Burnout by Emily Nagoski | Book Analysis and Summary | Free Audiobook by StoryShots

Life gets busy. Has https://geni.us/burnout-free-audiobook (Burnout) been gathering dust on your bookshelf? Instead, pick up the key ideas now.
We’re scratching the surface here. If you don't already have the book, order it https://geni.us/burnout-book (here) or get thehttps://geni.us/burnout-free-audiobook ( audiobook for free) to learn the juicy details.

About Emily Nagoski

https://geni.us/emily-nagoski (Emily Nagoski) began her career as a sex educator in 1995 when she became a peer health educator at the University of Delaware. She was trained to teach her fellow undergraduates about stress and physical activity. She went to Indiana University for a M.S. in Counseling Psychology, completing clinical internships at the Kinsey Institute Sexual Health Clinic and the IU GLBT Student Support Services Office. Nagoski continued on to earn a Ph.D. in Health Behavior with a concentration in human sexuality. 

For eight years, she worked as a lecturer and Director of Wellness Education at Smith College, before transitioning to full-time writing and speaking. She now travels all over, training professionals and teaching college students.

Introduction

https://geni.us/burnout-free-audiobook (Burnout) aims to explain the primary causes of one of the worst health crises in the modern world: emotional exhaustion. The authors argue that stressors are part of life, but most of us struggle to break a stress cycle. Staying within a state of stress for long periods without breaking it up with exercise, social connections and rest will lead to overexhaustion. Burnout aims to help readers understand which stressors can be controlled and how you can go about controlling them.

StoryShot #1: Try to Close the Stress CycleStress is a neurological and physiological response that is generally associated with threat. The purpose of these responses is to help you run away from these threats. This is why the first hormone released during threatening situations is epinephrine, which pushes blood into the muscles. This blood movement leads to a higher blood pressure and faster heart rate. To help preserve energy, the body chooses to slow digestion and reproduction.

The issue with this is that it is easy to get stuck in the emotion of stress, which Nagoski calls the stress cycle. If the emotion of stress takes over your life, then your body will struggle to deal with these constant stress responses. Your blood pressure will remain high, leaving you at risk of heart disease. Your body will also heal slower, as your immune and digestive systems will be constantly slow. All of these signs point to our need to close the stress cycle.

One effective way of closing your stress cycle is exercising. Moderate physical activity for 20 to 60 minutes will help shift your mood and tackle your body’s stress response. This is because, after exercising, your muscles relax and you feel the shift from breathing heavily to taking deep and slower breaths. This should provide you with an emotional release.

An alternative to physical exercise would be creatively expressing yourself. This might be in the form of painting, singing, playing an instrument, or sculpting. These expressions can be complemented by completing them with other people. Positive social interactions, especially those that suggest a return to safety (e.g. hugs and laughter), will help you close your stress cycle.
 
 

StoryShot #2: Fight Stress by Building Your Resilience

To fight stress you have to start developing resilience and persistence. One of the most effective ways of doing so is knowing what you want and having your life aligned with these wants. That said, you must also align your life with something bigger than yourself. Meaning is the best antidote to stress.

This idea that meaning is the key to happiness was introduced by the psychologist Martin Seligman. Crucially, meaning is also the key to coping within... Support this podcast

Life gets busy. Has Burnout been gathering dust on your bookshelf? Instead, pick up the key ideas now.

We’re scratching the surface here. If you don't already have the book, order it here or get the audiobook for free to learn the juicy details.

About Emily Nagoski

Emily Nagoski began her career as a sex educator in 1995 when she became a peer health educator at the University of Delaware. She was trained to teach her fellow undergraduates about stress and physical activity. She went to Indiana University for a M.S. in Counseling Psychology, completing clinical internships at the Kinsey Institute Sexual Health Clinic and the IU GLBT Student Support Services Office. Nagoski continued on to earn a Ph.D. in Health Behavior with a concentration in human sexuality. 

For eight years, she worked as a lecturer and Director of Wellness Education at Smith College, before transitioning to full-time writing and speaking. She now travels all over, training professionals and teaching college students.

Introduction

Burnout aims to explain the primary causes of one of the worst health crises in the modern world: emotional exhaustion. The authors argue that stressors are part of life, but most of us struggle to break a stress cycle. Staying within a state of stress for long periods without breaking it up with exercise, social connections and rest will lead to overexhaustion. Burnout aims to help readers understand which stressors can be controlled and how you can go about controlling them.

StoryShot #1: Try to Close the Stress Cycle

Stress is a neurological and physiological response that is generally associated with threat. The purpose of these responses is to help you run away from these threats. This is why the first hormone released during threatening situations is epinephrine, which pushes blood into the muscles. This blood movement leads to a higher blood pressure and faster heart rate. To help preserve energy, the body chooses to slow digestion and reproduction.

The issue with this is that it is easy to get stuck in the emotion of stress, which Nagoski calls the stress cycle. If the emotion of stress takes over your life, then your body will struggle to deal with these constant stress responses. Your blood pressure will remain high, leaving you at risk of heart disease. Your body will also heal slower, as your immune and digestive systems will be constantly slow. All of these signs point to our need to close the stress cycle.

One effective way of closing your stress cycle is exercising. Moderate physical activity for 20 to 60 minutes will help shift your mood and tackle your body’s stress response. This is because, after exercising, your muscles relax and you feel the shift from breathing heavily to taking deep and slower breaths. This should provide you with an emotional release.

An alternative to physical exercise would be creatively expressing yourself. This might be in the form of painting, singing, playing an instrument, or sculpting. These expressions can be complemented by completing them with other people. Positive social interactions, especially those that suggest a return to safety (e.g. hugs and laughter), will help you close your stress cycle.

 

 

StoryShot #2: Fight Stress by Building Your Resilience

To fight stress you have to start developing resilience and persistence. One of the most effective ways of doing so is knowing what you want and having your life aligned with these wants. That said, you must also align your life with something bigger than yourself. Meaning is the best antidote to stress.

This idea that meaning is the key to happiness was introduced by the psychologist Martin Seligman. Crucially, meaning is also the key to coping within the stressful world we live in. The authors argued there’s no right or wrong meaning to identify for yourself. The only important feature is that individuals are aligned with a deeper sense of meaning, leading to them living more fulfilled lives.

The Human Giver Syndrome is the best way to find your meaning in life. Human givers are individuals who are expected to devote their time, attention and bodies to others. These others are then able to express their individuality because of the sacrifice of the first individual. The authors highlight that women are generally the individuals that suffer most from Human Giver Syndrome. Society raises women who naturally fall into a giver role rather than prioritizing themselves first. That said, the authors believe that this syndrome is not placed in reality. It is only based on your beliefs and meaning. So, don’t let others punish you for finding your own meaning rather than falling into Human Giver Syndrome.

StoryShot #3: Emotional Exhaustion Leads to Burnout

It can be emotionally exhausting trying to meet your own demands and expectations. Adding to this, the expectations in your workplace and by your family and friends can push you over the edge from stress toward emotional exhaustion.

Once you have become emotionally exhausted you can struggle with depersonalization. This is when you are struggling to maintain your compassion and empathy for others. Emotional exhaustion is also characterized by a decreased sense of accomplishment. This decreased sense of accomplishment is a feeling that nothing you do matters.

The authors describe the journey toward emotional exhaustion as being like a tunnel. You will become emotionally drained and will soon be in the middle of the tunnel. You will have been experiencing the same difficult emotions every day. As there is no satisfactory end to that feeling, you can become stuck in the emotional tunnel with no relief. This is how you become burned out.

StoryShot #4: Rest Helps You Avoid Exhaustion

Effective rest is the key to tackling exhaustion. The authors believe that the saying, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is completely outdated. This is the mindset that leaves workforces exhausted. There is a fine line between working hard and being overworked. The latter is associated with several poor health measures and will ultimately reduce your efficiency and effectiveness at work.

So, instead of continually pushing yourself beyond the expected, you have to sometimes take a rest to recover from your built-up fatigue. This can come in the form of making sure you get enough sleep. But, it might also be taking breaks consistently while at work. The authors highlight that resting in between tasks means you will likely be able to spend twice as much time on your next task without experiencing fatigue.

As well as preventing fatigue, rest can actually improve your ability to find innovative work ideas. Your brain is more active when you are resting, so it will be better equipped to think of solutions. These solutions may be difficult to identify while working on a task, but easily come to you while you rest. You can still be productive while resting, like folding your laundry or cleaning your home. The authors explain that they wrote this book while switching between writing fiction and nonfiction. She did this because these tasks require different parts of the brain. So, she was keeping her brain active in the hope that this would encourage imagination and effective working, while also switching up the tasks so she would feel refreshed rather than burnt out.

The authors use an analogy to highlight the importance of rest. Physical exercise is frequently identified as a great way to improve your fitness levels, stay healthy and build muscle. That said, the benefits of exercise are created while you sleep. The same is true for mental activity. The information we have learned from the day before is processed and consolidated while we rest.

So, a key part of being efficient and productive is knowing when you should take time off to relax.

 

StoryShot #5: Fight Unrealistic Expectations With Facts

Exhaustion is deeply connected with our expectations. For example, you are far more likely to feel frustrated and exhausted if you describe a huge challenge as being super easy. If you are factual about the challenge ahead, you won’t be surprised when you start to struggle, preventing you from experiencing emotional exhaustion on top of physical exhaustion. Expectations determine your frustrations, which means you can manage your frustrations by managing your expectations.

 

StoryShot #6: The Bikini Industrial Complex

As well as individuals placing unrealistic expectations on themselves, women specifically have expectations forced upon them. The authors call this the Bikini Industrial Complex, which is the expectations that women conform to specific and unattainable body ideals. The reason that the body ideals are unattainable is that the Body Mass Index is often used to assess somebody’s health despite its limitations. Specifically, the BMI was invented by weight-loss clinics to encourage women to keep buying their weight-loss services. So, the Bikini Industrial Complex does not help women improve their wellbeing, it encourages emotional exhaustion and subsequent burnout.

The reality of the Bikini Industrial Complex burnout is shown by a recent study in The Lancet. They found that overweight individuals had lower health risk than those in the low end of the healthy category. So, it seems that the emotional exhaustion associated with meeting unattainable ideals is more harmful than being overweight.