Burnout Podcast

Our interns join Barbara to talk about burnout in high school, causes, and how to unwind it.
Enjoy!!

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Hi everyone, Welcome. This isthe Mending Minds podcast produced by the Heart
Program. Heart takes a preventative,skills based approach to support teen mental wellness.
My name is Sonia and I'm herewith Ruby and Nicole. We are
high school students from Mona Vista andwe're here with Barbara, the co founder
of Hearts. Hi everyone, I'man occupational therapist specializing in mental health.

(00:22):
I've been working with teens and youngadults for the past five to six years,
and I've started the Heart Program tofocus on a preventative solution to our
mental health crisis, instead of waitinguntil people are struggling or they're in hospital.
Part stands for happiness, self awareness, and emotional resilience training. The
Heart Program teaches the skills and strategiesthat prepare us for life after high school
or college. Did the top twothings so get out of listening to this

(00:47):
podcast? One how to recognized burnauto learn what to do with BURNA and
tips to help distress And three lymblifeplong strategies to help manage burnout and over
a weeking. We all to tryto do this podcast because of a lot
of our personal stories and relations Iknow personally. For me, I went
to this podcasts because I know someonewho just continually ended up overworked and stressed

(01:11):
and burnt out. They always hada difficulty prioritizing their tasks in large workload,
which made them feel like they hadto consistently work and work and never
and they felt like they can nevertake a break. And it was really
hard for me to watch because Isaw how it affected them and emotionally and
mentally. And yeah, that's whyI went to this podcast. For me,

(01:34):
why I joined this podcast is whenI witnessed one of my friends.
She had come to school one dayand she was in her chem class and
then I remember after our break,she was telling me how tired she was
and she felt like she was gonnafaint and she was so hungry, and
I told her to go home,but she still continued to go on to
her next class, and then she, I guess within that class period she

(01:57):
decided to go home. And thenlike after school and I went on to
check up on her, she waslike she was like full asleep, like
she was so she was so burntout from the lack of sleep that she
has from the lack of eating.You know she was. She procrastinated on
her homework alat which also led tolack of sleep, But it was she
went through this, so it wasso severe, and like it didn't really

(02:22):
make me realize how bad of asituation she was in, and I felt
like I wasn't really observant of that. So I joined this podcast because I
wanted to help others be able torecognize those signs and be helping hand whenever
they or their friends or family isgoing through struggles. Nice for me,

(02:45):
I jine this podcast because somebody Iknow that graduated high school, they got
so burnt down in high school thatthey barely enjoyed college. Like they took
all these like APIs and honors coursesspecifically like to get into a good college
and to like enjoy the college experience, and then it ended up like not
even being enjoyable because they also burntout in high school and they just didn't
have the skills to cope with thatstress in college. And I guess like

(03:08):
I kind of had a simar mindsetas them, like doing the same thing,
like burning myself out in high schooljust to get into a good college.
And then like as I watched themstruggle. I realized that that's not
a healthy way to live, andthen I want to do this podcast,
so I kind of spread that message. Hearing these stories made us realize that
the first thing we need to dois focus on recognizing the signs that burnout

(03:30):
so we can actually give something towardsit. So I think one of the
first indicators for burnout is like thebehaviors and actions people. So maybe the
first is like procrastination. I know, like, at least for me,
a lot of the times I justtried to avoid thinking about like the large
amount of paths that I have todo, and so I just procrastinate it

(03:52):
and keep on like delaying what Ihave to do for later and later,
and even when I do that,the weight of what I have to do
still is still there. It's justbeing delight. Yeah, that's the thing
about the consernation, isn't it.I relate to that so much. I
always procrastinate when I'm burnt out,like scrolling through Instagram and I just keep

(04:13):
saying, like five more minutes,five more minutes, and then I just
never And I think another sign ofburnout is also just exhaustion, like feeling
so tired all the time, butlike constantly having to do stuffs and you
can't even like rest. And Ithink like people who are burnt out,
Like for what leads to burnout isjust like never taking breaks and like never
sleeping enough. So that's just likeleads to constantly being tired. Like my

(04:33):
friends never I see them burnt out. They're always like trying to fall asleep
during lunch to like catch up onthe sleep that they missed. I'm really
sad to see them like so busyall the time. Yeah, in the
middle of the day. Yeah,And I think another sign of burnout it's
the feelings that people experience. Sosometimes you can be like un motivation,

(04:56):
especially like when you have so muchwork to do and you have to do
all of it, but you justdon't know where to start. It leads
to a lot of unmotivated feelings andeven feelings of being overwhelmed because you don't
know where to start because everything there'sso much that you have to do and
everything seems of equal importance and urgency, and it kind of turns into feelings

(05:17):
of like helplessness and hopelessness. Ifeel like people kind of respond to it
in different ways, like For me, when I'm burnt out, I'm usually
very low energy and like I'm justlike sad and I cry. But I
have this friend that like kind ofgets really angry when she's tired, and
like she takes it out on everyone. So I guess people like respond in
different ways just depending on their personality. But I think in general, people

(05:40):
just have with very negative feelings aboutthe work that they need to do,
and like kind of feel like wedon't have control over what has to be
done. And I typically always likedoubt myself and I feel like I'm failing
for not doing anything and like notwanting to do anything, and it's like
a really sucky way to feel.Yeah, And I think sometimes you can
even turn into to feeling like numbabout things because it's just so much work

(06:03):
that it's easier to not like addressit or feel it, and because there's
just like so much of a lackof control. And yeah, do you
see in the school the people aroundyou people that seem to have that kind
of level of numbness or disengagement,right, they don't. They seem kind

(06:25):
of flat, like they're not experiencingupbeat emotions or really negative emotions. They're
just kind of right there, right, the numbness. Have you seen that?
Yeah, a lot, Like eveneven within my family and even like
personal experience, Like it's it's reallyeasy to to get into that sort of

(06:47):
feeling and it's really hard to getout of it. Yeah, it is.
It's a it's numbness. I thinkstarts out not to get too far
into the weeds here, but it'sstarts out as a coping strategy, right,
You kind of detach yourself so thatyou don't feel the pain or the
discomfort. But then if you doit over and over again, you get
to this flat place where you canno longer feel joy or pain, right,

(07:11):
because you can't. You take awayeverything. And I think that's when
yourself, I feel like it's likedesensitizing yourself from the environment exactly. That's
exactly what it is you're detaching,right. Yeah. So, now that
we've identified a bunch of the signsof burnout, I think it's really important

(07:33):
that we start talking about how toprevent it. But to do that,
we have to go kind of upstreamof the problem and figure out, well,
what is it that's causing burnout?Because it's different for different people,
Right, there are lots of differentfactors involved in burnout and overworking, and
you know, we all have differenthabits and different skills and strengths and weaknesses,
and so let's try and see ifwe can identify a lot of the

(07:55):
common causes so that we can thenstart talking about solutions for those different cosses.
M Yeah, I think one ofthe one of the classes that I've
you noticed is like normalizing these reallyintense and crazy work schedules and habits.
They're almost sort of praised in away. Like actually, just really recently,

(08:16):
I think yesterday in my Spanish class, there was like people trying to
like brag about their really intensive andcrazy work schedules and how oh I only
had a couple of hours of sleep, or like I barely have any time
to work on anything, and thatkind of schedule is seen as good or

(08:37):
like yeah, as you're being successfulon yeah, yeah, that's right.
I feel like even when I dohave like time to just take a break,
I feel so like unproductive. I'mlike I should be working right now,
like I should a break, Andit's like such a bad mindset to
have because it's like so normalized.Yeah, right, and you don't even

(08:58):
you're not even Sometimes people are noteven a air that they're physically exhaust or
that they're heading towards exhaustion until they'reabsolutely wiped out. Right, they ignore
it, Ignore it, ignore it, push it away, sweep it under
the carbet stuff it in the closet. I'm not going to pay attention to
that. And we talk about howthat's a really good thing, you know,
just stay focused and just do itand all that, and and to

(09:20):
some degree it is in various situations. But when you do that constantly,
your burnout. Right, we can'tdo that level of high intensity sprint twenty
four seven, right, This islife is more like a marathon, So
we have to piece ourselves. Ithink we just like usually just push through

(09:43):
it. We just do it becausewe just kind of avoid the signals of
burnout because we think that our selfwords, is tied to the amount of
work that we do. I'm like, I know, the mindset that I've
kind of happened the past three ofhigh school is like burnout is okay because
we're doing it for our future.And like, when I'm in college,
I'll look back at my high schooland like be thankful that I'm like I
was burnt out, which is likeso stupid to think about. I was
like thinking about it yesterday, actuallylike oh, how that gonna be positive

(10:07):
memories in high school? Like Ifeel like most of them are just me
working, and like when I washanging out with my friends yesterday, I
was like, I want more memorieslike this where I'm not just like working
and like I'm actually having fun.Like I don't think I'll look back in
college and be like I'm so badthat I was burnt out, And I
think I'll be more like why didn'tI have fun in high school? So

(10:28):
yeah, I agree. I thinkanother cause is also that we're really afraid
to ask for help, especially inthis environment, Like like asking for help
is seeing as like you're being inferiorin a way, like you're not smart
enough to know things and do thingsby yourself, and so like where we're
told to like not ask for helpin a way, we're told to kind

(10:48):
of figure it out on our own. But like, I think we need
to understand that it's really not abad thing, and you know, it's
part of life and you're going tohave to ask for help throughout your journey
of life, and so like askingteachers for help or asking, you know,
if I can get an extension onsomething I like, I'm having a

(11:11):
really bad mental health day. Likeyou don't have to push yourself to your
limits in order to get something done, and like people are generally understanding and
kind, Like if you ask forhelp, most people will try to help
you. So I think that's somethingthat we really need to understand. Yeah,
it's that balance between never asking forhelp and doing it all yourself and

(11:31):
then you know, not being ableto do anything for yourself and feeling or
acting like everybody else needs to doeverything for you. Right, they are
two very extreme positions, and there'sa lot of gray space in between that
that is very accommodating. And youknow, we feel like there's that slippery
slope, right if we go anywheretowards that other side, it's going to

(11:54):
be it's gonna be bad. We'regoing to start some spiral. But that's
that's not true. And I think, especially around asking for help, I
want to talk about this a littlebit, because asking for help doesn't mean
throwing your arms up and saying,oh, I can't do I can't write
that paper. Or I can't turnin that do the presentation, or turn
in that homework assignment or whatever itis. It's not you know, I'm

(12:15):
abandoning my work or I need somebodyelse to pick up the slack and do
it for me. It's it's morelike nuanced, right, So we can
ask for help in our own inour in our school situation, and in
our family situation or wherever it isthat we're doing work. And this is
a skill that we have to learnas adults. We need to be able
to learn how to ask for help. So if you talk to your parents

(12:35):
ever about this, or teachers orother adults around you, how do you
ask for help? That's a reallyinteresting question because it's hard for adults as
well, because we have that samesense of and probably this is where you
got it from, right, You'reyou're following our role model, which is
I'm afraid to ask for help becauseI'll be think thought of his inferior,
right, but asking for help andsaying here's how far I've got I really,

(13:00):
I've got a lot on my plateright now. This is a really
busy time. Can you help withthis particular computent? Like like, okay,
this is a silly example. Butright, you've got weekly chores and
you asked your sibling or your parent, Hey, this is a really crazy
week. Can you take on myweekly chores and then next week I'll help
out by doing yours, you know, in addition to mine. Right,
so you pick up the slack thisweek and I'll pick it up next week.

(13:20):
I'll give you a break, right, so we you know, we
manage our time. That's what itis, time and energy management. And
same thing in school. You know, if you know you have a really
busy time, you got a wholebunch of things assign it's not it's it's
actually a skill for work and notlook down on and a value that you
need to a skill that you needto work on developing to say to your
teachers, Hey, I've got thesethree assignments going on right now, can

(13:43):
I get an extension? And thisis like not the day of and you
haven't got it done. This islike you know, two three days before
the week before something, and youcan see this train coming down. You
know, it's like the steamroller.You know it's coming, and give people
warning at that point and they're veryacommodating. Right, if you wait till
the last minute. Then it's harder. And that's a skill that we have

(14:05):
to learn how to do, isto manage our time and to notify people
around us when we're going to needsupport or you know, modification. Does
that make sense? Okay? Good, So let's talk a little bit about
a model for discussing how to addressburnout and overwhelk overworking, a way to
think about it. And the reasonwhy I want to do this is because

(14:28):
it'll it'll make things you know,we're going to give like an overwhelming set
of information in this in this podcast, probably because there's so much to talk
about and it's easy to again getoverwhelmed by overworking and burnout solutions, and
I don't want that to happen.So here's a way of thinking about it,
to pocket it into compartments that mightmake it easier to remember. When

(14:52):
you think about addressing burnout and overworking, there are four things to think about.
Four not four. Four are thingsyou need to think about managing your
work, managing your body, managingyour emotions, and managing your thoughts.
Okay. Each of those have differentskills and there are different reasons for working

(15:13):
on them, and they affect eacheach of the other ones in a sort
of involved way. Right, Soyou know, when you're when you can't
manage your work, you know,and everything seems like it's equally important.
Then your emotions go in a certaindirection, and that makes your thoughts go
in a certain direction. Then yourbody gets worked up and it all spirals
out of control. Right, samething with you know, if you start

(15:33):
off with, oh, I'm dreadingjunior year, it's going to be horrible,
and then then your body gets workedup, and then your thoughts go
negative, and then your work spiralsout of control. So all of those
things interact with each other. Soagain, work, body, emotions,
and thoughts, and the purpose ofusing this models to talk about how we
can solve that problem and burnout andwhat can we do to focus on Let's

(15:56):
start with managing our work and thenwe'll move on to the other ones.
I think one way, like onequestion that gets brought up is how do
you effectively divide your task to preventbeing overwhelmed but still having to do all
of the tasks. For me,I've always used a planner because I like

(16:18):
like having my work written out infront of me, like what I have
to do. So I have likea checklist that I can like cross off
and like put stars next to themost important stuff. And my friends always
thinks fun of me. They're like, why do you need a planner?
Don't remember your homework? And I'mlike, I don't. I just like
like having things to check off,and like it just makes me feel like
I'm more productive than I am,and I feel like seeing all of it
in front of me, and likebeing able to organize what I want to

(16:38):
do first makes it less overwhelming,because like I know I can get it
done once I like plant it outin my planner. I agree. I
think I use something similar as well. I like to use Google Calendar,
and then I also like to uselike little post it notes. I'll like
write down my task and then stickit on the top of my desk,
and then once I'm done with it, I'll just like crumple it and through

(16:59):
the trash can. Kind of makesme feel like gratified and satisfied that like
I finished this task, And Ithink that kind of motivates you to keep
on going. Do you guys knowany of the brain chemistry behind that?
Do you know why writing down yourtask and checking them off or like doing
that crumple up and throw it away. Why that's healthy or helpful in a
in a neuroscience perspective, I thinkI read that it gives you, like

(17:25):
some dope for me when you whenyou cross it. Yeah, yeah,
not just when you cross it off, but when you identify it. Because
dopamine is a is a reward behaviorreward system, right, so we we
produced dopamine when we decide to dosomething, and we produced dop I mean
when we do the thing and wecan look back and say I did it.

(17:47):
And also we get some serotonin forhaving accomplished. Right. That actually
helps out too with the whole checkoff the list, I've you know,
I've accomplished something, and that makesus feel good. And that's in part
why organizers and to do lists areso popular, because they make us feel
good. And you know, somepeople like to take it a little step
further, and do you know differentcolor pens for each subject and different color

(18:11):
pens for exams versus papers or presentationsor something you know, everyday homework,
and that helps you triage the levelof importance of the project. So,
for example, a twenty minute mathhomework thing that's worth five points. Very
different from you know, a paperyou have to write or writing spending twenty

(18:33):
minutes on the introduction of the paperor spending twenty minutes on writing the outline
of the paper. Right, themath homework seems like it's more critical because
it's due tomorrow, and yet it'sonly five points. I mean in the
overall scheme of thing is if youturn that one thing in late, it
wouldn't be a big deal. Butif you turn in your paper late or

(18:56):
don't work on spend the time towork on the foundation in the paper,
the whole paper project becomes, youknow, a struggle, and that's a
big project. Right. So theability to chop our big tasks like a
paper down into small tasks, wehave a we have a method for this
is called agile and it's it's astrategy that they use in programming and a

(19:17):
lot of other project management where theychop everything down to even smaller tasks like
two hour tasks, one hour tasks, and then you know, knock it
off, knock this one off,knock that one off. And if the
task is taking longer, then thatmeans it needs to be broken down into
more subtasks. And also if weknow that we're not getting that thing done,
there's something about that tasks that taskthat we're procrastinating on, and so

(19:38):
what is the friction? It helpsus identify increase our self awareness about where
our friction is and what can wedo about it. Some tasks we don't
like to jump into is easy rightas to others. Math might be the
easy thing to get done before anEnglish paper. So so lots of things
here the organizer to just get theoverwhelmed down on paper so it doesn't feel

(20:03):
so huge and big and ominous,and that helps us kind of figure out,
then what's the most priority, what'sthe most important, What can we
triage and like say for later,or what do we have to do now?
What what's going to be easy toknock off? What's going to be
harder to knock off? How dowe break those hard things into stuff that's

(20:25):
that's not as hard, right,you know? How do we make it
just a ten minute exercise in somethingthat we really don't like to do,
but we're only going to spend tenminutes on it, and that way,
you know, we don't feel soso bad about starting it. Maybe we
can not procrastinate because it's only tenminutes, and then we give ourselves kudos
for having done it, and thenwhat's the next thing? Right? What

(20:47):
do you think about those ideas?Is there anything in there that you could
use or add to your repertoire?Yeah? I think like breaking the tafts
down into like smaller steps or smallerlike time frames is and it's easier to
tackle it and it seems like lessintimidating than before. So like if I
have to write an entire essay,it's less intimidating to think, Okay,

(21:10):
I'll just brainstorm my idea and thenI'll take a break, rather than like,
okay, you write tisay and likein this sitting right, Yeah.
Yeah, And I think another thingI do is like sometimes I I kind
of write on my to do listwhat I've already done just I can,
and it feels better because it's like, oh, okay, I've already done

(21:32):
that, Now I can continue todo more. Do you know what that
is? There's actually a skill namefor that. It's called positive reinforcement and
a little bit of cheerleading. Soyou're giving yourself credit for the stuff that
you've done, right by writing downwhat you've already done, and you're also
trueing yourself on saying, look,you know, I've done some stuff.
I get the motivation to keep goingright. So that's a lot about work,

(21:56):
about managing our time, managing ourenergy, and those are really important
things. That point about managing energy, though, is a good segue into
how do we manage our body?What is it that's going on physically with
ourselves that we can manage better tohelp us not burn out. I think
one thing that comes up is howmuch importance do you give to sleep when

(22:18):
you're doing this tests? Because it'sreally easy when you have like so much
work to put sleep on like thelast thing that's important. So how do
you how do you prioritize sleep intothis? For me, Like, I
know, if I stay up tilllike four i am studying for a test,
I'm not going to remember a singlething that I studied the next morning
because i'bviously just thinking about sleeping theentire time. And I think honestly,

(22:41):
getting a good night of sleep beforea test is like so much more helpful
than pulling an all nighter and thennot even remembering what you studied, like
during that all mightter. And Iknow it's like really hard to like think
sleep is like something you can catchup on later. But I feel like
every time I've thought that, Inever actually catch up on my sleep because
I'm like I've been fine without sleepfor this week, and like I should
be fine later on without sleep too, which is it's such a bad way

(23:03):
to think. But yeah, Ithink this is something I struggle with a
lot. Oftentimes I won't prioritize nicelyepI'll stay up doing my homework or studying
for a test, and like wherehe said, like it really doesn't halt
because then when you're taking that test, you like forget everything. Like I
know, like one time I stayedup to like four am studying for a

(23:25):
come test and then I had tocome test and like a couple of hours
later, and it was just likeyour mind just kind of goes like blank
and it becomes all fuzzy, andit's just like I know this, but
it's like not registering in your mind, and it's like it's from that lack
of sleep, like your body needsto rest. And I still struggle with
this too, Like I'll come homeand I'll like crash for three hours and
it's it's really bad. And Ithink like when you sleep, it's it's

(23:52):
really easy to say, like Ican just add it later. But I
think when you sleep, the differentstages you sleep, I'm so important to
get all of them and like forthe full like eight to ten or recommended
hours for you, And that's actuallyreally important for memory. So yeah,
yeah, that's that's very true.Let me expand on that a little bit.

(24:15):
The early stages of sleep, likeour early sleep cycles in the in
the first part of the night,like the first half of the night is
focus more on repairing our body andgetting us the energy to physically act the
next day. Right, We're replenishingour our energy, our sleep debt,
we're repairing bodily functions and things likethat. And then the second half of

(24:40):
our sleep is more focused on regeneratingand clearing out our brains from the last
day's activity. So all of thetransactions that happen, all the electrical exchanges
that happen that are the process ofus thinking, have left over residue,
right, and we have to recyclethose parts and in a way bring them

(25:03):
back to the start of the processso that we can be ready to do
it the next day, right,and this process of sort of clearing out
the garbage or recycling the parts thatwe have what we need to do the
thinking the next day when we don'thave the time to do that because we
cut our sleep short with a shortnight. That's why our brain seems fuzzy.
That's why we're not making fast connectionsbetween things. And like, you

(25:27):
know, we look at a testquestion and we go, oh, gosh,
I totally I remember I've seen thatbefore, but I can't remember what
it was. And we're not youknow, the things don't add up anymore.
Our connections aren't happening. It's becauseour brain hasn't had a chance to
rejuvenate the things, the components thatit needs to make those connections the next

(25:48):
day. And that's why a goodnight's sleep is much better than trying to
cram the night before. I saythis to you, and I totally went
through most of my high school andcollege career doing cramming and from my exams
because that's I didn't know any better. Honestly, that was that was why
so other other questions about how tomanage our body. What are some of

(26:12):
the things that we've noticed that contributeto burnout. I think something like I
wonder is, if you're like takingbreaks or you're working, how do you
prevent like not just immediately returning toyour work afterwards. M hmm. Yeah.
I think that's agree that really resonateswith me, because it's really easy

(26:33):
for me to just go on myphone and then like be on my phone
for hours and hours while I'm takinglike a break. Yeah, but I
think one thing that house is islike setting specific times to work where you
put your phone away or like youshut your phone off, and then taking
like scheduled breaks that are not onyour phone. I agree. I think

(26:59):
it's really easy to take breaks,not it's easy to go back to them
do your work. For me,I think like setting a time I think
works, but also it's really easyfor me to ignore the set time.
So I think I really just haveto convince myself that, like I need
to finish this and I need todo this, I need to prioritize this
right now. So I think it'sreally more of like a mindset thing for

(27:22):
me. Yeah, it is.It is. It's a combination of all
of the above. Actually, Ithink that's interesting about the mindset so with
the mindset issue, you know,we just need to push ourselves to do
it. That kind of thing,right, have the that just do it
wherewithal willpower, it's willpower. Willpowerworks best when when our batteries are fully

(27:45):
charged, we have stronger willpower.We know that, right if we're tired
or hungry or angry or lonely orwhatever, all our willpower is crappy,
Yeah, we need We're much moreshort tempered and irritable and not patient and
and not able to push ourselves throughthings. So making sure that we are

(28:08):
supporting our bodies in the way thatwe need to do in order to have
good willpower to push through those kindsof things. That's that's part of managing
our body. And by that,I mean, you know, treating physical
illness, making sure you have balancedsleep, balance, eating balance, exercise,
avoiding chemicals that alter our moods.All of those things help us strengthen

(28:33):
our will power. Something else thathelps us strengthen our willpower is that breaking
down of of You know, wetalked about breaking down our work into smaller
things and then having that that breakbe a sensory break as opposed to a
screening break like a technology break.Right, So we talked about this before.
When you when you can do somethingthat is different from what you're doing

(28:59):
now, it gives you a betterboost of energy. What do I mean
by that? If we're sitting studyingin a quiet space in a focused room,
you know, and then we takea break and we do more of
the sitting in that quiet space,but we're on our phones. We're not
getting that change of of you know, stand up, change your circulation,

(29:26):
go outside, change your the lightthat's coming into your eyes, change the
smells and the physical sensations that you'reexperiencing. Do something with your dog,
engage instead of you know, beingisolated. Right, that significant change in
our sensory experiences gives our senses moreenergy to do the things that we need

(29:51):
to do and better focus. Andvery often those kind of changes are easier
to come back from than a screen. And I'll tell you why, because
app manufacturers spend millions of dollars figuringout the research to addict us to our
phones. And I hate the wordaddiction, but it's actually true. It's

(30:11):
like, what is the app designersknow the neuroscience that makes us go oh
one more, oh one more?Oh, just there's another one. Look
at what I can do if ifI get this one one more It's all
going to take you know, onemore minute. Okay. Then it drags
out and they spend a huge amountof time and effort to try and get
you to stay in there, becausefor them, it's money, it's advertisers,

(30:32):
it's other things, right, andthat's their Their indicator of success is
how sticky a game can be orwhatever of TikTok can be. Right,
you look, what's the next one? What's the next one? Always what's
the next one? So we haveto think about what is it that's affecting
ourselves when we take a break,you know, is it is it one
that's going to be in line withour goals? So if our goals are

(30:53):
to make it be a short breakand to feel rejuvenated afterwards so I can
go back and get my work done, so I can actually have my nice
break at the end of it.You know, That's that's what we have
to remember our values and priorities.And that step of remembering our values and
priorities goes a long way to supportingyour willpower and your mindset change. Right,
Yeah, I think I read somethingvery similar, like within color psychology

(31:19):
and how how manufacturers use specific colorson purpose to keep consumers like using their
phone. It was too fascinating toread about. But like I heard that
there's like a tip to turn offthe color on your phone to help make
it less addicting. That's great.I need to try that one day.

(31:42):
Yeah, I need to figure outwhere that is on my phone. That's
really interesting, turning off the color. I wonder. So I know that
we're very visual, right, Weget a lot of our information from our
visual and even what if what wesee doesn't coincide with what we hear our
site overrides are hearing, would youbelieve? So that's been demonstrated in you

(32:09):
know, in actual research. Soso those kind of visual cues like light
and movement are very strong captivators forus and cause us to stay. To
stick the idea that our phones arealways giving us some kind of input,

(32:29):
you know, like whether it's informationor stuff that's happening. And I mean
I don't mean information like educational information. I mean you know, a video
about celebrity or another song or anotherfunny thing that happened. That's information for
a brain, right, and ifwe constantly have information coming in, our
brain never has a chance to stopand rest and regroup the information that it's

(32:53):
put in. So imagine you've gota bathtub and you've got the tap on
the bathtub, and you just keepthe tap on and eventually the bathtub fills.
What happens with the excess water?It just pours over the sides,
right, you don't keep it.So this is like us with information from
our phones, Like we're constantly takingin information and after a while we just

(33:14):
we don't even remember what we saw. Like, if you spend an hour
on your phone, how much ofit do you think you would remember?
Yeah, one time I remember likeI was schooling on my phone and then
for some reason I wanted to goback and find a video, and I
thought, oh, that was onlylike a couple of videos back, But
then I ended up sculling like twentyfive videos. I was like, oh

(33:35):
my god, how did I doso much content? It looks so short
videos too, Like you feel likeyou're not even watching that much because it's
in your nine seconds, but likeyou watch so much filling in her So
if you think about that from theperspective of every bit of information is something
your brain has to process, andit takes electrical currents to process that information.
How much are you using up injust processing content and not actually thinking

(33:59):
about some thing productive? And thenafter you've processed all that content, how
tired would your brain be? Verytired? I like being on your phone
is not a good break. It'sjust like even more overwhelming, like if
odd's onto your stress even more.I think it's just so appealing because it's
like the fastest way you can kindof turn off your brain sometimes, so

(34:22):
I feel like it's really easy justto just try to go into it and
like shut off your brain. Butin the long run, or like after
an hour your note, it's notextremely helpful. Yeah, it's like candy,
all right, we need food,we need nutrients. Candy is pleasurable,

(34:43):
so we have to balance how muchcandy and how much food we get.
So we're not saying don't use phonesat all because it's pleasurable, right,
It gives us, It keeps usconnected, We get information, it's
entertaining, there's value in it.But then you know how much of it
are we are we taking in?And then I think another questions people have

(35:06):
or is more related to the emotionsbehind it. So how do you avoid
feeling stressed out when you have morelong term tasks and it always feels like
there's more work to do with it. I think it's important to like kind
of break it down, like notit's like long term projects, to not
do everything last minute, and likespend a little bit of time on it

(35:29):
so that it feels like you're alwayslike watching on it and you're not super
behind. Like I try to likespend twenty minutes like every day just working
on a project, which I knowit can be hard because like I always
want to procrastinate it. But thenlike I always think that, like I'm
gonna like be so mad at myselfin the future if I'm like doing the
project the night before it's do it'slike taking so long. You know.

(35:52):
What you guys have described as isa an incentive that's kind of a long
term incentive. Right. We alwaysvery often discount our immediate, you know,
in favor of pushing stuff off tothe long term or sorry, that's
it's the backwards. We discount thelong term, right we say, oh,

(36:12):
we have plenty of time, wecan do it later. Right now,
I'm going to do my other thing. I've got plenty of time for
that, right, push it off, and then of course we get stuck.
Right, that's exactly what you're describing. But this ability to kind of
chip away it a little by littleand not just wait and do it all
in one lump takes some kind ofway to reduce the friction of doing a

(36:37):
little bit right now, Right,So that baby step has to be little
enough that you're like, yeah,I can do it, because it's not
a big deal. It gets meforward, it's not going to take a
huge chunk out of my time.I can go back to whatever thing I
was doing before, and I won'tfeel bad about it because I've actually got
a little bit done. Even sothat twenty minutes for some people is enough.
Sometimes it needs to be ten.Sometimes it's just paging back into memory.

(36:58):
What was the assignment, right?What's the assignment again? What's the
assignment again? What's the assignment again? And every time you page it back
into memory, you think a littlebit more about, well, okay,
if the assignment was to combine thisand that and answer the question or create
something that responds to the prompt thatwhen you page it back into your memory.
Your brain works on it in theback of your head without you consciously

(37:22):
thinking about it. Like you're like, instead of I'm going to sit down
and work on my paper right now, right, you're like, I'm gonna
put the ideas into my head againand walk away and go do something else.
But in the back of my headthe ideas are brewing. And so
the next time I come back tosit down and do my ten twenty minutes

(37:42):
worth of thing, I might havesome idea that pops into my head.
I can write it down, andthen I do that again. Right,
go away, think about it,come back, write something else down,
and over time, when you collectit, all those little things build up
to you know, what looks likethe paper, and you can just add
a few bits more and a littlebit more structure, and and it it
allows you to build the thing inreally short chunks. Have you guys heard

(38:05):
of agile programming? Neither of youare like related to computer science people or
programmers or anything like that, right, Okay, So agile programming basically takes
a big, huge project, youknow, like a month long month,
months long project, and breaks itdown to a little tiny, two hour
chunks as you think, Okay,my project is due in six months,

(38:29):
twelve months, something like that.What is a two hour chunk? And
this is like, okay, breakingdown this chunk, quick down that chunk,
this chunk, chunk, chunk,chunk, chunk, chunk everywhere until
you get to these little short chunksof two hours. Now what we're describing
is even more tiny. It's onlytwenty minutes or fifteen minutes chunk. So
if you can like narrow down youractivity to even a smaller chunk, then

(38:51):
the friction behind that chunk becomes smallerand smaller and eventually becomes something we can
push through. I don't know,would definitely like to make get a lot
less overwhelming in the long run,just doing a little bit every day.
I think that's something I need towork on for sure. Other resentments are
not resentment frictions, emotional frictions arounddoing that little tiny chunk. I think

(39:14):
it's like sometimes, like even doingsmaller portions, it can be really difficult
to start, especially when you don'treally even know where to start. I
think that's like one of the things. Yeah, it is when you have
a big project and you don't knowwhere to start. Is there any benefit

(39:35):
in having so? Sometimes sometimes Iwill take you know, those big sticky
notes that they use like easels,You know that they're sticky note at the
tops it's a gigantic post it note. I'll stick that up on the wall.
And then I'll take little post itnotes and I'll write down a thought

(39:57):
on the post it notes, stickit up on the wall. Right,
And every time I come up witha thought or I'm spending time on it,
I'll put another thought on the wall. Right, Even though I don't
know how to think about the thingthat I have to do, I don't
know where to start with it.But at least I'm getting this stuff out
of my head so I can visuallysee it on the wall. In my

(40:20):
sticky notes, you can see I'mkeeping three m in business, purchasing a
single handedly purchasing all their things.But you know, I mean, it
doesn't have to be sticking out.It could beat a little piece of paper
that you tape up on the wall. The point is that you you brain
dump without knowing where to start.You just you know, you have some

(40:44):
thoughts attached to this thing, andyou can just brain jump it. And
then as you look at it.You can start saying, oh, well,
I need to collect some information here, or I need to build this
part, or I need to youknow, read something over here to figure
out Like so it starts to materializeas you do that. Does that make

(41:04):
sense? Yeah? Yeah, Ithink it's like it's definitely less intimidating than
if you had to like like actuallylike like it feels less intimidating if you
can like do on like a postednessand like when you get the idea,
you can kind of go back toit. Yeah. That is actually one
of the beauties of the post itnote is that it's such a small piece

(41:27):
of paper, you know, it'slike not super intimidating, whereas like a
blank sheet or like a blank screenin front of you that that's kind of
intimidating, right, But a postit note, it's just like a couple
of words. Stick it up abig deal. Yeah. Other emotions that
come around that sense of overwhelmer orprocrastinating, super anxious about everything they have

(41:54):
to do, like feeling like youcan't get everything done and it won't be
to the best of your abilities,Like I know, for me, I'm
such a perfectionist, Like I needeverything to give you up perfect when I
do it, and I remember,like I've gotten better, But I remember
in freshman year by school, Iwould spend so much time on assignments that
like literally didn't even matter, likethey were worth like two or three points,

(42:15):
And like now I know that itdoesn't matter as much, but like
for larger projects, I still findmyself exciting so much extra time that like
I could be using on something else. What got you past the thing before
in freshman year at the two pointthings? Was it just experience that you
needed to go through the process andreally recognize, oh, this really didn't

(42:37):
change my grade even though I spentall night on it. Yeah, yeah,
it was that experience. Okay,will your instructors allow you to turn
in some kind of draft and thenget feedback on it? Not at all?
Okay? What about do you haveor study buddies in a classroom you

(43:01):
know, a particular class, orsomebody that you know who like your friend,
who's not necessarily in your class,but you know you'd be comfortable with
saying, like if it was awhat's a typical big project A writing thing?
Yeah, I look an essay forEnglish maybe Okay, So somebody who
you know, you could have themlook at your your a draft of your

(43:24):
essay, and they would give youvaluable feedback. Do you guys have somebody
like that idea? Not sure,even like you know, a sibling who's
not in high school anymore, orlike a cousin or a some other kind

(43:52):
of mentor or other friend or somebody. Well, I mean, I think,
well, there are people at ourschool that like, maybe we could
ask, but I think it's kindof difficult asking because like they're also writing
their own essay, and so youdon't want to like put your essay on

(44:13):
top of that and be like,can you also check mine? And right,
But I'm not saying here's my entireessay, go read it. I'm
saying, here's a paragraph, andit's a rough draft. What do you
think of it? Does it explainmy you know, my first sentence?
Well enough? Is there enough supportingevidence? I mean, that's a certain

(44:36):
type of writing, but you getmy point, like a small chunk,
right, It's just that little chunk, and it takes them fifteen minutes,
and maybe even you're sitting with themwhile while they do it, so that
it's not some onerous thing on theirheads that they have to think about and
maybe you share it like you dotheirs and they do yours. The reason
why I'm describing this is because this, this is what can happen at work,

(44:58):
and this is something I do.You know, like in a professional
setting, most of the people thatI work with, I'm not competing directly
with them, so you know,there's not like some shortage of something and
you know, I'm in competition withthem and if if I get if they

(45:22):
get first place, then I getsecond place. That kind of thing,
right, It's not that kind ofenvironment. So and it actually behooves them
to support me because the thing thatI do they can use or it benefits
them in some way, right,or then find some way to have some
kind of common ground where things aremutually shared. So so the example is
maybe I'm thinking about doing a newgroup activity and I bounce the ideas off

(45:46):
with somebody else. What do youthink of this idea for you know,
this like teaching this skill using thisactivity, And they might say, oh,
well that's a good idea, butyou have to watch out for blah
blah blah, or I think it'sa great idea, and you know,
add this to it or something likethat. Right, does that sound like
something that in the high school settingit could be done or is it impossible

(46:08):
to do because of the way highschool is structured, or what's the potential
there. I think it kind ofjust depends on like the type of assignment
and the essay, because sometimes,like you might have friends, but they
might even be in a different class, so like the writing that they're used

(46:28):
to is like different than what theteacher expects, or like sometimes like sometimes
it's like you both have different ideasof like how you want something to look,
and like it might not always workout, but I think in like
a lot of situations it does workout, like when you ask for hope
or you ask them to like likepuer view something. So I think it

(46:50):
kind of just depends. Okay,So it sounds like there is a possibility
of, you know, developing aan individual in whatever class you're in who's
on the same page because they're learningthe same thing at the same time and
doing it the same way, right, not a different class it's a different
teacher doing a different way of writingwhatever. Even though I can see how

(47:14):
that could work as well. Andthen with that person in your class you
can bounce ideas off of and likeyou know, develop your thoughts. And
it's like I said, it's smallchunks. So this is this is something
that like Bill and I do this. We have a big project and we'll
do like draft a chunk of theoutline and then give some feedback, right,

(47:37):
get some feedback from the other person, and then do the same thing
a little bit more like shape it, maybe to add on another component,
and then get some feedback. Andevery step is a little bit of feedback.
I understand. I understand that youguys typically do your work separate and
sometimes you procrastinate and wait until lastminute. So it's not possible to do

(48:00):
that kind of work right because it'sall been pushed and nobody has time for
it, and you know, youjust you don't have time for it.
But my point is that if youcan do it in a trickle over the
time period that you're allotted instead ofwaiting at the end, maybe doing it
that way of you know, thedraft and feedback, draft and feedback draft
and you know review kind of processis an effective way to not feel so

(48:25):
overwhelmed. Because that's what I doin a professional setting. That makes sense.
That makes sense. Yeah, Thequestion is whether or not it's implementable,
right, can you actually do it? Is there a motivation to do
it? Or is there too muchfriction? I don't know. I think

(48:50):
like for some people it might be, but I think for others it might
be harder for them to like tolike even like share something with like their
their peers that are like or theymight have like their own person in securities
that like make it harder for themto share. But I know that some
people it's like it can it canwork really smoothly with them. Yeah,

(49:12):
Right, So it's about finding somebodythat you feel comfortable enough and trust enough
to share those kind of unfinished worksworks in progress with. Right, And
also can mean getting over the discomfortthat you experience of sharing something that you
feel like is not perfect yet.That's I think at the end of the
day, that is one of thekey skills of overcoming perfectionism is being able

(49:39):
to release somebody something to somebody elsethat's not that's half baked, that's not
completely perfect. Right, that's thewhole point of perfectionism, is I like,
you can nobody can see it untilit's one hundred percent perfect, right.
So in order to get over thatmentality, you have to in little
tiny baby chunks, allow somebody tosee something that's it's half baked, that's

(50:00):
a work in progress, and becomfortable with whatever feedback they give you,
even though that whole process is reallyuncomfortable. And the more you do it,
the more it's like, you know, get back up on the bike,
even though you fell down or youbumped into something or whatever happened.
You know, it's uncomfortable. I'mgoing to do it a little bit again,
a little bit again, a littlebit again, and then we develop
our muscles to deal with that discomfortand it becomes not so uncomfortable anymore.

(50:25):
It may not be something that youguys can implement in high school, I
don't know, but maybe it's somethingthat you can think about, you know,
when you get into college. Yeah. I think in like college maybe
like because in certain like colleges theyhave like closer, like smaller classrooms or
like more professor connection, and Ithink there's like, I mean, there's

(50:49):
still competitiveness, but I feel likein like some high schools, there just
like a lot of competitiveness in betweenstudents, I think instead of pushing your
friends up. It's like you pushthem to dan, stand on them to
get up. Yeah, yeah,I can definitely see that in the Bay
Area, that there is that kindof dog eat dog sense of competition where

(51:13):
students are less inclined to work togetherand more inclined to compete against each other
because there's only so many seats andyou know, you want to get it,
not not the other person. It'strue, and yet at some point
we have to break that cycle.And if we, you know, I

(51:37):
guess the challenge is, how doyou break that cycle and find what,
like one person that you could dothat with? All right, one person
you'd be comfortable not competing against,but competing with. So maybe there's a
space, Maybe there's a way tostart that, maybe like with our close

(52:01):
friends, not just like a randompeer in our class, but like people
we've known for a while. Itmight be a little bit easily like trustful
with that, right, all right, right, and they're more likely to
want the best for you. Youwant the best for them. You know,
you share in that exchange and supporteach other both ways, and that

(52:23):
in that equation, so it's notjust you leaning on the other person and
see other person also, you know, let's do this together kind of thing.
Yeah yeah, okay, Well,in this section we're talking a little
bit more about the emotions that weexperience with overwhelm and burnout, and so

(52:45):
how do we actually what do weuse and what can the curriculum, the
Heart curriculum suggest to do when we'refeeling emotionally distressed, anxious, overwhelmed,
annoyed, you know, and andwe want to either get past those emotions

(53:08):
or find a way to change howwe feel about stuff. So do you
remember the five responses to a solution, like like the like responses that you
you get like flight in right,or so those were the different stress responses.

(53:30):
That's true. But then there wasthis other list of five. I
mean, there's so many lists it'shard to remember. But maybe with repetition,
the five responses to the solution wereto the problem where like, so
there's something's happen and maybe you cando something about it, now maybe you
can't. What are the different responsesthat you can have? Stay miserable was
the first one. Do you rememberit now? Yeah? Yeah, it's

(53:52):
like ringing about stay miserable, makeit worse. That includes avoiding, Oh
yeah, I change how you feeland solve the problem. Sometimes we can't
actually solve the problem, Like youknow, it's like something happened yesterday,
I said something, I did something. I can't go back and change it.
I can move forward and try andwork on, you know, recovering

(54:15):
from it as it were. ButI can't change the thing that happened anymore.
Am I going to stay miserable aboutit and be super upset that I
did that embarrassing thing? Am Igonna like never speak to those people again,
run away and shame and horror andyou know, avoid and never speak
up again because it was so embarrassingthat I'm going to restrict the rest of
my life because of it. Isthere a way to say, yeah,

(54:37):
I screwed up, accept it,it's in the past. They're going to
think whatever they think. Maybe there'ssomething I can focus on to solve the
problem or change how I feel,But I at least have to accept it
before I can go in that direction. Right, This is like the key
bridge to changing how you feel aboutit and solving the problem. So so

(54:59):
with emotions, when there's a situationthat happens when you're feeling emotional about it,
like overwhelmed. Is there a wayto not just be miserable with the
overwhelmed, not feel resentful about thework that you have to do or like
hopeless or upset about you know,I have to do all this work and
I can't enjoy my high school yearor whatever it is, and say,

(55:22):
all right, well everybody has todo it, or most people have to
do it. Most of the peoplearound me are doing it. Let me
see how I can handle the distressingfeelings that I feel with skills, you
know, manage to stress response,Nicole, like you were saying, so
that I don't feel so much ofa stress response. And then and then,

(55:46):
you know, think about the thingin a different light that helps me
buy into the positives of it asopposed to just be focusing on the negatives
of it. That's about That's howyou know. They say, oh,
change your thoughts and you'll change yourworld. It's great, but how do
you do it? I think forme it was kind of just like experienced,

(56:09):
like I'm not gonna lie. Ispent like my last three years of
high school just staying miserable, likeI definitely did not accept anything. And
then when I started senior year,I just kind of looked back at that
and I was like, Wow,I really did not enjoy like what we're
supposed to be like the prime yearsof my life. And so I guess
just like from that experience like andwanting to like actually have some positive memories

(56:31):
in high school, I think that'skind of like pushed me to accept a
little bit more. And it's stillnot perfect because I guess it takes time
to like change that mindset because Ihad it for so long. It's gotten
better. Yeah, No, that'sgreat because you're aware now of when you're
doing it right, You're aware ofI'm doing that miserable thing again, right,

(56:52):
Okay, I could start working onchanging how I feel about this thing
and not be so miserable about it, because what's the Yeah, so that's
great, Nicole. Yeah, No, I was gonna say the same,
like, because I always had thisthing that I just had to get past
senior sick and semester and then likeeverything would be easier because like I won't

(57:15):
have to like you know, havelike coach apps on my thing and everything.
But I've kind of started realizing,like I can't really just keep pushing
like happiness, so like like actuallyrecently me and my friends started doing something
called like fried Chicken Friday, andlike on Fridays after school, we get
like we have like a list offood that we want to go to and

(57:37):
like eat. And so that's itsreally nice. That's so cute. I
love that. That's great. Soyou just you reward yourself for the weekend.
It's like something to look forward toand a camaraderie and something to laugh
about, an experience that you canremember, and you're like filling your battery

(57:57):
or your bucket with positive experiences.This is called engaging in pleasant activities.
This is actually a skill for improvingyour emotional management. It's a long term
skill, right. It doesn't happenovernight. It builds up because what you're
doing every time you do at apleasant activity is you're increasing You're dropping a
little serotonin and endorphins into your chemistry. Right. You remember the brain chemistry

(58:19):
thing. I don't know if wecovered the unit on brain chemistry that well,
dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, andendorphins d O SE Right, So
those four hormones contribute to our senseof well being. They're major hormones that
contribute to our sense of well being, and serotonin and endorphins come from doing

(58:40):
something that we enjoy, and ifwe're doing it with somebody else, like
Nichol's talking about, then we alsoget oxytocin. So we're getting these three
chemicals that are like lifting us upin terms of the spiral, you know,
spiral down or spiral up. Andif we keep you know, like
you keep feeding something. It's likevitamins, right, It's like vitamins for
your soul. You keep giving yourselfa little bit of itam a little bit
of vitamin, a little bit ofvitamin, and it maintained you better of

(59:02):
a long term. It might notsolve your problem right now, it might
not make everything better right now,but on the whole, because you're having
all these positive experiences, you feelmore robust and happier and more content and
you can manage the stressors better.That's a good plan, Nicle. We

(59:23):
just actually, yeah, so westarted it last week. That yet just
yesterday we went and we got fromfried two days. It's fine, I'll
have to find out where you gothere. We're starting to oscillate it solaces,
yeah, but we still call itfried Chicken Friday, dude. Okay,

(59:45):
anybody ever feel resentment about the overwhelmor about the work. Yeah,
and if so, or guilt orshame or something like that about the procrastination.
How do you handle that? Mhm No, it can be difficult
to handle because I definitely do feelresentment towards my work. But I just

(01:00:07):
kind of pushed through just because Ialways have like my end goal in mind
of like just getting out of highschool and like needing to do this work
to graduate and go to college.So like it's just like doing it for
the future is kind of what helpsme. Yeah, Honestly, I think
I'm the same. Like when Ithink of like doing college apps and like
I'm trying to like start doing myessays, and like one of the things

(01:00:30):
that really helps me is like whenI'm researching a particular school, I look
at like their programs and like youknow, I see, like, oh,
this is what I want to do, and it's like really cool because
it's like they have they have likeall of these like curses and classes,
and it's like it's interesting to thinkthat maybe you know, in six months,
if I like continue to like tryto do my work, I might
be there. M Nicole. Whatyou're describing is using kind of excite and

(01:00:58):
delight. Remember the different stress responsesyou broke that broke that broached that subject
a little bit earlier. When Iwas asking about the five responses, this
was the stress responses, right,So fight flight, hand and my friend
rise to the challenge, excite delight. So this is basically looking at your
stressor through a different lens as somethingthat's interesting and delighting because oh, I

(01:01:22):
could potentially be going here, yeah, and they have this really cool program
that I could do whatever's with,you know, or they have this amazing
I don't know gym facility on campus. If I were there, I could
use it every day or what youknow, like whatever the thing is that
helps you get excited about visualizing yourselfthere. So this is part of I

(01:01:45):
don't know if you remember the visualizationskill. So this was a way to
imagine yourself in the place or imagineyourself doing the thing, and that gives
you, you know, positive feedbackand more incentive. Right. It makes
your why bigger than your butt,and it helps you find the interesting the

(01:02:05):
spoonful of sugar in the job thathas to be done. Rudy, You're
The thing that you described is somethingthat everybody, like a lot of adults
do that whole just I just haveto do it, just knuckle down,
push through it, right, andit works for a while. Especially it's
really important when you're sprinting, youjust have to do it. But when

(01:02:25):
you're marathoning, like I know peoplein their careers that burn out over time
because that's their only responses. Ijust have to do it. I just
have to do it. I justhave to do it. And after a
while there's no more energy or motivation. They're like, look up and they
go, why am I doing this? Why do I just have to do
it? I don't want to doit anymore. And then they quit and

(01:02:46):
they try and like you know,glasses greener over there, and they try
and do that over there, butthen the same thing happens. I have
to do this. Every job hasstuff that you just have to do,
and maybe some jobs are better.I'm not saying that all jobs are equal,
but every task, every role,every you know, responsibility has those

(01:03:07):
components of it that you like inother ones that you don't like that you
have to push through. If that'sthe only response that you have, though,
that's a way of burning out inthe future as an adult. Yeah,
No, definitely, like after Igot really burnt to after my junior
year, and I feel like Ican still feel the effects of that burnout,

(01:03:27):
and I feel like senioritis is likealready started, even though it's just
first semester. And yeah, it'sbeen hard because like even know what she's
saying, like I just had todo it, Like it's not working as
well because I've already experienced like thatburnout. Yeah, speaking of burnout and
senioritis, I just want to tellyou this one story. Okay, I

(01:03:49):
realize we're kind of running out oftime here. Does anybody have to run
off to anything at noon? No, Okay, I'll try not to go
over too much, but but Ijust this is a really important story.
You may remember that I told youmy son graduated last year. He was
a senior, and he got ahuge case of senioritis. He totally burned
out. I mean he was bustinghis butt with aps and you know,

(01:04:12):
like hardcore athletics and really burning thecandle at both ends. Okay, and
you know, despite what I tellhim, I'm his mother, so he's
going to do his things the wayit is, you know, I'm assigned
to that. But anyway, comeyou know. He pushed through the first
half of senior year with sports inthe in the fall season and all the

(01:04:34):
college exempt applications essays, the restof his AP classes and stuff like that
through first semester. Come to secondsemester, applications are in, he gets
accepted, and then it's just likeall the energy goes out. They want

(01:04:56):
to go to class. If Iget to class, it's you know,
on late. Right, So westarted getting notices from the school about you
know, absences and late notices thatcould potentially lead to detention or other things
like not being able to walk atgraduation or you know whatever. So we
had a conversation about this, whatare the drivers now for you? Right

(01:05:20):
you got into college, do theAPIs matter still? Like? Can you
can you get units? Will thiscollege that you want to go to that
you've accepted, will they accept theaps? Turns out no, right,
like one of them, but theother ones not so much. They won't

(01:05:40):
they won't accept the units and theyand you know, so the purpose of
taking the AP was one to getinto the college to begin with, and
two to get the units to nothave to take the class in college,
right, But if the college isn'trecognize the units, then now what's the
point of the AP? You know, is it just finished strong and that
kind of thing, or is theresomething else you can learn? So we

(01:06:01):
had a conversation about, well,if the aps don't matter anymore, and
you know, you've already gotten tocollege and you're not on probation, I
mean, obviously you don't want toflunk out in senior year, so you've
got to maintain some level of academiccaliber, right, but it doesn't have
to be as hard as you weregoing like, you know, junior year
and maybe first semester. What wouldbe your important focus now that you're here,

(01:06:26):
you know, where are you?What are you thinking about? And
for him it was my friends becausein a few months, I'm not going
to see them, and our timespent together it's going to be really minimal.
Okay, I get it. Sopart of your time is going to
be focused on your friends, butit can't be all of the time.
What else can you learn? Whatelse would you be doing? And he
said, get a job. Iwould be working if I didn't have to
go to school right now to savemoney for fun things that I want to

(01:06:49):
do, or for just you know, parts of college whatever. And and
also from my perspective, the experienceof working. All that was involved in
working, not just like work,ethnic and responsibility and you know how world
works, how business works, stufflike that, but just like he was

(01:07:09):
interested in data and doing like datascience and statistics. So the company that
he went to work for uses dataall the time, and he just in
passing. Even what he was doingwas like stalking right, like putting items
on the shelf or like you know, it was a really manual kind of
job, but he could see inthe in the system what they were doing

(01:07:29):
with data, how many of thisproduct went through the shop in a week,
and you know, what do theyneed to do to move this other
product? Or what's a you know, a something that draws people in and
then other things can sell, orjust all of the information that they were
using. It became like, oh, now I see what companies do with
information. And that experience in andof itself was something that he would never

(01:07:51):
get in class. And then hehad opportunities with selling, and opportunities with
you know, coming to work ontime, those kind of things. Just
so many different opportunities that came outof actual day to day working where I
didn't you wouldn't get those in school. And so for me, moving away
from the academic side of things andbeing you know, really focused on pushing

(01:08:13):
for a's and classes became less importantthan having real life work experience and splitting
your energy between you know, okay, some school and but also some real
world having that conversation with yourself andmaybe your parents about what should I be
focusing on now, because I'm Ipushed through that period where I really had
to focus, but now I'm burnoutand I don't have the energy to continue

(01:08:33):
to do this thing anymore. Whatis there something else that's a priority that
can still work towards it. Ifeel like it's new, it's interesting,
I can have the energy to spendon it. It actually brings me some
additional value and thoughts. Yeah,I think I think that's a good point
because, like I feel like alot of people, it's it's kind of

(01:08:57):
especially like for a semester, it'slike more of a focus, Like everything
you do is kind of more ofa focus. Like how do I you
know, you know, have thislast push to get into college or whatever,
And I think like redefining your goalsbecause like I feel like for so
long, like for most of thepeople in our school, it's like getting
into college or like doing well,but like being able to redefine your goals
to to use, like to actuallyutilize those six months that you have before

(01:09:19):
you go to college can be likereally helpful. And like whether that be
from like a part time job orlike finding like you know, putting more
time in classes that might like bemore related to your major or things like
that. I think it's it's important. Yeah, Yeah, we have to

(01:09:42):
reinvent ourselves as adults as well.Right, we'd continually have to do that.
We can't expect to get into onejob do the same thing for the
rest of our lives. It doesn'thappen. We have to revisit things happen,
we get burnout, What can wechange? How can we reinvigorate ourselves?
Finding reason for doing what we're doing? Yeah, we prioritized you any

(01:10:10):
thoughts, Yeah, I agree,Like, I think it's important to spend
that next six months try and justfind opportunity and like figure out what your
other passions are because the past threeyears you feel like st fixated on the
same thing, and now that it'slike over, you kind of like explore
different paths that maybe we just didn'thave the time to do when we were
in his school. Thinking about thatis an interesting opportunity. After you get

(01:10:34):
finished with your college, apps canhelp you get through the next chunk of
time where you're feeling that burnout andyou like, you know, all the
original reasons have kind of gone away, and now you have to just finish
strong and you're like, I don'twant to do it. So anyway,
that's that's a way to deal withthe emotions is to look at what are

(01:10:56):
your values and your priorities. Howdo I restructure what I'm doing to make
it coincide and keep my why biggerthan my butt? Yeah, So I
think continuing is like if you're onthe edge of burnout, which she do
you do? And I think there'ssome indicators like that we mentioned earlier,
like crying, being really angry,being very panicky. You're feeling a lot

(01:11:16):
of emotional overwhelming this and looking intolike what should you do. One of
the first things is distress tolerance skills, and they're like survival skills that you
have when you're feeling when you're like, they're like your crisis survival skills.
And one of the crisis survival skillsthat we like to use in the curriculum

(01:11:40):
is wave surfing, which is theidea that it takes ninety seconds to dissipate
the current emotion that you're feeling.So, for example, if you're feeling
really anxious or angry, you kindof wait for like ninety seconds, feel
the emotion and let it go,and then you don't keep thinking about it,
otherwise it's going to take you anotherninety seconds to get over it.
The idea he take the ninety secondsand then you let the emotion go.

(01:12:02):
Nice. I feel like another skill, and this is something that I'm like
really trying to work on, isradical acceptance. And basically it's like trying
not to let your pain turn intosuffering. So I'd rather than just focusing
on like why you keep having todo this and like constantly being upset about
it, you just kind of acceptthe fact that, like, yes it's
challenging and yes it might suck,but you might as well just focus on

(01:12:26):
doing it anyways because you can't controlit. And so I feel like that's
something I need to work on becauseI'm like always fighting when I can't control
and I'm like, why do Ihave to do this assignment? Why do
I have to turn this in?Like why do I have to go to
school? And it's like I justhave to do it because like I can't
control it. Yeah, for sure, let me just interject here. Wave
surfing and radical acceptance they go handin hand obviously, right, because during

(01:12:46):
that time period of the wave surfing, you're kind of having to focus on
radical acceptance and that's hard to do. We all said that already. You
know, just do it is hard, It takes willpower. So how do
you how do you do something elsethat can distract you and also make the
situation better? Yeah? I thinkanother like like as where we're saying,

(01:13:09):
like a distressed tolling skill would beTIP. So TIP stands for a temperature
intensive exercise, progressive mustorial action andpaste breathing. And it's something that it's
intended to use when you're like incrisis and really overwhelmed with intense and painful
emotions, and it's kind of usedto help ground you and decrease the like

(01:13:30):
the intensity of the distress. Soyou can like more tolerate that moment and
reduce your suffering. So I thefirst one is temperature, which is kind
of like you're engaging your mammalian divoryreflex for example, like like you put
an ice pack, or like youput your head in a really cold icy

(01:13:50):
water. And that is like oneone method to like use TIP, and
then another it's intense ex signs.So like you you like run around really
fast, or you damned jumping jacksand you kind of used the energy from
fight and fight to be in amore manage to bill state. Right,

(01:14:11):
So you've got all those hormones thatgot released, you know, in the
distress and now, and they're tellingyou you here are the hormones, and
here's the energy for running away orfighting, and then you're supposed to sit
quietly and do something. It's hard, right, So we need to use
up that energy. And that's inpart what the intense exercise is about.
Moving on from there, the thirdpart of TIP is paste breathing. Breathing,

(01:14:34):
So if you're like hiking and youhave to hike up like this along
mountain and you're like out of breathalready, and it's like a mile more
and you're just like dreading it.You have to kind of change your way
of breathing to adapt to this newchallenge. So you may take long breaths
and you may like slow your breathing, so your heart rate also slows and

(01:14:58):
your muscle tension reduces, and thisengages your parasymptic nervous system and the rest
slush digest response, which just calmsyou down and it gets you ready for
a challenge. Right, So letme just clarify that point. If you're
climbing the mountain, you actually needyour heart right to go a little faster.
But if you are in the momentwhere you're you're experiencing that kind of

(01:15:20):
panicky fight flight, I need tofight or run away. But actually it's
like you're in a test, oryou're in class, or you're you know,
I don't know, you're at home, and it's not really appropriate to
the setting. Then that's when youwant to do the reverse, which is
to engage your parasympathetic and calm everythingdown. Yeah, and then the last

(01:15:42):
part of tip would be progressive musclerelaxation, which is just noticing and releasing
like the tension build up in yourbody. I feel like when I'm super
anxious, I get my body getsso tense and I don't even realize how
tense it is, to the pointlike until when I'm like sleeping and I'm
like finally relaxing, and I'm like, oh wow, my body was so
tense about the entire day. Soprogressive and muscle relaxation basically just like teaches

(01:16:03):
you to tense your muscles and thenrelax them, and you'll kind of like
notice how your muscles look relax whenyou feel it, and then it helps
you relax your body and then getrid of like that build up tension.
Yeah. So it also all fourof these individual parts of TIP, these
individual skills temperature, intense exercise,paste breathing, and progressive muscle relaxation,

(01:16:26):
they all for engage the parasympathetic nervoussystem in some way, So you're actually
using your own nervous system to calmyourself down, right, You're turning the
switch on as opposed to I mean, it's not magic, is what I
guess. I'm trying to say.We all have a parasympathetic nervous system,
so we can all use this skilleffectively. Yeah, And that last one
of progressive muscle relaxation is also abouthow do I turn on the switch of

(01:16:48):
paste of parasympathetic nervous system and that'sby releasing that muscle tension, and then
that helps us calm everything else down. Great, Moving into our last segment,
which is about thoughts, and it'show do we manage our thoughts and
shift our mindset to manage burnout?And like, how do our thoughts contribute

(01:17:11):
to burnout? So how do youlike self limiting beliefs contribute to burnout?
And I think a big thing isthat we have to be able to notice
them in order to catch it andthen check it and then eventually change it.
Yeah. So an example of oneof those self limiting beliefs is black
or white or all are nothing thinking, which kind of arises the question of

(01:17:34):
how do we start breaking a largertask into smaller ones when they all feel
of equal importance, which brings meto another question of are they really all
important? So how our thoughts playinto this is that when you're on the
edge of burnout or at burnout,and we start thinking that all of our

(01:17:54):
tasks are really important and we haveto allot this amount of time to all
these tasks to make them all perfect, but we don't prioritize that. We
don't realize that some tasks are moreimportant than other tasks. So that's what
needs to be changed. We needto know that, Like, for example,
if you have homework do you thenext day or a project do you

(01:18:15):
in a month? You may thinkthe project might be more important because it's
bigger, but I would private forme, I would prioritize my homework since
it's due the next day. Soit's just kind of that allotment of what's
more important. And I think likepart of the reason why we have trouble
like challenging the idea of everything isn'tof equal importance is because we're like kind

(01:18:39):
of taught that more is better.The more you take on, the more
successful you'll be. And so wethink that we have to do everything that's
on our plate and treat it ofequal importance to like feel successful, because
I think it's like ingrained in ourmind that like burnout is like kind of
equated with success, and so wethink that we have to burn ourselves out
in order to be su That's forwhen in reality, like you can be

(01:19:01):
successful and like still take care ofyourselves without getting burntal So let me ask
you a question. If I thinkthat everything, If if I know that
my homework is due right sooner thanthe big project. But I have a
lot of homework every day, Andif I spend all my time every day
working on the homework that's do thenext day, and I don't have any

(01:19:24):
time left for my big project,how how do I manage that? What
is it that I could do differently? Well, I think you have to
keep in mind you can't like forgetabout the project obviously, you have to
keep that in the back of yourmind. Like I through me, I
would have like read over what theproject is, and like while I'm going
through all my daily things, Iwould be like sort of planning it out
in my head, like how Iwant to do each step in my projects.

(01:19:46):
So eventually, like there's always goingto be homework and you are going
to have to a lot time onceyou like get closer to the project deadline
to work on the project. ButI would start like future planning before I
actually started. Any thoughts from anybodyelse how to manage that stuff? Yeah,
I agree, Like it's kind ofyou start breaking apart the project as

(01:20:09):
you go on. And I thinksometimes it's because you have so much homework
to do and maybe they're like they'reonly worth like less points and you have
it every single day. It mightbe like it might be more beneficial to
prioritize like doing a project some daysbecause you have the homework every single day
so it's not as big. Orcould you do the homework but do it

(01:20:29):
at like seventy percent instead of onehundred percent, right, instead of like
spending hours on your everyday homework,just get it done, do it good
enough, and then leave yourself timeto work on the project, right,
instead of being spending so long onthe homework that we now don't have project
time. M Yeah, that's partof the black and white thinking that we

(01:20:51):
think that we have to do ourhomework at one hundred and ten percent and
the project at one hundred and tenpercent. But actually, you know,
the homework is just muscle memoriestice.Let's do it again, do it again,
do it again, and eventually overdoing it again. We're going to
get it, but doesn't have tobe perfect, and every single time,
it's just get it done, okay. And I think another self limitting belief

(01:21:16):
is fortune telling, So it kindof falls into two categories like either like
catastrophizing the situation, So it's anexample might be a fear of failing.
What if like this completely goes wrongand I completely fail or I or like
another example is like what if Ijust you know, don't get into any
college, or like think of theworst possible outcome and then I think.

(01:21:41):
Another another category of fortune telling iskind of mind reading, so you kind
of just make assumptions that of whatpeople are thinking, so ideas like they
all hate me, or they're doingit on purpose, or like they're working
against me. So another self omittingthe leaf is shooting on ourselves. It's

(01:22:02):
like having these really high expectations ofourselves are really high expectations of someone else,
so kind of like asking, oh, I should have done this,
why didn't I do this? Theyshould have done this, why didn't they
do this? So it's kind oflike like after you've done something and then
you kind of reflect on it,and you're reflecting on it and like a

(01:22:24):
negatively like I could have done thisso much better, but why didn't I?
So it's kind of like bringing backthis negative mindset. Yeah, exactly.
So part of shooting is disqualifying yourown positives and focusing only on your
negatives or like in a black andwhite sort of way. This this falls
under the black and white bucket andalso kind of the you know, the

(01:22:45):
catastrophizing bucket that we first thing wedo is we disqualify our positives. I
don't do anything right, then wenegative mental filter. I do all this
stuff wrong, and then I shouldbe better. I should do it this
way. All the should that Sonyajust mentioned makes sense. So what are
some things that we can actually doto manage those thoughts and beliefs that are

(01:23:06):
that are undermining us? I mean, we talk a lot about I'm sure
it's cool. You know you've heardabout growth mindset versus fixed mindset. You
should have a growth mindset. Buthow how do we do that? How
do we recognize when our thoughts arelimiting ourselves and change them? I think
one thing to do is journaling orwriting. It's like a good way to

(01:23:28):
write what you're feeling, and it'sI think it helps you be able to
catch the thoughts that you have andthen as you start and then you can
catch it, check it, changeit. Then you can start noticing these
thoughts and you can you can kindof classify them to what kind of self
limiting beliefs that you have, andthen work to better change them. I

(01:23:49):
agree. I think another way tomanage your thoughts is by going on walks.
So try to trying to like getout of your head. So like
going on walks, they're going fora one like releases indorphins, so you
feel this more like happy sort ofpositive attitude, which helps to clear your
mind, store out your thoughts,and think clearly about what's important to you.

(01:24:14):
Yeah, it's amazing how all thosethings are integrated. They're combined.
Right. Our bodies and the stateof our body and our brain chemistry affects
the way we think and the waywe feel. So if we can change
up. So if we notice,for starters, that we're thinking in a
funny way or a non helpful wayand it's giving us all these emotions because
that's how we notice it, thenwe can work on changing our body and

(01:24:35):
supporting our brain chemistry so that wecan then change our thoughts. Right,
So how do we change our thoughts? What is that process of change?
It's important to catch it, checkit, change it. To break like
that cycle of just depressing and anxiousthoughts. So like first catch it and
see when you might be having thesenegative thoughts, So like identify when you're

(01:24:56):
feeling anxious, and like check yourthoughts to see what you're thinking, and
then check it, so like checkthe back see if it's like realistic or
if it's no, you're just interpretingit in like a different way because of
how you're feeling. And then finallychange it, like try substituting more of
realistic thoughts and like identifying the prosand cons. Right, I want to

(01:25:16):
give you a baby step on that, because catch a check it, change
it. Even though it's really obvious, it's hard, Right, It's hard
when we're in the process and we'recaught up in those emotions and we go
but this is the way I feel, right, and I'm still going to
continue this way. Well, theissue is is, you know, is
it helping us? What are thepros and cons of continuing in that behavior?

(01:25:36):
And do I really do I reallywant to continue to go down that
route even though right now I'm caughtup in the emotions, and the emotions
kind of feel self righteous or justifyingor something right. That's the tricky part
is getting past the emotions that we'refeeling in order to do the things that
we know we need to do.And those emotions are sometimes judge emotions,

(01:25:59):
Right, I should be better,everybody else is doing it, blah blah,
I'm going to fail if I don't. You know, worry, worry,
worry, all that. And we'vedeveloped these habits in our brain.
Even emotions are habits. Thoughts,emotions, actions, they're all brain paths
that we have that we build upthe neurons and they become automatic responses.

(01:26:21):
And we have to rewire our brainby changing the way we think, catching
when we're doing something that's undermining us. And then like constantly, change,
change, change, and then thosepatterns become the new wiring and as we
build them up, they become ournew habits. That's actually how it works.
And you guys, you know you'rein your teens. Now, you've

(01:26:43):
had ten some odd years of thinkingin patterns that might be unhelpful. So
it's going to take some time tothink in patterns that are going to be
more helpful. Imagine you were likeforty fifty years old and you were just
discovering this and you're trying to changethose decades long habits of thinking in certain
ways, it's it does take time. And you know, we've discussed all
these skills around helping our bodies,helping our emotions, helping our thoughts,

(01:27:05):
and helping the stuff that we do, the work, the actions to try
and support our intentional shift in adifferent direction. So we've come to the
end of our podcast and we've covereda lot of materials so far and we
would just want to give some ofour final thoughts. First one is that
there's no specific age of a burnoutanyone and everyone can get a burnout at

(01:27:26):
any age, whether it be asa kid, a middle high school,
or college, or even as anadult. And we want to let you
guys know that life is overwhelming andthere's a lot of stressing things that will
happen, but that's part of life, and as a result, burnout will
probably happens. It's probably in edible, inevitable, and it will seem that

(01:27:46):
like life's really out of control.But the point of our podcast is to
say that even though there are alot of things that are out of our
control, there are still a lotof things that are in our control and
a lot of things that we cando to improve our situation. So,
as we mentioned before, the modelfor managing burnout that we introduced in the
beginning of this podcast can help usdiagnose where we need more support, whether

(01:28:09):
it's in our thoughts, emotions,body or actions. Yeah, so we
talked about what can we do.So one of the first things is addressing
our thoughts that we have, sowhether we like glorify burnout or we think
that it's a good thing. Wealso talked about about addressing our bodies,

(01:28:29):
so addressing lack of sleep and howwe need it for energy and mental performance
and to still do well. Thenwe talked about how we can use a
resilience battery recharge to help prevent burnoutand addressing procrastination by warming up our bodies
and brains to work. And thenwe also address perfectionism, so by changing

(01:28:51):
how the way we think and howabout how we think and about the work
we need to do and find.And we also talked about how if you're
feeling too emotional or too distressed tothink clearly, the first thing that we
can do is to use the crisissurvival skills to get back into a commerce
state and then make more effective decisionsfrom there. Thank you for listening to

(01:29:15):
our podcast. We hope you wereable to take away an idea or action
that you can start using to improveyour mental wellness. If you want to
hear more about what EB seeing tosupport team meant to help, check out
our Instagram and you be mental help. And if you want to learn more
about the solutions we talked about,make sure to check out the Heart Program
website. See you next time.Bye,