I spoke on Barry Luijbregts podcast recently all about stress and burnout. We spoke about the causes of burnout, the different strategies that you can use to resolve your stress and some proactive ideas that you can do, right now to help work on your own stress resilience.

What did we talk about?

I’ve been hearing about Barry’s latest course for several months as he was creating it but I thought it was such a great topic to share with the wider community. One reason that I wanted to come on the podcast was to be able to share knowledge and as Barry has recently released a course on Pluralsight on Burnout, I thought now would be a great time to discuss it!

What did I learn?

I thought that I knew how to manage and handle stress but I learned a few new tricks that I’ll be using from now on. One of the biggest things was about the assumptions that you can have for stress. For me, I was always exercising as a priority and “stress relief” but I didn’t really think about the impact that intensity /duration would have. I used to regularly run a marathon or two every weekend and i never thought this could be contributing to my physical stress levels as it was such a mental relief.

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What to do if you’re struggling with stress?

Here are the core tips shared during the podcast.

1. Make a list of all of your current stressors and note down what are the things on your list that you can change? Give each item a priority
   1. Discuss this list or discuss your current stressors with someone you trust.
2. Exercise
   1. Do not over exercise or stress your body beyond its limits
3. Sleep
   1. Get good quality sleep. You can track this to see a trend
4. Nutrition
   1. Do not eat food that isn’t good for you / you’re intolerant to.
   2. Look critically at your diet/when you’re eating and not eating too late
5. Active relaxation
   1. Find your joy and make time and put energy into what makes you relaxed
6. Reduce your stressors
   1. Make small changes towards the longer goal/outcome.
7. Where is your joy? Find your joy.

Burnout is a time of reflection for you to take that time to reflect on what is going on, what is going well and what is causing your stress. What do you like doing? Is this worth your time and energy?

One thing that has helped me in keeping the balance in my life, has been Nuush. They help with meal plans and have a basis of good quality, healthy, home cooked food and gentle exercise to keep and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

If you are finding that you’re struggling with your stress, please reach out to a professional for help.

What did you think of the podcast? What was your biggest take away?