That's how big your lungs are. And where does the best oxygen exchange occur? It occurs at the bases of your lungs. All of us are so busy, we're like using a very small amount at the top. Like, hey, can you give me that? Hey, is the deck going to be done? Hey, are we at that meeting? Do you want to go to lunch with? And we're using a very small part of our lungs. Okay, why is this important? There's an umbrella shaped organ just below your lungs and above your stomach, right, right at the midsection of your chest. And it looks like an umbrella when you take a slow, deep breath. So Anil, when you go on those runs, when you are working out, what happens very naturally is when you take deep breaths. This umbrella shaped organ has to flatten in order to accommodate the air coming in. And when it does, it triggers your vagus nerve. And your vagus nerve slows your heart rate down, calms you, helps you be able to weather those, that discomfort of physiology Talking in your body. And when it does that, it opens up your creativity in your brain. And that's why people do off sites. Off sites are going to take people out of their environment, have their creativity open, have them breathing slower and deeper in a relaxed way. So you can use that even when you're sitting in a stressful meeting. So the other thing you want to do is use gravity. Gravity will pull you down. You can feel your bottom on the chair, your feet on the floor. You cannot be spiraling forward into anxiety about the future when you're in your body now. So that's the first thing I'd say in deciphering your own body's language. Here's the other thing I'd say to people. I am a fan. There was a time that I was all or none, right? You remember the two 16 ounce ice cold Mountain Dews with the king size sticker? I mean, I was going for it. What I will say is I am a fan of starting small. Bookend your days. In the morning, do one thing for me. It's making sure I get lemon water, celery juice and my detox shake that I love. My morning snack.

We need the recipe for that. Neha.

Done. And I want to start my day connecting to myself and doing something good for me. And then I want to, at the end of the day, whatever feels good to me. So what I do is I soak my feet as I'm watching a show. When I'm unwinding at the end of the day, I put my feet in hot water with a scoop of baking soda, a scoop of Epsom salt, and some essential oils like eucalyptus oil or lavender oil. And what that does is it relaxes my whole body. It heats me up a little bit. Because when you want to sleep well, the body temperature in your body needs to start dropping. And that helps you sleep well. So I'd say start by the first and most important thing is to do the assessment. Do one or both of the assessments that we've spoken about. Secondly, start tuning in to your body's unique language. And number three, bookend your days with something that is kind and caring for you. So a little bit of self compassion here.

So beautiful. So beautiful.

And I want to anil, before we go, can I give you a fun fact about all you're working out? It doesn't really matter where you start to heal yourself because here's the end story. It's all connected. Physical, mental, emotional, social, spiritual. All connected. All these energies are.

We are one. It's all interlinked.

It is not separate within us and between us. Okay, so let's say someone was inspired by hearing you say that every day you work out. Okay, let me tell you why. That would be a great way for someone to just go for a walk each day. There's something called adenosine with three phosphates, ATP. It's your body's energy currency. When you work out, you break adenosine and the three phosphates break apart to give you energy. That adenosine goes up to your brain and helps you sleep better at night. Now, cortisol is really important because we were talking about cortisol earlier. Cortisol has to go up in the morning to wake you up. That's what wakes you up. And then it has a decrease throughout the day. And by the end of the day, cortisol being low is what allows you to go back to sleep. So there's a rhythm, once again, a rhythm in the body. Right. Now, Studies show that 20 minutes of walking or jogging, 20 to 30 minutes of walking or jogging lift your mood as effectively as an antidepressant. So let's say someone just said, hey, listen, I'm going to start by moving my body. You're going to sleep better. You're going to. You, Your mood's going to be better. It's all connected. And by the way, grab a friend. Your social energy will be better, too. So there's. What I really want to say is it might sound really complicated and where do I start and all of these things, what I'd say is when you do these assessments and you figure out where you're having a net gain or a net drain of energy on a physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual level, start wherever you are most excited to start, whatever seems like the next best step. Don't force yourself to go exercise. If you feel like you're too fatigued to even get off the couch, don't start there. Then soak your feet in water, in a hot bath of water, if that's where you can start. So those are the things that I would say are really, really important for people to know.

Ditto. This all resonates for me. Neha, Couple thoughts. I mean, I wear a whoop band, and it's ironic. I need technology. And now, you've joked about this in the past. The fact that we need a watch to tell us to breathe deeply, we need a device to tell us how much strain we put on our body in a given day. But I do pay attention to it. Whether we swept well, right, because apparently, like just getting quality, six, seven hours, you know, requires data. But hey, we love data. You know, analysis, paralysis and all. I would say to everyone, you know, the fact that you said if you can find the right one thing that works for you to start your day, let's just start there. You know, we've written a blog on this, we've talked about this on the Rewire program. The first thing you do in the morning should not be to reach for your phone and check email. Give yourself a moment, take a few deep breaths, say, today's gonna be a great day. Do something for you, nourish you. I love that. Because as soon as that day starts.

Yeah.

Like we both have all said today, right. Our day can go in different directions. But then at the end of the day, find that wind down period, you know, practice that I should talk about is beautiful, which is, you know, turn off the phone, put it aside. Neha, what you just suggested, I'm gonna do that for my wife tonight. I think she will love it. But we can all do it, right? This is for men and women. I think it's a matter of, you know, pick what is your wind down approach in order for you to sleep better. Because again, if you are able to walk during the day, get good night's sleep, you're able to eat well. Those are just the fundamentals that you can incorporate in your day and start to feel the difference it makes. I will say this, you know, male or female, whatever you're doing, your performance is not gonna be based on how many hours you work and how much you push yourself in over rev. It's just not sustainable. Our cell phones, when you look at your phone and it gets to 2%, 3% charge, what do you do? You immediately plug it in. What do we do? We probably go even harder, right? We'll go out that night, we'll party, we'll actually work, you know, till 2, 3 in the morning. We'll try to turn. So again, I'm sharing this because from a corporate perspective, we all feel that sometimes even in our 30s, oh, or 20s, oh, we've got the energy, 40s, got the energy. Guess what? It's not sustainable. Build sustainable habits that help you be better because not only will it help you, like you said, me, we world, that's what we need to start to focus on. So it's an invitation, my friends, to consider what we've just shared today. You know, Neha, I'm going to be open with you. There's so much we wanted to cover. We did want to talk about your new book, Powered by Me. Maybe we can organize to have you back because I do feel that what you talk about in there is great. Ashish, you mentioned the overlap with the Rewire program, folks. We encourage you to consider it.

Why?

Because pausing, breathing, forming habits. What Ashish and Neha are talking about are absolutely critical given the tipping point we're all at. So that's the invitation. But Neha, we'd love to have you back. And yeah, any closing words? Go ahead, Ashish.

Yeah, you bet. I two things that I got from what you just said. The first one is create some. Really recognize the sacred space that's happening when you're transitioning from your world of dreaming to your world of doing and to slow down there rather than speed through that experience. And the second one was we need to partner with our bodies rather than push through them. And I love that. Your wife is one lucky woman that where you go when you learn something new is I'm going to make her a hot, you know, foot bath tonight. Because your natural tendency to care, to help her, is also going to fuel you. And that level of connection and care and service in the world can only come from someone who is also taking care of themselves. And so your workout gives you the energy to be able to care for her. And it just really touched me.

So yeah, Anil. I am blessed to have Anil as my partner in Happiness Squad in what we are doing with the podcast. He's one of the most caring, giving human beings that I had a chance to meet a year and a half ago now, Neha, and you know, I would just say, listen, friends, we will have Neha back. We'll talk, we'll dig deep into some of the additional practices beyond what she already shared. But meanwhile, go to her website. We'll have it on the show. Notes, take the inventory, get the book it's filled with. What I love about Powered by Me is the practical nature of every one of the interventions and tips she's highlighted that you can implement into your day. They are small steps rather than marathons that she invites you to go on. Because guess what? The journey of hundreds of miles starts with the first step. And what's beautiful is there's a whole range of them. So this notion of her invitation to say, hey, look at it. Even if you scan the table of contents, pick the one that is calling to you and start there. So check her out. We'll have her back. Thank you for being with us. I know you Just got back from a huge world tour with Raj. Thank you for the amazing work you're doing, Neha, and what he's doing. And yeah, we're just blessed to have you and have this connection with you.

I love that. And I think the last thing I would say is if you're somebody who realized that you were in chronic adaptation or in exhaustion, I would go to page 20 of my book and there's something called an emergency toolkit. And I would go there to just get some exercises to ground yourself right now. If it feels like too much to read a book, if that feels heavy to you, if that feels like too much, maybe where you need to start is simpler, which is, how do I get, you know, centered right here, right now. And if you need those kinds of practices and then later on you want to read the book, just distinguish, right? Because you don't need to get really intellectual. What your body is telling you right now is that you're dragging. What we need to do is take care of you first. And on page 20, there's an emergency toolkit. I created a website, literally, of videos and tools and all of that. And I think that's where you'd start if you discovered through this experience that you're at, you know, a stage that you didn't realize you were then. What I want you to know is these tool, this powerful, practical toolkit will be waiting for you. So let's start by really tuning in, knowing what we need, knowing that you got exactly what you needed right here. And when you're ready for the next steps, those will be here too. And who knows, maybe my next podcast will already be out.

No, absolutely. I think there. There's a lot there that I think folks should consider. And I love how you even acknowledge it, because some people might be overwhelmed. But that's okay. That's the first sign is to start to look for help. It takes work, but the work is worth it. You're worth it.

Yeah. And a medical professional is a great idea. If you're at the end stages, don't just do this on your own. You might actually need a prescription for time off. You might actually need an antidepressant, anti anxiety sleep medication to knock you back into your own biology. So please don't, you know, just because I'm a doctor, you know, don't think that that is in lieu of you getting what a doctor could give you if you need short term, immediate help.

That makes sense. Well, Ashish, Neha, it was a pleasure. Neha, we have those questions. We've got them saved. We'll ask them to you next time but listen until then. Thank you so much as always a pleasure. We hope you both are doing well. Lots of love and big hugs.

Thanks guys. What a fun journey to be on.

So lovely.

Bye bye bye.

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