E144 – Burnout in Work (w Valentina Hynes)

Hello and welcome to this episode of a world of work podcast. We've got a really exciting show coming up today. We're going to be exploring all things sort of to do with burnout and the things that weigh on us, and the things that hold us down, and the things that lead to this sort of erosion of who we are in our lives. And we're going to be exploring a little bit of what those factors are and how we can hold them a little bit more lightly, and how we can regenerate ourselves to become a little bit more whole when we are feeling the weight of those factors of the world. And I've got a great guest today to join us for that. We're speaking to Valentina Hines. She's a holistic well being and happiness specialist, focusing in the workplace. Valentina, could you say hi to the audience and give a little introduction?

Hello. So um, every superhero you know has got baddies, and these bodies try to destroy them. And when it comes to the corporate world, these bodies include conflict, mental health issues, burnout, staff turnover, you name it. However, superheroes, they have super special powers, haven't they? And that's what I do. That's what I that's what my business is, to create this special super powers, helping organizations and businesses to stay bullet proof, crash proof, while boosting their people's telekinetic powers to grow stronger, vibrant, much more happy, and be inclusive and incorporated, making sure that the superheroes are even stronger and better. My name is Valentina Hines, like James said, and my job is to cook these superpowers and deliver them to the superheroes through a way, they're learning experiences which we use to boost mental health and holistic well being in the workplace. Well,

that sounds brilliant. You know, that sounds like exactly the type of thing that so much of the world needs. And you know, we're recording this in November 2021, I've always got to check the year. It feels like we're still in 2020 because the last 18 months have been crazy. But you know, there's so much of this weight on the world. There's so much sort of residual, low level anxiety that that I think a lot of us absorb. And I think that weight has been growing for a long time. And it sounds like your area of focus within the workplace focuses very much on on the burdens that we feel and how we manage to carry those. I guess you said a couple of interesting words in there, but I'd like to come back to in a bit. But I guess I'd just like to start a little bit. You know, so much what you're talking about is focusing on, to some extent, you know, the weights that we do carry. And today, I'd like to start by exploring burnout, really. And I just like to ask you, like, what is burnout to you? And do you see burnout with the people that you work with? What's your experience of burnout? Oh,

burnout. I did mention that the thing about burnout is that it's everywhere, especially nowadays, because we're dealing with so much, and for a lot of us becoming more self aware, and for some people who are not so self aware, a lot of factors contribute to pushing burnout. Now burnout has been described as a loss of motivation, disengagement, gradual and sometimes rapid sense of emotional disconnection from especially in the workplace. But there's some studies that are being posited that burnout actually also happens outside the workplace. But that is the main thing with burnout. And it was in 1974 that Herbert frodden Berger, excuse me if I murder that well, he works.

Thank you for psychologist to posit it in a book where he talked about it being a loss of motivation and people feeling this growing sense of disconnection emotionally to things

and like in your sense of burnout. And this is something that I'm kind of curious about, is it, does it like sort of just build up? Over time. Do you think that people gradually lose a little bit of motivation, lose a little bit of engagement, and are a little bit less engaged, say, each day over a couple months? Or do you think we just kind of go along nicely, and then there's the proverbial straw that breaks for camels back, and then we're like, we're

done. What do you think? I think you answered that question. James, okay, know that proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back? It means that there's been something that's been hitting the camel's back, and it was just one last thing. You know what I say about little drops on the ocean? And it's the very same thing with burnout. It's something that happens quite gradually, in little bit, and sometimes we don't notice it, and sometimes big things happen and we react to it. It could be that one is one's values doesn't align with wherever it is they are working and constantly having to go against their personal beliefs and personal sense of identity in order to meet up and fit in at work that continually erodes the person until that question arises, what's the point? When you say that to yourself? Oh, what's the point? What does it matter? Anyway, you're starting to disconnect, and you're starting to disengage. And so burnout is something that gradually happens over time, until it gets to a point where the brain just suddenly goes, can't do this anymore.

when you see or in your experience, like when that happens, is it, does it feel the same for everybody? Is everybody in the state, you know, the way you described it, it feels to me, almost like apathetic is not quite word, but almost just kind of like numb, to some extent, in that, that example, do people tend to go the same way? Or do some people become anxious as a result of burnout or lethargic, or have you got a sense of whether it's a consistent set of responses to

it? No, everyone doesn't react the same. However, a lot of the underlying feelings and emotional reactions and mental reactions are the same. However, the way people tend to react or address this differ from person to person. Again, it's all of that diversity of thought and diversity of behavior. So for example, a person might react by becoming more anxious because they feel I should be grateful. I should be thankful. I should do more. Why am I not caring? And as a result, they put in more effort. But conversely, instead of it having the engagement factor, it, it serves to produce more stress. Remember, burnout is as a result of the stress factors that have been so activated that our brain is just calling for help. And instead of that to relax, it, it induces more stress, making it accelerating the process of burnout. And for some other people, it is, I don't care. I'm not interested. And so there's just this general apathy. I'm just going to come because I need to come, but I don't need to be here. So I'm just really going to do this. It all depends on the person's again, personal circumstances, and how they think and how they usually behave, all of those things going to making up our responses. Yeah,

that makes sense, because I've spoken to a bunch of people just in my own experience of work, you've had what I kind of guess is burnout. I don't really know, but I've seen people sort of develop sort of different views on things when you know there may be people listening to this who might feel that potentially, they're experiencing a lot of those stressful factors that you speak about, and I'd like to dive into those in a minute. But I guess if we're going through this, are there any ways that we can have some some sort of red flags or warning signs or indicators that we ourselves as individuals may be heading in in this direction. Are there any sort of early warning things we can think about and look out for as individuals? Yes.

I'm glad you asked that question, because it's the first thing, isn't it? Every time we're like, how do we self diagnose and how? Yeah, so the first thing is to be self aware. So when you're self aware, you realize and you note when things start to go the other way. And the next question should be, why? Once you're able to figure out why, then you can tell what it is. So for example, what are you I've mentioned personal values earlier. So if your values aligns with the values of your workplace, then obviously that's not what a disconnect is. But is a disconnect? Then, is it a management is there something that's not working right there? Or perhaps, is it something that's happening in your personal life, which is filtering into the workplace, or again, could detail so be that you're not getting on well with your colleagues, because it's all a holistic experience. Whatever happens to us at home filters into work, and whatever happens at work filters into the home life, into the social life. So it's first self building on the self awareness and understanding that, and this is something you can do for yourself, but when it comes to the organization and understanding what's going on with the people, again, we have personal value tests that organizations can do to find out. Actually, this is what we say on the team. But is this what is in the team? Do they marry? And if they do not marry, what are we doing wrong? And this is what we say on the team. And the people who we have here, do they also care about the same thing? Do we talk about climate change? But the people who work here couldn't care less about climate change. If you don't really care, it becomes a bit stressful if you have to keep thinking about ways to take care of the climate. But if you care about things like that, if your value is to protect and promote, then it marries. I don't know if you understood that.

Yeah, I'm totally with you. I am totally with you. So if I, if I play back a little bit about I think there's some interesting sort of reflections there. It feels like, when we're speaking about this from the perspective of a workplace, bearing in mind that this is all interconnected with our personal and social lives and all that kind of stuff, it feels like to some extent, there's something to do with almost job fit or role fit or job design and and how well suited we are to the roles that we have, you know, so what are the various demands of the roles that we are doing in the workplace, and how well equipped are we to respond to those specific demands that are in that role with our own resources, whatever those resources happen to be. And you spoke at an earlier section about effectively, sort of bending ourselves out of shape to try and fit in, and the cost of trying to fit in, and I guess it feels like that all blends together, and it's the sort of carrying burdens that don't fit naturally with us that feel like that contributes to burn out, is that a sort of fair playback? Is that kind of where you're going? Yeah,

it's a fair playback. It's a very valid point there, because, you know, when you're constantly masking, like I gave an example one time of doing some work, and maybe at work, you're not a very smiley person, or you really need to have a good reason to smile, because the professional faces just have this resting face. Don't gravitas, right? You need to have professional gravitas or whatever. Yeah.

And then you're, you're busy at work, and your, your child, comes in, but Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. Your first response isn't to give your your child a professional gravitas, it's to put a smile on, a very goofy smile, and say, hey. So it's hard, but again, the brain needs that. It needs that time to switch. But what you've done is effectively, quickly you you pulled the mask off, you tore it off. Not just pull it You tore it off and put another mask on, slammed it on, turn to your child, and then you have to go back again. So why that seems like a seamless movement? Your brain's actually gone into overdrive to try and catch up. And when you have things going on constantly, at one point, your subconscious is going to go, Why do you keep pretending? Why do you have to keep doing being who you aren't? It's just not working. And subconsciously, it you start to protect yourself and to protect yourself. It is, what is it that you're doing, that you're pretending. When is it that you're wearing this mask and you start to recite any reason for you to do it? And that's self preservative.

Yeah, I guess it's really effortful, isn't it, to pretend we might not think of it or recognize it as an effortful act to do those things, but it takes you know, every time we force ourselves or direct ourselves to behave in a certain way, there's effort involved in that, and that's true, be it emotional labor or physical labor, all those things. Every time we're forcing ourselves to do something, it leads us into into that, that state i. When I guess I'll just make a little statement and then I'll go on. It feels like from what we're speaking about here, you know, volume of work isn't the only thing that can lead to burnout. Then there's so many things beyond volume of work, so sometimes people think I've got so much work, I'll burn out. But presumably, if we've got the resources to deal with some of these other factors, then we can do a reasonable amount of work, and that's fine. So it isn't always volume. It's a mix of things that come together for burnout. We talked here about, you know that that sort of the masking and the presenting in certain ways, and maybe managing internal values conflicts and all these effortful activities that we need to do in the workplace as contributing to burnout. But when we when we spoke just before this conversation, we were speaking about some other things that I feel contribute to the loads that we carry as well. And so when we were speaking earlier, you talked a little bit about, you know, noise and social media and broader social interaction and things like that. So what do you think those factors role is in contributing to potential burnout that people have. And could you say a little bit more about what you're thinking in that space?

Certainly, James, so usually when we talk about noise, people think it's the noise you hear, you know, the siren, the the volume of the radio and all of that. But it isn't just that anything that is silent, but sends signals to our brains. It's noise because it's sending a message, and if you have to process a message, it's it's noise again. But what do we then term as noise? Noise is something that is gone beyond sending that message, and it just constantly goes on. It becomes noise. So for example, on social media, on our devices, some people are so comfortable having over 2000 I mean, if I have over seven on my phone or on my laptop, my heart starts to go, get it down. Get it down. Get it down. What's there. But some people are okay doing it, and this is not in any way to point fingers at anyone and say you're doing a horrible thing. The thing is that those people have trained themselves to have it and just ignore it, and even though your phone or your device is on silent so you don't hear the bit. But when you see that red color, the red color says to your brain, there's something you need to check out here. This is important. And your brain, your brain gets this message. Your amygdala, which is a part of the brain, gets activated. And this amygdala is responsible for sending the stress signal, and that is what is meant to protect us from danger. So it's activated. It's saying to you, get this sorted. Get this sorted. Your life depends on it. Of course, your life doesn't depend on it, but the amygdala doesn't realize this. And so that's siren, you know, like how we have a fire alarm that goes off, and if you don't go to turn it off, it's just constantly there until you're about to actually enable them. Woke me up three days ago, and all day long, also grumpy. It was up from five till six, and when that's exactly the kind of noise, the amygdala sense, and we can't shut it off. So it's just that people like that who are happy to have all these notifications it's there. They've trained themselves to ignore it, but there are lots of things they're missing out on, one important messages, because those messages go down a rabbit hole of all these other messages that are there, to the fact that just seeing it alone. Every time their device opens up and they see it, the amid dollar goes off, and seeing it alone makes them grumpy, even if they don't realize that they've gone grumpy. And as a result, like I said, they start, like I said earlier, with burnout and work. They start to avoid getting on the phone. They start to avoid opening up those apps that would have it, even if they do not have notifications enabled. It's just having those emboldened messages that says to you, again, you haven't read this now with social media, is the fear of missing out so you constantly scroll through isn't it? Open it up and you're like, oh, but again, scientifically, it's been proven that our brain takes 45 minutes to re rent itself after we've been interrupted. So if you were in the flow of something and you start, you went off to check something out. You got distracted. And again, depends how interesting what it is that distracted you was. So you go on social media. You read something, someone posted. And your brain goes, That's very interesting, and you start to think about that, but then you shut it down and go off to try and get back to work, and your brain is struggling to get off that path. But what happens is that your brain then says, take it into the subconscious and remember it later. And so it's there, and it's noise you see there's shutting it off. It's still there. It's just noise going off, and because noone is shutting it off, it continues constantly. And research came out now to say that noise is linked to cardiovascular diseases. And it's not just a noise from the sirens you can hear. It's all the noise that we are exposed to, daily, social media, media, the radio, all of that information that all makes like absolute sense. For me, there's so much

interesting stuff in this space, and I guess a couple things come to mind when we were speaking there. You know, there's a talk at the minute about things like attentional inequality and attentional poverty. And, you know, the world is very much creating products built on our attention. So our attention as individuals is what people seek, right? I mean, so you know that message, if you're not paying for it, you are for product. That's very much the case in a lot of the world. And so calls on our attention are increasing, in my perception, at least over the last couple of decades, and you know, for a lot longer than that. But at the same time, we have fewer channels to garner the attention of others effectively. So we've got that inequality and attention, which is interesting, which is interesting, and I think that perennial desire for our attention is draining. And each time there is a call on our intention, it brings with it an element of uncertainty, which we know is destabilizing. We value certainty. So you know, you're a little example there. I'm just going to show you my phone. You guys can't see this, but I've got, like, no little red dots on my phone, because I hate them, right? Like, I just turn off all my notifications. I'm, like, Get out of my face. But every time we have one of those things, like, for me, it triggers a little bit of uncertainty and a little bit of anxiety, and that's because I'm kind of wired in that slightly anxious way, but, but each one of these things is a a call on my resources that stops me using my resources for other things that are what I want to be using it for. So if there's an upswell of all these other calls on my uncertainty of all this noise, whatever form it's in, I'm going to feel it. And it feels like there's a huge amount of pollution in that space. You know, pollution all around in terms of noise, pollution, in this sense of noise, it's everywhere, and everyone's trying to get a get a handle on that. And you've talked there a little bit about flow. Now, my understanding is that flow is a really positive state for us to be in. It's a state that can be quite regenerative. It's rewarding. It leads to, you know, good mental health benefits for us as individuals. Could you just say a sentence on what flow is and your thoughts on benefits of it? Okay,

so a quick one is that flow happens in that very narrow 360 degree between boredom and engagement. So it's where you're challenged enough you've got your skills are equal to the demands of whatever it is you have to do. But there's also that room to stretch, and when you feel that I can do this, an example here is, you know, when you're trying to fix a screw with a screwdriver. I

did that this morning. Yeah, I was building a shelf this morning. So, yeah, it's right in my mind. So slippery, you know, you're like, ah, get

this. And something said, just leave it. And you're like, No, I'm going to get it. And the moment you get it in, you're like, I can do this. And suddenly you can see just what you need to build. So you're at it. Nothing is going to distract you. You've got to finish the objective, and that, at the moment is the most visual explanation of flow. Yeah?

So like, it feels like it's a really present thing. You're, like, totally focused, you're in the moment. You're doing something that is within your grasp or a little bit challenging, but is rewarding, and it's, um, yeah, yeah, that's really helpful. All right, cool. So if we go back a little bit to burnout, we've talked a little bit about what burnout is. We've talked about some of the, you know, signed things to watch out for in terms of impacts. We didn't talk about them specifically, but. There are, like, we know they're bad impacts from burnout, things like mental health, physical health, social impact on others, changes to our behaviors, all that stuff sits within burnout. I mean, the name itself says, like, that's not a good thing. We just kind of know it's not a good thing. We've talked about some other things that can lead to it. I guess I've got a question now, which is, what can we do to stop getting this this burnout, to stop feeling burdened by the things in the world that that are are weighing on us. And secondly, I'll come back to the next question, which is, how do we recover when we are burned out? So if we start with the first one, what might we be able to do? Like, what sort of defenses can we put up? What can we do that will give us more space and make it less likely that we are burned out. And the first will be to turn down the noise

in whatever way we can. Just turn it down if you've got so many notifications, take them off and reduce the things that call noise in your brain. And then the other is rest sleep. I mean, a research recently came out that if you don't sleep between 10 and 11 optimal time of sleep, you're at the higher risk of a heart attack. But again, it is if you're not having quality, good quality sleep. So you kind of mix it up. Maybe you're like me who likes to go to bed at about 2am because you are in the flow from nine until two. But maybe mix it up twice in a week, go to bed at the optimal time and then continue with your life as it is. So get some rest. Get some sleep, because again, lack of sleep is a risk factor for mental health issues. So if you're not sleeping properly, you start to disconnect. You start to so it could be that you're not burnt out, you're just tired, but because it feels so similar, it feels like it's burnout, it feels like it's depression, because lack of sleep leads to so much stuff. So I've talked about cutting down the noise. I've talked about getting good rest with sleep. The other thing is to clearly communicate. So this in the beginning, I talked about values and knowing your behavioral style. So it could be that when you're the one who's always giving you get fed up. You're like, Why? Why should it be me all the time? Why can't you meet me halfway? So if I use this when I'm working with organizations, and why I love this is because this far some concerned, is a great proponent for diversity and inclusion. Just

on that. Let's just say disc is sort of a personality type behavioral assessment tool that people can use to to sort of categorize people into broad, shared behavioral patterns. Broadly.

Yeah, cool, yes, broadly. That's that's what it is. But to me, it's so much more, because it's a great proponent for diversity and inclusion in that it says to you, everyone has got this characteristic and personality within them, and it depends on what the situation is or what trauma whatever they experience that will make them pull it out. It also says to us that we're like rubber bands. We've all got room to stretch, which is why I love it. So first off, if you're say you're a Heidi, and you respond to things as a holistic well being person, I also use this to kind of create a holistic well being strategy for organizations. So I'm like, Let's go this way. We can't just have everyone go out on a way they experiences, but everyone come out on a way they experiences. However, what is a way they experience meant to be and how is it? Who does it appeal to? If it only appeals to the extroverts, like some people like to say, then the introverts wouldn't like it, will they? So it's got to be something that everyone. There's something for everyone, and there is such a thing as something for everyone, because every personality type has a different preferred way of rest and a different preferred way of feeling, of of rejuvenating their resources. So it's having that so once you know yourself, you know what your style is, it's easier because you're able to know, oh, as the highest that's the steadfast who likes a small circle and doesn't like abrupt change for the sake of change. Perhaps this is why I just like it when I I spend time with my family, and people say, What are you doing? I'm like, we've got no plans. I'm just going to be home with my family. And that's good, because spending time with a family having plans, which is what the high sea would want to do, is stressful. I'm like, now I feel like I need to do things, but I just want. To stay home with you. So it's having all of that, knowing that, and knowing how you can rejuvenate, because bottom word here is rejuvenate, and so communicating that clearly with those who support you, like your family, your friends and management. The other thing is to feel appreciated and rewarded. So if you do not feel that there's a sense of reward in what you're doing, you know that reward factor, which is what social media gets us hooked on with because we're like, oh, I have to check it, because this person might have reached out to me, or somebody might have done this. So it's a reward factor. And if we don't feel we get any reward from what we're putting a lot of our time and attention to, then we're not going to be interested. We're going to start to disconnect from it. Because what's the point, like I said earlier on, so it is having that, knowing that there's appreciation and reward from it, that's ways that we can protect against burnout, and ways that we can kind of help ourselves to come back from burnout, but it is always to take time if you're burnt out, take some time off, go do something else and figure out why you got burnt out. You know, it's only when you know where you lost your way. There's an adage in Nigeria, it's like, you can't find your way back until you know what path you got lost on. So you retrace your steps and you know, this is where I took the wrong turn, and then you can go back on the right path.

Yeah, that's a lovely, I guess, analogy or metaphor for this. And I think a lot of those sort of messages that you've been saying there about the individuality of our approaches to recovery in these situations is interesting, right? We do? We do have different preferences for that activity that's restorative and regenerative and whole making, again, that boosts that wholeness for who we are when you were speaking there or something that was in my mind is, it feels to me that we as a society, or at least in the media, it feels like there's a weakness, you know, a negativity associated With a need to rest. You know, like ideal characters in the world, they don't do that. You know, you watch TV ads, and nobody's like finishing their day at work and going home for a quiet cup of tea and doing nothing. They're wearing their 24 hour deodorant so they can go straight to the party then straight back into the office and live like a real life, right? So a lot of that messaging is out there about the 24 hour life of intensity and busyness being a good thing and all this stuff. How? How do, how do we fight that as individuals? And, you know, do you believe that the majority of people are susceptible to burnout in some ways? And how do we give ourselves, I guess, the courage or the certainty over knowledge that it's not a weakness to look after ourselves. Does that sort of framing of a question make sense to

you? Yes, it does. And this is what's come to my mind as you spoke, and that is, we have all started to come to this arrival of the term it's okay to not be okay, and it is okay to not be okay, and now that we've started to accept that, we need to also start to accept that it's okay to just do nothing. And that's repeating what you've just said. A lot of people do not appreciate that it's okay to just go on holiday and do absolutely nothing. A lot of people think, well, if you're off today, then you should spend that time going here, going to that pub, going to that pub. Well, suddenly it's only stressful, it's also noisy. Sometimes it's okay to just lay back on the bed, read a book, if you want to read nothing, if you want to just look up to the ceiling, if that's what you want to do, just allow your body, allow your soul, allow your system guide you. You don't have to be doing something all the time. Also, it's also because a lot of people are afraid to be alone with their own thoughts because they're afraid of what's going to jump out of them, and it's one of the reasons why, with my children, I'm like, they're going to nap till they're maybe eight.

today 18, but I'm starting to that their social lives are getting so much more busy, yeah, but I want them to be comfortable with themselves. My son comes back from school sometimes and goes, Mommy, I wanted to play and nobody will play with me. And I keep saying, people do not have to play with you. No one wants to play with you. Go play with yourself, or read a book or something. Me, and My aim isn't to teach him loneliness, but to teach him an appreciation for being alone, to just be with yourself, learn things, discover who you are, hear your own thoughts, and not always what everyone else is saying. So yes, if it's okay to not be okay. It's also okay to not do anything. That's it.

Yeah, I think that's absolutely great. Okay, well, I think that's fabulous. I think that is a good place for us to start to wind this up. So it's really just time for me to get ready to say thank you. But I just asked first, how could people learn more about you and the things that you do?

Valentina, oh, thank you, James. I can be found across our social media on Valentina Heinz. It's with the h, y, N, E, S, not the Heinz bins. You can also find us via our website, which is www, dot, S, V, H, I n, c.co.uk, um, that's the easiest ways to get hold of me. I mean, on Twitter and on Instagram. I tend to put in that disclaimer my real life in between. So if you're following me there, you'll be getting bit those of my real life as well as some professional stuff, that sounds

like a good thing. Brilliant. Okay, well, thank you very much. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. James lovely chatting with you. Thank you to everyone who's listening. Thank you.