Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:01:08: The stress cycle

00:12:58: Struggling to rest

00:15:20: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Sarah Ellis: Hi, I'm Sarah and this is the Squiggly Careers podcast.  Today is one of our expert interviews with Amelia Nagoski, who is the author of a book called Burnout, alongside her co-author and twin sister, Emily.  And we're going to be talking about what burnout is, why it impacts all of us in some way.  I think we've all either got close to or experienced burnout, or we know someone who has, and we want to be in a position to support people to be at their best and to prevent burnout. 

And I think the thing that I really appreciate about Amelia and Emily's work is it's very research-based and also really practical.  They are really committed to supporting people with, how do we just make sure that burnout is not something that we experience; how can we spot the signs; and, what can we proactively do, so that we don't get to burnout, which is not good for us in so many different ways?  So, I hope you find the conversation interesting and I'll be back at the end to say goodbye. So, Amelia, welcome to the Squiggly Careers podcast.  I'm really looking forward to our conversation today.

Amelia Nagoski: Thanks, me too.

Sarah Ellis: So, we're going to dive straight in with this idea of a 'stress cycle'.  That's the really big idea and the concept that stuck with me from the book and from the videobook.  I've kept coming back to it and thinking, "Am I completing the stress cycle?" and that is not a question that I asked myself three days ago.  So, share with our listeners, what is this stress cycle; why should we care about it; and why do we need to complete it?

Amelia Nagoski: The stress cycle is a physiological response.  Stress is a cycle that happens in your body.  I, when I was under tremendous stress and not dealing with it well, had this false belief that stress was like an imaginary idea, "Stress is just a thing that's out there and happening to me".  No, stress is a cycle that happens in your body.  It came to humanity in the environment of evolutionary adaptiveness, where a little proto mammal would be at the river and see in the distance, "Oh my God, there's a scary, scary animal.  It's got fangs and claws and it can run 40 miles an hour.  And here it comes, right after you". 

And what happens in your body then is this cascade of adrenaline and cortisol and glucocorticoids, just this stress juice that changes every system in your body to prepare you for fight or flight. When I say every system in your body, I mean the ones you'll be consciously aware of, such as you can feel your cardiovascular system, your heart pumps, your breath gets deeper to deliver oxygen to your muscles so that they can work more efficiently. 

But there's also systems that you're not consciously aware of, like your immune system, for example.  When you're under stress, your immune system knows, in the environment of evolutionary adaptiveness, that malaria doesn't matter right now because here comes something with saber-teeth, right?  Your reproductive system takes up a lot of energy.  So, in that moment of fight or flight, the stress response tells your reproductive system, "Hey, we need all that energy to flee, because who cares about babies if we get eaten by this thing that can run three times as fast as we can?"  And it works. With all of those physiological changes, we run faster than we ever knew we could, we leap higher than we ever thought we could, we jump, we climb, and we hide in a cleft of the rock, and we look out, and there, the animal is walking away, teeth and claws sauntering away, satisfied that we have left its territory. 

We have used up the physiological response to the thing that caused and initiated that stress response, we used it all up, and this is how we have completed the stress response cycle: initiation, the flood of chemicals, acting out what our body is prepared to do, and then returning to our baseline.  That's the complete stress response cycle.  And it matters to us now very much, because we are no longer in the environment of evolutionary adaptiveness. 

We are now in an environment where the thing that causes our stress is the pings on our phone, and the emails from our boss, and the deadlines, and the trying to manage relationships with coworkers, right?  And that stuff cannot be fought or fled from.  That stuff has to be treated with smiles, and patience, and filling out forms, and standing in line. The good news is that our bodies can complete this stress response cycle in totally separate processes from the system that we use, the process that we use to deal with the thing that initiated the stress response.  And that's really good news, because otherwise we're just getting the stress from this work environment that is so stressful. 

And our bodies have that same response that they did when it was something saber-toothed that could pounce on us from 20 feet away, and our bodies can't act on that because it's not safe or healthy for us to be fighting and flighting all the time.  Otherwise, where do all those chemicals go, right?  What happens to that visceral state?  It gets stuck in our bodies is what happens.  And that's really the definition of burnout, is getting stuck into stress.  Our bodies, as I've just told you, our bodies are designed to manage stress, to feel stress, to experience stress.  So, it's important to know that stress is not the enemy, it's getting stuck in stress.

Sarah Ellis: So, let's work that through.  Let's imagine, and I suspect most of our listeners won't find it that hard to imagine because we've all had this, we've got a colleague that we find very difficult, and there's friction and we have to spend time with them.  So, we kind of have no choice, but we maybe dread those conversations, they always feel really difficult, we know they cause us stress.  We also know we can't, to your point, run away from that person. 

Unfortunately, I don't have that choice.  That can build up.  It can be, and I've definitely experienced that, as you say, in those moments, you respond professionally and you react in the right way and you try to be very constructive, but you're left with all of this stress that, almost like you say, you're physically tense and your shoulders go up, and all of those things that we all recognise. I felt like one of the things that really connected with me from reading your work is going, "You've got to figure out then that last piece of the puzzle".  

That's almost the bit that I feel like we're missing.  Because we're in the context that we're in, it's recognising, "Okay, I might not have a choice about working with that person, I can't get rid of that, but what I do have a choice about is completing that stress cycle.  So, in that example, what are the sorts of things that I could then do that would help me with that last piece of the puzzle?

Amelia Nagoski: There are so many things.  In the book, we have just a long list of evidence-based strategies, but of course there are more that haven't been researched.  But I'll start with the most common ones.  At a population level, the most effective way to complete a stress response cycle is when you're being chased by the lion, what do you do?  You run.  Physical activity is, at a population level, the most efficient way to complete the stress response cycle, because it allows your body to go through the process of moving you from danger into safety.  Any kind of movement you do, it can be literally running, biking, walking, it can be yoga, it can be dancing it out to Beyonce in your kitchen.  Any kind of movement reminds your body that it has the capacity to move you from danger to safety.

You read this advice all the time, "Exercise is going to help you manage your stress".  But I do want to emphasize that this does not work for everyone, and that a lot of people just don't have access to this.  So, my sister and I wrote this book together.  Emily is my identical twin.  We were raised in the same household.  And she has all her life been able to go out for a bike ride and come home and feel the weight of the world lifted off her shoulders.  And she feels like she's one with the sky and the clouds and the fields of Pennsylvania, where she went riding. 

I thought she was making that up, and I have never, to this day, never experienced a complete stress response cycle from physical activity alone. So, if you're like, "All these people have been telling me that I'm going to be able to manage my stress with physical activity.  I have never felt this to be true, I'm just doing it because they tell me to", that was 100% me.  And the good news is that it's not the only way to do it.  Further, a lot of people have bodies that don't allow them access to physical activity; they live in environments that don't allow them access to activity.  If you're out going for a walk to help manage your stress and you get catcalled, now that walk you were taking to manage your stress response has now initiated a stress response.  So, good news, there's like a million other things.  Here's five. One is sleep.  Just sleeping overnight, they say, "Sleep on it, you'll feel better in the morning".  I never believed that because I was like, "The problem's not going away, why will I feel better in the morning?"  Well, because you're dealing with the stress in your body, not the thing that caused the stress.  And separating those two things shows us, "Yes, sleep can complete old leftover stress response cycles". 

In deep sleep, your brain expands and contracts, and like a sponge, it's physically squeezing out the leftovers of the chemical processes that have been going on, including the leftovers of creating all those neurotransmitters for the stress response.  But also, in the process of dreaming, we've probably all had the experience of dreaming about a thing we did all day that day, and you wake up in the morning and you're a little bit better at that thing. 

There's a lot of research about this, skiing and Tetris specifically, I think.  So, your brain is also practising past scenarios and allowing you to experience a different ending to those scenarios, or to go through them again, and this time use up that incomplete stress response cycle. So, you've got physical activity, sleep.  Creative self-expression, making a thing, singing a song, doing a dance, acting in a play, using your imagination to create something that is made of you, that is a product of your energy and attention and focus, can take all that energy of leftover 'aargh!' and pour it into something safe, something outside yourself.  Connection with other people reminds your body that the world is safe and it does not have to be vigilant right now.  This can manifest in just the lightest social contact of simple interaction with your barista.  You go into the coffee shop and you say, "Hi, I'd like a vanilla chai latte, please. 

And oh, I really like your earring".  And the barista says to you, "Here's your vanilla chai latte.  Thank you very much".  And just that is enough to remind your body that the world is a safe place and you don't have to be vigilant.  If you want to go really big with it, if you have somebody in your life that you love and trust enough to hug for like 20 seconds, the researcher on this describes it as, "Hugging 'til relaxed".  So, it's not about the 20 seconds, it's about having someone you love and trust enough to put your arms around while you each support your own centre of gravity and stand there in intense physical proximity.  Proximity alone is enough. After some time, several long, slow, deep breaths, 20 seconds-ish, you'll feel a physiological shift in your body.  This is not a thing you do with like a random coworker.  This is a thing you do with a very good friend!

Sarah Ellis: I read this section and I thought, I knew my 7-year-old was worth it, because that's his job for me.  I think everybody who knows me well and probably most of my listeners, I don't hug people very often but the 7-year-old somehow is different.  And I do recognise what you've described, and I was thinking back to when he was particularly young, and I had a really stressful job at that time.  I think hugging him in the evening was part of me kind of letting go and completing the stress cycle. 

Because I do remember sometimes I would just hug him, he loves the hug, he's the opposite of me, and then you do just think, "Oh, it's probably all fine, everything's going to --" you know, the sense of pragmatism and the kind of big-picture-ness that comes from that, the perspective that comes from that, even as someone who, like you say, that wouldn't be my first go-to, I don't think I would have got through that period of time without those hugs.

Amelia Nagoski: That's exactly right.  And it might feel like a cognitive, philosophical change, but what's really happening is a very deep physiological bodily shift from a state of the sympathetic nervous system, fight or flight, into the ventral vagal state of ventral connection to other people.  And you can't enter that state unless you feel safe.  So, it feels like, "Oh, it's probably going to be fine" and your thoughts change, but those thoughts changing is actually a result of a much deeper bodily change.

Sarah Ellis: And one of the things that you acknowledge, which I think will feel familiar for lots of people, is that it's hard to rest.  Because it sounds rewarding, who wouldn't want to rest?  And that feels like something that probably objectively and rationally, if we were to think about it, we'd go, of course it's a good thing, but actually what it feels like for lots of people is self-indulgent or it makes us feel guilty; people would feel guilty about resting and doing some of the things that we've just described.  So, if someone is listening and they just do find it really difficult to do these things, what have you seen work well to get people started?  I was thinking, oh, is it helpful for teams to do some of these things together?  Because then the kind of group dynamic maybe of some of it.  Or if people start sharing what they're doing, maybe it becomes more acceptable.

Amelia Nagoski: That is the only way that it happens.  When one individual person says, "All right, to hell with what everyone else says, I'm going to get nine hours of sleep tonight because it's good for me and I need it".  And then you start to feel great because you're getting your nine hours of sleep.  But at the same time, you're getting text messages from people at work, like, "How come you're not awake yet?  How come you're not answering your texts yet?"  And there's this pressure from the outside that tells you, you should not be taking this time for yourself.  And if you are in a workplace and you have a team where you can just decide, "Look, these are our working hours, these are our non-working hours, and we don't intrude.  When someone goes on vacation, this is how we split up the work so that nobody is stuck doing all of the things", and you create a space where it is okay for people to rest, where nobody has to feel guilty.  Having a group of people, that's the only way you stand against the wider pressure.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, that feels very smart.  And I also like the flexibility of that.  So, that could be your direct team, that could be kind of a cross-functional group in your organisation, where you come together because you're interested in learning and self-development, that could be a network that you have outside of work.  I can see that working in lots of different ways.  Thank you so much for joining us on the Squiggly Careers podcast.  Like I said, I've been really thinking about that stress cycle ever since I read the book, and I'm sure lots of our listeners now will be going through that process in their minds and figuring out what works for them.

Amelia Nagoski: Thank you so much.

Sarah Ellis: Hi, it's Sarah again.  I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Amelia and found it helpful, and it's made you reflect, as it did me, on what it looks like to complete your stress cycle.  Maybe if you're listening to this in January 2025, what is one thing that you could commit to that you know now, having listened to the conversation, will just stop burnout creeping up on you?  Hopefully, you're now in a better position to spot the signs and the signals, and also to do the same for other people too.  But that's everything for now.  Thank you so much for listening, and we'll back with you with another episode of the Videobook Club next week, and another expert insight too.