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Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Healthy Mind, Healthy Life.
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I'm your host Evic, and today we are diving into something that every one of us struggles with at the same point.
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The art of resetting our thinking.
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Yes.
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So when life feels overwhelming, right?
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When uh burnout creeps in, when our nervous system goes haywire.
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So how do we regroup?
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How do we lead ourselves and others with the clarity and the compassion?
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That's a good question, right, dear listeners?
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Well, today's guest has the blueprint.
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Joining me is Barbara Gustafson.
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So welcome to the show, Barbara.
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Thank you so much, Avik.
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It's wonderful to be here with you and your listeners.
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Amazing, amazing.
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So, dear listeners, before we start, I'll quickly love to introduce uh Barbara with all of you.
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Um, dear listeners, Barbara is a brain health educator, leadership coach, and neuroscience-informed guide to resilience.
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So she helps leaders, caregivers, and professionals regroup before they crash using simple science-bad tools that work in real life.
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So with a claiming uh with a calming energy and uh practical wisdom, she brings a refreshing approach to sustainable leadership and holistic building.
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So, gravity and take a deep breath and let's explore how we can truly reset our thinking.
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So, welcome to the show again.
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Yes, and I'm taking that deep breath with everyone because that that's often where it starts, is just taking a deep breath.
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And it's interesting that one breath alone, uh, science has shown it immediately shifts your awareness.
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Uh, just because we're going forward and breathing, it's you're being still, but it's it's not wasted.
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You're able to go deep and notice what's happening.
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So I love that you mentioned take a deep breath.
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Exactly.
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So I'm in guest friend P.
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So yeah, really.
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I mean, I I also just just I also did the same, and it actually helps you focus and um true.
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So I'll I'll come to you.
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Uh like you often talk about recognizing the signs uh before we burn out.
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So if you could share uh some of the earliest warning signals like people tend to miss when their nervous system starts getting overloaded.
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Yes, I'm actually gonna use myself as an example because I've been at least two different times that I'm aware of in a burnout phase.
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And this really began, I would say, about 16 years ago when my mother passed, and I didn't have time to grieve.
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I had to quickly jump into navigating a journey with my father who had Huntington's disease.
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And um, that's a rare brain disorder.
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And basically, a simple explanation is it's like having Alzheimer's, ALS, and Parkinson's at the same time.
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Um, so I jumped right in.
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And this is when I was working full-time.
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My boys were younger.
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Uh, I lived about three hours away, and so I commuted back and forth, back and forth.
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And honestly, my mother had did a lot of caregiving.
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She was a nurse, but she worked part-time so that she could take care of, learn how to take care of my dad to have those skills.
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But she didn't share a lot with me about what was going on.
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So a lot of it was a shock.
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And so just trying to navigate, help him make some difficult decisions.
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And that turned into about a 15 to 16 year journey.
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He passed away a couple of years ago.
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And but for me, the signs of burnout was I was trying to do it all, like everything.
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I I didn't take much time off.
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I still kept the house clean, you know, did all the sports with my boys and in all the middle of this.
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And and so that was a first sign for me, was that I was trying to do it all.
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And I, you know, I did it with, you know, I wasn't complaining.
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I was like, you know, I'm gonna take care of my loved one no matter what it takes, but it wasn't without a cost.
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And so I was able to maintain that speed and for a long time, eventually it started impacting my health in little subtle ways.
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Uh, probably the first way was sleep.
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That was something that I just suffered without.
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And I didn't realize the impact it would have on so many areas of my life.
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Um, so for me, disrupted and non-quality sleep was a big sign of leading to burnout.
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Um, that was quiet, you know, and I pushed through like a lot of people do and caregivers and parents,
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but over time that led to just being in a um constantly feeling on the edge, but still feeling the need to hustle harder.
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And so that was another sign, me being exhausted, but feeling like I wasn't doing enough still.
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So if if you notice, I'm I'm kind of turning these signs on me because when we're burnout, um it's a lack of boundaries for ourselves.
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And anytime we want to change something in our life, transformation starts with us.
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So often we look at burnout as external things happening to us, which often is, but it's also our response or our lack of boundaries for that, or a lack of clarity, what our boundaries need to be.
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Um, so that was sign.
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And over time, that led to brain fog, it led to resentment, just being being pulled in different directions, and it also led to the cost of caring too much.
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And there's science behind that.
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There is literally a cost of listening too much, caring too much, and that eventually turns into what they call compassion fatigue.
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That's very prevalent in a lot of helping professionals, caregivers.
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And so it, those are some of the signs that led to burnout.
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And when you look at it uh from a neuroscience background, it isn't just the physical.
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It's you're getting affected in the emotional, the spiritual areas of your life, the psychological areas of a life.
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So it's really the whole being that's impacted.
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But sometimes we just tend to focus on the physical strains of burnout.
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Wow.
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True.
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And and like uh once people recognize those signs, what's the typically the very first small actionable step they can take to calm the nervous system?
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Yes, and I'm glad you focused on small, because what we tend to do, especially if you're a supporter and helper, you want to make a big change.
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And that's understandable because when we come to realize that we're either headed towards burnout or perhaps we're in a season of being affected by some of the symptoms, we often want to shift everything, but that's sometimes not something that is practical in our lives, especially if you're a caregiver, if you're the only child caring for someone, you do have more responsibilities than the other person.
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So tiny steps is huge.
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And over time, and again, I've been through a couple of rounds of burnout, I really came to realize it's the small things that I do every day.
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And so I'm gonna share a framework that has helped me that I created.
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And it's some of this is things that I've learned from my care support team, but it's really helped me frame this.
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And I'm gonna give the framework that I can give a couple of things that I can do in each one of those.
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So the word regroup is easy for me to remember.
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So each of those letters stand for something.
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And the very first one is regulate your nervous system.
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This is when we uh give ourselves little moments to reset to our baseline and we shift out of survival mode.
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Um, and this is using simple tools like breath work, movement.
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It doesn't have to be hardcore exercise, but even every 90 minutes getting up and move, um, mindfulness.
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And that could be literally sitting on your back porch, looking at the clouds, listening to the birds.
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Um, but breath work has been something that I've started very small and have grown that practice over time.
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And it can be simply just starting and just breathing in deeply and breathing all the way out as a start multiple times a day.
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And I encourage people to really attach this to a habit you already have.
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Uh, you may have heard of the term habit stacking by James Clear, but you can tie it to, let's say you're in meetings day in, day out.
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At the end and beginning of every meeting meeting, just kind of do some breath work.
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And my favorite form of breath work is the four, seven, eight breath.
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That's tied to reducing inflammation over time, but it's literally simply just breathing in four seconds, holding it for seven.
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That's a really long time, and then slowly breathing out for eight.
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And then there's box breathing.
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So I encourage people, start small, do something.
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Like if you haven't done any breath work, just start with taking a deep breath.
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If you've done some, try box breathing, whatever works for you.
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And it it can be a minute.
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The key here is scheduling it because for a lot of busy people, they know what they need to do.
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They know, they already know they need to be better at self-care, but the follow-through is pretty small.
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So literally scheduling it and just like you would for a meeting, set an alert on your phone if you think you'll overlook that meeting and do that.
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And it's just these little
micro resets that you have built in your day.
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And the E, I'll go through these a little more quickly.
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Um, the E is your energy drains.
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This has been key for me.
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And in a book that is coming out at about six months, I walk through what those energy drains were for me.
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And it's usually it's they're really subtle and they're a little bit tricky, tricky.
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Uh, one of them is overanalyzing or overthinking.
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And all of these have the word over in it.
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And I did that intentionally because it's important to think through something and it is important to analyze and problem solve.
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But what we tend to do is we do it from our head too much.
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And there's science showing like we have different brain waves, and our beta state is a great place for productivity, creativity.
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But what happens is we get too high in beta when we're in stress, and then we start to overthink, overanalyze.
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Um, so that is something once I was aware of, I could be watchful and I could do things that calmed my brain so I can bring that beta down.
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So there's different energy drains that we all have.
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And it's important to know what's quietly depleting you because a lot of them we don't even notice.
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And so when we're able to identify habits and even beliefs that we have about what we're doing and that it's draining our energy, we can begin to release them.
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Exactly.
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Wow.
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Yeah.
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And the G is give yourself margin.
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It's just simply giving yourself white space and breathing room.
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And again, I intentionally made these easy because we tend to want to go for the bells and whistles, but we have to come back to the basics.
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But it's really giving ourselves space for clarity, creativity, especially when things that we were once passionate about start to feel like pressure.
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And the R is reconnect with your resilience.
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So you mentioned that early on, but this is ties back to remembering what our capacity is, remembering when we don't exceed our energy and tuning back into those internal strengths and experiences that remind you that you have navigated hard things before.
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So it's really getting back into the mode that we are stronger than we think, and through flexibility and even growth from hard times can help us become resilient.
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And we got three more.
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O is operate from alignment.
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A lot of us know that we get clarity when we know what our values, our purpose are, but often we don't lead from those values or we forget just because we're so incredibly busy and others are leaning on us.
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So making decisions that really reflect what matters to us most, and decisions that protect our time, our energy, and confidence.
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And the last two, and these are no particular order, but I feel like the last two are super critical.
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Uh, the you is update your thinking.
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This is where we refocus on our mental lens and we replace automatic negative thoughts, which I've reheard referred to as the ants, and we replace those with empowering thoughts using principles of neuroplasticity.
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And neuroplasticity is a big word, but it really boils down to your brain's ability to shape and change in a positive or negative way.
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And the P is prioritize brain health.
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This is something that I became acutely aware of, not just with my dad's brain health challenges, but also my own.
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Um, I was able to have a brain scan back in 2017 because I wanted to be proactive with my brain health.
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And that's when I realized how much pictures matter.
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And it's interesting because most specialists they take a picture of the organ they treat.
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And in psychiatry or brain health, they rarely take a picture of the brain.
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So when I saw what my brain looked like and was able to, with the support of a team, it revealed a couple of mild injuries, ADD trauma.
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And it really changed the way that I looked at working with leaders and caregivers.
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So this is really about building your long-term capacity and strengthening your what I believe is your most important leadership asset, your brain, just because that function, you know, that drives our decisions, our relationships, our purpose, and everything we do.
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Exactly.
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Wow.
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Amazing.
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That's really amazing.
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And also, like, um, you know, in our world uh today, uh, resilience can sometimes sound like a buzzword.
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So uh, but you approach it as something which is living, dynamic, and sustainable.
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So, how can someone build resilience without falling into uh that um push harder trap?
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Oh my goodness, yes, I know where you're coming from.
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I know it really helped for me because I can
look back in times and situations in my life that I wish that I were stronger and more resilient.
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Like I wish I was more resilient when my mom passed away.
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Like there was a time, period of time that I did fall apart.
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And what I realized is resilience can begin even when something has already taken place.
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For example, you can look back to a time where you wish you were stronger and evaluate that experience and you can reframe it.
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Like there were certain times I wish I had been stronger for my family, but I look back and I realized, wow, I was already strong.
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Yes, I fell apart, but considering what was happening around me, what my response was pretty appropriate to what a lot of people, you know, how they would have responded.
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So it's really going back for me.
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It's starting with going back and reframing certain situations I went through in my life and recognizing wow, I already exhibited the strengths and the traits of being resilient.
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And I can continue to grow that.
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And there's a term that a lot more people are talking about.
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I'm so grateful.
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And that is post-traumatic growth.
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We tend to focus on the trauma these days, the triggering, which is important for awareness and being trauma informed.
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But when you can go back and realize that you can actually grow, not despite of what's happened to you, but because of it, you can actually become stronger.
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And a lot of the research that they've done with adverse childhood experiences with groups of people who did not go through trauma and those that did, many of those who went through trauma, if they were intentional about became becoming stronger, they actually showed more signs of resilience than the group of people who didn't have any traumatic experiences at all.
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And that's mind-blowing, but it also gave me hope at the time I was reading about this.
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And I think it's giving other people hope too, who have been through difficult situations.
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And they have now they have a big calling.
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In fact, they've turned their pain into purpose.
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They really want to help others through experiences they've been through.
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And they have boots on the ground, they're helping other people.
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Yet they're also realizing that it's easy to start to lose yourself when you're overhelping and overgiving.
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And you don't have to choose either or.
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You can choose to take care of your needs while helping other people.
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And it may look differently than other people do.
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Um, I think, especially those in the health professions, you know, they're they're constantly helping others and also caregivers as well.
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And I had to find a way to take care of my needs while I was caring for my dad.
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And I wasn't always thriving a hundred percent, but I can tell you I was able to get out of that day-to-day survival mode.
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And it took a lot of practice and it's it's possible, and it starts with little steps.
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True.
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Exactly.
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Wow, that's amazing.
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Yeah, so Barbara, I mean, this is such a um incalming and eye-opening conversation.
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And I know our listeners are working away today, not just with the information, but with a hope.
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So uh kind of resetting your thinking isn't about perfection, it's all about the gentle shifts that lead to the profound changes.
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So um, yeah, that's amazing.
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And for all the listeners who are listening right now, remember that your brain is designed to heal.
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So take one small step today, whether that's a breath, uh gratitude moment, or maybe you can say a reframed thought and trust that you are already on the path of renewal.
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Lovely, right?
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So, um, Barbara, if someone wants to connect with you, what will be the best medium to connect?
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Yes, they can simply go to my website, discover nextstep.com.
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Okay.
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Perfect.
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That's quite easy.
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And um, so dear listeners, what I'll do, I'll put all the links into the show notes for your easy reference.
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And uh, if you have enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow us on favorite podcast platform and share this with someone who might need a gentle reset today.
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And as always, stay curious, stay compassionate, and keep nurturing your healthy mind and a healthy life.
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So, thank you so much.
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Thank you.