MMS_BurnOutCalledEP1_Audio
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[00:00:00] Dr. Julia Jingles: If your calendar is full, but your cup is empty, you are not thriving, you're leaking.
[00:00:10] Hello there, beautiful people and welcome back to Mindset Medicine Show. I'm your host, Dr. Julia Bowlin. I'm a physician, author, hypnotherapist, and the founder of Personal Awareness Medicine, and I'm here to lovingly disrupt the nonsense that you've been sold about success. In today's episode, if it feels like a cold compress for the chaos going on in your brain, well, burnout called and it wants its hustle back.
[00:00:34] I love that title because let's get real hustle. Culture had its moment and that moment ended the day that maybe you Googled can stress cause memory loss. At two o'clock in the morning in your workout clothes with the protein bar still stuck in your pocket. Let me ask you this. Have you ever finished a 12 hour day collapse into bed and still felt like you didn't do enough?
[00:00:54] That was me charting to 11 o'clock in my pajamas, no less, trying to outpace the healthcare [00:01:00] system that was built on martyrdom. You know what? I earned migraines, missed meals, and the proud honor of crying in my stairwell at home while thinking about patients that I took care of during the day. And you know what made it worse?
[00:01:13] People admired it. They admired that hustle culture. They'd say, you're amazing. You keep working like this. You never stop. Like that was my goal, to never stop. I wore my burnout like a medal, until my soul said, congratulations, Julia. You are now exhausted, bloated, angry, and spiritually constipated. Well, today we're flipping that toxic productivity script.
[00:01:36] Let's redefine success. So it actually includes your peace, your presence, and get this, huh, your joy, not just your inbox down to zero. And here is why this matters to me and to you because I want you to learn how to live again, not just perform or survive, or people please your way into total state of depletion.
[00:01:59] I [00:02:00] want you to reclaim your sense of agency over your time. Take control, be forthright in your decisions to how you manage your time and what your worth is reflected in that way. I want you to feel like it's a success without sacrificing sanity to wake up, energized, not already counting the hours until it's bedtime, to live a life that feels good on the inside, not just one that looks good on paper.
[00:02:25] Because burnout doesn't just steal your energy. It stills your joy, your creativity, your connection, and your purpose. And you deserve better. You deserve to thrive. And that starts right here. Let's be honest, we are often our own worst boss. If you treat an employee the way you treat yourself, you'd had fired you a long time ago, micromanaging every detail, giving zero recognition, and pushing through weekends with no overtime pay or appreciation.
[00:02:52] Yep. Not exactly the employee of the month kind of leadership. So let's get real. We were trained to be high [00:03:00] functioning burnout cases. It was built into the system with which we were trained in in medical school. For me, I remember bragging only sleeping two hours a night and still showing up for rounds.
[00:03:11] What kind of flex is that? That's not strength. That's self abandonment. With a stethoscope, we've been confusing. Being busy with being valuable. We believe if we just do a little bit more, respond a little faster, or work through lunch, we'd finally earn our rest. And let's be honest, some of us have built our identity on being the dependable one, the one who always says yes, and the one who never drops the ball even when it's rolling over our sanity.
[00:03:40] We say things like I'll rest when things calm down, or it's just a busy season not realizing that we've been in that busy season since 2012. So I'd like you to take a deep breath and pause 'cause I need to do, and I want you to ask yourself. Am I chasing worth [00:04:00] through my to-do list? Am I addicted to feeling needed because I'm scared to feel unimportant without my productivity?
[00:04:09] And I'm gonna tell you, this was so big for me and still is. I feel like sometimes I'm not good enough if I'm not getting a lot done. Have you ever felt that way before? And if I don't get a lot done, I feel like something's not congruent. Like I'm not seen or worthy. And this has just been a self-taught and culturally induced lesson I've learned over the years.
[00:04:32] But here's the truth. You are not your inbox. You are not a number of patients that you saw during the day or the number of tasks that you finished. You are worthy even when you rest. And, yeah. That truth might make your inner overachievers twitch, but let a twitch, we're gonna love it anyway. Let me say it another way because some of us are stubborn, myself included.
[00:04:59] If your calendar is [00:05:00] full, but your cup is empty, you are not thriving, you're leaking, and eventually that leak turns into a flood. Let's play a little bit in the subconscious sandbox here for a second. When you hear the word rest, do you feel calm? Or do you feel guilty? Do you sit on the couch thinking about laundry and emails or worse opening your laptop just for a second and end up blacking out into a three hour zoom of scrolling?
[00:05:29] Calling that the scroll of doom, right? Three hours of scrolling. That's a subconscious pattern. One we're going to reframe. See, a reframe is a hypnotherapy technique where we take an old story like quote, rest is lazy, and quote, and give it a new, healthy reframe. Our new meaning. So let's talk about this first.
[00:05:51] Let's just take a breath in and become fully present.
[00:05:56] And as you exhale, I want you to picture yourself in a hammock, [00:06:00] not a productivity prison cell, a hammock. The birds are chirping. The breeze is blowing. There's no notifications going on. Now hear this truth, deepen your belly. Rest is not lazy. It's leadership. Doing nothing, is doing something recovering.
[00:06:23] Peace is a productivity strategy that your nervous system is begging for. You see, this isn't woowoo fluff, it's neurobiology. It's where biology meets soul care, where you associate stillness with power regeneration rather than shame. Everything shifts. Practice that, play with this, record this, play it.
[00:06:48] Again. Stop doom grooming and just start thinking that rest is leadership, that rest is recovering it's important, and peace and rest is a productivity [00:07:00] strategy that your nervous system is begging for. You'll be better for that. All right. Let's talk a little bit about the brain on burnout here. It's a little bit of neuroscience, so we're gonna get a little techy here, but.
[00:07:12] Let's science the soul out of this because it's really important. Here's what's happening inside your brain when you just push through your amygdala as part of your brain starts screaming. Red alert, red alert, danger, danger. Every time your calendar has nine overlapping zooms and zero meals, your cortisol level stress hormone starts to skyrocket.
[00:07:34] This messes up your sleep, your focus, and your waistline. Now your prefrontal cortex, the one in the front, that beautiful logic machine gets hijacked by stress. So even your smartest self becomes forgetful, reactive, emotionally snappy. In short, burnout makes your biology. Dumber and not the cute kind of dumb.
[00:07:56] Will you mix up your passwords? I mean, forgetting your kids' names [00:08:00] while driving to a meeting. That kind of dumb. Your brain doesn't want to grind. It wants rhythms and cycles and recharge, time and sleep, and connection and hydration. A decent bowel movement for God's sake. Let's be real. Here's what neuroscience tells us.
[00:08:18] When we are in a chronic state of fight or flight, our hippocampus, which handles learning and memory, actually starts to shrink. Yes, your brain physically changes under stress. This is why you can't remember where you put your phone while holding your phone. Been there, done that. Your brain thrives in what's called the default mode network, the DMN.
[00:08:44] That's the dreamy, the day dreamy space. The space where your brain sorts and stores information creatively and restores your sense of self. You access the default mode network when you rest. That's right. Your greatest insights come from when you are [00:09:00] doing nothing.
[00:09:06] If stress and overwhelm or that relentless inner critic had been running the show, it's time to take back control. You don't need another motivational quote or feel good pep talk. You need a system, a tool, something that actually works when life gets messy. That's exactly why I created mindset medicine worksheets.
[00:09:23] No fluff, no filler. Just proven strategies that are powerfully designed to help you rewire your thoughts for clarity and confidence, break the cycle of overwhelming minutes. Set boundaries that stick without the guilt and turn stress into focus and action. This isn't about theory, it's about real transformation.
[00:09:44] And the best part, this podcast comes with a worksheet designed specifically for what you're learning today. No more wondering how to apply this. It's all mapped out for you. And if you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and start making real shifts, grab today's worksheet below [00:10:00] because life's too short to stay stuck.
[00:10:02] Check out the episode specific worksheet for today's podcast below.
[00:10:09] Take that hustle culture because, and get this, even your immune system suffers when you're under stress. Chronic stress suppresses your natural killer cells leaving you more vulnerable to everything from viruses to autoimmune issues. So if you've been wondering why you're getting sick, more snapping at people more and forgetting things, even the basic things, it's not 'cause you're broken, it's because your body is screaming, it's time to rest.
[00:10:36] Success is not about high functioning stress, it's about well-regulated energy and thinking like a billionaire, high performers guard their recovery time. Like what's a good analogy? I don't know. Maybe my brain is in a fault mode failure again. But they do. Billionaires protect [00:11:00] their recovery time like crazy.
[00:11:03] Let's go into another hypnotherapy technique. I call this the soften and shift, a micro moment of reset technique. This is one of my favorite anytime anywhere hypnotherapy resets, especially for high achievers who feel like they're running on fumes, but won. Admit it. Until they pass out in their car with a half eaten protein bar in their lap.
[00:11:23] Been there, done that too. Soften and shift teaches your brain and body how to downregulate from stress in under 60 seconds. Try it with me here. Sit still. If you're in a safe place and not operating machinery and you feel comfortable, shut your eyes. Now gently soften the muscle around your eyes. Just feel these muscles relax.
[00:11:50] UNC uncles your jaw. Drop your shoulders down two inches below your ears, and breathe in through your nose. [00:12:00] Exhale, and silently say, I soften. Here, I shift Now. Let's do that again. Your eyes are relaxing, your jaw muscles are relaxing and un unclenched. Your shoulders are down. You're breathing in through your nose, and you exhale silently saying, I soften here.
[00:12:25] I shift. Now doing this three times sends a signal to your parasympathetic nerve system, and it says. Time to rest and digest. It turns the dial of stress down. And here's another bonus hack. If you pair this with a hand on your heart or your low belly, your touch plus your intention equals subconscious anchoring magic.
[00:12:52] It's intentional. This folks isn't rocket science. It's visualization, it's [00:13:00] intention, it's presence. You can do this under 60 seconds. I did this every day in my car at lunchtime to ground myself, and it works. You could even train yourself to do this while you're standing in line at the pharmacy, staring at all the different cough drops and wondering how peppermint lozenges became an entire aisle.
[00:13:19] Talk about decision fatigue. You kept my point. I've seen aisles and aisles of toilet paper. I'm like, seriously? Anyway, why this works? Well, overachievers tend to override their body's early stress signals. This technique requires your nervous system to see stillness as safe and even productive when it's done consistently, it helps to reprogram old subconscious loops that equate busyness with survival.
[00:13:47] It might seem small. But like brushing your teeth, the magic is in the repetition. Try it before tough conversations between patients in between meetings, after picking up your phone for the 37th time [00:14:00] or right before bed, when your brain suddenly decides to replay that awkward moment from 2009, you'll be surprised how much clarity you gain by doing less, not more.
[00:14:12] All right, let's wrap this up with a call to action and let's land this plane, shall we? Overworking is not noble. It's not sexy, and it sure as heck isn't sustainable. You don't need to prove your worth by self-destructing in public with a smile on your face. Here's your permission slip to rest, to pause, to unplug without guilt, and know that your value is never on the line.
[00:14:39] When we choose peace over performance and intention over impulse, we reclaim the deepest part of ourselves. And the truth is burnout robs us not just of our time, our energy. It steals our joy, dolls our creativity, and flattens our relationships. When we begin to restore our rhythms, [00:15:00] everything shifts. We become happier because our bodies are finally feeling safe enough to heal.
[00:15:06] We become happier because we're no longer outsourcing our worth to hustle metrics, and we become more fulfilled because fulfillment doesn't come from cramming. More in, it comes from aligning with what matters to us. So let me ask you a question. What would it look like to protect your energy, like it's your most valuable resource?
[00:15:28] When was the last time you said no without guilt? What if doing less actually made you more magnetic, more creative, and more you? And here's another wild thought. What if productivity wasn't about how fast you could get through your to-do list, but how deeply you could experience peace while doing what matters most to you?
[00:15:49] Imagine a version of yourself who wakes up rested, moves throughout the day with presence and ends the night feeling proud. Not because of how much you did, but because of how [00:16:00] aligned you were throughout the day. That's the version we're calling forward. You're not here to be a machine. You're here to be alive, lit up on purpose.
[00:16:09] Also, let's be honest, robots don't get coffee breaks or massages. Why would we hold ourselves to a higher grind standard than a rmba? All right. If this episode gives you a soul sigh of relief, share it. Forward it to your coworker who's been crying in the stairwells or your bestie who hasn't taken a day off since the Clinton administration.
[00:16:30] Let's help 100 people in a hundred days reclaim peace, power, and permission to step back. Connect with me and all my social media platforms. I would love to hear from you and your feedback, please. Honesty is okay. I got thick skin. You deserve a life you don't have to escape from. You deserve to feel human again, not just functional.
[00:16:51] This is a path to being happier, healthier, and more fulfilled. Until next time, my friends, be happy, be healthy, and be fulfilled [00:17:00] every day.
[00:17:07] Thank you for listening to Mindset Medicine with your host, Dr. Julia Bowlin. To learn more about mindset medicine, go to www.juliabowlinmd.com and connect with Dr. Julia to find out how our team can help you today. Join us again next week for more expert tips, tools, and strategies to become healthier, wealthier, and wiser in your personal and professional life.
