# Breaking the Burnout Cycle with Dr. Neha Sangwan MD

An episode of [Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1503897906), 13 May 2024, 1 h 12 min.

Audio: https://media.transistor.fm/6a777db6/c76a31cb.mp3

Dr. Neha Sangwan, MD and CEO of Intuitive Intelligence delves deep into the pervasive issue of burnout, affecting many in our fast-paced world. Dr. Mindy also shares her own experiences with burnout, launching "fast like a girl" into the world, sparking a quest to understand and quantify this phenomenon. Dr. Neha introduces a nuanced perspective, emphasizing that burnout isn't solely about resting but comprises various dimensions: physical, emotional, social, and spiritual. This conversation is a must-listen for anyone feeling mentally and physically drained, seeking clarity and tools for healing. To help raise money for nonprofits that support, protect, and provide opportunities to women around the world, go to https://drmindypelz.com/glag/ To view full show notes, more information on our guests, resources mentioned in the episode, discount codes, transcripts, and more, visit https://drmindypelz.com/ep235 Neha Sangwan, MD, CEO and founder of Intuitive Intelligence, is a physician, engineer, author, speaker, and communication expert. She empowers individuals, leaders, and teams with effective communication tools that address stress, prevent burnout, inspire accountability and empower collaboration. She consults for top organizations like Google, American Express, Kaiser Permanente, and the American Heart Association. Dr. Sangwan has shared her work across three TEDx stages and authored two foundational books: TalkRx: Five Steps to Honest Conversations for Connection, Health, and Happiness; and Powered by Me: From Burned Out to Fully Charged at Work and in Life. Her work is integrated into a corporate mental and emotional wellness program titled Bridging-Me-We-World. Check out our fasting membership at resetacademy.drmindypelz.com. Please note our medical disclaimer.

## Chapters

- 0:01 Introduction: Burnout Expert Dr. Neha Songwan
- 3:38 Setting the Stage: The Importance of Community and Conversation
- 15:16 Phase One: Alarm Phase - Recognizing Early Signs of Burnout
- 19:20 Chronic Adaptation: Coping Mechanisms and Depletion of Energy
- 19:31 Sliding into Ineffectiveness: The Exhaustion Phase
- 25:28 The Impact of Hormones on Burnout in Perimenopausal Women
- 26:52 The Grandmother Effect: Brain Changes in Menopause
- 33:36 Physical Awareness: Listening to Your Body's Signals
- 34:50 Sleep, Nutrition, and Movement: Building a Foundation for Health
- 35:02 Physical Awareness and Burnout
- 39:32 Mental Patterns and Responses
- 42:42 Emotional Challenges and Avoidance
- 47:03 Assessment and Awareness Tools
- 50:10 Inner Work and Self-Reflection
- 57:19 Establishing Healthy Boundaries
- 1:02:36 Navigating a Fast-Paced World
- 1:05:28 The Definition of Health
- 1:09:55 Sustaining Well-being Amid Challenges

## Transcript

[0:02] Dr. Mindy: On this episode of The resetter podcast, we're
[0:06] going to talk about a hot topic that is affecting many of us.
[0:11] And it's burnout. So I have brought you a burnout expert.
[0:17] And this is quite a conversation. So her name is Dr.
[0:21] Neha Sangwan, she is a MD, and also a CEO and founder of her
[0:29] company is called intuitive intelligence. And she has a
[0:34] really profound way of looking at burnout. And so as many of
[0:39] you have heard me say, I pretty sure I hit burnout this, at
[0:42] least in the last year, launching fast like a girl into
[0:46] the world. And so I've been really trying to quantify
[0:49] burnout, how do you measure it? How do we know what it is? How
[0:52] do we know when we hit it? And so I've had several discussions
[0:56] with people. But no one has really given the depth and
[1:00] context to this condition that is affecting so many of us as
[1:06] Neha. And so I bring you a really thoughtful discussion on
[1:12] burnout, she has gone through her own burnout experience,
[1:17] which she shares in the beginning of this conversation.
[1:21] And she talks about how burnout, this is the part I really love
[1:24] isn't as easy as just sitting your butt down and resting, that
[1:29] there are many pieces of burnout and understanding which part of
[1:34] you is burnout? Is it physical? Is it emotional? Is it social?
[1:37] Is it spiritual, she walks us through the different pieces of
[1:42] burnout. So this is one of those discussions that I'm going to
[1:45] really encourage you to listen all the way through. Because the
[1:51] end is actually some of the best, she really sums it all up.
[1:55] But when I asked her and we got talking about what her
[1:57] definition of health is, and her definition of health was
[2:01] profound, I have never heard anybody say it quite like how
[2:04] she did. So I want you to hear that. But she also talks about
[2:08] at the end her own way that she has now prevented burnout after
[2:13] spending many years in a burnout state. So I offer this
[2:18] discussion to you with so much love. I know so many of you are
[2:23] feeling mentally physically exhausted, and you're not quite
[2:26] sure where to turn or how to explain it to your loved ones,
[2:30] or how to even understand it for yourself. And I really hope from
[2:34] the bottom of my heart, that this discussion gives you a
[2:38] whole new set of tools, a whole new language to be able to talk
[2:43] to the people in your life with and most importantly, put you on
[2:47] an incredible journey of healing and repairing this beautiful
[2:51] body that you get to live in so that you don't live in a burnout
[2:55] state. So here you go. Enjoy one of the best discussions I
[3:01] personally have ever had. With burnout, you are in for one heck
[3:07] of a treat. So sit back and enjoy this conversation, hugs to
[3:13] you.
[3:15] Welcome to the resetter podcast. This podcast is all about
[3:20] empowering you to believe in yourself. Again, if you have a
[3:25] passion for learning, if you're looking to be in control of your
[3:29] health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you.
[3:39] Let me start off by just welcoming welcoming you Neha. To
[3:43] my my amazing group of listeners and to my podcast. I'm so
[3:49] excited to have this conversation with you. So thank
[3:51] you for being here. Thank you because I know how sacred
[3:54] community is, huh? Oh, that's super well said. Because, you
[3:59] know, anytime I start with a new guest, there's there's a moment
[4:03] where I'm really thinking about the listeners and like, what is
[4:05] it that they need to hear? And it's interesting, because with a
[4:09] podcast, it's almost like you're having a continual conversation
[4:13] with the same group of people. And and with burnout. This is
[4:17] one that I haven't had this conversation in many years. And
[4:22] as a 54 year old, postmenopausal woman who has been on a book
[4:28] putting books out like you multiple, you know, year after
[4:31] year after year, burnout has definitely come to the forefront
[4:36] of my mind and how do we identify it? And how do we where
[4:41] do we know that it's time to put a stop to all the yeses? And how
[4:45] do we navigate this moment? So I'm here you know, wanting to
[4:49] pull information out of you from my followers, but it's also a
[4:52] personal these will be personal questions as well, because I
[4:56] would I would pretty much say I've probably hit burnout. I
[4:59] think I think I've
[5:00] hit it and I keep dragging myself through it.
[5:02] Dr. Neha: Yeah, well, when you're saying I think I might
[5:04] have I, and you're even saying the word, like, you're so high
[5:09] functioning and go getting and doing all this stuff, and I
[5:12] always say, if someone's even starts thinking about it, like
[5:14] they're well, well in it, you know, because Oh, no, it's Oh,
[5:18] good. That's what it means. Yeah. Like someone like you're
[5:22] saying that after you, you know, you have so much initiative and
[5:25] so much momentum, and you're trying to put out podcasts and
[5:27] do all these things like, by the time that you're noticing that,
[5:30] yeah, it means it's real.
[5:33] Dr. Mindy: That's so interesting, because about two
[5:35] months ago, I sat in my therapists office, and I said, I
[5:38] think I put burnout, how would I know? You talked about how you
[5:42] work with the, you know, these high performing CEOs. And I
[5:45] think one of the things that happens with high performing
[5:48] people is that we've learned to just push through, like, it's
[5:51] just, it's just, you know, you just learn a job needs to be
[5:53] done, you're gonna do it. If your brain is yelling at you,
[5:58] you learn to tell it to shut up and you keep going. So what I'd
[6:02] love to do to start this discussion is really like, what
[6:05] is burnout? Like? Can we make it a tangible thing? Like how, what
[6:10] is going on in my brain? My body, like, tell me what it is.
[6:13] So I can, I can have maybe a little more respect for that
[6:16] moment? Yeah,
[6:18] Dr. Neha: well, I think it is such an amorphous, overwhelming
[6:21] experience. And most people don't know what it is they just
[6:24] have a vague sense of feeling heavy or tired or exhausted, and
[6:30] the weekend or a week off not being enough. So let's let's
[6:34] start with the research. When I found out in 2004, as a hot,
[6:39] busy, hospitalist physician, I was 34 years old. So you and I
[6:43] are about the same age going through a lot of the same
[6:45] things. When I burned out, I as a doctor, I didn't even know
[6:50] what it was. Because the people who came to me I would call it
[6:54] stress leave. And when the employee assistance programs, so
[6:58] if someone's struggling in a company, or whatever, and then
[7:00] they go to the EAP, EAP, EAP, sends them to me, I had two
[7:05] things I could do for people that I thought were stressed
[7:08] out, I could write them if I thought it was, you know, a real
[7:12] thing, I would write them a prescription for time off, that
[7:16] would be paid by their employer. The second thing I could do is
[7:19] give them
[7:21] some cocktail of medications, depending on the cut context of
[7:24] what they were telling me. Do they need antidepressant anti
[7:28] anxiety, sleep medication, there's like some cocktail of
[7:31] medications I can give them to help them with their symptoms.
[7:34] That's really effective. Because they're a bullet train almost
[7:39] going into a brick wall. So my job is to, like stop that from
[7:43] happening, or if it's already happened, slow their world down,
[7:47] and help them through the crisis. So
[8:43] I had no recollection that that that was going on. So I was
[8:48] literally already hitting that wall. And what I'm really
[8:51] grateful for is that she
[8:55] had the confidence to question me, because for sure, I could
[9:02] have prescribed the wrong medication. She could have
[9:04] talked about me to someone else. But she had the wherewithal to
[9:08] say, are you okay? And so one thing I want you to know about
[9:13] burnout is sometimes other people in your life, recognize
[9:17] it for you before you do, and you want to be grateful for
[9:21] that. You don't want to be defensive. And you mentioned at
[9:26] the beginning, this high performing piece, the way I say
[9:28] it is the way we became high performing, taking care of the
[9:31] house. Right, you know, perhaps working, doing all these things
[9:35] that we do is because we've learned to push through our body
[9:38] rather than partner with it. Yes.
[9:41] Dr. Mindy: And we do. So well said. We do
[9:44] Dr. Neha: it in so many ways. Like I'll tell you mine when I
[9:46] was a busy doctor in the hospital, crazy to high school
[9:50] 16 ounce MOUNTAIN NEWS was a king sized Snickers bar and you
[9:53] could get me through 36 hour shifts without sleep. So each of
[9:58] us has a The strategies, the coping mechanisms, the ways that
[10:03] we figure out when our body is giving us important signals, how
[10:09] to override that to get over the deadline to get over the next
[10:13] meeting the next day, the next week. And so while that serves
[10:18] us, so in the end, it ends up not serving us, but for a period
[10:25] of time, for sure. Okay, so what is burnout? Let's talk about
[10:30] backup, if burnout in 2004. And 2003, it was not even
[10:34] acknowledged as a, you know, medical like syndrome. It was
[10:39] like, you know, I think maybe there's this extensive tiredness
[10:43] and fatigue and things like it was nothing. It wasn't until
[10:47] 2019, that the World Health Organization said, Okay, we
[10:52] think it's prolonged unmanaged stress at work at work. Like my
[10:57] whole thing is like, it doesn't matter whether it's at work or
[11:00] at home, there could be a special needs child at home,
[11:02] there could be a troubled relationship at home, there
[11:06] could be your sister who's struggling. And of course, it
[11:09] could be unmanaged stress at work. But this is what I want to
[11:13] say, I think the who is going to come around the World Health
[11:16] Organization. Oh, I
[11:17] Dr. Mindy: Oh, I'm so happy. Well, that's amazing. Well,
[11:22] Dr. Neha: yeah, I don't know when but I think someday, it
[11:25] won't just be labeled at work. So wherever you have stress that
[11:31] is causing, this is how I say it. But wherever you are, from
[11:36] burned out to fully charged, can be measured by whether you have
[11:41] a net gain or a net drain of energy on a physical, mental,
[11:44] emotional, social, and spiritual level. Okay, so each of us comes
[11:50] here, as uniquely as our fingerprint. In the end, it's
[11:55] the same exhaustion, but there's been an ongoing drain of energy
[11:57] for a long time. So the definition of burnout is a
[12:02] triad. The first part is yes, physical mental emotional
[12:05] exhaustion. Sec. Second is after that's been going on for a
[12:11] while, your physiology Mother Nature's like, made to
[12:14] beautiful, have a machine it a jaw. Yeah.
[12:17] Dr. Mindy: Thank you.
[12:18] Dr. Neha: I know, right? Strongly
[12:20] Dr. Mindy: agree, I strongly agree. And we don't give it at
[12:22] Mother Nature, enough credit for what what the this amazing body
[12:25] we get to live in. So yeah,
[12:27] Dr. Neha: and it's this adjustment that goes on inside
[12:31] us, whether it's our blood pressure, heart rate, moving all
[12:34] of this, we can recover, sometimes with sleep, etc, then
[12:37] we start doing these things that are like, Hey, can you make my
[12:41] coffee this morning to make it a double, I'm having a rough week.
[12:45] And we start to adjust on the outside as well. So we've been
[12:49] exhausted for a while. And then the second piece of the triad
[12:52] comes in, which is a combination of two things, really an
[12:57] undercurrent of cynicism, where your mind joins in the fatigue,
[13:02] and says something like, no matter how hard I work, or I
[13:06] try, I don't know that it's really going to make a
[13:08] difference. And so now all of a sudden, your thinking becomes
[13:13] the undertow to this exhaustion, and, and, you know, challenge
[13:17] physically, mentally. And now if you start doing things like even
[13:22] if you're lonely or isolated, or working at home, or whatever it
[13:26] is, you start pulling away from anything social or interacting,
[13:31] because you just don't have the energy even though you need it.
[13:34] You want the community you have this thing called
[13:36] depersonalization, where you start pulling away and you start
[13:39] referring like I did that day, the general the guy in 636, I
[13:45] didn't say Mr. Jones, I didn't say Miss, you know, whatever.
[13:48] I'm starting to deep personalize. Okay, so we have
[13:51] the exhaustion. We have the cynicism slash depersonalization
[13:55] asserts going up. And then the third part of the triad is
[14:00] ineffectiveness. And I gave you a really good example of that,
[14:04] when I hit that wall of saying the same thing five times in a
[14:09] row and not registering the answer.
[14:13] Dr. Mindy: Yeah. So I think that's, that is beautiful. And
[14:17] thank you for the spectrum. Because, you know, I resonate
[14:21] actually, with everything you said, the place the last place
[14:24] that I find my brain getting hooked on is the ineffectiveness
[14:28] because it you know, I think, again, we I'm speaking not only
[14:34] for myself, but for many of the women that listen to this
[14:38] podcast is it's hard to see in effectiveness like it would take
[14:44] somebody else maybe from the outside in like that nurse did
[14:48] for you. Like it how do you know if you're being effective and
[14:53] when you're in a situation where you have to perform at work you
[14:56] need to perform in your family, like You know, you just have to
[15:01] keep on going whether you're effective or not. So what is our
[15:05] measurement of effectiveness?
[15:08] Dr. Neha: Well, let's take them through the phases now. So you
[15:11] know the triad of burnout. Okay, let's start burnout goes across
[15:15] phases. So this is not the same exhaustion. The third part of
[15:20] these phases is exhaustion. That's not the same as the
[15:22] physical mental emotional exhaustion I spoke to you about,
[15:25] but hold on here. So we'll start phase one is the alarm phase.
[15:29] The alarm phase is kind of like the moment you've jumped on a
[15:32] treadmill, that's going a little too fast. And it's that
[15:36] experience, it's like your heart skips a beat, someone cuts you
[15:39] off in traffic, it's like that experience, you're you're
[15:41] leveling up. And you're kind of, you know, a little bit
[15:46] irritable, you might feel a little overwhelmed, like, Oh,
[15:50] this is too much. The way you might feel this in your body is
[15:56] heart racing, stomach turning intestinal issues like gut
[16:00] issues, diarrhea, constipation, something just doesn't feel
[16:03] right. So in that space, first of all, you always go and get
[16:07] that checked out, because it might be something physical. But
[16:10] if you get a clean bill of health, from your doctor, oh,
[16:13] nothing's wrong with you, then you might want to think about,
[16:16] oh, wow, maybe the stress has kind of overwhelmed my system.
[16:21] And this is like me trying to adjust to that treadmill going
[16:24] too fast. Now, when you start using all those coping
[16:27] mechanisms we talked about, and you stay on that treadmill going
[16:30] at that speed, and it becomes your new normal. That's what
[16:34] happens when you start to have kids and you start to write,
[16:36] you're starting to move down this this path where now you're
[16:39] taking on more and more and more. You're using all these
[16:42] coping mechanisms. And pretty soon, you are turning up that
[16:46] dial even point 1.1. Like it's starting to go even faster, and
[16:51] you hit this place. That's called chronic adaptation. Where
[16:57] are you using everything you can to barely hang on your you don't
[17:00] have reserve. So in the first part, you might notice you
[17:05] missed an appointment, and maybe you had to pay for even if it
[17:08] could be something as simple as a mani pedi. And that's not like
[17:11] you. It's not like you to miss the Alright, I gotta pay the
[17:14] money to how because I missed it. I didn't cancel. But you're
[17:18] like, wow, that wasn't like me. Or you're so you miss the
[17:22] deadline to miss appointments, you forget things you and this
[17:25] is not menopausal forgetting things. Okay? This is like
[17:28] right, irritability, and, you know, snapping at your loved
[17:32] ones. Now, the interesting thing about burnout is it does have a
[17:35] lot of overlap to menopause in the sense of the symptoms. I
[17:38] Dr. Mindy: was just thinking the same thing. I was like, Wait a
[17:41] second, where does where does the lack of hormones come in
[17:44] here, which we should discuss in a hot moment. But yeah, keep
[17:47] going. So
[17:49] Dr. Neha: it's all connected. But anyway, so now, you've you
[17:54] realize that maybe you're going in later, you're you're ending
[17:58] later in your workday. So just things start shifting, then
[18:02] you've been there for a while now you're in chronic
[18:04] adaptation. So now you want to think about things like you're
[18:08] procrastinating your knee, perhaps even calling in sick,
[18:13] perhaps after a weekend, or a week's vacation, you're still
[18:17] not rested. So now you're just not recovering, like you use to
[18:22] recover. Right? A lot of people say, oh, yeah, I'll sleep. I'll
[18:26] work all week, and I'll catch up on my sleep on the weekend. Like
[18:29] that doesn't that doesn't actually work. Biologically,
[18:31] it's a good idea. But it doesn't actually work. So the idea there
[18:36] is things have been going on for a long time. And now you're like
[18:39] doo doo doo doo doo, you're starting to deplete. Now, the
[18:41] way you know you're in chronic adaptation is because you're
[18:44] requiring more of your coping mechanisms to get the same
[18:49] effect. So maybe used to say, Yeah, I need a glass of wine
[18:54] after work to take the edge off. And now suddenly, it's during
[18:59] the pandemic, and you're like, Honey, can you hand me the
[19:01] bottle? Right? Like, all of a sudden, it's two glasses, or
[19:05] it's one cup of coffee, and now you're up to two or three. So
[19:09] people don't actually notice that they're moving across alarm
[19:12] phase, chronic adaptation, because they just think they're
[19:15] using the same thing. A little bit more.
[19:18] Dr. Mindy: It's just more of it. Yeah. Interesting. Okay, so
[19:23] what? What happens after that? Yeah,
[19:26] Dr. Neha: one more thing, because you're barely hanging on
[19:29] by a thread and this chronic and adaptation, one more thing
[19:35] happens and you go sliding down the slippery slope of burnout to
[19:38] ineffectiveness, and that's the exhaustion phase. Now that's
[19:42] different than mental emotional exhaustion. Right? But it's like
[19:46] the exhaustion phase which is like, it can sometimes coincide
[19:50] with depression, not always it doesn't have to. It's literally
[19:55] you know, trouble like chronic migraines pain, like you
[19:59] literally are not functioning. And we need I mean, that's when
[20:02] you're in crisis and you need like real medical help. But
[20:06] here's what I want people to know. If you know, the triad of
[20:10] burnout, mental emotional exhaustion, cynicism in
[20:13] effectiveness, if you know these and you know the phases of alarm
[20:17] phase chronic adaptation and exhaustion. I'm pretty sure
[20:21] you're gonna pick this up sooner.
[20:24] Dr. Mindy: You're gonna Yeah, for sure. Because you Yeah, cuz
[20:27] you're giving language to feelings that we dismiss. So and
[20:31] Dr. Neha: that's what I hope the whole we'll have. And this is
[20:34] the deal, too. Yeah. If, if it's not you when you're listening.
[20:39] We need you to be the nurse for other people that that nurse was
[20:42] for me. If you know this, yeah, you are going to be able to see
[20:46] those you love and lead, you're going to be able to say, Hey,
[20:49] are you okay?
[20:51] Dr. Mindy: Yes, yeah. So what's interesting about this, and I
[20:55] want to, of course, where my brain goes next is like, okay,
[20:58] like, again, I resonate with everything you just said, I've
[21:01] been in every single one of those positions. And so I'm
[21:05] curious, what do you do about it, like if you can catch
[21:07] yourself, so we'll talk about that in a moment. But let's
[21:10] touch on this on what you said about, you know, all the
[21:14] research I've done on hormones and looking at hormones. And
[21:17] what's happening to us through this Peri menopausal years is
[21:21] that I call it a neuro chemical armor. You know, as our hormones
[21:25] start to come down estrogen and progesterone and testosterone
[21:28] also stimulated different neurotransmitters, different
[21:31] types of neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine and GABA.
[21:35] So there's like this neuro chemical armor coming down,
[21:38] you're in your mid 40s, maybe your kids are now teenagers, or
[21:41] they're launching them into the world, your maybe your work is
[21:44] getting really intense, or you're going back into the
[21:47] workplace. And so there almost is that at that explanation you
[21:52] just made of these three phases, where my brain goes is it's much
[21:57] easier to hit those three phases, when you don't have as
[22:01] much estradiol when you're lacking progesterone, when you
[22:05] don't have as much dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine,
[22:08] glutamate, oxytocin, GABA, I mean, all these neuro chemicals
[22:12] are up for grabs as you go through this. So you're gonna
[22:16] hit burnout much quicker it would you agree.
[22:20] Dr. Neha: Yeah, you're gonna have so much less reserves, you
[22:24] know, how I was saying at the beginning, like where you are
[22:26] from burned out to fully charged, is whether you have a
[22:30] net gain or net drain of energy on a physical, mental,
[22:33] emotional, social and spiritual level. Well, one of the levels
[22:38] is under physical is stress and hormones. And so that's the
[22:44] physical part of it. Now, I want you to imagine, the mental part
[22:48] of you is going to start saying, I thought I knew my body. Oh, my
[22:52] God, I didn't sleep well, last night. Oh, my God, I'm getting
[22:57] my midsection is getting fat on it now, like, what is going on
[23:02] here. So now the thoughts start draining emotionally, you're
[23:06] going to feel moody, you're going to feel all these things,
[23:08] because your hormones are all changing, you might even not
[23:11] have a sex drive anymore. So socially, it might shift your
[23:15] relationships and how you're connecting intimately and
[23:19] otherwise. And then on a spiritual level. It's such, it's
[23:25] almost like when we were teenagers, and our body was
[23:28] changing, and we didn't have control of it, and our hormones
[23:31] are changing, and our world is changing. And you know, you it's
[23:34] like this whole experience, the kind of menopause for me has
[23:39] gone across all levels. And so when you say when you say, is it
[23:46] easier to burn out? I have to say, Yes, I think that it
[23:50] depends on how much reserve you have. Now, let's say some of our
[23:54] coping mechanisms were eating sugar, if sugar is your thing,
[24:00] that it has been shown to, you know, intensify the symptoms.
[24:06] And so yeah, we are now having to not only experience all these
[24:09] changes in our body and our moods and our all have this, we
[24:13] sometimes have to give up the coping mechanisms we've been
[24:17] using Yes. To manage the stress in our lives. Yeah, so yeah,
[24:23] Dr. Mindy: and you know that you also have the other the other
[24:26] side of this where your adrenals are supposed to actually come
[24:29] over and start making some sex hormones. But if you're like, in
[24:33] full cortisol production, the adrenals are like, hey, no, I'm
[24:37] over here making cortisol. So it's, it's, you know, what I
[24:40] think is I'm hoping people are grabbing from this part of the
[24:43] conversation is that, you know, burnout is real for the
[24:47] perimenopause and menopausal woman. And, you know, I think
[24:51] this is why a conversation like this is so ridiculously
[24:55] important for that age, because I feel like if you go into your
[24:59] pyramid In a puzzle years, knowing this could be that
[25:03] burnout is going to be a much easier state that your body and
[25:07] your brain is going to go into. At least if you have some
[25:10] awareness, you might be able to catch it before it totally takes
[25:14] you down. At least that's the way my brain thinks. So would
[25:17] you what are your thoughts on on that?
[25:20] Dr. Neha: No, I think I think that was well said, I think
[25:23] that's really well said. And I think each person the trick here
[25:31] is that there's the stress that's going on for all the
[25:35] things we think we should do need to do have taken on. What
[25:40] happens is now our physicality, in totality is at play with
[25:47] perhaps where people who don't have strong enough boundaries,
[25:49] we think we need to take care of the kids, and we need to take
[25:52] care of our partner, and we need to take care of the house. And
[25:54] we better be an amazing, you know, career woman, and who
[25:57] knows what we've taken on. But now, because this layer comes
[26:02] on, it's actually a wake up call to ask us if the way we've been
[26:08] doing things is actually working. And now it's time. Now
[26:13] it's time to take care of us. And our body is saying, You
[26:18] gotta prioritize me. I've been carrying you around for a really
[26:21] long time. And please, please, please come back to me. And it
[26:25] stops us in our tracks. Yeah,
[26:28] Dr. Mindy: thank you for saying that. Because earlier this week,
[26:30] I brought Dr. Lisa Moscone on. And you know, the female brain
[26:35] researcher, and she just put out a book called the menopause
[26:38] brain. And I asked her, tell me what's going on to the brain
[26:42] during perimenopause and menopause. And she brought
[26:45] something to my attention that I had never heard and it's called
[26:48] the grandmother effect. Have you heard of the
[26:50] Dr. Neha: grandmother effect? I haven't Tell me. So.
[26:54] Dr. Mindy: So it's where the brain starts to prune what know
[26:57] in the perimenopause years, the brain gets rid of the neurons
[27:01] that are no longer necessary. And it starts to rebuild parts
[27:06] of the brain that actually moves it into this highly productive
[27:11] state in six years into our post menopausal years. And they call
[27:16] it the grandmother effect, because it used to be when we
[27:20] are back in the hunter gatherer age, that it was the grandmother
[27:24] that would bring food back to the community and would take
[27:28] care of the kids while the mother was tending to the baby,
[27:32] she just burst. And, you know, not to be sexist, but the men
[27:36] were out hunting. So the grandmother kept the peace, and
[27:39] kept the kept structure to the community while they were
[27:44] looking for food. So there became this reorganization of
[27:47] our brains to step into this incredible leadership role. And
[27:52] the reason that I bring that up is that I think what's happening
[27:56] is that there's love this idea of this neuronal pruning, where
[28:00] the brain is like actually kind of changing the neurons that it
[28:04] doesn't need anymore, and bringing new neurons online,
[28:08] that in that state, we also may me be more susceptible to
[28:12] burnout because there's a brain a massive brain change that's
[28:16] going on. But if we could tell work like yours, and hers, and
[28:21] we could bring them together and say, okay, Peri menopausal
[28:24] women, so this brain changes going on, there's, there's a
[28:29] really positive place, you're gonna land maybe a decade from
[28:32] now. But I want we've given language to the vulnerability of
[28:37] of your brain as it goes through this change. Now we you just
[28:41] gave us language to identify it. So now, what do we do about
[28:46] that? Because I don't think it's acceptable to have a sufferer
[28:50] for 10 years through that process. Yeah,
[28:54] Dr. Neha: I think it's, you know, what it is, I think the
[28:56] biggest thing it does is women, women really do start to
[29:00] reevaluate, they start to reflect, they start to
[29:03] reevaluate and use them. If they haven't been someone who's been
[29:07] sharing vulnerably with others, they take it to the next level
[29:11] of, of doing it, or maybe they did share. But they haven't done
[29:15] that. And so now they begin to talk about things in on another
[29:20] level. And I think it's so beautiful. Because now, I mean,
[29:25] I've been going through for a while. And I have been fortunate
[29:30] to have a partner who is some pet empathic about it. And, you
[29:35] know, how can I support you? Do you want me to rub your back
[29:38] like, do you want me to stay away from you? Like, just tell
[29:41] me how I can help you? Easy? I gotta say, That's amazing,
[29:45] because most of my life I actually haven't had that. But I
[29:48] think it's been really so I think finding somebody who you
[29:51] can talk to as well and really share this and even in addition
[29:56] to your doctor, of course your doctor but there's something
[29:59] every day about This that had me feeling quite vulnerable through
[30:03] it until I could figure it out. Because these aren't quick
[30:06] fixes, you know, it takes time to normalize hormones, it takes
[30:11] time to get off sugar and have the effect, have you feeling
[30:15] less than 10, hot flashes, and what's happened happening? So
[30:18] it's almost like we're moving into, from the quick fix to the
[30:24] rhythms of nature. And I love how each one of us love that.
[30:30] Yeah, how each one of us surrenders to that happening, I
[30:34] think is is an art.
[30:37] Dr. Mindy: So beautiful. So let's dive into, you know, a
[30:41] solution here and to give some people some hope you've said
[30:45] this a couple of times now. And I think I really think this is
[30:48] interesting, because I can't tell you how many times I've sat
[30:51] and looked at my schedule. And I finally learned that just
[30:56] because my schedule is incredibly full, doesn't mean
[31:00] that's going to be an exhausting week. And what I've decided is
[31:04] there are certain activities I do that fuel me. And there are
[31:08] certain activities I do that deplete me and and you said
[31:12] something like the brain? Oh, what did you see now? Ma'am? And
[31:16] menopausal brains kicking in? But you said there's an expense.
[31:18] And then there's like, a net expense? And then
[31:23] Dr. Neha: net? Net net gain or grain? Yeah. So yeah. So let's,
[31:28] let's do this. Because not everybody's in menopause. So I
[31:31] want to kind of broaden it. Right? Yeah. So great. This is
[31:35] kind of me going through it myself, and getting that time
[31:39] off and those medications. But here's the problem. When I was
[31:43] on stress leave, I was off for almost three months. And in that
[31:48] time, nobody really, it was like three months later, I was
[31:53] sending to the ring for round two, with no idea of what got me
[31:57] there, or how to do it differently. And so yeah,
[32:02] powered by me is my answer to that gap. And so maze, enjoy
[32:07] going through it myself, and knowing I needed to figure it
[32:09] out, me helping 10s of 1000s of patients and colleagues do this.
[32:17] This is what I came up with. When you think on a physical
[32:21] level. I think of the very first and most important thing someone
[32:27] should be thinking of is do I know how to decipher the unique
[32:32] language of my own body? Meaning my own physiology. So when my
[32:37] drum constricts and my stomach turns, do I know what that
[32:40] means? Or do I just assume it's a nuisance that I need to power
[32:43] through so I can get things done? Do I listen to when my
[32:48] heart races? Or my stomach turns? Or I'm sweating? Or do I
[32:52] just try to move right through it? So each of us has a unique
[32:56] language, physical signals that our physiology is giving us all
[33:00] the time? Even right now, as you're listening to this, feel
[33:03] your bottom sitting on that chair? Feel your feet on the
[33:06] floor? And just notice Do you are is your are the muscles of
[33:10] your body? When you take a deep breath? You know, do Are they
[33:14] open relaxed and light? Or are they constricted? Tight and
[33:18] heavy? Is there some is your right hip trying to get your
[33:22] attention? Is your knee or quad annoying? You? Did you work out
[33:26] and do you feel sore? I don't know what it is for people. It's
[33:30] unique for everyone. But your body's talking. The question is
[33:34] are you listening? Right? So basically, I break it into
[33:41] stress and hormones. Okay, on this under the physical Yeah.
[33:45] Food Food is fuel. Are you fueling yourself with processed
[33:50] foods out of boxes? And you know, fast food and whatever?
[33:53] Are you someone who thinks thoughtfully about how you
[33:56] nourish yourself and through the day how that happens? Do you
[34:00] plan it? Or is it kind of like a surprise after effect at two
[34:03] o'clock in the afternoon? You're like, oh, that's why my stomach
[34:06] is like eating itself because I never ate. So it's like, yeah,
[34:09] on a scale of one to 10 Ask yourself how satisfied are you
[34:14] with the your nourishment and your food? Then go to movement?
[34:20] And or do you have ways to joyfully move your body joyfully
[34:23] move in your body multiple times a week and sleep? So for sleep?
[34:28] It's like ask yourself things like so people are supposed to
[34:31] get seven to nine hours of quality sleep a night. We're
[34:36] supposed to really be able to cycle through 90 minute cycles
[34:39] at least four times. A lot of times now what do we do? We
[34:42] farmed it out. We have rings, and we look at our readiness
[34:45] score to see if we're rested like we don't even check
[34:49] ourselves. It's so true. It's so true. We're we're like
[34:54] outsourcing whether we're rested. So do you wake up in the
[34:58] morning and do you will run Astrid,
[35:02] Dr. Mindy: can I ask you a question on the physical?
[35:04] Because one of the things that came up in therapy when I was
[35:08] talking about burnout with my therapist, is she her one of her
[35:11] questions to me was, do you feel what tell me what you feel in
[35:15] your body? And I said, I feel completely disconnected from my
[35:20] body. Like, I feel like my head and my body are just two
[35:24] different things. Is is that so when you when you took us
[35:28] through that exercise, is it important to also point out that
[35:32] some of the people listening may just be like, I don't even know,
[35:36] like, check in with my body. Like there's just no body
[35:39] awareness? Is that also a physical symptom of burnout?
[35:44] Dr. Neha: Well, that is, I want to say congratulations to anyone
[35:47] listening that says, Yeah, that's me. Because
[35:50] congratulations, you're a master of the external world, you have
[35:55] successfully cut off your connection to your physiology in
[36:00] order to perform in the world. So whenever that happens, what I
[36:04] do is I tell people to kind of take an air pod case, take a
[36:07] smooth stone, take something that fits fits nicely in the
[36:11] palm of your hand. And in your next meeting, okay? When
[36:16] something emotional comes up, when something surprises you,
[36:20] you can do it at the dinner table, you're in a conversation,
[36:24] ask yourself, what do I feel inside my body. And if you're
[36:29] like nothing, I want you to say I can feel this in my hand. So
[36:34] take something from that outside world that you're a master of
[36:38] and hold it and bring it in. Because pretty soon, you're
[36:42] going to be like, Oh, wow, my jaw. Oh, my God, my jaw is
[36:47] tight. Oh, my right shoulder blade kind of bumbo, it feels
[36:52] tight in my chest. But what sometimes we have to do when
[36:56] we're masters of the external world, is this is what we got
[37:01] accolades for performing externally. That's how we got
[37:04] belonging. That's how the woman felt we are successful. So yes,
[37:09] no doubt that we have done this in a very big culture to do
[37:14] this, perform for our parents perform for our family, get an A
[37:18] make money, you know, get promoted. Right? This is what we
[37:22] get all the likes on social media for? Yeah, so the answer
[37:27] is, yes, many, many people are there. And if you're missing, if
[37:30] you're missing all the early signals, then I shouldn't have
[37:34] been so surprised when I was powering through everything with
[37:37] Mountain Dew and bar and telling other people to eat a low, low
[37:40] fat diet, that I was the one who nearly hit a brick wall. Wow.
[37:46] Right. So absolutely. The other thing I would do is I would
[37:49] write down any physical symptoms, you have perhaps
[37:53] reflux, perhaps back pain, perhaps, you know, whatever it
[37:56] is, write those down as well. Now, what I do at the end, so
[38:00] we're gonna give you we're gonna give you a burnout, your own
[38:02] burnout assessment, opportunity, where you're gonna get an
[38:06] interactive way to do this yourself. And in 1520 minutes,
[38:10] figure out where you are on from burnout to fully charged, so
[38:15] amazing in the physical section. When I get down there, I say,
[38:20] now this, look at the answers that you just wrote down for the
[38:23] physical section. And then I want you to check in with your
[38:27] body. And does it feel as you're focusing on these things? Does
[38:31] it feel heavy can tighten and you know, constricted? Or does
[38:36] it feel light and open? Because if you're like this, yeah, I'd
[38:39] eat fine. Yeah, yeah. I don't need to sleep that much. I'll
[38:42] catch up later. Yeah, yeah, I'm really satisfied with all these
[38:44] things. But your body feels heavy. When your mind and your
[38:49] body are not at sync, net drain. So these screens have to it's
[38:55] not just you answering the questions. That's why I put a
[38:58] six little mini video series with it. So I walk you through
[39:02] each one until you now pay attention to your body. Okay, so
[39:06] physical, that's physical. And once if you give yourself a
[39:09] score less than 10 out of 10, right, one one to 10. I asked
[39:14] you just tell me what would make it attend that you would be
[39:17] satisfied. So I want you to know, I'm not telling you, you
[39:19] need to eat four cups of leafy green vegetables. I'm asking you
[39:22] whether you're satisfied. How satisfied are you? Because that
[39:27] will also tell you when you're less satisfied with something
[39:30] that's a great place to start. Right? Because that's something
[39:34] that's really upsetting. So now Yeah, okay. Now let's move to
[39:40] mental mental is your thoughts and how you form them. You know,
[39:45] let's say I said to you, let's oh my god, there's an
[39:48] opportunity to go bungee jumping. What's your first
[39:50] thought that you'd have?
[39:52] Dr. Mindy: I'm scared of heights. So I would say hell no.
[39:54] Have fun. I yeah, I'm not I would not. Yeah.
[40:01] Dr. Neha: Yeah, you wouldn't, you wouldn't be ended up but
[40:02] then man would imagine our other friend who was here would be
[40:05] like, I can't wait to feel like I'm flying. Okay. And another
[40:11] person might say, those things aren't I'm not sure if those
[40:14] things are safe. They've been safety tested. Okay? So same
[40:19] situation, same data. One of us might purple up, personalize it
[40:23] to myself, Oh, my God, I'm going to die. I literally am going to
[40:27] die. And other person might. Yeah, that's Oh, you know? Yeah.
[40:31] So we let projected on to other people, oh, that's only for
[40:34] people who are really athletic. Or we might say, you know, I
[40:36] don't know what the safety testing is on that and go bigger
[40:39] than me are you. It's when things happen, people typically
[40:43] pick a way of responding. They don't, they didn't pick it. But
[40:48] there's patterns. Like, when I was young, I was raised by my
[40:53] grandparents, for the first couple of years of my life. When
[40:56] I moved back in with my family, at two years old, I thought I
[40:59] had done something wrong to be sent away from my grandparents.
[41:03] And so I was really devastated. And from then on, I decided if
[41:07] anything went wrong, it was probably my fault. So that's
[41:11] personalization. So you can see now in the world, how I can take
[41:15] on much more than my own responsibility. That's
[41:17] personalization. And so in this experience, that would be a net
[41:22] drain of energy. Because normally each experience in life
[41:27] has some combination of it being about me something about you,
[41:31] and something about things better than us. Each conflict,
[41:34] each interaction all of them. Alright, comparing and judging
[41:38] other people, comparing yourself to others and judging different
[41:41] ways that you think about work and how it should be. When
[41:44] someone disagrees with you. Do you let it expand your
[41:48] perspective? And do you get curious? Or do you dig your
[41:51] heels in a double down on being right? All of these are
[41:54] interesting examples in the mental section of the questions
[41:57] I'll ask you, and then notice at the end, whether you feel like
[42:01] your body is you know, open, relaxed, center, or it feels
[42:07] heavy, tight, constricted, net, Grant gain, net drain and mental
[42:11] energy. So now let's do emotional motional. It's really
[42:14] easy, emotional as like, how good are you at handling tears,
[42:20] anger, anxiety, grief, trauma, loss, apologizing, forgiving
[42:25] other people and yourself and play, enjoy? How? So the reason
[42:30] I said it's easy as a topic is not easy. But the question is
[42:34] easy. If I want to know where you're having, whether you're
[42:38] having the net gain or net drain of energy on an emotional level,
[42:42] I'm gonna ask you this. Tell me in which areas of your life you
[42:46] are avoiding a challenge or a difficult conversation?
[42:51] Dr. Mindy: Yep. Yeah.
[42:52] Dr. Neha: Is that at home at work socially, you know,
[42:56] financially, odds are entrepreneur, I don't know where
[42:58] it is. But if you can tell me where that's happening, all of a
[43:02] sudden, your body's gonna do this thing. And then tell me
[43:05] where you're getting, you know, a rise in energy and play and
[43:10] humor and all of that right away, you're gonna know, okay,
[43:14] for social energy, this one's an easy question two, it's
[43:19] basically write down the five people or groups of people that
[43:26] you spend the most time with online or in person. And then as
[43:31] you bring those people to mind, and write them all down, focus
[43:36] in on the first one is your now you got to tune into your body.
[43:42] When you're with these people, do you feel a net energy gain or
[43:46] drain via your constriction, tightness, heaviness? Or open,
[43:50] relaxed, energized, right? And you do that for each of the
[43:54] people? Then you'd look at all five? And then you say, okay,
[43:58] overall, how am I feeling? Right? How am I How am I
[44:02] experiencing this? And then the last one is spiritual. And
[44:07] basically, in social, it's about like, you really want to pay
[44:10] attention to being able to give and receive feedback, you want
[44:12] to be able to know whether you're talking when you don't
[44:15] want things upset, you do talk about people, or do you talk to
[44:18] them? Do you know how to lean into healthy conflict, you know,
[44:21] how to draw set expectations, make clear agreements, draw
[44:24] healthy boundaries? So it's like a all your social interactions?
[44:33] If you're somebody who avoids conflict and says yes, when you
[44:35] really mean No, and you don't know how to draw boundaries,
[44:38] you're going to be doing a dance and taking on too much. Right?
[44:42] Yeah. And then when we move to spiritual spiritual energy is so
[44:46] fundamental. People are like, I can't believe you put spiritual
[44:49] energy in a business book or a book on, you know, burnout for
[44:53] work and at home and I said, Well, spiritual energy is the
[44:56] most important one. And what I mean by that is you It's about
[45:00] knowing what you value. It's about when you know what you
[45:05] value and what's most important to you. What matters to you,
[45:09] let's say your top five values. So mine are love, integrity,
[45:13] service, play and beauty. If I know that those are what better
[45:18] to me, it helps me I become much more effective and making quick,
[45:23] quick decisions that align now short term and long term, I can
[45:30] move forward and pivot in a pandemic in a crisis, because I
[45:35] know what matters most. Right? So there's, there's lots of
[45:39] benefits is value because in spiritual, it's your value
[45:43] system balance, just like value.
[45:45] Dr. Mindy: It's like, yeah, it's having an ethos really matters.
[45:48] Yeah.
[45:49] Dr. Neha: What's your spiritual GPS? Right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. How
[45:53] do you make decisions, especially in a world moving
[45:56] faster and faster? Like, if we don't have all the data, and
[46:00] we've got to make a decision how you're going to make it, you
[46:02] better be connected to your own body, you better see how you
[46:05] will how risk averse or that's another piece of spiritual self
[46:08] trust. So one of the questions I asked here is, tell me where
[46:13] you'll take risks, and tell me where you avoid risks. So for a
[46:18] long time in my life, I would take risks mentally,
[46:21] emotionally, socially, spiritually, financially, and
[46:25] entrepreneurially. Not so much physically, like bungee jumping
[46:30] in all that, and not so much romantically because my hurt had
[46:34] been crushed. And so if you see where people take risks, and
[46:39] where they don't, you know, where they trust themselves and
[46:41] where they don't. So,
[46:44] Dr. Mindy: so what do you do with all I mean, like, again,
[46:46] I'm gonna say, I hear all of those questioning. And my brain
[46:51] is like, okay, like, I resonated with a lot of things that you
[46:53] said in there. But then the burned out brain says, Okay,
[46:57] well, that's, yeah, like, there's a lot of places there to
[47:00] work on, how the heck am I going to put all of those back
[47:03] together? Is it more of just a moment of like, so you're
[47:08] talking about, like a quiz that your will leave a link to, that
[47:12] will give you what, like a rating of your burnout? Is that
[47:15] kind of the way we're looking at that?
[47:17] Dr. Neha: Yeah, yeah, you're gonna be able, at the end of
[47:20] each section, you got to tap into your own body, and you're
[47:23] gonna, you're gonna be able to see whether you're having a net
[47:26] gain or a net drain. And so now you know exactly where to focus.
[47:30] Now you know where to focus.
[47:33] Dr. Mindy: Okay, got it.
[47:36] Dr. Neha: This is so enormous how the world gets worn out.
[47:39] It's so enormous. And so to personalize it to you,
[47:42] Dr. Mindy: you need to not it. Oh, love that. Okay, minute.
[47:45] Here,
[47:46] Dr. Neha: I need to first physical and spiritual and
[47:50] emotional are the ones that are drains. Looks like I was really
[47:54] heavy. When we started talking about emotional, let me go,
[47:57] they're hot. So you will know where to go once you do the
[48:01] assessment. And then the book will give you tools and each
[48:04] section to focus there.
[48:07] Dr. Mindy: Okay, so this is this is brilliant, because what I'm
[48:10] thinking is I just went through this experience myself where the
[48:15] first 90 days of this year I was like, I just became really good
[48:19] at saying no, I just said no to everything, so that I could try
[48:22] to figure out what I needed to do to be able to get my feet
[48:27] back on the ground. And then I went on a vacation with a friend
[48:31] and I call it the sensory deprivation vacation where we
[48:34] just sat or in an Airbnb with a beautiful pool, and we read
[48:38] books and watch shows, and it was like the most mellow time.
[48:42] And when I came back, everybody, all my staff and every my
[48:45] family, they're like, Okay, you're good. Now you're good.
[48:48] Like you took a week off, you're good. And my and it was like I
[48:53] was good for a hot moment until the I call it the patriarchal
[48:58] pace started back up again. And it made me realize the reason I
[49:02] share this with you is it made me realize in that moment, that
[49:06] recovering from burnout isn't just sitting your ass down. Like
[49:10] there's more. It's a there's a much more sophisticated path
[49:14] which you just gave us. It's understanding where you are the
[49:18] most off course. Did I interpret that right?
[49:23] Dr. Neha: Yeah, step one is sitting your butt down. Step one
[49:29] is probably gotten here because you have something that you're
[49:34] passionate about that you really want to change, and you've been
[49:37] putting your energy and effort into making that happen. And
[49:41] yep, at some point, you start to spin and you start losing
[49:49] energy. And so the first thing is, burnout is a wake up call.
[49:56] It's a wake up call, that a breach has had But most often,
[50:00] it begins on a spiritual level, where you're saying yes to
[50:04] things that don't really matter. Or you're doing it because
[50:08] you're out of obligation rather than inspiration. And you start
[50:12] draining energy, or you're like me, I was like, I will single
[50:17] handedly change healthcare you Right? Like, not gonna happen,
[50:21] they have like, nice try. And so it starts with a really noble,
[50:26] no, I want to do everything for everybody, right. And in the
[50:30] end, it ends up with you thinking you are super a
[50:36] superpower. And somehow the biological laws of the universe
[50:41] don't apply to you. Right. And so in that sense, your need, you
[50:46] do need to be stopped. And so sitting down is good. But a
[50:51] massage chair on Friday, a sitting down and venting, you
[50:56] know, in front of the TV for series or in front of your
[50:58] laptop for series, that's not going to help it. In the end,
[51:03] it's going to slow things down. So perhaps you can start to
[51:05] reflect and get perspective. But I think the big gap is, what do
[51:11] I do with this mess? And that's right, where do I focus next?
[51:15] And what are the concrete tools that are going to help me heal
[51:19] and go back in the world and do it differently? Right.
[51:23] Dr. Mindy: So once you with this test, you now know which piece
[51:27] you need to work on. And I would assume that that you have lists
[51:31] of like, if it's physical, if it's spiritual, if it's social,
[51:34] you're in the book, you probably have lists of here, all the
[51:36] things you can do. One of my questions, as I'm listening to
[51:40] you talk, and I just want to make sure we give, we help women
[51:43] understand this piece of it, which is, how do you explain it
[51:46] to those around you. Because, you know, there I have found
[51:51] that when I've hit these moments where I'm just like, I can't
[51:54] keep going at this pace, I can't quite put words to explain it to
[51:59] my husband, or to explain it to my team or to my publisher, it's
[52:05] like, like, I don't know how to tell you that the brain is no
[52:10] longer as sharp and effective as it used to be. And I don't know
[52:14] what I need to do to get myself back online. So how do we
[52:18] express it to the our loved ones, and and our and the people
[52:21] we have to perform for?
[52:25] Dr. Neha: So we're gonna go back to what I said to you in the
[52:28] beginning. It's called the body map. Okay, where we tuned in to
[52:33] ourselves. So if I said to you, Hey, Mindy. My throats been
[52:44] constricted, and my heart's been racing, and my stomach's been
[52:48] turning. I said yes, to getting this done in two months. And I
[52:54] didn't sleep last night, or all weekend, I haven't been able to
[52:58] sleep or focus. What I think is going on, is that I have said
[53:08] yes, when I really meant no. And while I don't want to disappoint
[53:13] you, what I have to pay attention to is that my body is
[53:19] actually saying this isn't going to work. Now, the good news
[53:25] about knowing and deciphering the physical language of your
[53:28] own body, that unique language of your own body. Is that what
[53:32] is someone going to say? No, your heart isn't racing. No,
[53:36] your stomach isn't turning, well said. It's Dana. But nobody
[53:40] shares or knows what to do with this. We're in order to explain
[53:47] it like and I'll tell you why. I think from when we were really
[53:50] young. We think about somebody is playing like a child is
[53:57] playing with bubbles or with their brother or whatever. And
[54:01] suddenly you say, okay, honey, it's time to go to school. And
[54:04] they're like, I have a tummy ache. I can't go to school. And
[54:09] you say no, no, I just saw you playing with your brother. You
[54:11] guys get to go to school. Even young, we as adults don't
[54:17] understand that actually, what we should be thinking about is
[54:23] does this child feel lonely on the bus? So they're getting
[54:25] bullied? Do they have to sit alone at the cafeteria? Because
[54:28] as soon as you said it was time to go to school, their body
[54:32] started talking. And we teach them? No, you're you're just
[54:37] fine. You go to school, we teach them at a young age to override
[54:43] those signals. So true. So I don't want anyone to feel like
[54:48] oh, how did I get here? We live in a society that's moving in a
[54:52] digital and AI age is moving faster and faster by the minute.
[54:57] Yeah, and us trying to keep up with this Secretary, we've
[55:00] literally created an external world that exceeds the capacity
[55:05] of our own biology.
[55:07] Dr. Mindy: Oh, that was that was so well said, Oh, bingo. I call
[55:13] it the patriarchal pace. That is just like that production pace.
[55:18] And that at you actually bring up what a question I was going
[55:20] to ask you is, you know, when I hear the definition of burnout,
[55:24] when I hear about all the different pieces of it, I'm
[55:26] like, what human? Isn't burnout burnt out at this moment? And
[55:31] what is our way out of it? So if we've, if the digital world has
[55:36] now exceeded our human physiology, like, what is our
[55:39] way out?
[55:43] Dr. Neha: Well, I mean, I think we have to expand our capacity.
[55:49] So the way that you expand your capacity is, like I said, this
[55:55] game change for me was being able to pick up signals early in
[55:59] my body. If I'm not catching this until really late in the
[56:04] game, I feel helpless at it. Because it's happening to me.
[56:11] Yes. And when I get the agency to know that throat
[56:16] constriction, and some attorney means I'm not speaking my truth,
[56:19] oh, and holding back, all of a sudden, in a meeting, I can say,
[56:22] you know, what I said, I'd have that by Friday, Monday is going
[56:25] to be a lot better. And the help that I would need is support
[56:28] from the marketing team, or, you know, if I'm talking about at
[56:31] home, a cleaning lady, and Lola, I don't know what it is. But in
[56:35] those moments, it's time for us to uplevel our ability to
[56:39] function in this world. And that requires inner work that
[56:44] requires us knowing ourselves picking up signals earlier, the
[56:48] people I think, who are going to succeed in this next leg of our
[56:53] life, and the race that is now on digitally, are the ones who
[56:58] can pick up signals early, or taking data from inside them,
[57:02] and using their own intuition, their body's physiology, getting
[57:05] extra information, so they can make more decisions with less
[57:09] information at a quicker pace. Amazing.
[57:13] So yeah,
[57:14] Dr. Mindy: and it's it. Yeah, I love what you're
[57:16] Dr. Neha: saying. And we're gonna, yeah,
[57:19] Dr. Mindy: yeah. And so you know, what I heard in that is
[57:22] boundaries. You have to, you have to learn to set some
[57:27] boundaries, and you have to learn how to express what you
[57:30] need. And I think those are two things. And I don't mean this in
[57:35] a sexist way, any shape or form. But I do believe as women, we
[57:39] have a hard a real hard time with that. And I can tell you,
[57:43] it's a big part of what I'm learning in my own life now is
[57:45] to put down the people pleasing, ask myself what is right for me,
[57:51] and then put the boundary up and then express what I need. And I
[57:55] think I think that's another way of looking at it the way you
[57:58] just said it is that it's never been more important to have a
[58:01] boundary
[58:07] and for those of you who are listening, she just showed me
[58:10] there's a whole chapter in her book on why boundaries matter.
[58:13] Yes. Oh, there we go. Yes. Amazing boundaries.
[58:18] Dr. Neha: And and I did I actually did a whole hour with
[58:20] Mel Robbins on her podcast on people pleasing. So for women
[58:25] who struggle with this, I will hear me talk about not only how
[58:30] I figured it out how it came about, because pleasing started
[58:35] early. It didn't start lately. Yes. Oh, yes, yes, well, it's
[58:39] one of the it's one of those things with deep roots and, and
[58:43] it can change it can you can shift their actual tools that
[58:48] you can actually develop your boundaries. And for some people,
[58:51] they've been crushed in their life. And their boundaries are
[58:54] more than like armor around them that doesn't allow connection
[58:59] and vulnerability. And so sometimes founders are too rigid
[59:03] in reaction oftentimes to trauma or pain. Sometimes boundaries
[59:07] are too porous because we want you to like us, and in many
[59:11] other reasons, but we not only do we need to learn boundaries,
[59:16] boundaries change for me, they've changed each decade. And
[59:21] what's important to me changes what I'm willing to do as an
[59:25] aspiring medical resident is different than I'm what what I'm
[59:29] willing to do in my 40s and 50s. Right, and so to know how to do
[59:34] it, and then adjusted to your environment and the context in
[59:38] which you are based on the values and your spiritual
[59:42] guidance system. You now can navigate the world but to me
[59:48] it's an inner game now. It for for we got here with an outer
[59:52] game, but now it's really important to do the inner game.
[59:58] Dr. Mindy: Yeah, and I do but Leave, you know, Dr. Lisa
[1:00:01] Moscone and I chatted about this about how when you get on the
[1:00:05] other side of menopause, the way that she said it is like, you
[1:00:08] just you stop giving fucks anymore like you stop caring so
[1:00:12] much about that. People pleasing sorta, which was beautiful to
[1:00:16] hear this researcher say it that way. I'm like, Yeah, you know,
[1:00:19] that actually has been my experience is that as my
[1:00:22] hormones have shifted, and wisdom and years of exhaustion
[1:00:28] trying to people, please, I've now hit a point where I'm like,
[1:00:32] yep, not going to do that anymore. And I will, I'm curious
[1:00:35] if that's on the backside of menopause, if that's what we
[1:00:38] tend to see more is because of the hormonal shift, because of
[1:00:43] the brain shift. setting boundaries become easier. It's
[1:00:46] just a hypothesis that as I heard you talk, I thought that
[1:00:49] might be where we're going in our 60s and 70s.
[1:00:55] Dr. Neha: Yeah, I think the way that I experienced that is
[1:00:59] there's external data, okay. Trials, double blinded, placebo
[1:01:04] controlled trials, research knowledge, we learn in school
[1:01:08] and other places, plus, internal experience. So that's our lived
[1:01:15] experience, what we've what we've experienced personally in
[1:01:18] the world, plus, our physical body signals that no one but us
[1:01:23] can experience our own intuition, you know, when a
[1:01:27] mother has this gut, knowing that something's wrong with
[1:01:30] their child, or something's off that experience. So it's
[1:01:35] external data, plus internal data equals integrated
[1:01:40] decisions. I love that. And so thought, how are we going to
[1:01:46] navigate? How are we going to navigate this world, we need
[1:01:48] more data. So start, yeah, getting to know your own self
[1:01:54] more, because that's how you're going to be able to make a
[1:01:58] decision in a world where pandemics occur and unknown
[1:02:02] things occurred, you have to make decisions and shift
[1:02:04] suddenly you're in an office, now you're at home, the way
[1:02:07] we're gonna have self trust and the ability to be agile and
[1:02:11] adjust to a fast paced world that we by the way, all co
[1:02:15] created, use their brains to co create a great masters better do
[1:02:18] more with less each year. Right? The way we're going to do that
[1:02:22] is by grade, knowing our internal data more, and seeing
[1:02:27] where it matches and seeing where sometimes we have to draw
[1:02:29] boundaries, we have to do things differently, and and create new
[1:02:34] ways of doing things.
[1:02:36] Dr. Mindy: Yeah, oh, so beautifully said, Well, I could
[1:02:40] probably I could pick your brain for a very long time. So and I
[1:02:43] think this is such an important topic that so many people are
[1:02:46] going through. So before I ask you my last question, which I
[1:02:50] always is just a personal one that I love. And where can
[1:02:52] people find you and you have some really cool resources? Can
[1:02:55] you talk a little I know you're doing a live event, if,
[1:02:58] depending on when people are listening? Can you talk a little
[1:03:00] bit about that?
[1:03:03] Dr. Neha: Sure. So if people are interested in a live event,
[1:03:07] literally on powered by me five days of it, I try to do one
[1:03:12] public retreat a year, the one that I happen to be doing in the
[1:03:16] next couple months is at omega Institute, June 9 to the 14th.
[1:03:21] But if you're listening to this, and it's after that, my website
[1:03:24] is intuitive intelligence inc.com. So I can see at the
[1:03:28] end, and go under Events, and under the Events page, you're
[1:03:32] going to be able to see this. I have two books that are out I
[1:03:35] have powered by me and I have talker X on audiobook. So this
[1:03:40] is talker X on Yeah, there you go. That's about leading into
[1:03:45] healthy conflict. That's about leaning into healthy conflict.
[1:03:49] And it's also about women physical symptoms, have a
[1:03:53] physical cause. And when physical symptoms sometimes have
[1:03:58] are because of unresolved mental, emotional, social,
[1:04:01] spiritual issues in your life showing up in your physical body
[1:04:04] to get your attention. So like, yes, sometimes someone will have
[1:04:08] migraines because they have a tumor in their head. Yes, that's
[1:04:12] or they're, you know, they'll have a headache because they're
[1:04:13] dehydrated, for sure. But if you get a clear Villa health, what
[1:04:18] if it's actually because you're somebody who's more introverted
[1:04:21] and doesn't express yourself and your partner blows up and has,
[1:04:25] you know, expresses their anger all the time, and you're just
[1:04:27] absorbing it. So there's unresolved mental, emotional,
[1:04:30] social, spiritual issues that can show up in your physical
[1:04:34] body to get your attention. So if you're not getting the
[1:04:36] answers you need, there's something else going on on
[1:04:39] another level. So I want you to trust yourself and know that
[1:04:42] there are answers. Neha sanguine.com is another easy
[1:04:46] place that they can do it. And then we also promise them a
[1:04:49] burnout awareness prescription. And so the where you get your
[1:04:53] prescription for you know, burnout awareness is intuitive
[1:04:57] intelligence inc.com forward slash burnout hyphen r x r x
[1:05:03] like prescription. And there you'll get a mini video series,
[1:05:07] you'll get the interactive assessment that we spoke about
[1:05:10] on the on the podcast
[1:05:11] Dr. Mindy: may sue. Yeah. And we'll leave the link in there as
[1:05:14] well. So amazing. And I hope people go find all your
[1:05:17] resources, because there's what I'm learning from this
[1:05:20] conversation is, wow, there's a lot of pieces to this. There's a
[1:05:23] lot of things to look at and discuss. So this was this was
[1:05:27] amazing. Here's, here's my last question. Just want to ask
[1:05:31] everybody, because I think it's a very interesting concept,
[1:05:35] which is, what what is your definition of health? I feel
[1:05:39] like we are always trying to move towards being healthy. We
[1:05:43] want health, but we don't really know how to define it. And then
[1:05:47] there's a second part of that question, which is, do you have
[1:05:50] any health goals that you're that you're striving for right
[1:05:53] now? Yeah, always. Like me, I'm just a continual work in
[1:06:02] progress.
[1:06:05] Dr. Neha: Yeah, well, I told you that my greatest challenge for a
[1:06:10] long time was my physical health because I grew up being such a
[1:06:15] people pleaser that I was really vigilant and in tune with
[1:06:21] everybody else and what they needed, not so interested in
[1:06:25] what this body needed. And so what I would say is that my
[1:06:30] definition, so my, my challenges that I work on every day, are my
[1:06:36] alignment around, making sure I take my supplements hydrate and
[1:06:40] move my body. That is so hard for me, it should not be I'm a
[1:06:45] doctor. But it is my area of challenge that I am consistent
[1:06:49] with routine and self care is what I work on really hard. My
[1:06:55] definition of health is alignment, because to me, health
[1:07:03] is me we world. And the alignment inside me on a
[1:07:09] physical, mental, emotional, social, spiritual level. That
[1:07:14] what I think is what I say is, is that I show up aligned in the
[1:07:20] world, for myself that and with what was knows I love and lead
[1:07:26] and with the bigger planet, so no other species would destroy
[1:07:33] their own home. It's it's not even a thing of nature. No. So
[1:07:41] and I think that true health, I think true health is us,
[1:07:47] creating each one of us working to create inner alignment, and
[1:07:53] then alignment with one another, and to the larger world. So to
[1:07:59] me, that's, that's what health is. So it was definitely a work
[1:08:02] in progress. Yeah,
[1:08:04] Dr. Mindy: no, but you have such a, that is one of the best
[1:08:08] definitions of health that I have ever heard. And I think it
[1:08:13] is it makes it a more inner experience. You know, it's not
[1:08:17] like you're, you know, you're not looking for a number on the
[1:08:20] scale or your blood work to be perfect, or whatever. I mean,
[1:08:24] you really gave it a much more inner experience. So I love that
[1:08:29] that was, and I think what you said about us being the only
[1:08:32] species that destroys our own home, like, you know, one of the
[1:08:36] my big takeaways right now is that women's physiology is
[1:08:40] absolutely at an evolutionary mismatch with the day to day
[1:08:44] life that we're that we're living. And so if you use your
[1:08:48] definition of health, what you're doing is you're saying,
[1:08:51] Okay, you're not looking without you're looking within and how do
[1:08:55] I line myself up, and then that internal navigation system that
[1:08:59] you've spoken of, it becomes much easier to read. So that was
[1:09:04] beautiful. So thank you, this was incredible. And the Hi, I
[1:09:08] really, really appreciate ya, I really appreciate your depth of
[1:09:12] thought and how you've given you know, a really wide view of
[1:09:20] burnout as opposed to just it looks like this your ass down. I
[1:09:24] really feel like you just gave it such so much more context
[1:09:28] than I've ever ever heard. So I just think you thank you for
[1:09:32] keep keep up doing all the great work you're doing. Keep writing
[1:09:35] books, I hope you're writing more books. So this was amazing.
[1:09:38] I really appreciate you. Not that. I guess I shouldn't end a
[1:09:43] conversation on burnout to tell you to write more bugs, but your
[1:09:48] brain might need to be documented more. So I really
[1:09:51] appreciate you This was incredible. Thank you.
[1:09:55] Dr. Neha: Well, thank you. I have to say the biggest the
[1:09:58] funniest thing you know the jokes that really, you know, you
[1:10:01] know, launching a book, how enormous writing a book,
[1:10:04] completing a book and launching a book is enormous. And that was
[1:10:08] the right like, how am I going to do this? And launch a book on
[1:10:11] burnout and not burnout myself? Like, well, yeah, what is the
[1:10:14] way to do that? So, you know, it's, it's a constant, I don't
[1:10:19] think we're ever there. I think that we're, it's, you know,
[1:10:24] people say to me, are you do you ever burn out? And what I say
[1:10:28] is, there's underlying mechanisms of who I am and how
[1:10:32] hard I drive myself, that will always be me. But what I will
[1:10:36] tell you is, what's changed dramatically, is how soon I pick
[1:10:42] up when I'm off track, and the how quickly, I get back on
[1:10:49] track. And so it's not that I don't fall off track I do. It's
[1:10:55] that I recognize that quicker. And I'm back on in a day in a
[1:10:59] week, you know, like, that is what I hope for. So don't I'm
[1:11:05] not going to give you the answer where you're never going to be
[1:11:07] yourself or you're going to be some massively other person. But
[1:11:11] I will tell you how to expand your capacity, build your
[1:11:14] intuition, tune into your body, a line, and now you're going to
[1:11:18] have the capacity to see it coming and make adjustments that
[1:11:22] are really effective for you. So yeah, it's it's beautiful. It's
[1:11:27] an incredible journey. And I'm so glad we're on it together.
[1:11:30] Yeah,
[1:11:31] Dr. Mindy: Agreed. Agreed. Thank you for all your work. And I
[1:11:34] hope everybody goes and finds you, and we'll have you back
[1:11:37] again. This was a beautiful discussion. So thank you.
[1:11:39] Dr. Neha: Thank you, Mindy, anytime.
[1:11:43] Dr. Mindy: Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I
[1:11:47] love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things
[1:11:50] health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it.
[1:11:54] So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and
[1:11:58] let me know what your biggest takeaway is.

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