Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - BITESIZE | 3 Simple Daily Habits to Reduce Stress & Avoid Burnout | Dr Rangan Chatterjee #484

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

Burnout is a type of chronic, unmanaged stress that has significant consequences for our physical and mental health. It’s characterised by feeling exhausted all the time, with no energy for everyday tasks, and little enjoyment in everyday activities.   Feel Better Live More Bitesize is my weekly podcast for your mind, body, and heart. Each week I’ll be featuring inspirational stories and practical tips from some of my former guests.   Today’s clip is from episode 329 of the podcast which was a solo episode all about the rising issue of burnout. In that episode I outlined the 7 signs that may indicate you are on the road to burnout and shared 10 practical tools to help.   Research has found that a staggering 88 percent of the UK workforce has experienced burnout since 2020.   In this clip, I walk you through 3 of the tools you can think about introducing into your life that can quickly start to help.   PLEASE NOTE: the signs I mention in this episode are very common and are not exclusive to burnout. If you have the odd sign and it is short lived – please do not worry – we all will experience some of these signs from time to time. Just be mindful if these signs are becoming longstanding. Also, please note that some of these signs can also be found in a variety of other conditions, for example, depression. If you have any concerns, please seek advice from a qualified healthcare professional. Thanks to our sponsor https://www.drinkag1.com/livemore Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore. For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com. Show notes and the full podcast are available at https://drchatterjee.com/329 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

Today's Bite Size episode is brought to you by AG1, a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It includes vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. It's really tasty and has been in my own life for over five years. Until the end of January, AG1 are giving a limited time offer. Usually they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free travel packs to

10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 329 of the podcast, which was a solo episode all about the rising issue of burnout. In that episode, I outlined the seven signs that may indicate you're on the road to burnout, and I also shared 10 practical tools to help. Now, researchers found that a staggering 88% of the UK workforce has experienced burnout since 2020. And in this clip, I walk you through three of the tools that you can think about introducing into your life that

will quickly start to help. One of the worst things in life is when you've got no energy, right? Sometimes you don't want to get out of bed, you're struggling to get through that to-do list, you feel trapped, every day feels like you're on a treadmill, you don't have the time or really the energy to connect with your friends, with your partner, with your kids. And I've got to say, I've been a medical doctor now for over 21 years And this is one of the commonest complaints I see People feel tired They're really, really struggling with their day-to-day lives

And one of the big problems is that they feel the problem is them They feel that they're being lazy That they don't have any motivation or willpower Have you ever felt like that? Maybe you feel, that they don't have any motivation or willpower. Have you ever felt like that? Maybe you feel like that at the moment. Maybe someone close to you feels like that. You know, the truth is, for pretty much everyone, the problem is not them. They do not have a laziness problem or a willpower problem or a motivation problem when they're complaining of this kind of low-grade fatigue. No, this is a sign that you are on the road to burnout. Burnout is very,

very common these days. And I've got to be honest, it's getting more and more common as the pressures from work, from society start to mount up. And I've seen this, I've experienced it myself, I've seen it in so many patients. But what I do know is that you can take some very simple steps that will make a big difference. Because these are the steps I've taken in my own life before, and these are the steps I've helped in my own life before and these are the steps I've helped my patients take in their lives. And all of the things I'm going to recommend are simple to do and they're completely free. I just want to make the point that burnout is not something that happens overnight. Burnout is chronic, unmanaged stress that goes on for days, weeks, months, and often it goes on for years.

It's insidious. It creeps up over time. And the problem is with burnout is a lot of people don't realize they're going through it until it gets really, really bad. And I want to stop that from happening to you. Now, I think it's really important to understand how stress and your body's stress response system fits with burnout, right? Stress is not all bad. You need a little bit of stress to perform well, right? Let's say you're at work and you've got a presentation to give. You want a little bit of stress. It's going to help you perform better. Your brain's going to be sharper. Your memory's going to be better. Your focus is going to be improved. These things are fantastic. They're going to help you in that meeting. And if you have time afterwards to chill, rest, recuperate,

you become more resilient over the time. The stress starts to tune up your nervous system. That's a good thing. That's how you build resilience, right? But that's not what happens in burnout. In burnout, you're getting stress. You're getting these doses of stress regularly, but the problem is you're not getting time to recover and reset. So your nervous system starts to change. Think of it like an elastic band. You have an elastic band, you pull it a little bit and then you let it go, but it comes back to its normal shape. That's great. That's what you want with your stress response system. But if you keep pulling it several times a day, day after day, week after week, what happens? The shape of that rubber band starts to change. It doesn't go back. That's kind of what's happening with burnout. For many years

in my adult life, I was a carer for my dad. And in those years, I put my dad's needs first at the expense of my need, at the expense of my relationship with my wife, at the expense of time with my kids. And I got to that place where life felt like a struggle and I was struggling with motivation. I'd let self-care start to drop. I've been there, right? So I know how hard it is, but I also know how quickly you can change things. So the first step I want you to focus on is to intentionally engage with another human being. The first sign that may indicate you're on the road to burnout is disconnecting from the people around you. You are simply very unlikely to get out of this rut by yourself. You have to share this with someone. You have to tell

someone. In fact, you may be surprised when you share this with someone and tell them, you may be surprised how many people in your life have actually been through this before or who are currently going through it. I want to tell you about one of my patients who I saw a few years ago. It was a 37-year-old chap called Stuart. Now, what's interesting about Stuart is if you're looking at him from the outside, he was crushing life. He was running his own business. He'd work from home. He would work in the evenings. He would work at weekends. He was driving a sports car. He made good money. Honestly, from the outside, people thought he was crushing

it. But one day he came into see me in my clinic and he said to me, Dr. Chachia, I'm concerned that I've got depression. I struggle to get out of bed sometimes. I feel exhausted. Little things are starting to bother me. I don't have that creative spark that I used to have. I don't want to spend time with anyone. And I'm also struggling to experience any joy in my life. So I had a chat with Stuart. We ran some tests. They all came back normal. And as I started to get to know him and inquire about his life, it was really clear to me that he spent all of his time alone. That's what I said to Stuart is, listen, I think you need to spend some time with your friends. And so the prescription I gave him was, for the next four to six weeks, I want you to

make sure that once a week, you see at least one of your friends in person. And when you're with them, what I want you to do is put your phone away so you're really present for that interaction. Now, I'll be honest, it wasn't the prescription Stuart was expecting from me, but it was the prescription I felt would have the most impact in his life. Six weeks later, he comes in to see me and he feels like a different person. He bounces into the room. I say, Stuart, how are things? You know, what's going on? He says, Doc, I feel like a completely different person. I've got energy. My mood's better. I've got my mojo back. Things are really, really good. And I said, Stuart, what happened? What's going on? And he said, Doc, what I did was every Sunday morning,

I went to my local cafe, right? I'd meet up with one of my friends or a group of friends, and we'd catch up over coffee for about an hour or so. Over the next few weeks, actually, I realised I was never doing any sports, right? And so with my mates, we decided to play five-a-side football after work every Wednesday night. That was all Stuart did. He didn't have depression. He didn't have a deficiency of a medication. And what Stuart actually had was a deficiency of friendship of a medication. And what Stuart actually had was a deficiency of friendship in his life. Now, Stuart actually had his friends around him. He was lucky. His friends lived nearby to him, but he was so busy, he never saw them. And this is a really, really common thing that I've seen over and over again. And I'll be honest, I've experienced this myself before.

I've worked so hard that I've actually neglected to spend time with my friends, and it's always come at a huge cost. Now, the reason I share that story is because I want you to know just how quickly you can start to make a change. That's all he needed to do. That one change led to all kinds of other positive ripple effect changes. So maybe that's something that's going to work for you. Maybe it's you diarying some time with your partner, but diary in something regularly with another human being. It's so, so important. Another thing, certainly in the UK, that's helpful for people is something called Park Run. Park Run is a community initiative. In hundreds, if not thousands of towns and villages, every Saturday morning, people get together to go for a five kilometre run or walk. And actually, it's not about running. It's about the community. And lots of my patients

who are really struggling with their moods and their mental health, often they don't want to run. They go and volunteer. And it gives them a sense of purpose in their life. It gives them a sense that they matter. And it's important that they show up to do their bit. So please do think about it. How can you start to intentionally engage with another human being? This is really, really important. The fourth thing I want you to focus on as part of this 10-step action plan is to do something that you love every day. Now, what a lot of people don't realize is that regularly doing things that you love makes you more resilient to stress. But at the same time, being chronically stressed,

particularly work-related stress, means that you find it harder to gain pleasure in everyday things. So one way around this is for five minutes a day, right? If you could do more, great, but even five minutes a day will make a difference. Five minutes a day, you're doing something for you, not for your boss, not for your work colleagues, not for your partner, not for your children. This is for you. This could be reading a book, okay? Could be listening to some tunes or some music that you really like. It could even be going onto YouTube and watching your favorite comedian for a few minutes, right? It's so, so powerful.

If you give yourself a daily dose of pleasure, you will find that little by little, day after day, you are going to start to feel more resilient, more engaged with life. It's going to have such a powerful impact. For me, what do I do? There's all kinds of things I love doing. I love reading. I love listening to music, but I love playing my guitar. And so often in the evenings, especially if it's been a stressful day, I'll just sit with my guitar for a few minutes and sing. And it makes all the difference. If I go for a week or two without doing this, I can absolutely feel it. So what's it going to be for you? What is that thing that you can do each day for only five minutes, but something that you're really, really going to enjoy? And the final step, step 10 on this action plan, is a bit more about the bigger picture. A lot of the time we end up on the road to burnout

and getting burnt out is because we're not living a life that's in alignment with who we really are. Our daily actions are not aligned with our values. We're often in jobs that we don't really enjoy. I think it's really important for me to say here that I get it. Sometimes you have to do a job that you don't particularly like because that's how you feed yourself. That's how you feed your family and put a roof over your heads I understand that so this advice is going to be different for different people at different stages of their lives but even if that is you it's still worth having a think about what are my values is this still the job I want to be doing in two years and three years and five years. And I'd encourage you, maybe once a week,

just sit down and write down what are some of the core values that encompass who I am and who I want to be. It doesn't need to take long. Even just one value will start to help you. You know, I've done this many times over the years. What I would say right now is that my three core values are integrity, what I would say right now is that my three core values are integrity, compassion and curiosity and those are the three values that I like to bring to every aspect of my life, my personal life yes but also my work life and if I look back on my career at times when I was getting frustrated and overworking and getting quite resentful about work, often one of those values was being violated. I think this is one of the most important things that you can spend time with. Yes, for how you're feeling right now, but also for your long-term health and happiness. You may not be able to change everything straight away,

but if you've never spent a moment to think about what it is you truly want out of life, you're gonna find yourself falling into the same traps over and over again. And if you're struggling with this, why not do this exercise of writing down some of your core values with a friend or maybe your partner. Some examples of values or things that you value, right? This is not an exhaustive list, but just to get you thinking, things like solitude, nature,

the environment, creativity, curiosity, compassion, honesty, integrity. You know, maybe you're hearing all of those ago. Yeah, I like all of them. That's fine. Just pick one, two or three just to get you started. And maybe every Sunday you sit down with them and go, how much of my life this week did I live in accordance with those values? And how much of my life was in conflict with them? And I think you'll be surprised at how much you learn about yourself because these are the really, really important lessons that will help you get out of the jam

that you're currently in, but will also help you with your long-term health and happiness. Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. Do spread the love by sharing this episode with your friends and family. If you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. Do spread the love by sharing this episode with your friends and family. If you enjoyed this episode, I think you will really enjoy my bite-sized Friday email. It's called the Friday Five. And each week I share things that I do not share on social media.

It contains five short doses of positivity, articles or books that I'm reading, quotes that I'm thinking about, exciting research I've come across, and so much more. I really think you're going to love it. The goal is for it to be a small yet powerful dose of feel good to get you ready for the weekend. You can sign up for it free of charge at drchatterjee.com forward slash Friday Five. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Make sure you have pressed subscribe and I'll be back next week with my long form conversation on Wednesday

and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.