Hola y bienvenidos to the One Small Bite show!
Burnout in men is a chronic problem, and the worst part is how it hides beneath the surface of masculine norms. In this episode, I bring on to the show my amazing dietetic intern Laney Jones to uproot the various culprits that lead to burnout in men, how they show up in men's mental and physical health, and of course the One Small Bite that leads to a more nourished life.
You won't want to miss this in depth analysis of the effects of burnout, and the one small mindful solution one client took that changed his health.
The fun stuff in this episode...
- Hear about Allen's story and his challenges with burnout
- Understand what burnout really is and means
- Learn about the three main culprits of burnout in men
- What the evidence shows and doesn't about burnout in men
- Find out what the opposite of burnout is a how it's important
- One small mindful solution that helped Allen, and can help you
Where do I go from here?
For all the details and more about this episode, feel free to visit my website.
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Chop the diet mentality; Fuel Your Body; and Nourish Your Soul!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
David (00:05):
Hola y beinvenido to the one small bites show where we
chopped diet mentality, fuelyour body and nourish your soul.
In every episode, you'll get aone small bite approach you can
implement to live a morenourished life.
This show is for educational andinformational purposes only.
So please make sure to connectwith the professional support.
(00:25):
You need at your own discretion.
Oh, and we don't bleep out cursewords.
So just a heads up in caseyou're with little ones.
Okay.
Let's do this.
Hola, welcome to the one smallbite show.
(00:46):
I'm your host, David Orozcoregistered dietitian
nutritionist, certifiedintuitive eating counselor.
And, my practice is OrozcoNutrition.
Go check it out.
OrozcoNutrition.com.
And today I've got a fantasticshow for you.
I am interviewing my internLaney Jones.
She is an intern at Morrisonshealthcare, and Laney is going
(01:08):
to talk to us about unmasking,the culprits of mail burnout.
And folks one small solutionthat will definitely help.
Just to give you a broadoverview, we're going to talk
about the three components thatreally contribute to burnout.
They include emotionalexhaustion, depersonalization.
Personal achievement.
(01:30):
And we'll also talk about theopposite of burnout, which is
engagement, listen in, so youcan understand what that's
about.
And also, I just want to let youknow, w we like always, we'll
bring you one small bitesolution.
That'll help you unravel theburnout problems in our lives.
Okay, well, with that all said,let's get the show on the road.
(01:52):
Let's go to the interview.
Hey, everybody.
I am really excited.
I have Laney Jones, the amazingMorrison intern, and you'll hear
what that all means in just aminute.
So, Laney, how are you?
I'm great.
How are you, David?
I'm doing great.
Thank you so much.
Yeah,
Laney (02:13):
I'm so excited to
David (02:13):
be here.
Yeah, I'm so excited to have youon.
This is so cool.
Laney (02:17):
you said I'm a dietetic intern with Morrison Healthcare.
So that means I'm on my laststep before becoming a
dietitian.
And so I'm here rotating rightnow with Orozco Nutrition for my
outpatient rotation.
So learning all the ins and outsof, of You know what he, what
you do every day and gettingthat experience.
And so in about two weeks, I'llbe able to possibly soon call
(02:41):
myself a dietitian.
So very exciting.
David (02:44):
You're discovering that I don't do much in my own
practice, huh?
Laney (02:48):
No, I can say that this has probably been the most
exhausting two weeks.
So I'm excited for my futurehere.
David (02:56):
So yeah, most of my interns are with me for two
weeks.
And one of the things that I dois I grill them to, no, I don't,
yes.
So Laney, the first week you gotto do what with me, do you
remember?
Laney (03:09):
So the first week I was shadowing, so I was attending
sessions and getting to see theprocess of what we call
motivational interviewing andthe process of helping patients
in a long term way and in asustainable and productive way.
So I got to watch you do allthose things and I got to see
kind of the back end ofInsurance and all that stuff.
(03:32):
I
David (03:32):
should have prompted you to say to see all the magic you
create.
Laney (03:36):
You're right.
You're right.
Okay.
I got to see for the first weekall the incredible magic that is
the partnership between thedietician and the client.
The absolute.
Stroke it.
Yep.
David (03:51):
Stroke it.
It's like I tell my wife.
Stroke my ego.
Come on.
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
All right.
So speaking of which, what arewe talking about today?
Laney (03:59):
So today we're going to be doing a presentation on how
to navigate burnout and whatthat means in men.
David (04:06):
And so for background thank you, Laney.
I asked Laney to do someresearch on a specific topic.
And as many of you know, I do alot of work with men, of course,
especially men in midlife.
Now I have a variety of clients,but that is my specialty area
(04:26):
and I wanted her to look intothe research behind burnout,
especially in men.
And I said to her, Hey, whydon't you do this?
And as part of her competenciesfor this rotation, one of the
things she has to do is presentit to an audience now.
I luckily have an audience, anamazing audience, an amazing
(04:49):
audience, of course.
And so I said, Hey, why don'tyou come on my podcast?
And why don't we present this toour audience?
Cause this is really what peopleneed to know.
Let's get started.
Laney (04:59):
I'm going to start with setting up kind of a a client, a
potential client with you.
His name is Mr.
Allen.
He has a pretty typical job.
He works as a manager at awarehouse in Atlanta, but he
lives outside of Atlanta.
He's got a commute.
He's married with two childrenand we're seeing him because he
has some elevated glucoselevels, some elevated
(05:21):
cholesterol, high bloodpressure, those kinds of things.
His doctor's a little concernedabout his overall health.
condition and is consideringstarting a statin, considering
weight loss for him and throughour interview with Mr.
Allen, we find he is describinghis life a lot as feeling really
dull.
(05:41):
Very lonely.
He's not feeling connected withhis family.
He's feeling really quick toanger.
Like he doesn't have a lot ofcontrol over his emotions.
And he's He's also rarelyfeeling satisfied after meals.
He's finding himself snacking alot.
He's finding himself, you know,he finishes a meal and it's like
it never happened and he's, hewants, he wants that to change.
(06:02):
So he comes to us, he's talkingto us and we go through what
maybe a day in the life mightlook like for him.
And so you can see he wakes uppretty early, 6am and he
immediately is on his phone.
He drives to work, he eats hisfood.
His breakfast in the car andthen he works, you know, eight
to five in his office, doorclosed.
(06:22):
He's eating lunch in there, he'seating snacks in there, and he's
having all of his meetings inthere.
Very little interaction with theoffice.
He gets home.
And he has to feed his kids.
He puts his kids to bed.
And then maybe him and hispartner have dinner and watch
TV, scroll on their phones andhave more snacks.
So from a kind of a nutritionperspective, a dietitian
(06:44):
perspective, we're looking atthis and we're saying, what is
going on?
What is happening with Mr.
Allen that is making him feeldull, that's not leaving him
satisfied from his meals?
What, what could be possiblygoing on there?
And the answer is...
He could possibly beexperiencing burnout.
And I know prior to reallydelving into this research, I
(07:05):
had a kind of basic idea of whatburnout is, how it's discussed
but not a, not a real solidunderstanding of what it is or
how to identify it.
And so basically what burnoutis, is it's a psychological
syndrome that's in response toprolonged exposure to job
stress.
And so when we talk aboutburnout, this is in the context
(07:26):
of working.
So we're thinking of workingindividuals, like David said,
our target population, thismiddle aged group of people,
specifically men.
And really there's threerecognized components that
really contribute to burnoutdevelopment over time.
And these are emotionalexhaustion, depersonalization,
and personal achievement.
(07:47):
And these all play into eachother, but are succinct,
separate components to thisdevelopment.
And so emotional exhaustion iskind of how it sounds.
It's wearing out, it's feelingloss of energy, fatigue,
irritability those kinds ofthings.
And then depersonalization isAlso called cynicism in the
(08:08):
literature, and it's aboutwithdrawing from working, from
emotions, from community, andhaving more of a negative
attitude towards work, towardspatients, clients.
projects, anything like that.
And then personal achievement isthat feeling of satisfaction
through work, the feeling thatyou're being productive and also
(08:31):
the ability to cope withfailure.
And so these are all affected byburnout in different ways.
And one of the things thatreally came up is this
discussion around kind of how isengagement involved in burnout?
Is it the opposite or are theyseparate?
Ideas.
And what really came out is thatengagement is the opposite of
(08:53):
burnout.
Like you might think I'm burntout.
I'm feeling exhausted.
Let me remove the stress.
Let me remove myself from workmore.
Let me undo any of theconnections I have and make
myself a clean slate.
But that's really not what itis.
What they're looking at isactually engaging with the
stress engaging with work iswhere burnout starts to have a
(09:16):
little bit of, of success withwith helping with this.
So how is burnout developing?
Where is that coming from?
And the literature, this, thisimage that you might see on the
screen, it's a, it's a overviewof three theoretical models
about burnout.
And it's really justdemonstrating that there are
(09:36):
different ways that burnout candevelop.
Especially that this, thisarticle that was titled
development of burnout over timein causal order of these three
dimensions among male and femaleGPs.
So it was looking at doctors andthe development really had a
gendered aspect to it.
It had.
What they found is that thisdepersonalization was kind of
(09:59):
the trigger most frequently formen in this study.
So they're looking at thisGolembiewski et al.
kind of model wheredepersonalization leads to
decreased Personal achievementleading to increased emotional
exhaustion, that that is kind ofthe typical pathway for men.
Although that doesn't meanthat's always the way,
(10:20):
obviously, but it tends towardsdepersonalization being the
trigger for burnout.
And what they see is this islike a coping mechanism.
This is what they call amaladaptive coping mechanism,
which means it's a Kind of aninefficient or ineffectual
coping mechanism in response towork stress.
David (10:41):
when you were saying this, it reminded me of when I
had a guest on my podcast, Ithink it was last year, Dr.
Ronald Levant, and he wrote theideas of the hyper masculinity.
And we talked a little bit ofsome of these Yeah.
situations like Alexithymia.
Alexithymia is a conditionespecially common in men or
(11:06):
people who identify as male.
And what he says is thatAlexithymia is the inability or
the difficulty of bothunderstanding or recognizing
your emotions.
And so if you think about littlekids and the way little boys or
again, people who are genderspecific about identifying as
(11:29):
male, they are raised with thisidea of sayings like, Oh, if it
ain't broke.
You're okay.
Or if it's not bleeding, don'tcry or don't be a sissy.
Don't be a pussy.
Get a backbone shit like that.
It says it happens quite often.
And so I see this as a way ofpeople of men or people who
(11:54):
identify as male retreating.
Absolutely.
From their emotions and thenretreating from individuals.
So I have a question for you.
Absolutely.
How does depersonalizationfunction as a coping mechanism
then?
And in relation to Mr.
Allen, how is this affectinghim?
Laney (12:10):
Yeah.
So absolutely, exactly as you'resaying.
So what we kind of said isdepersonalization, you can kind
of think it as detachment.
And that's exactly what you'resaying.
A lot of.
Like the theory of genderedsocialization is kind of a
similar topic as like you'resaying in that we tend to
socialize men or boys or peoplethat we identify as men or boys
(12:33):
in this importance ofassertiveness and independence
and.
We deny them the vulnerability,the openness of expressing
emotions in that way.
And so depersonalization and thewithdrawal from work
environments can act as like awall to prevent Having to engage
(12:57):
in those emotions which as wecan see further is just going to
make those emotions moreexhausted, but it might feel
like you're protecting yourselffrom having to feel those
emotions.
And for Mr.
Allen, this is looking like.
He's not engaging at work.
He's not talking to peopleoutside of, you know, his
meetings.
(13:17):
He's keeping his door closed.
He's coming home and he's, he'son his phone.
He's withdrawing frominteracting with people.
He's, he's lessening his, the,the need for him to feel maybe
the stress that he'sexperiencing because he's not
coming face to face with it.
And so that's kind of how Mr.
Allen might be dealing with thisdepersonalization.
(13:40):
And, and how it's manifesting inhis routine, Yeah.
So just that vulnerabilityportion.
That's really what we want tokind of a thread.
We want to follow through onthis whole presentation that
vulnerability is, is a, is abig, you know, theme throughout
the burnout.
So just looking forward at kindof what, now that we kind of
(14:03):
understand what burnout is andhow it develops.
What does it do?
And we talked aboutdepersonalization a lot, so the
emotional exhaustion part of itis also a factor for men,
although it may not be thetrigger.
And so this study, specificallycalled Work Stress and Coronary
Heart Disease; Looking at theMechanisms this used data from a
(14:24):
study called the Whitehall 2study.
That was a 20 year long studyover multiple phases that was
looking at 10, over 10, 000 menand women in the UK that were
aged 35 to 55 in the firstphase.
So they aged with them 20 yearsand saw how heart disease
developed over time.
(14:45):
And what they found is that.
The mechanism between theconnection of burnout slash work
stress and heart conditions orother health conditions possibly
is this Over activation ofwhat's called the HBA axis or
the hypothalamic pituitaryadrenal axis, lots of words, but
(15:06):
boils down to this connectionbetween our central nervous
system and our endocrine system.
And the endocrine system is incharge of hormones.
So basically what this is, isthe connection that leads to the
release of hormones.
David (15:22):
Yeah, I've actually talked a lot about the HPA axis
and I actually repeat it quiteoften.
So when I saw that you had this,this study, I was like, Holy
cow.
Yes.
Yeah.
Laney (15:33):
This was in most studies about this.
So I think that that reallydraws to the importance of kind
of recognizing that a lot of thestress is physiological.
It is not emotional.
It is, I mean, a lot of it is,but it's a lot of the emotions.
Physical reaction, things wecan't really control, right?
So we can't control really howour HPA axis is, is existing.
(15:57):
We can control our stress, butour body's reaction to it is not
really under our control.
And so this, in addition to theANS, which is the autonomic
nervous system.
If these are, are activatedconstantly and chronically
through this work stress, whatthey find is that these actually
become exhausted and stopfunctioning appropriately.
(16:18):
And so what we can seespecifically from this is
disturbances in our circadianrhythm and disturbances in our
cortisol level.
And I mean, I'm sure you'vetalked about cortisol as well,
but Just a quick refresh.
It is our, like, stress hormonethat obviously is released
(16:38):
following stress.
It's the fight or flight and itcan put a lot, when it's in
really high levels or really lowlevels, it can really affect our
body's ability to stay healthy,to handle everything that's
being thrown at it thrown at it.
And our circadian rhythms also Iknow when I think of it, I
usually just think of sleep, butwe have circadian rhythms for
(17:01):
everything.
It's just our physical,behavioral, and emotional
changes that happen over 24hours.
And so affecting those is notjust affecting, you know, the
six to eight hours you'resleeping.
You affect your circadianrhythm, you're affecting your
whole day.
So this is just showing ordemonstrating that stress has a
major Impact on our health, andit's something we really need to
(17:23):
be considering in looking at andwhat this can do specifically to
nutrition is what they see islike this high level of work
stress is correlated withdecreased fruit and vegetable
intake, increased high fat foodintake, decreased physical
activity, and Possibly, there'sa little bit of debate about
(17:45):
this one, but significantelevation in morning rises in
cortisol.
And so if you can think about,like, you're initially feeling
stressed, your cortisol levelsare rising immediately upon
waking.
And that's just gonna throw offyour, your flow throughout the
day, right?
Like, That is going to highlevels of stress in the morning.
You might not, you might notwake up and feel immediately
(18:07):
exhausted.
You know, you might wake up andfeel immediately nervous,
anxious, not excited for theday.
Lots of effects.
David (18:18):
Yeah, it's really interesting that you're talking
about this again, because justthe previous episode to this, I
actually talk about the rhythmof eating and the effects on the
circadian rhythm.
And what you're talking abouthere is when we end up waking up
too early in the morning anddon't go back to sleep, we don't
realize that.
Cortisol levels are highest inthe morning to begin with.
(18:40):
Mm-Hmm, And so if we're havingthis constant or chronic strain
on our HPA axis, on ourautonomic nervous system, on our
bodies in general, what we endup doing is we have a hormone
that's stimulating the releaseof glucose when the body is
needing to relax and, and thesimulation of glucose is a phase
(19:01):
in the sleep cycle that.
Ends the sleep cycle.
And so therefore, when there'sglucose in the blood, it
stimulates us to be ready to beprepared for something
dangerous, right?
Is it goes back to our primalDNA, our primal response to a
threat or danger.
And so we still have that in ourbodies to this day.
(19:23):
So I love that you're bringingthis in.
And I think it's really smart totalk a lot about this, but
anyway, go on.
This is your show.
Laney (19:31):
No, but I love that point.
Like, we are built to reactquickly to stressors.
We're built to react quickly todangers.
And obviously, the dangers we'refacing today look differently.
And so we might, you know, belike, Oh gosh, why can't I
handle this?
Yeah.
Perfect.
And because our bodies arereacting like they're
biologically supposed to, it'sactivating the same thing.
(19:54):
So we have to treat it the sameway.
It's dangerous.
David (19:57):
Right.
Right.
Well, you know, what'sinteresting is that I read a
book by Dr.
Anna Lembke.
She is a professor ofpsychiatry.
And so she's a physician andprofessor at Stanford
university.
And one of the things that shetalks about is This idea of
running away with the chronicdemons of dopamine.
(20:18):
So when you have these highlevels of dopamine, which is in
response to an incredible amountof stimuli that's in our
environment, our bodies were notdesigned to have this level of
stimuli.
We got smartphones, access toinformation notifications,
emails.
We're so.
Open and on all the time thatour bodies are just getting
(20:40):
dumped enormous amounts ofdopamine and to come off of the
high, we get those gremlinsthat's called the withdrawal.
So again, something else that'simportant to take into
consideration in today'spresentation because withdrawal
is closely tied into the burnoutphenomenon
Laney (20:57):
here.
Absolutely.
And that emotional withdrawaltoo.
I mean, we're withdrawingeverything stress less likely to
connect.
And so that's something we'reactually going to talk about a
little more, so I'm excited thatyou're, you're introducing that
now, but on the same topic ofthis study, I just want to look
at some of the reasons why weneed to take our research with a
(21:18):
little bit of a grain of, ofsalt, because a lot of this
specific study was a crosssectional analysis, So it looked
at points of time in their dataand utilizing this data from
another study.
So they really didn't have a lotof control over looking at
specifics other than what theoriginal scientists collected.
(21:41):
So there's a little bit ofdifficulty there with
controlling for confoundingvariables for like diet, because
there's lots of things thataffect diet and it's hard to
control for all of them.
Additionally, this was a.
Self reported mail inquestionnaire they used and so
there's a lot of room for likebias and a lot of room for self
(22:01):
selection into or out of thisstudy and so that can affect the
results.
Additionally, As I stated, thiswas a phased study and they only
did a clinical evaluation ofthese, of these individuals at
phases 3, 5, and 7.
And so they only collected thedata about heart rate and blood
pressure and cortisol levels atthese distinct phases.
(22:25):
So it's not a
David (22:27):
and what were the phases?
Were they three years?
Five years?
Is that what that means?
They were
Laney (22:31):
all dependent.
It was, it was really like twoyears and then like a couple of
years in between the phasesstarting in 85 or 88 and ending
in 2005 or 2008.
Okay.
I think it was the eight.
So over 20 years, okay.
Every couple of years but notthey obviously they didn't take
(22:51):
the same data at every,
David (22:53):
Oh, that's interesting.
That's a big limitation.
Laney (22:55):
It's a huge limitation because there's and like you see
three, five and seven, therewere nine total phases.
So there were a lot where theymissed that amount of data.
So this is, that's justsomething to absolutely keep in,
keep in mind as well.
And they, they assess theirhealth behaviors on a binary.
You either do these things oryou don't do these things.
And, and that is a, that is alimitation as well, because we
(23:16):
know health behaviors.
are not existent on a binary.
Just because you do somethingonce doesn't mean you do it all
the time, but you've done itonce, so you no longer don't do
it.
So that's difficulty as well.
And then it's not exclusively inmen.
There were women included, likeI said, 10, 000 men and women.
And it was in the UK.
So, some serious limitationshere as well, but it's important
(23:40):
to give ourselves a little bitof context of the, you know, the
research that's happening.
But this
David (23:46):
gives us a good context, a good level of understanding of
where more research is neededand what more we can do, right?
Laney (23:53):
100%.
And that's one thing I'll sayabout this.
There is very, there is almostno data on burnout in U.
S.
men specifically.
A lot of it is kind ofinterpreted from other studies
that were about stress.
And maybe not necessarily aboutburnout specifically, lots of
times obviously women areincluded in these studies and
(24:15):
things like that.
And so we just have to thinkabout, you know, how cultures
may differ, how genderedresponses may differ how
socialization affects thesethings.
So that's just something tothink about when you're looking
at data from research
David (24:28):
papers.
Laney (24:28):
Looking at health consequences of burnout.
So other than heart disease,what do we see?
Well this study, we, it was asystematic review of 61
prospective epidemiologicalstudies.
So this means looking forwardand looking at disease
development.
And they found that burnout is arisk factor for sleep disorders,
(24:48):
including insomnia, depression,depression Musculoskeletal pain
like neck pain, back pain kneepain, things like that, type 2
diabetes high LDL levels, andlow HDL cholesterol levels and
then also what I found reallyinteresting about this, this
particular paper is that theytalked about absenteeism and
(25:09):
sick leave, and how burnout Iscorrelated with an increased
risk of not going to work goingto work and being sick called
presenteeism, and thenincreasing in sick leave.
And you can see how all three ofthese, these would affect your
ability to be efficient andeffective at work.
And lead into that personalsatisfaction side of things.
David (25:31):
Yeah, especially, especially that presenteeism
where people aren't takingtheir...
paid time off.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
That's, that's a condition I seewith not just men, but with all
clients that I work with, ormost clients that I work with,
they got weeks of vacation thatthey just don't end up using.
And there is, there's also anexpectation of what they should
(25:53):
or how they should be working.
It's almost as if they'reexpected to give up that part
time or that.
Paid time off in order, in orderto be more productive and to
kind of almost be like everybodyelse.
I call it the new keeping upwith the Elon Musks.
Meaning instead of keeping upwith the Joneses, it's keeping
(26:14):
up with working 80 hour weeks or100 hour weeks.
And we just don't have the timein the week to do
Laney (26:20):
all that.
No, and we don't have theemotional bandwidth either that,
you know, that plays into theburnout absolutely plays into
the burnout and the burnoutplays into it, vicious cycle.
And so what this study is reallylooking at is, is exactly that
identifying those risks, thosesymptoms, those feelings of
like, I must go to work, but Ireally don't want to.
(26:41):
And then how to.
intervene early so that we'renot getting to the point where
they have insomnia, they haveneck pain, they have diabetes,
they are uncomfortable and theyhate their job.
Really can snowball.
And so again, just looking atkind of scrutinizing this paper,
I am not criticizing youscientists, but that's okay.
(27:06):
This paper was not on menspecifically, although a lot of
them were men.
It was majority in Nordiccountries, so culturally
different.
The timeframe was shorter, hardto see that development.
Of these diseases in a shortperiod of time.
And then because it is asystematic review of different
papers across the papers.
(27:26):
The criteria for participantswas different.
The number of participants wasdifferent in the measurement
techniques were different.
And although they control forthese, for the most part, when
they're analyzing their datathey can still have some effects
on how that data is interpretedand analyzed.
So I do think the study is, isextremely relevant to the
(27:48):
development of these diseases.
So we just want to look at likecommunity and food choices and
how those are influenced byloneliness and burnout in
general.
And this study was a scopingreview of 29 studies.
I mean, what it showed was up to24 percent.
of U.
S.
Adults report feeling lonely,and that is a huge proportion of
(28:10):
adults that are reporting thisloneliness feeling.
So this is something we reallyneed to approach, and we really
need to think about and talkabout.
And especially because they findthat this loneliness is
associated With lowercardiovascular health and mental
health.
So kind of going back to how notonly loneliness and emotional
exhaustion both play into thisdecrease in, in overall health.
(28:34):
And it also talked about howthere are many determinants to
food choices, including likeyour social pressure and
emotional stressors, like we'vebeen talking about.
So approaching food choices frommy.
Comprehensive view is soimportant because there are so
many things that affect it.
But one thing that can affect itin a positive way is community.
(28:56):
Eating together has benefits tothe nutrient content and the
food choices people make.
When you eat with people, youmay tend to have higher
diversity in your food choices,meaning more fruits and
vegetables, different...
Types of food cultures of food,things like that.
And also these people have ahigher probability of eating
three meals.
And this goes back to kind ofwhat you're talking about that
(29:17):
eating pattern that that rhythmthat you have and helping
establish that rhythm and howcommunity can affect that and
that it's bi directional.
So that's one of the big thingsI wanted to pull out of this,
that it's not just loneliness orlack of community affecting
eating.
It's eating also can affect it.
(29:38):
Your experience community, yoursocialization.
Exactly.
So you can address it and itwill work in this cycle, right?
Like, it's not a one way street.
And that's awesome.
I think that's really helpful toremember.
And again, in this study.
Women were included often in themajority, so that's something to
really consider.
(29:58):
UK based, and again, theparticipant numbers were
smaller, and there wasn't asmuch long term data used, so
just consider that.
Yeah, but
David (30:07):
And I just want to circle back to that depersonalization
that I think was so critical atthe very beginning that Mr.
Allen too was also feeling.
And that is that That ties intothe alexithymia, which is the
inability or the difficultyunderstanding or recognizing
your emotions.
And therefore, when there arethese exasperations in your
(30:28):
mental health or your physicalhealth, I mean, it's just time
after time after doing it overand over and over again.
And this chronic condition iswhat leads to this burnout.
And that burnout is so tiedinto.
All of those hormonalfluctuations that occur at both
the physiological level and thenthat emotional burnout as well.
(30:48):
So tying it all together, I lovewhat you're doing here,
especially talking about theimportance of community.
So
Laney (30:53):
you can really see how it's a draw picture.
Our lives are not happening inisolation.
There are so many things beingthrown at us and that's
something we all need to thinkabout.
But I'm the same in the samevein as that.
Kind of the same vein.
The data from the UK shows thatmen, and also in the US, but
(31:14):
this specifically was in the UK,men have lower health literacy
when compared to women.
And so what health literacy is,is the ability to really find,
understand, and utilize healthinformation.
And so what they're finding isthat men are twice as likely as
women to have inadequate healthliteracy.
So an inadequate understandingof how to, how medicine.
(31:37):
how their medicines work, whenthey need help, and all of those
kinds of things that play intomedical care.
And women, you know, are, areshown to attend their primary
care physicians at rates twiceas often as men.
So you can see how that canaffect these, this early
intervention that I'm talkingabout earlier.
If we're not seeking help, we'renot able to get help.
(31:58):
And, and men are, are typically,are often delaying seeking help
until they meet this higherthreshold of pain.
Of discomfort, of unhappiness,exactly.
I mean, I'm just guilty, just asguilty.
Yeah, so I think that this allreally comes to this kind of
masculinity we were kind ofdiscussing earlier.
(32:18):
This idea of preservingmasculinity and avoiding the
feminine considered topics.
And health is one of those.
Again, there's that perceivedthreshold, the downplaying of
symptoms because concern foryour health can be seen as a
feminine characteristic.
In a lot of cultures and in alot of men.
And so this kind of.
It is, again, with thatdepersonalization, that avoiding
(32:41):
openness, that maintenance ofcontrol and of stoicism that's
preventing this help seekingbehavior in men.
And, and just to kind ofreinforce this idea of the
importance of community in the,in Culture and in men in
general.
And there's this amazingassociation called the
Australian Men's ShedAssociation.
(33:02):
It's an international acrossmultiple countries.
And it's This tagline is thatmen don't talk face to face,
they talk shoulder to shoulder.
And what they utilize, is thisidea of men working on things
together and talking whilethey're doing that.
This problem focused approach tocommunity, this this side by
side working forward versuslooking at each other working
(33:24):
together.
And so I think that that kind ofjust demonstrates the difference
in approach we need to be takingwith this community forming.
We need to be with Looking atways to make this as accessible
as possible, as easy as, as,yeah, as easy as possible for
men to form these communities.
And that's to look at how do we,how do we add in these times
where they can be shoulder toshoulder, right?
David (33:45):
So how can low health literacy be addressed then?
Laney (33:50):
Yeah.
So, I mean, it's a very complexidea and an issue.
But the first step.
That everyone kind of recommendsis this idea of being your own
advocate, asking questions andlistening to the professionals
Being a participant in yourhealth care, right?
And not sitting back.
(34:10):
Like participating, being partof it is the first step.
And in that way, you can startgathering the knowledge.
That's how knowledge isgathered, right?
Asking questions and listening.
So that's the first step.
Go to your, go to your doctor.
David (34:24):
Awesome.
Well, I do want to add that oneof the ways that I think I help
with that health literacy is.
in a lot of the things that I doin my life, one of the things
that I notice is that thismasculinity, this role that I'm
trying to fill, it does createthat isolation in my life.
It creates greater lonelinessand it gets harder and harder
(34:44):
and harder as we age, especiallyfor us men to cultivate
relationships.
So I made it a point to have abiking group.
My friend and I decided to setup a biking group.
And we have now 12 guys thatbike with us.
And every Sunday, we ask, Hey,who's going on a ride?
Who's going on a ride?
And what happens is so fun.
(35:06):
When we're riding and we're notthese, you know, super spandex
cat one type cyclists that do 20miles an hour of the Tour de
France kind of style.
I'm talking about, we're aragtag group of guys that wear
whatever we want on bikes thatwe pick up off the street kind
of thing.
But.
Putting that aside, we havethese great conversations when
we're riding, and then we stopfor coffee or something to eat
(35:28):
after our ride, and we're justshooting the breeze and having a
good time, and we've gone out onthese dates, these guy nights
where we all hang out atrestaurants, we've done plays,
we've gone to each other'shouses, we've had these great
Guy nights of the neighborhoodkind of thing happening.
So it's really turned into thisincredible camaraderie.
(35:51):
We even have these events wherewe go up to the mountains and a
friend of ours has a mountainhouse and we've done a guy's
weekend with this big hike.
It was really, it's been reallyfantastic.
So I just wanted to add thatthat is probably another way of
not only getting at the healthliteracy, but also getting at a
lot of the other problems too,because a lot of times We can
say to the guys, Hey, you know,you should definitely see a
(36:12):
doctor about that, man.
Don't, don't be afraid.
And that vulnerability is big.
That's community sharing
Laney (36:18):
of information.
Yeah.
That's
David (36:19):
the shoulder to
Laney (36:19):
shoulder stuff, right?
I was just about to say, andyou're, and I mean, it went past
shoulder to shoulder.
You guys were getting dinner.
You guys are sitting face toface, continuing that
conversation, but it was ignitedby utilizing this idea.
So yeah, awesome.
But like onto the like, weunderstand what burnout is and
kind of what it does.
What can we do?
What's the positive side ofthis?
(36:41):
Right?
And the positive side is thatthere's a lot of avenues that we
can explore to help.
Nutrition strategies.
Specifically this comes from apaper on nutrition strategies
for reducing risk of burnout inphysicians again.
So another idea is that this isspecifically for physicians, but
does not mean that it can onlybe applied to physicians.
(37:01):
And so what this study found isthat individuals that included
more fruits and vegetables intheir diet had lower risk of
burnout.
Individuals that had adequateprotein intakes, specifically of
certain amino acids that areinvolved in sleep like ornithine
and tyrosine, that are involvedin, in the, the production of
(37:22):
sleep hormones, and then alsoadding complex carbohydrates
into your diet when you can.
And this was specificallytalking about how that can help
feed the gut microbiome, andplay a part in the brain gut
axis affecting mental health.
So, diet and mental health,again, coming back into the,
into the picture.
On the lifestyle side of things,I mean, this is so ambiguous,
(37:46):
but getting adequate sleep,whatever that means for people
David (37:49):
well, I did, I did talk about adequate sleep in the last
episode and I've had varioussleep specialists and experts on
my show, but I keep talking alot about sleep because you
can't have enough conversationabout this.
So
Laney (38:02):
don't worry about it.
Exactly again, because it's socomplex.
So involved, so many thingsinvolved in adequate sleep.
So that's what I'm saying.
Blow ambiguous, but and thenalso the importance of
nutrition, education andnutrition counseling, seeing
people like you, like us, like,yeah, my gosh.
Right.
Like and, and getting that.
(38:23):
Increased health literacy there,that education, that help, that
community, that counseling.
And then the third one that thisone kind of talked about mostly
is mindful eating and what thatis.
So just a quick look into whatit is.
It is about making consciouschoices when you're eating.
Feeling aware of hunger cues andfullness cues.
(38:43):
And through that, cultivatingawareness to internal, external
triggers to hunger and fullness.
So internal meaning like,feeling hungry feeling angry,
things like that.
And external triggers that mightbe like, an emotion, or maybe
your schedule, or things likethat.
Being aware of all of thesethings that play into our eating
(39:06):
and then noting the physical oremotional responses that comes
from those foods.
If you note it, you're aware ofit, you might, you know, choose
foods that make you feel moreenergetic.
You might choose foods that makeyou feel happy.
And that's intentional andthat's what we're looking for.
And what does it do?
Well, it can increase theability to relax.
When distressed, not only justin eating feeding situations,
(39:28):
but in regular life as well andhelp prevent automatic or
emotional eating through beingpresent.
That is the biggest thing is, iseliminating distractions to the
best of your ability whileeating the ability to focus,
which is a difficult one.
I will not lie.
David (39:49):
So I got a question.
Can you go into how mindfuleating may be beneficial during
depersonalization?
Laney (39:55):
Yeah.
So one of the things that we'vebeen talking about throughout is
that depersonalization as thisremoval, this withdrawal from
existing as part of a community.
And mindful eating in and ofitself maybe isn't exactly
supportive of re involvementinto community, but what it can
do is re involve you in personalemotions, re involve you in how
(40:18):
your body is feeling, and allowyou to then notice outside of
yourself.
Because if you can't noticewhat's happening here, it is
going to be way harder to noticewhat is happening with other
people.
So it's a really good way, afirst step, into realigning with
your emotions.
Re engaging.
David (40:38):
Very good.
I, I also want to say that it'sthis idea of mindful eating is
being present.
It's the ability tointerceptively aware and then be
aware and that's very, verybeneficial.
And I, I just want to tie it inagain to the last episode that I
did about sleep and what we cando and their circadian rhythm,
(40:58):
I'm sorry, and eating rhythm andwhat we can do.
And that is the ability to slowdown the importance of slowing
down and how.
Taking time for yourself, givingyourself that me time back, and
therefore giving thatopportunity for you to be
mindful with your eating.
So I'm glad that you're sayingthis.
Go on.
100%.
Laney (41:19):
We're going to look right into that, because we're going
to go ahead and go back and talkabout our Mr.
Allen, if we can all...
Pulling back up in our brain,and he went through a version of
what we just talked about, andhe said yes, I love this idea of
mindful eating, I feel like Ican apply that in my life, I'm
excited about applying that inmy life, and we say where,
where's the easiest for you?
(41:39):
What is going to be the best?
For you.
And he says, I'm going to try itat lunch and he devises this
plan that he's going to turn hisphone and computer off and he's
going to open his office door.
That is it.
While he eats his lunch.
Okay.
Yeah.
So he's going to eat his lunchwithout technology and with his
door open.
And what he's finding after him,you know, including this in his
(42:01):
day, he is feeling way moresatisfied after his meals.
He is eating every bite of thatand he is noticing every bite of
his meal.
He's tasting the food, which hewasn't before.
So he finds himself snackingless because he's feeling
satisfied.
David (42:16):
I like that.
He's savoring.
Laney (42:18):
Exactly.
He's feeling he's actuallyinvolved in the process of
eating.
It is not an automatic part ofhis life that just he has to get
through, right?
It's exciting.
It's fun.
And, and in this way, he's ableto start talking to coworkers
during lunch, which he never didbefore.
This allowed him to start beinginvolved in more of these after
work events, building acommunity through one small
(42:39):
thing.
He did interesting.
Right?
And so he says, I love how thisis working.
I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do this more of myday.
I think I can apply thiselsewhere.
And so he decides to, and thisis in molar meetings with us.
And so he devises this newroutine where he, you know, he's
going to eat his breakfast withhis partner.
(42:59):
They're going to eat together.
They're going to sit down, eveninvolving the children in this.
And that's great for the kids.
He's going to add a snack, anintentional snack where he takes
a break from his work for threeto five minutes.
It's a granola bar, eatswhatever he wants, right?
And then he's gonna have dinnerwith his partner and they're
still gonna have their snack,but they're going to do it
(43:20):
intentionally.
They're going to do itmindfully.
They're going to turn the TV offand eat and talk about what
they're feeling.
Right.
And so that's going to helpdevelop more of an emotional
connection as well.
And so.
He continues on with this.
What does he find?
Well, all of these projects andafter work things he's getting
involved with.
He's maybe up for promotion,right?
Like he's feeling accomplished.
(43:41):
He's feeling satisfied at work.
So he's coming home and he's Notfeeling like he needs to unplug
from the day by going on hisphone.
He is more patient.
He is kinder.
He feels closer to his familythan he has in the past because
he's spending more quality timewith them.
You know, he's involved in thecooking.
He's involved in their eating.
(44:01):
They're involved.
And he starts feeling moreenergized in the morning.
You can see maybe his bedtimestarts creeping up because he's
not feeling like he needs to beon his phone that long anymore
at night.
Like, he's feeling good.
He's feeling really good.
So, so what does this look likemoving forward?
He says, I've implemented allthese things.
What do I do now?
Well, then we start approachingother things, right?
(44:22):
Maybe he's able to start addingmore fiber into his diet.
Maybe he's able to startremoving some of that saturated
fat that he's eating.
Making, you know, more diversechoices in fruits and
vegetables.
Exploring things he might like.
And he's sticking with a, with aregular eating schedule.
So what we see is that he'sgetting improvements in all
these things that originallybrought him in.
(44:42):
And...
Improvements in his burnoutsymptoms.
He's feeling engaged at work.
He's feeling like he's got acommunity at work.
He is not coming home drained.
Right?
So major improvements in aspectsof his life through one small
thing.
One small bite.
And so what I kind of want tojust encompass here is that his
(45:03):
one choice.
Could lead to so many ofapplications this choice to try
mindful eating can be applied inhis eating and then in the rest
of his life as well through myjust mindfulness in general.
So while burnout is complex andeverything we talked about is
incredibly complex, you can makeone choice.
And find a way out.
David (45:24):
That's very nice.
I like that.
This is really, really good.
He sounds like many of myclients.
Laney (45:28):
That's crazy.
It's almost like I got to sit inand gather some data.
I
David (45:35):
wonder where you got that from.
I appreciate you for doing this.
And there was some really goodinformation.
I mean, I think it reallytouches on, on so many different
areas that we have talked aboutboth you being in the rotations
with me and the sessions withme, the research that you've
(45:55):
done.
And a lot of the podcastepisodes and blogs that I've
written in the past, it's just,Really, really, really
interesting how important thisis, especially for men.
Now, granted, I did obviouslynote that there are a lot of
similarities between burnoutwith men and with women.
Absolutely.
I think that it is.
(46:16):
Something that is important tounderstand that it doesn't
matter your gender identity.
However, it is interesting tosee the nuanced differences on
how men end up creating theburnout in areas where women may
not or vice versa too, which isreally good.
Laney (46:33):
Absolutely.
And I mean, that's a good pointin that maybe depersonalization
doesn't sound like somethingthat happens.
To every man, right?
Like anyone listening to thismight be like, that doesn't
sound like something I do.
Maybe it isn't.
Maybe your trigger is emotionalexhaustion.
Maybe your trigger is thatpersonal, like, it's ambiguous
and complex, but hopefully thisgives a little bit for each of
those aspects to help addressmoving forward.
David (46:56):
Very good.
Very good.
Well, Laney, thank you so muchfor doing this.
This was fantastic.
Do you have anything else thatyou want to leave everybody
with?
Laney (47:04):
Just thank you to you for allowing me, you know, to speak
to your listeners.
It's amazing and I'm hopefullysomeone Catch is one thing that
they can start applying.
David (47:14):
Yeah, folks.
And this is, this is reallyimportant what Lainey's saying
here.
I think if you understand thecontext of this podcast, One
Small Bite, it's really aboutone small thing that we do on a
regular basis that builds overtime and has domino effects in
other areas in our lives.
And so we can then grow fromthere instead of trying to make
(47:35):
something big.
Like a big change or massivechange or overhaul of your
entire dietary system.
So thank you so much, Laney.
I appreciate you for being herewith me.
I appreciate you for being myintern and helping me out for
with so many other things.
So great job with this greatpresentation.
And I look forward to hearingwonderful things about you and
(47:59):
your career in the future.
All right.
Thank you very much, Laney foran excellent presentation.
I hope you all got some greatinformation here.
I know I did.
I am definitely going to relax alot more and take it easy,
especially.
During the holiday season,things are so crazy.
So busy burnout is so rampant inthis time of year.
(48:22):
So I hope you do the same takenmaybe a little bit of mindful
eating connect with some of theguys or people in your lives so
that you can start engaging.
I just want to say thank youonce again to Laney.
She's amazing.
The level of intellect of rigor,the initiative and the hard work
that was put into thispresentation.
(48:43):
Is amazing.
And you know, so many of myinterns provided me with the
research and the background fora lot of these shows as well.
I want to thank Laney once againfor doing a great job.
I just want to say thank youvery much for listening in.
Please remember to rate andreview the show.
And if you've got one or twofriends that would benefit from
listening to this, please shareit on.
(49:05):
You know, these shows can reallyhelp people that need this kind
of information.
And, uh, stay tuned because nextweek.
I'm going to talk about theconnection of the eating rhythm
and the digestive system.
I'm continuing with my eatingrhythm series, so listen in
because the information is goingto be awesome.
(49:26):
All right, folks.
Thanks again.
Remember chop that dietmentality fuel your body and
nourish your soul until nexttime.
Ciao.
Hola y beinvenido to the one small bites show where we
chopped diet mentality, fuelyour body and nourish your soul.
In every episode, you'll get aone small bite approach you can
implement to live a morenourished life.
This show is for educational andinformational purposes only.
So please make sure to connectwith the professional support.
(00:25):
You need at your own discretion.
Oh, and we don't bleep out cursewords.
So just a heads up in caseyou're with little ones.
Okay.
Let's do this.
Hola, welcome to the one smallbite show.
(00:46):
I'm your host, David Orozcoregistered dietitian
nutritionist, certifiedintuitive eating counselor.
And, my practice is OrozcoNutrition.
Go check it out.
OrozcoNutrition.com.
And today I've got a fantasticshow for you.
I am interviewing my internLaney Jones.
She is an intern at Morrisonshealthcare, and Laney is going
(01:08):
to talk to us about unmasking,the culprits of mail burnout.
And folks one small solutionthat will definitely help.
Just to give you a broadoverview, we're going to talk
about the three components thatreally contribute to burnout.
They include emotionalexhaustion, depersonalization.
Personal achievement.
(01:30):
And we'll also talk about theopposite of burnout, which is
engagement, listen in, so youcan understand what that's
about.
And also, I just want to let youknow, w we like always, we'll
bring you one small bitesolution.
That'll help you unravel theburnout problems in our lives.
Okay, well, with that all said,let's get the show on the road.
(01:52):
Let's go to the interview.
Hey, everybody.
I am really excited.
I have Laney Jones, the amazingMorrison intern, and you'll hear
what that all means in just aminute.
So, Laney, how are you?
I'm great.
How are you, David?
I'm doing great.
Thank you so much.
Yeah,
Laney (02:13):
I'm so excited to
David (02:13):
be here.
Yeah, I'm so excited to have youon.
This is so cool.
Laney (02:17):
you said I'm a dietetic intern with Morrison Healthcare.
So that means I'm on my laststep before becoming a
dietitian.
And so I'm here rotating rightnow with Orozco Nutrition for my
outpatient rotation.
So learning all the ins and outsof, of You know what he, what
you do every day and gettingthat experience.
And so in about two weeks, I'llbe able to possibly soon call
(02:41):
myself a dietitian.
So very exciting.
David (02:44):
You're discovering that I don't do much in my own
practice, huh?
Laney (02:48):
No, I can say that this has probably been the most
exhausting two weeks.
So I'm excited for my futurehere.
David (02:56):
So yeah, most of my interns are with me for two
weeks.
And one of the things that I dois I grill them to, no, I don't,
yes.
So Laney, the first week you gotto do what with me, do you
remember?
Laney (03:09):
So the first week I was shadowing, so I was attending
sessions and getting to see theprocess of what we call
motivational interviewing andthe process of helping patients
in a long term way and in asustainable and productive way.
So I got to watch you do allthose things and I got to see
kind of the back end ofInsurance and all that stuff.
(03:32):
I
David (03:32):
should have prompted you to say to see all the magic you
create.
Laney (03:36):
You're right.
You're right.
Okay.
I got to see for the first weekall the incredible magic that is
the partnership between thedietician and the client.
The absolute.
Stroke it.
Yep.
David (03:51):
Stroke it.
It's like I tell my wife.
Stroke my ego.
Come on.
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
All right.
So speaking of which, what arewe talking about today?
Laney (03:59):
So today we're going to be doing a presentation on how
to navigate burnout and whatthat means in men.
David (04:06):
And so for background thank you, Laney.
I asked Laney to do someresearch on a specific topic.
And as many of you know, I do alot of work with men, of course,
especially men in midlife.
Now I have a variety of clients,but that is my specialty area
(04:26):
and I wanted her to look intothe research behind burnout,
especially in men.
And I said to her, Hey, whydon't you do this?
And as part of her competenciesfor this rotation, one of the
things she has to do is presentit to an audience now.
I luckily have an audience, anamazing audience, an amazing
(04:49):
audience, of course.
And so I said, Hey, why don'tyou come on my podcast?
And why don't we present this toour audience?
Cause this is really what peopleneed to know.
Let's get started.
Laney (04:59):
I'm going to start with setting up kind of a a client, a
potential client with you.
His name is Mr.
Allen.
He has a pretty typical job.
He works as a manager at awarehouse in Atlanta, but he
lives outside of Atlanta.
He's got a commute.
He's married with two childrenand we're seeing him because he
has some elevated glucoselevels, some elevated
(05:21):
cholesterol, high bloodpressure, those kinds of things.
His doctor's a little concernedabout his overall health.
condition and is consideringstarting a statin, considering
weight loss for him and throughour interview with Mr.
Allen, we find he is describinghis life a lot as feeling really
dull.
(05:41):
Very lonely.
He's not feeling connected withhis family.
He's feeling really quick toanger.
Like he doesn't have a lot ofcontrol over his emotions.
And he's He's also rarelyfeeling satisfied after meals.
He's finding himself snacking alot.
He's finding himself, you know,he finishes a meal and it's like
it never happened and he's, hewants, he wants that to change.
(06:02):
So he comes to us, he's talkingto us and we go through what
maybe a day in the life mightlook like for him.
And so you can see he wakes uppretty early, 6am and he
immediately is on his phone.
He drives to work, he eats hisfood.
His breakfast in the car andthen he works, you know, eight
to five in his office, doorclosed.
(06:22):
He's eating lunch in there, he'seating snacks in there, and he's
having all of his meetings inthere.
Very little interaction with theoffice.
He gets home.
And he has to feed his kids.
He puts his kids to bed.
And then maybe him and hispartner have dinner and watch
TV, scroll on their phones andhave more snacks.
So from a kind of a nutritionperspective, a dietitian
(06:44):
perspective, we're looking atthis and we're saying, what is
going on?
What is happening with Mr.
Allen that is making him feeldull, that's not leaving him
satisfied from his meals?
What, what could be possiblygoing on there?
And the answer is...
He could possibly beexperiencing burnout.
And I know prior to reallydelving into this research, I
(07:05):
had a kind of basic idea of whatburnout is, how it's discussed
but not a, not a real solidunderstanding of what it is or
how to identify it.
And so basically what burnoutis, is it's a psychological
syndrome that's in response toprolonged exposure to job
stress.
And so when we talk aboutburnout, this is in the context
(07:26):
of working.
So we're thinking of workingindividuals, like David said,
our target population, thismiddle aged group of people,
specifically men.
And really there's threerecognized components that
really contribute to burnoutdevelopment over time.
And these are emotionalexhaustion, depersonalization,
and personal achievement.
(07:47):
And these all play into eachother, but are succinct,
separate components to thisdevelopment.
And so emotional exhaustion iskind of how it sounds.
It's wearing out, it's feelingloss of energy, fatigue,
irritability those kinds ofthings.
And then depersonalization isAlso called cynicism in the
(08:08):
literature, and it's aboutwithdrawing from working, from
emotions, from community, andhaving more of a negative
attitude towards work, towardspatients, clients.
projects, anything like that.
And then personal achievement isthat feeling of satisfaction
through work, the feeling thatyou're being productive and also
(08:31):
the ability to cope withfailure.
And so these are all affected byburnout in different ways.
And one of the things thatreally came up is this
discussion around kind of how isengagement involved in burnout?
Is it the opposite or are theyseparate?
Ideas.
And what really came out is thatengagement is the opposite of
(08:53):
burnout.
Like you might think I'm burntout.
I'm feeling exhausted.
Let me remove the stress.
Let me remove myself from workmore.
Let me undo any of theconnections I have and make
myself a clean slate.
But that's really not what itis.
What they're looking at isactually engaging with the
stress engaging with work iswhere burnout starts to have a
(09:16):
little bit of, of success withwith helping with this.
So how is burnout developing?
Where is that coming from?
And the literature, this, thisimage that you might see on the
screen, it's a, it's a overviewof three theoretical models
about burnout.
And it's really justdemonstrating that there are
(09:36):
different ways that burnout candevelop.
Especially that this, thisarticle that was titled
development of burnout over timein causal order of these three
dimensions among male and femaleGPs.
So it was looking at doctors andthe development really had a
gendered aspect to it.
It had.
What they found is that thisdepersonalization was kind of
(09:59):
the trigger most frequently formen in this study.
So they're looking at thisGolembiewski et al.
kind of model wheredepersonalization leads to
decreased Personal achievementleading to increased emotional
exhaustion, that that is kind ofthe typical pathway for men.
Although that doesn't meanthat's always the way,
(10:20):
obviously, but it tends towardsdepersonalization being the
trigger for burnout.
And what they see is this islike a coping mechanism.
This is what they call amaladaptive coping mechanism,
which means it's a Kind of aninefficient or ineffectual
coping mechanism in response towork stress.
David (10:41):
when you were saying this, it reminded me of when I
had a guest on my podcast, Ithink it was last year, Dr.
Ronald Levant, and he wrote theideas of the hyper masculinity.
And we talked a little bit ofsome of these Yeah.
situations like Alexithymia.
Alexithymia is a conditionespecially common in men or
(11:06):
people who identify as male.
And what he says is thatAlexithymia is the inability or
the difficulty of bothunderstanding or recognizing
your emotions.
And so if you think about littlekids and the way little boys or
again, people who are genderspecific about identifying as
(11:29):
male, they are raised with thisidea of sayings like, Oh, if it
ain't broke.
You're okay.
Or if it's not bleeding, don'tcry or don't be a sissy.
Don't be a pussy.
Get a backbone shit like that.
It says it happens quite often.
And so I see this as a way ofpeople of men or people who
(11:54):
identify as male retreating.
Absolutely.
From their emotions and thenretreating from individuals.
So I have a question for you.
Absolutely.
How does depersonalizationfunction as a coping mechanism
then?
And in relation to Mr.
Allen, how is this affectinghim?
Laney (12:10):
Yeah.
So absolutely, exactly as you'resaying.
So what we kind of said isdepersonalization, you can kind
of think it as detachment.
And that's exactly what you'resaying.
A lot of.
Like the theory of genderedsocialization is kind of a
similar topic as like you'resaying in that we tend to
socialize men or boys or peoplethat we identify as men or boys
(12:33):
in this importance ofassertiveness and independence
and.
We deny them the vulnerability,the openness of expressing
emotions in that way.
And so depersonalization and thewithdrawal from work
environments can act as like awall to prevent Having to engage
(12:57):
in those emotions which as wecan see further is just going to
make those emotions moreexhausted, but it might feel
like you're protecting yourselffrom having to feel those
emotions.
And for Mr.
Allen, this is looking like.
He's not engaging at work.
He's not talking to peopleoutside of, you know, his
meetings.
(13:17):
He's keeping his door closed.
He's coming home and he's, he'son his phone.
He's withdrawing frominteracting with people.
He's, he's lessening his, the,the need for him to feel maybe
the stress that he'sexperiencing because he's not
coming face to face with it.
And so that's kind of how Mr.
Allen might be dealing with thisdepersonalization.
(13:40):
And, and how it's manifesting inhis routine, Yeah.
So just that vulnerabilityportion.
That's really what we want tokind of a thread.
We want to follow through onthis whole presentation that
vulnerability is, is a, is abig, you know, theme throughout
the burnout.
So just looking forward at kindof what, now that we kind of
(14:03):
understand what burnout is andhow it develops.
What does it do?
And we talked aboutdepersonalization a lot, so the
emotional exhaustion part of itis also a factor for men,
although it may not be thetrigger.
And so this study, specificallycalled Work Stress and Coronary
Heart Disease; Looking at theMechanisms this used data from a
(14:24):
study called the Whitehall 2study.
That was a 20 year long studyover multiple phases that was
looking at 10, over 10, 000 menand women in the UK that were
aged 35 to 55 in the firstphase.
So they aged with them 20 yearsand saw how heart disease
developed over time.
(14:45):
And what they found is that.
The mechanism between theconnection of burnout slash work
stress and heart conditions orother health conditions possibly
is this Over activation ofwhat's called the HBA axis or
the hypothalamic pituitaryadrenal axis, lots of words, but
(15:06):
boils down to this connectionbetween our central nervous
system and our endocrine system.
And the endocrine system is incharge of hormones.
So basically what this is, isthe connection that leads to the
release of hormones.
David (15:22):
Yeah, I've actually talked a lot about the HPA axis
and I actually repeat it quiteoften.
So when I saw that you had this,this study, I was like, Holy
cow.
Yes.
Yeah.
Laney (15:33):
This was in most studies about this.
So I think that that reallydraws to the importance of kind
of recognizing that a lot of thestress is physiological.
It is not emotional.
It is, I mean, a lot of it is,but it's a lot of the emotions.
Physical reaction, things wecan't really control, right?
So we can't control really howour HPA axis is, is existing.
(15:57):
We can control our stress, butour body's reaction to it is not
really under our control.
And so this, in addition to theANS, which is the autonomic
nervous system.
If these are, are activatedconstantly and chronically
through this work stress, whatthey find is that these actually
become exhausted and stopfunctioning appropriately.
(16:18):
And so what we can seespecifically from this is
disturbances in our circadianrhythm and disturbances in our
cortisol level.
And I mean, I'm sure you'vetalked about cortisol as well,
but Just a quick refresh.
It is our, like, stress hormonethat obviously is released
(16:38):
following stress.
It's the fight or flight and itcan put a lot, when it's in
really high levels or really lowlevels, it can really affect our
body's ability to stay healthy,to handle everything that's
being thrown at it thrown at it.
And our circadian rhythms also Iknow when I think of it, I
usually just think of sleep, butwe have circadian rhythms for
(17:01):
everything.
It's just our physical,behavioral, and emotional
changes that happen over 24hours.
And so affecting those is notjust affecting, you know, the
six to eight hours you'resleeping.
You affect your circadianrhythm, you're affecting your
whole day.
So this is just showing ordemonstrating that stress has a
major Impact on our health, andit's something we really need to
(17:23):
be considering in looking at andwhat this can do specifically to
nutrition is what they see islike this high level of work
stress is correlated withdecreased fruit and vegetable
intake, increased high fat foodintake, decreased physical
activity, and Possibly, there'sa little bit of debate about
(17:45):
this one, but significantelevation in morning rises in
cortisol.
And so if you can think about,like, you're initially feeling
stressed, your cortisol levelsare rising immediately upon
waking.
And that's just gonna throw offyour, your flow throughout the
day, right?
Like, That is going to highlevels of stress in the morning.
You might not, you might notwake up and feel immediately
(18:07):
exhausted.
You know, you might wake up andfeel immediately nervous,
anxious, not excited for theday.
Lots of effects.
David (18:18):
Yeah, it's really interesting that you're talking
about this again, because justthe previous episode to this, I
actually talk about the rhythmof eating and the effects on the
circadian rhythm.
And what you're talking abouthere is when we end up waking up
too early in the morning anddon't go back to sleep, we don't
realize that.
Cortisol levels are highest inthe morning to begin with.
(18:40):
Mm-Hmm, And so if we're havingthis constant or chronic strain
on our HPA axis, on ourautonomic nervous system, on our
bodies in general, what we endup doing is we have a hormone
that's stimulating the releaseof glucose when the body is
needing to relax and, and thesimulation of glucose is a phase
(19:01):
in the sleep cycle that.
Ends the sleep cycle.
And so therefore, when there'sglucose in the blood, it
stimulates us to be ready to beprepared for something
dangerous, right?
Is it goes back to our primalDNA, our primal response to a
threat or danger.
And so we still have that in ourbodies to this day.
(19:23):
So I love that you're bringingthis in.
And I think it's really smart totalk a lot about this, but
anyway, go on.
This is your show.
Laney (19:31):
No, but I love that point.
Like, we are built to reactquickly to stressors.
We're built to react quickly todangers.
And obviously, the dangers we'refacing today look differently.
And so we might, you know, belike, Oh gosh, why can't I
handle this?
Yeah.
Perfect.
And because our bodies arereacting like they're
biologically supposed to, it'sactivating the same thing.
(19:54):
So we have to treat it the sameway.
It's dangerous.
David (19:57):
Right.
Right.
Well, you know, what'sinteresting is that I read a
book by Dr.
Anna Lembke.
She is a professor ofpsychiatry.
And so she's a physician andprofessor at Stanford
university.
And one of the things that shetalks about is This idea of
running away with the chronicdemons of dopamine.
(20:18):
So when you have these highlevels of dopamine, which is in
response to an incredible amountof stimuli that's in our
environment, our bodies were notdesigned to have this level of
stimuli.
We got smartphones, access toinformation notifications,
emails.
We're so.
Open and on all the time thatour bodies are just getting
(20:40):
dumped enormous amounts ofdopamine and to come off of the
high, we get those gremlinsthat's called the withdrawal.
So again, something else that'simportant to take into
consideration in today'spresentation because withdrawal
is closely tied into the burnoutphenomenon
Laney (20:57):
here.
Absolutely.
And that emotional withdrawaltoo.
I mean, we're withdrawingeverything stress less likely to
connect.
And so that's something we'reactually going to talk about a
little more, so I'm excited thatyou're, you're introducing that
now, but on the same topic ofthis study, I just want to look
at some of the reasons why weneed to take our research with a
(21:18):
little bit of a grain of, ofsalt, because a lot of this
specific study was a crosssectional analysis, So it looked
at points of time in their dataand utilizing this data from
another study.
So they really didn't have a lotof control over looking at
specifics other than what theoriginal scientists collected.
(21:41):
So there's a little bit ofdifficulty there with
controlling for confoundingvariables for like diet, because
there's lots of things thataffect diet and it's hard to
control for all of them.
Additionally, this was a.
Self reported mail inquestionnaire they used and so
there's a lot of room for likebias and a lot of room for self
(22:01):
selection into or out of thisstudy and so that can affect the
results.
Additionally, As I stated, thiswas a phased study and they only
did a clinical evaluation ofthese, of these individuals at
phases 3, 5, and 7.
And so they only collected thedata about heart rate and blood
pressure and cortisol levels atthese distinct phases.
(22:25):
So it's not a
David (22:27):
and what were the phases?
Were they three years?
Five years?
Is that what that means?
They were
Laney (22:31):
all dependent.
It was, it was really like twoyears and then like a couple of
years in between the phasesstarting in 85 or 88 and ending
in 2005 or 2008.
Okay.
I think it was the eight.
So over 20 years, okay.
Every couple of years but notthey obviously they didn't take
(22:51):
the same data at every,
David (22:53):
Oh, that's interesting.
That's a big limitation.
Laney (22:55):
It's a huge limitation because there's and like you see
three, five and seven, therewere nine total phases.
So there were a lot where theymissed that amount of data.
So this is, that's justsomething to absolutely keep in,
keep in mind as well.
And they, they assess theirhealth behaviors on a binary.
You either do these things oryou don't do these things.
And, and that is a, that is alimitation as well, because we
(23:16):
know health behaviors.
are not existent on a binary.
Just because you do somethingonce doesn't mean you do it all
the time, but you've done itonce, so you no longer don't do
it.
So that's difficulty as well.
And then it's not exclusively inmen.
There were women included, likeI said, 10, 000 men and women.
And it was in the UK.
So, some serious limitationshere as well, but it's important
(23:40):
to give ourselves a little bitof context of the, you know, the
research that's happening.
But this
David (23:46):
gives us a good context, a good level of understanding of
where more research is neededand what more we can do, right?
Laney (23:53):
100%.
And that's one thing I'll sayabout this.
There is very, there is almostno data on burnout in U.
S.
men specifically.
A lot of it is kind ofinterpreted from other studies
that were about stress.
And maybe not necessarily aboutburnout specifically, lots of
times obviously women areincluded in these studies and
(24:15):
things like that.
And so we just have to thinkabout, you know, how cultures
may differ, how genderedresponses may differ how
socialization affects thesethings.
So that's just something tothink about when you're looking
at data from research
David (24:28):
papers.
Laney (24:28):
Looking at health consequences of burnout.
So other than heart disease,what do we see?
Well this study, we, it was asystematic review of 61
prospective epidemiologicalstudies.
So this means looking forwardand looking at disease
development.
And they found that burnout is arisk factor for sleep disorders,
(24:48):
including insomnia, depression,depression Musculoskeletal pain
like neck pain, back pain kneepain, things like that, type 2
diabetes high LDL levels, andlow HDL cholesterol levels and
then also what I found reallyinteresting about this, this
particular paper is that theytalked about absenteeism and
(25:09):
sick leave, and how burnout Iscorrelated with an increased
risk of not going to work goingto work and being sick called
presenteeism, and thenincreasing in sick leave.
And you can see how all three ofthese, these would affect your
ability to be efficient andeffective at work.
And lead into that personalsatisfaction side of things.
David (25:31):
Yeah, especially, especially that presenteeism
where people aren't takingtheir...
paid time off.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
That's, that's a condition I seewith not just men, but with all
clients that I work with, ormost clients that I work with,
they got weeks of vacation thatthey just don't end up using.
And there is, there's also anexpectation of what they should
(25:53):
or how they should be working.
It's almost as if they'reexpected to give up that part
time or that.
Paid time off in order, in orderto be more productive and to
kind of almost be like everybodyelse.
I call it the new keeping upwith the Elon Musks.
Meaning instead of keeping upwith the Joneses, it's keeping
(26:14):
up with working 80 hour weeks or100 hour weeks.
And we just don't have the timein the week to do
Laney (26:20):
all that.
No, and we don't have theemotional bandwidth either that,
you know, that plays into theburnout absolutely plays into
the burnout and the burnoutplays into it, vicious cycle.
And so what this study is reallylooking at is, is exactly that
identifying those risks, thosesymptoms, those feelings of
like, I must go to work, but Ireally don't want to.
(26:41):
And then how to.
intervene early so that we'renot getting to the point where
they have insomnia, they haveneck pain, they have diabetes,
they are uncomfortable and theyhate their job.
Really can snowball.
And so again, just looking atkind of scrutinizing this paper,
I am not criticizing youscientists, but that's okay.
(27:06):
This paper was not on menspecifically, although a lot of
them were men.
It was majority in Nordiccountries, so culturally
different.
The timeframe was shorter, hardto see that development.
Of these diseases in a shortperiod of time.
And then because it is asystematic review of different
papers across the papers.
(27:26):
The criteria for participantswas different.
The number of participants wasdifferent in the measurement
techniques were different.
And although they control forthese, for the most part, when
they're analyzing their datathey can still have some effects
on how that data is interpretedand analyzed.
So I do think the study is, isextremely relevant to the
(27:48):
development of these diseases.
So we just want to look at likecommunity and food choices and
how those are influenced byloneliness and burnout in
general.
And this study was a scopingreview of 29 studies.
I mean, what it showed was up to24 percent.
of U.
S.
Adults report feeling lonely,and that is a huge proportion of
(28:10):
adults that are reporting thisloneliness feeling.
So this is something we reallyneed to approach, and we really
need to think about and talkabout.
And especially because they findthat this loneliness is
associated With lowercardiovascular health and mental
health.
So kind of going back to how notonly loneliness and emotional
exhaustion both play into thisdecrease in, in overall health.
(28:34):
And it also talked about howthere are many determinants to
food choices, including likeyour social pressure and
emotional stressors, like we'vebeen talking about.
So approaching food choices frommy.
Comprehensive view is soimportant because there are so
many things that affect it.
But one thing that can affect itin a positive way is community.
(28:56):
Eating together has benefits tothe nutrient content and the
food choices people make.
When you eat with people, youmay tend to have higher
diversity in your food choices,meaning more fruits and
vegetables, different...
Types of food cultures of food,things like that.
And also these people have ahigher probability of eating
three meals.
And this goes back to kind ofwhat you're talking about that
(29:17):
eating pattern that that rhythmthat you have and helping
establish that rhythm and howcommunity can affect that and
that it's bi directional.
So that's one of the big thingsI wanted to pull out of this,
that it's not just loneliness orlack of community affecting
eating.
It's eating also can affect it.
(29:38):
Your experience community, yoursocialization.
Exactly.
So you can address it and itwill work in this cycle, right?
Like, it's not a one way street.
And that's awesome.
I think that's really helpful toremember.
And again, in this study.
Women were included often in themajority, so that's something to
really consider.
(29:58):
UK based, and again, theparticipant numbers were
smaller, and there wasn't asmuch long term data used, so
just consider that.
Yeah, but
David (30:07):
And I just want to circle back to that depersonalization
that I think was so critical atthe very beginning that Mr.
Allen too was also feeling.
And that is that That ties intothe alexithymia, which is the
inability or the difficultyunderstanding or recognizing
your emotions.
And therefore, when there arethese exasperations in your
(30:28):
mental health or your physicalhealth, I mean, it's just time
after time after doing it overand over and over again.
And this chronic condition iswhat leads to this burnout.
And that burnout is so tiedinto.
All of those hormonalfluctuations that occur at both
the physiological level and thenthat emotional burnout as well.
(30:48):
So tying it all together, I lovewhat you're doing here,
especially talking about theimportance of community.
So
Laney (30:53):
you can really see how it's a draw picture.
Our lives are not happening inisolation.
There are so many things beingthrown at us and that's
something we all need to thinkabout.
But I'm the same in the samevein as that.
Kind of the same vein.
The data from the UK shows thatmen, and also in the US, but
(31:14):
this specifically was in the UK,men have lower health literacy
when compared to women.
And so what health literacy is,is the ability to really find,
understand, and utilize healthinformation.
And so what they're finding isthat men are twice as likely as
women to have inadequate healthliteracy.
So an inadequate understandingof how to, how medicine.
(31:37):
how their medicines work, whenthey need help, and all of those
kinds of things that play intomedical care.
And women, you know, are, areshown to attend their primary
care physicians at rates twiceas often as men.
So you can see how that canaffect these, this early
intervention that I'm talkingabout earlier.
If we're not seeking help, we'renot able to get help.
(31:58):
And, and men are, are typically,are often delaying seeking help
until they meet this higherthreshold of pain.
Of discomfort, of unhappiness,exactly.
I mean, I'm just guilty, just asguilty.
Yeah, so I think that this allreally comes to this kind of
masculinity we were kind ofdiscussing earlier.
(32:18):
This idea of preservingmasculinity and avoiding the
feminine considered topics.
And health is one of those.
Again, there's that perceivedthreshold, the downplaying of
symptoms because concern foryour health can be seen as a
feminine characteristic.
In a lot of cultures and in alot of men.
And so this kind of.
It is, again, with thatdepersonalization, that avoiding
(32:41):
openness, that maintenance ofcontrol and of stoicism that's
preventing this help seekingbehavior in men.
And, and just to kind ofreinforce this idea of the
importance of community in the,in Culture and in men in
general.
And there's this amazingassociation called the
Australian Men's ShedAssociation.
(33:02):
It's an international acrossmultiple countries.
And it's This tagline is thatmen don't talk face to face,
they talk shoulder to shoulder.
And what they utilize, is thisidea of men working on things
together and talking whilethey're doing that.
This problem focused approach tocommunity, this this side by
side working forward versuslooking at each other working
(33:24):
together.
And so I think that that kind ofjust demonstrates the difference
in approach we need to be takingwith this community forming.
We need to be with Looking atways to make this as accessible
as possible, as easy as, as,yeah, as easy as possible for
men to form these communities.
And that's to look at how do we,how do we add in these times
where they can be shoulder toshoulder, right?
David (33:45):
So how can low health literacy be addressed then?
Laney (33:50):
Yeah.
So, I mean, it's a very complexidea and an issue.
But the first step.
That everyone kind of recommendsis this idea of being your own
advocate, asking questions andlistening to the professionals
Being a participant in yourhealth care, right?
And not sitting back.
(34:10):
Like participating, being partof it is the first step.
And in that way, you can startgathering the knowledge.
That's how knowledge isgathered, right?
Asking questions and listening.
So that's the first step.
Go to your, go to your doctor.
David (34:24):
Awesome.
Well, I do want to add that oneof the ways that I think I help
with that health literacy is.
in a lot of the things that I doin my life, one of the things
that I notice is that thismasculinity, this role that I'm
trying to fill, it does createthat isolation in my life.
It creates greater lonelinessand it gets harder and harder
(34:44):
and harder as we age, especiallyfor us men to cultivate
relationships.
So I made it a point to have abiking group.
My friend and I decided to setup a biking group.
And we have now 12 guys thatbike with us.
And every Sunday, we ask, Hey,who's going on a ride?
Who's going on a ride?
And what happens is so fun.
(35:06):
When we're riding and we're notthese, you know, super spandex
cat one type cyclists that do 20miles an hour of the Tour de
France kind of style.
I'm talking about, we're aragtag group of guys that wear
whatever we want on bikes thatwe pick up off the street kind
of thing.
But.
Putting that aside, we havethese great conversations when
we're riding, and then we stopfor coffee or something to eat
(35:28):
after our ride, and we're justshooting the breeze and having a
good time, and we've gone out onthese dates, these guy nights
where we all hang out atrestaurants, we've done plays,
we've gone to each other'shouses, we've had these great
Guy nights of the neighborhoodkind of thing happening.
So it's really turned into thisincredible camaraderie.
(35:51):
We even have these events wherewe go up to the mountains and a
friend of ours has a mountainhouse and we've done a guy's
weekend with this big hike.
It was really, it's been reallyfantastic.
So I just wanted to add thatthat is probably another way of
not only getting at the healthliteracy, but also getting at a
lot of the other problems too,because a lot of times We can
say to the guys, Hey, you know,you should definitely see a
(36:12):
doctor about that, man.
Don't, don't be afraid.
And that vulnerability is big.
That's community sharing
Laney (36:18):
of information.
Yeah.
That's
David (36:19):
the shoulder to
Laney (36:19):
shoulder stuff, right?
I was just about to say, andyou're, and I mean, it went past
shoulder to shoulder.
You guys were getting dinner.
You guys are sitting face toface, continuing that
conversation, but it was ignitedby utilizing this idea.
So yeah, awesome.
But like onto the like, weunderstand what burnout is and
kind of what it does.
What can we do?
What's the positive side ofthis?
(36:41):
Right?
And the positive side is thatthere's a lot of avenues that we
can explore to help.
Nutrition strategies.
Specifically this comes from apaper on nutrition strategies
for reducing risk of burnout inphysicians again.
So another idea is that this isspecifically for physicians, but
does not mean that it can onlybe applied to physicians.
(37:01):
And so what this study found isthat individuals that included
more fruits and vegetables intheir diet had lower risk of
burnout.
Individuals that had adequateprotein intakes, specifically of
certain amino acids that areinvolved in sleep like ornithine
and tyrosine, that are involvedin, in the, the production of
(37:22):
sleep hormones, and then alsoadding complex carbohydrates
into your diet when you can.
And this was specificallytalking about how that can help
feed the gut microbiome, andplay a part in the brain gut
axis affecting mental health.
So, diet and mental health,again, coming back into the,
into the picture.
On the lifestyle side of things,I mean, this is so ambiguous,
(37:46):
but getting adequate sleep,whatever that means for people
David (37:49):
well, I did, I did talk about adequate sleep in the last
episode and I've had varioussleep specialists and experts on
my show, but I keep talking alot about sleep because you
can't have enough conversationabout this.
So
Laney (38:02):
don't worry about it.
Exactly again, because it's socomplex.
So involved, so many thingsinvolved in adequate sleep.
So that's what I'm saying.
Blow ambiguous, but and thenalso the importance of
nutrition, education andnutrition counseling, seeing
people like you, like us, like,yeah, my gosh.
Right.
Like and, and getting that.
(38:23):
Increased health literacy there,that education, that help, that
community, that counseling.
And then the third one that thisone kind of talked about mostly
is mindful eating and what thatis.
So just a quick look into whatit is.
It is about making consciouschoices when you're eating.
Feeling aware of hunger cues andfullness cues.
(38:43):
And through that, cultivatingawareness to internal, external
triggers to hunger and fullness.
So internal meaning like,feeling hungry feeling angry,
things like that.
And external triggers that mightbe like, an emotion, or maybe
your schedule, or things likethat.
Being aware of all of thesethings that play into our eating
(39:06):
and then noting the physical oremotional responses that comes
from those foods.
If you note it, you're aware ofit, you might, you know, choose
foods that make you feel moreenergetic.
You might choose foods that makeyou feel happy.
And that's intentional andthat's what we're looking for.
And what does it do?
Well, it can increase theability to relax.
When distressed, not only justin eating feeding situations,
(39:28):
but in regular life as well andhelp prevent automatic or
emotional eating through beingpresent.
That is the biggest thing is, iseliminating distractions to the
best of your ability whileeating the ability to focus,
which is a difficult one.
I will not lie.
David (39:49):
So I got a question.
Can you go into how mindfuleating may be beneficial during
depersonalization?
Laney (39:55):
Yeah.
So one of the things that we'vebeen talking about throughout is
that depersonalization as thisremoval, this withdrawal from
existing as part of a community.
And mindful eating in and ofitself maybe isn't exactly
supportive of re involvementinto community, but what it can
do is re involve you in personalemotions, re involve you in how
(40:18):
your body is feeling, and allowyou to then notice outside of
yourself.
Because if you can't noticewhat's happening here, it is
going to be way harder to noticewhat is happening with other
people.
So it's a really good way, afirst step, into realigning with
your emotions.
Re engaging.
David (40:38):
Very good.
I, I also want to say that it'sthis idea of mindful eating is
being present.
It's the ability tointerceptively aware and then be
aware and that's very, verybeneficial.
And I, I just want to tie it inagain to the last episode that I
did about sleep and what we cando and their circadian rhythm,
(40:58):
I'm sorry, and eating rhythm andwhat we can do.
And that is the ability to slowdown the importance of slowing
down and how.
Taking time for yourself, givingyourself that me time back, and
therefore giving thatopportunity for you to be
mindful with your eating.
So I'm glad that you're sayingthis.
Go on.
100%.
Laney (41:19):
We're going to look right into that, because we're going
to go ahead and go back and talkabout our Mr.
Allen, if we can all...
Pulling back up in our brain,and he went through a version of
what we just talked about, andhe said yes, I love this idea of
mindful eating, I feel like Ican apply that in my life, I'm
excited about applying that inmy life, and we say where,
where's the easiest for you?
(41:39):
What is going to be the best?
For you.
And he says, I'm going to try itat lunch and he devises this
plan that he's going to turn hisphone and computer off and he's
going to open his office door.
That is it.
While he eats his lunch.
Okay.
Yeah.
So he's going to eat his lunchwithout technology and with his
door open.
And what he's finding after him,you know, including this in his
(42:01):
day, he is feeling way moresatisfied after his meals.
He is eating every bite of thatand he is noticing every bite of
his meal.
He's tasting the food, which hewasn't before.
So he finds himself snackingless because he's feeling
satisfied.
David (42:16):
I like that.
He's savoring.
Laney (42:18):
Exactly.
He's feeling he's actuallyinvolved in the process of
eating.
It is not an automatic part ofhis life that just he has to get
through, right?
It's exciting.
It's fun.
And, and in this way, he's ableto start talking to coworkers
during lunch, which he never didbefore.
This allowed him to start beinginvolved in more of these after
work events, building acommunity through one small
(42:39):
thing.
He did interesting.
Right?
And so he says, I love how thisis working.
I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do this more of myday.
I think I can apply thiselsewhere.
And so he decides to, and thisis in molar meetings with us.
And so he devises this newroutine where he, you know, he's
going to eat his breakfast withhis partner.
(42:59):
They're going to eat together.
They're going to sit down, eveninvolving the children in this.
And that's great for the kids.
He's going to add a snack, anintentional snack where he takes
a break from his work for threeto five minutes.
It's a granola bar, eatswhatever he wants, right?
And then he's gonna have dinnerwith his partner and they're
still gonna have their snack,but they're going to do it
(43:20):
intentionally.
They're going to do itmindfully.
They're going to turn the TV offand eat and talk about what
they're feeling.
Right.
And so that's going to helpdevelop more of an emotional
connection as well.
And so.
He continues on with this.
What does he find?
Well, all of these projects andafter work things he's getting
involved with.
He's maybe up for promotion,right?
Like he's feeling accomplished.
(43:41):
He's feeling satisfied at work.
So he's coming home and he's Notfeeling like he needs to unplug
from the day by going on hisphone.
He is more patient.
He is kinder.
He feels closer to his familythan he has in the past because
he's spending more quality timewith them.
You know, he's involved in thecooking.
He's involved in their eating.
(44:01):
They're involved.
And he starts feeling moreenergized in the morning.
You can see maybe his bedtimestarts creeping up because he's
not feeling like he needs to beon his phone that long anymore
at night.
Like, he's feeling good.
He's feeling really good.
So, so what does this look likemoving forward?
He says, I've implemented allthese things.
What do I do now?
Well, then we start approachingother things, right?
(44:22):
Maybe he's able to start addingmore fiber into his diet.
Maybe he's able to startremoving some of that saturated
fat that he's eating.
Making, you know, more diversechoices in fruits and
vegetables.
Exploring things he might like.
And he's sticking with a, with aregular eating schedule.
So what we see is that he'sgetting improvements in all
these things that originallybrought him in.
(44:42):
And...
Improvements in his burnoutsymptoms.
He's feeling engaged at work.
He's feeling like he's got acommunity at work.
He is not coming home drained.
Right?
So major improvements in aspectsof his life through one small
thing.
One small bite.
And so what I kind of want tojust encompass here is that his
(45:03):
one choice.
Could lead to so many ofapplications this choice to try
mindful eating can be applied inhis eating and then in the rest
of his life as well through myjust mindfulness in general.
So while burnout is complex andeverything we talked about is
incredibly complex, you can makeone choice.
And find a way out.
David (45:24):
That's very nice.
I like that.
This is really, really good.
He sounds like many of myclients.
Laney (45:28):
That's crazy.
It's almost like I got to sit inand gather some data.
I
David (45:35):
wonder where you got that from.
I appreciate you for doing this.
And there was some really goodinformation.
I mean, I think it reallytouches on, on so many different
areas that we have talked aboutboth you being in the rotations
with me and the sessions withme, the research that you've
(45:55):
done.
And a lot of the podcastepisodes and blogs that I've
written in the past, it's just,Really, really, really
interesting how important thisis, especially for men.
Now, granted, I did obviouslynote that there are a lot of
similarities between burnoutwith men and with women.
Absolutely.
I think that it is.
(46:16):
Something that is important tounderstand that it doesn't
matter your gender identity.
However, it is interesting tosee the nuanced differences on
how men end up creating theburnout in areas where women may
not or vice versa too, which isreally good.
Laney (46:33):
Absolutely.
And I mean, that's a good pointin that maybe depersonalization
doesn't sound like somethingthat happens.
To every man, right?
Like anyone listening to thismight be like, that doesn't
sound like something I do.
Maybe it isn't.
Maybe your trigger is emotionalexhaustion.
Maybe your trigger is thatpersonal, like, it's ambiguous
and complex, but hopefully thisgives a little bit for each of
those aspects to help addressmoving forward.
David (46:56):
Very good.
Very good.
Well, Laney, thank you so muchfor doing this.
This was fantastic.
Do you have anything else thatyou want to leave everybody
with?
Laney (47:04):
Just thank you to you for allowing me, you know, to speak
to your listeners.
It's amazing and I'm hopefullysomeone Catch is one thing that
they can start applying.
David (47:14):
Yeah, folks.
And this is, this is reallyimportant what Lainey's saying
here.
I think if you understand thecontext of this podcast, One
Small Bite, it's really aboutone small thing that we do on a
regular basis that builds overtime and has domino effects in
other areas in our lives.
And so we can then grow fromthere instead of trying to make
(47:35):
something big.
Like a big change or massivechange or overhaul of your
entire dietary system.
So thank you so much, Laney.
I appreciate you for being herewith me.
I appreciate you for being myintern and helping me out for
with so many other things.
So great job with this greatpresentation.
And I look forward to hearingwonderful things about you and
(47:59):
your career in the future.
All right.
Thank you very much, Laney foran excellent presentation.
I hope you all got some greatinformation here.
I know I did.
I am definitely going to relax alot more and take it easy,
especially.
During the holiday season,things are so crazy.
So busy burnout is so rampant inthis time of year.
(48:22):
So I hope you do the same takenmaybe a little bit of mindful
eating connect with some of theguys or people in your lives so
that you can start engaging.
I just want to say thank youonce again to Laney.
She's amazing.
The level of intellect of rigor,the initiative and the hard work
that was put into thispresentation.
(48:43):
Is amazing.
And you know, so many of myinterns provided me with the
research and the background fora lot of these shows as well.
I want to thank Laney once againfor doing a great job.
I just want to say thank youvery much for listening in.
Please remember to rate andreview the show.
And if you've got one or twofriends that would benefit from
listening to this, please shareit on.
(49:05):
You know, these shows can reallyhelp people that need this kind
of information.
And, uh, stay tuned because nextweek.
I'm going to talk about theconnection of the eating rhythm
and the digestive system.
I'm continuing with my eatingrhythm series, so listen in
because the information is goingto be awesome.
(49:26):
All right, folks.
Thanks again.
Remember chop that dietmentality fuel your body and
nourish your soul until nexttime.
Ciao.
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