0:05

Hola y beinvenido to the one small

0:07

bites show where we chopped diet mentality,

0:09

fuel your body and nourish your soul.

0:12

In every episode, you'll get a one

0:14

small bite approach you can implement

0:16

to live a more nourished life.

0:19

This show is for educational and informational

0:21

purposes only. So please make sure

0:23

to connect with the professional support. You need

0:25

at your own discretion. Oh, and

0:28

we don't bleep out curse words.

0:30

So just a heads up in case you're

0:32

with little ones. Okay. Let's

0:34

do this. Hola,

0:43

welcome to the one small bite show.

0:46

I'm your host, David Orozco registered

0:48

dietitian nutritionist, certified

0:50

intuitive eating counselor. And, my practice

0:53

is Orozco Nutrition. Go

0:55

check it out. OrozcoNutrition.com. And

0:57

today I've got a fantastic

0:59

show for you. I am interviewing

1:02

my intern Laney Jones.

1:04

She is an intern at Morrisons healthcare,

1:07

and Laney is going to talk to us about

1:10

unmasking, the culprits of mail burnout.

1:12

And folks one small solution

1:15

that will definitely help. Just to give

1:17

you a broad overview, we're going to talk

1:19

about the three components that

1:21

really contribute to burnout.

1:24

They include emotional exhaustion,

1:26

depersonalization. Personal

1:29

achievement. And we'll also

1:31

talk about the opposite of burnout,

1:33

which is engagement, listen in,

1:35

so you can understand what that's about. And

1:38

also, I just want to let you know, w we

1:40

like always, we'll bring you one

1:42

small bite solution. That'll

1:44

help you unravel the burnout

1:47

problems in our lives. Okay,

1:49

well, with that all said, let's get

1:51

the show on the road. Let's go to the

1:53

interview. Hey, everybody.

1:55

I am really excited. I have Laney

1:58

Jones, the amazing

2:00

Morrison intern,

2:03

and you'll hear what that all

2:05

means in just a minute. So, Laney, how

2:07

are you? I'm great. How are you, David? I'm

2:10

doing great. Thank you so much.

2:12

Yeah,

2:13

I'm so excited to

2:13

be here. Yeah, I'm so excited to have

2:15

you on. This is so cool.

2:17

you said I'm a dietetic intern with

2:19

Morrison Healthcare. So that means I'm

2:21

on my last step before becoming

2:24

a dietitian. And so I'm here

2:26

rotating right now with Orozco Nutrition

2:28

for my outpatient rotation.

2:30

So learning all the ins and outs

2:32

of, of You know what he, what you do

2:35

every day and getting that experience. And

2:37

so in about two weeks, I'll

2:39

be able to possibly soon call myself

2:41

a dietitian. So very exciting.

2:44

You're discovering that I don't do much

2:46

in my own practice, huh?

2:48

No, I can say that this has probably been

2:50

the most exhausting two weeks. So

2:52

I'm excited for my future here.

2:56

So yeah, most of my interns are

2:58

with me for two weeks. And one of the things that

3:00

I do is I grill them to, no, I don't,

3:03

yes. So

3:05

Laney, the first week you got to

3:07

do what with me, do you remember?

3:09

So the first week I was shadowing, so

3:12

I was attending sessions and getting to see

3:14

the process of what we call motivational

3:16

interviewing and the

3:19

process of helping patients

3:21

in a long term way and in a sustainable

3:23

and productive way. So I got

3:26

to watch you do all those things and I got to see

3:28

kind of the back end of

3:30

Insurance and all that stuff. I

3:32

should have prompted you to say to see

3:34

all the magic you create.

3:36

You're right. You're right. Okay.

3:39

I got to see for the first week

3:42

all the incredible magic that

3:44

is the partnership between

3:47

the dietician and the client. The absolute.

3:49

Stroke it. Yep.

3:51

Stroke it. It's like I tell my wife. Stroke my ego. Come

3:53

on. Yep. Yep. Yep. All

3:55

right. So speaking of which, what

3:58

are we talking about today?

3:59

So today we're going to be doing a presentation

4:01

on how to navigate burnout

4:03

and what that means in men.

4:06

And so

4:08

for background thank you, Laney.

4:10

I asked Laney to do some

4:12

research on a

4:14

specific topic. And as many

4:16

of you know, I do a lot of work

4:19

with men, of course, especially

4:21

men in midlife. Now I have a variety

4:23

of clients, but that is my specialty

4:25

area and I wanted her to look

4:28

into the research behind burnout,

4:30

especially in men. And

4:32

I said to her, Hey, why don't you do this?

4:35

And as part of her

4:37

competencies for this rotation,

4:39

one of the things she has to do is present

4:42

it to an audience now. I luckily

4:44

have an audience, an

4:47

amazing audience, an amazing

4:49

audience, of course. And so

4:51

I said, Hey, why don't you come on my podcast?

4:53

And why don't we present this to our audience?

4:55

Cause this is really what people need to

4:57

know. Let's get started.

4:59

I'm going to start with setting up kind of a

5:01

a client, a potential client with

5:04

you. His name is Mr. Allen. He has

5:06

a pretty typical job. He works as a manager at a

5:08

warehouse in Atlanta, but

5:10

he lives outside of Atlanta. He's got a commute. He's

5:13

married with two children and

5:15

we're seeing him because he

5:17

has some elevated glucose levels,

5:20

some elevated cholesterol, high

5:22

blood pressure, those kinds of things.

5:24

His doctor's a little concerned about his overall

5:27

health. condition and

5:29

is considering starting a statin,

5:32

considering weight loss for him

5:34

and through our interview with

5:36

Mr. Allen, we find he is describing

5:39

his life a lot as feeling really dull.

5:41

Very lonely. He's not feeling

5:43

connected with his family. He's feeling

5:45

really quick to anger. Like he doesn't have a lot of

5:47

control over his emotions.

5:50

And he's He's also rarely feeling

5:52

satisfied after meals. He's finding himself

5:54

snacking a lot. He's finding himself,

5:57

you know, he finishes a meal and it's like it never happened

5:59

and he's, he wants, he wants that to change.

6:02

So he comes to us, he's talking to us

6:04

and we go through what maybe

6:06

a day in the life might look like for him. And

6:08

so you can see he wakes up pretty

6:10

early, 6am and he immediately is on his

6:13

phone. He drives to work, he eats

6:15

his food. His breakfast

6:17

in the car and then he works,

6:19

you know, eight to five in his office,

6:21

door closed. He's eating lunch in there, he's

6:24

eating snacks in there, and he's having all of his

6:26

meetings in there. Very

6:28

little interaction with the office.

6:31

He gets home. And he has to

6:33

feed his kids. He puts his kids to bed. And

6:35

then maybe him and his partner have dinner and watch

6:37

TV, scroll on their phones and

6:39

have more snacks. So from

6:42

a kind of a nutrition perspective, a dietitian

6:44

perspective, we're looking at this and we're saying, what

6:46

is going on? What is happening with

6:48

Mr. Allen that is making him feel

6:50

dull, that's not leaving him satisfied

6:53

from his meals? What, what could be possibly

6:55

going on there? And the answer is...

6:58

He could possibly be experiencing

7:00

burnout. And I know prior

7:02

to really delving into this research,

7:05

I had a kind of basic idea of

7:07

what burnout is, how it's discussed but

7:10

not a, not a real solid understanding

7:12

of what it is or how to identify it. And

7:15

so basically what burnout is, is it's a psychological

7:18

syndrome that's in response to

7:20

prolonged exposure to job stress.

7:23

And so when we talk about burnout, this is in

7:25

the context of working. So we're thinking

7:28

of working individuals, like David

7:30

said, our target population, this middle

7:32

aged group of people, specifically

7:34

men. And really there's three recognized

7:36

components that really contribute to

7:38

burnout development over time. And

7:41

these are emotional exhaustion,

7:44

depersonalization, and

7:46

personal achievement. And these all play

7:48

into each other, but are succinct,

7:50

separate components to this development.

7:52

And so emotional exhaustion is kind

7:55

of how it sounds. It's wearing out, it's feeling

7:57

loss of energy, fatigue, irritability

8:01

those kinds of things. And then depersonalization is

8:06

Also called cynicism in

8:08

the literature, and it's about withdrawing

8:10

from working, from emotions,

8:13

from community, and

8:16

having more of a negative attitude towards

8:18

work, towards patients, clients. projects,

8:21

anything like that. And then personal achievement

8:24

is that feeling of satisfaction

8:27

through work, the feeling that you're being productive

8:29

and also the ability to cope

8:32

with failure. And so these are all affected

8:34

by burnout in different ways.

8:37

And one of the things that really came up

8:39

is this discussion around kind of how

8:43

is engagement involved

8:46

in burnout? Is it the opposite or are they

8:48

separate? Ideas. And what

8:50

really came out is that engagement

8:52

is the opposite of burnout. Like you

8:54

might think I'm burnt out.

8:57

I'm feeling exhausted. Let me

8:59

remove the stress. Let me remove

9:01

myself from work more. Let me undo

9:04

any of the connections I have and make

9:06

myself a clean slate. But that's really not

9:08

what it is. What they're looking at is

9:10

actually engaging with the stress engaging

9:13

with work is where burnout starts

9:15

to have a little bit of, of success

9:18

with with helping with this. So how

9:20

is burnout developing? Where is that coming

9:22

from? And the literature,

9:25

this, this image that you might see on the

9:27

screen, it's a, it's a overview

9:29

of three theoretical models about

9:31

burnout. And it's

9:33

really just demonstrating that

9:35

there are different ways that burnout can develop.

9:39

Especially that this, this

9:41

article that was titled development of burnout

9:44

over time in causal order of these three

9:46

dimensions among male and female

9:49

GPs. So it was looking at doctors

9:51

and the development really had a gendered aspect

9:53

to it. It had. What

9:56

they found is that this depersonalization

9:59

was kind of the trigger most frequently

10:01

for men in this study.

10:03

So they're looking at this Golembiewski

10:06

et al. kind of model where depersonalization

10:10

leads to decreased Personal achievement

10:13

leading to increased emotional exhaustion,

10:15

that that is kind of the typical pathway

10:17

for men. Although that doesn't mean that's always

10:20

the way, obviously, but

10:22

it tends towards depersonalization

10:25

being the trigger for burnout.

10:27

And what they see is this is like a coping mechanism.

10:30

This is what they call a maladaptive

10:32

coping mechanism, which means

10:34

it's a Kind of an inefficient

10:36

or ineffectual coping mechanism in

10:39

response to work stress.

10:41

when you were saying this, it reminded me of

10:43

when I had a guest on my podcast,

10:46

I think it was last year, Dr.

10:48

Ronald Levant, and he wrote

10:51

the ideas of the

10:54

hyper masculinity. And we

10:56

talked a little bit of some of these Yeah.

10:58

situations like Alexithymia. Alexithymia

11:02

is a condition especially common

11:05

in men or people who identify

11:07

as male. And

11:09

what he says is that Alexithymia

11:12

is the inability or the difficulty

11:15

of both understanding or

11:17

recognizing your emotions.

11:20

And so if you think about little

11:22

kids and the way little

11:24

boys or again, people who

11:26

are gender specific

11:28

about identifying as male, they

11:31

are raised with this idea

11:33

of sayings like, Oh, if

11:35

it ain't broke. You're okay.

11:37

Or if it's not bleeding, don't

11:39

cry or don't be a

11:42

sissy. Don't be a pussy.

11:45

Get a backbone shit like that. It says

11:47

it happens quite often. And so

11:50

I see this as a way

11:52

of people of men or people who

11:54

identify as male retreating.

11:56

Absolutely. From their emotions and

11:58

then retreating from individuals. So I have a question

12:01

for you. Absolutely. How does

12:03

depersonalization function as a coping

12:05

mechanism then? And in relation

12:07

to Mr. Allen, how is this affecting him?

12:10

Yeah. So absolutely,

12:12

exactly as you're saying. So what we

12:14

kind of said is depersonalization, you

12:16

can kind of think it as detachment.

12:19

And that's exactly what you're saying. A lot

12:21

of. Like the theory of gendered socialization

12:23

is kind of a similar topic as like

12:25

you're saying in that we tend to socialize

12:28

men or boys or people

12:31

that we identify as men or boys in

12:33

this importance of assertiveness

12:36

and independence and.

12:40

We deny them the vulnerability,

12:42

the openness of expressing

12:45

emotions in that way. And so

12:47

depersonalization and the withdrawal

12:49

from work environments can act

12:52

as like a wall

12:54

to prevent Having

12:56

to engage in those emotions which

12:58

as we can see further is just going to make

13:00

those emotions more exhausted, but

13:03

it might feel like you're

13:05

protecting yourself from having

13:07

to feel those emotions. And

13:10

for Mr. Allen, this is looking like.

13:12

He's not engaging at work. He's not talking

13:15

to people outside of, you know, his meetings.

13:17

He's keeping his door closed. He's

13:19

coming home and he's, he's on his phone. He's

13:22

withdrawing from interacting with

13:24

people. He's, he's lessening

13:27

his, the, the

13:29

need for him to feel

13:32

maybe the stress that he's experiencing because

13:34

he's not coming face to face with it. And

13:36

so that's kind of how Mr. Allen might be dealing with

13:38

this depersonalization. And, and

13:40

how it's manifesting in his routine,

13:43

Yeah. So just that vulnerability portion. That's really

13:45

what we want to kind of a thread. We want to

13:48

follow through on this whole presentation

13:50

that vulnerability is, is

13:52

a, is a big, you

13:54

know, theme throughout the burnout. So

13:59

just looking forward at kind of what,

14:02

now that we kind of understand what burnout is

14:04

and how it develops. What does it do?

14:07

And we talked about depersonalization

14:09

a lot, so the emotional exhaustion part

14:11

of it is also a factor for

14:13

men, although it may not be the trigger.

14:16

And so this study, specifically

14:18

called Work Stress and Coronary Heart Disease;

14:21

Looking at the Mechanisms this used

14:23

data from a study called the Whitehall

14:25

2 study. That was a 20 year

14:27

long study over multiple phases

14:30

that was looking at 10,

14:32

over 10, 000 men and women in the UK

14:35

that were aged 35 to 55

14:37

in the first phase. So they aged

14:40

with them 20 years and saw

14:42

how heart disease developed

14:44

over time. And what they found is

14:46

that. The mechanism

14:48

between the connection of

14:51

burnout slash work stress and

14:53

heart conditions or other health conditions

14:56

possibly is this Over

14:58

activation of what's called the

15:00

HBA axis or the hypothalamic

15:03

pituitary adrenal axis, lots of words,

15:05

but boils down to this

15:07

connection between our central

15:10

nervous system and our endocrine system.

15:13

And the endocrine system is in charge of

15:15

hormones. So basically what this is,

15:18

is the connection that leads

15:20

to the release of hormones.

15:22

Yeah, I've actually talked a lot about the

15:24

HPA axis and I actually repeat it quite

15:26

often. So when I saw that you had

15:28

this, this study, I was like, Holy cow.

15:31

Yes. Yeah.

15:33

This was in most studies about this.

15:36

So I think that that really draws to the importance

15:38

of kind of recognizing that

15:41

a lot of the stress is physiological.

15:43

It is not emotional. It is, I mean, a lot

15:45

of it is, but it's a lot of the emotions.

15:48

Physical reaction, things we can't really

15:50

control, right? So we

15:53

can't control really

15:55

how our HPA axis is, is existing.

15:57

We can control our stress, but our body's

15:59

reaction to it is not really under

16:02

our control. And so this, in

16:04

addition to the ANS, which is the autonomic

16:06

nervous system. If these

16:08

are, are activated constantly

16:11

and chronically through this work stress, what

16:14

they find is that these actually become exhausted

16:16

and stop functioning appropriately. And

16:18

so what we can see specifically from this

16:21

is disturbances in our circadian

16:23

rhythm and disturbances

16:25

in our cortisol level. And

16:28

I mean, I'm sure you've talked about cortisol as

16:30

well, but Just a

16:33

quick refresh. It is our, like, stress

16:35

hormone that obviously is released

16:38

following stress. It's the fight or flight and

16:41

it can put a lot, when

16:43

it's in really high levels or really

16:45

low levels, it can really affect our body's

16:47

ability to stay healthy,

16:49

to handle everything

16:51

that's being thrown at it thrown at it. And

16:54

our circadian rhythms also

16:56

I know when I think of it, I usually just think

16:58

of sleep, but we have circadian

17:00

rhythms for everything. It's just our

17:02

physical, behavioral, and emotional

17:05

changes that happen over 24 hours.

17:07

And so affecting those is not just

17:09

affecting, you know, the six to eight hours you're sleeping.

17:12

You affect your circadian rhythm, you're affecting your

17:14

whole day. So this is just showing

17:17

or demonstrating that stress has a

17:20

major Impact on our health,

17:22

and it's something we really need to be considering

17:24

in looking at and what

17:27

this can do specifically to nutrition

17:30

is what they see is like this high level

17:32

of work stress is correlated

17:34

with decreased fruit and vegetable

17:36

intake, increased high

17:39

fat food intake, decreased

17:41

physical activity, and

17:43

Possibly, there's a little bit of debate about this

17:45

one, but significant elevation in

17:48

morning rises in cortisol.

17:50

And so if you can think about, like, you're initially

17:52

feeling stressed, your cortisol levels

17:55

are rising immediately upon waking. And

17:57

that's just gonna throw off your, your flow

18:00

throughout the day, right? Like, That is

18:02

going to high levels of stress in the

18:04

morning. You might not, you might not wake

18:06

up and feel immediately exhausted. You

18:08

know, you might wake up and feel immediately nervous,

18:11

anxious, not excited for the day.

18:14

Lots of effects.

18:18

Yeah, it's really interesting that you're talking about

18:20

this again, because just the

18:22

previous episode to this, I actually

18:24

talk about the rhythm of eating

18:26

and the effects on the circadian rhythm.

18:29

And what you're talking about here is when

18:31

we end up waking up too

18:33

early in the morning and don't go back to

18:35

sleep, we don't realize that. Cortisol

18:38

levels are highest in the morning

18:40

to begin with. Mm-Hmm, And so if we're

18:42

having this constant or chronic

18:44

strain on our HPA axis,

18:46

on our autonomic nervous system,

18:49

on our bodies in general, what we end

18:51

up doing is we have a hormone that's stimulating

18:53

the release of glucose when

18:56

the body is needing to relax

18:58

and, and the simulation of glucose

19:00

is a phase in the sleep cycle

19:03

that. Ends the sleep cycle.

19:05

And so therefore, when there's glucose in the blood,

19:08

it stimulates us to be ready

19:10

to be prepared for something dangerous,

19:12

right? Is it goes back to our primal

19:14

DNA, our primal response

19:17

to a threat or danger.

19:19

And so we still have that in our

19:22

bodies to this day. So I love that

19:24

you're bringing this in. And I think it's really smart

19:27

to talk a lot about this, but anyway, go

19:29

on. This is your show.

19:31

No, but I love that point. Like, we are

19:33

built to react quickly to

19:36

stressors. We're built to react quickly to

19:38

dangers. And obviously, the dangers

19:40

we're facing today look differently.

19:43

And so we might, you know, be like, Oh gosh,

19:45

why can't I handle this? Yeah. Perfect.

19:47

And because our bodies are reacting like they're

19:49

biologically supposed to, it's

19:52

activating the same thing. So we have to treat

19:54

it the same way. It's dangerous.

19:57

Right. Right. Well, you know, what's interesting is that

19:59

I read a book by Dr.

20:01

Anna Lembke. She is

20:03

a professor of psychiatry. And

20:06

so she's a physician and professor at

20:08

Stanford university. And one of the things that she

20:10

talks about is This idea

20:13

of running away with

20:15

the chronic demons of

20:17

dopamine. So when you have these high levels

20:19

of dopamine, which is in response

20:21

to an incredible amount of stimuli

20:24

that's in our environment, our

20:26

bodies were not designed to have

20:28

this level of stimuli. We got

20:30

smartphones, access to information notifications,

20:34

emails. We're so. Open

20:36

and on all the time that

20:39

our bodies are just getting dumped enormous

20:41

amounts of dopamine and to come

20:44

off of the high, we get

20:46

those gremlins that's called the withdrawal.

20:48

So again, something else that's important

20:50

to take into consideration in today's presentation

20:53

because withdrawal is closely

20:55

tied into the burnout

20:57

phenomenon

20:57

here. Absolutely. And that emotional

21:00

withdrawal too. I mean, we're withdrawing everything

21:02

stress less likely

21:05

to connect. And so that's something we're actually

21:07

going to talk about a little more, so I'm excited that you're,

21:09

you're introducing that now, but on the

21:11

same topic of this study, I

21:13

just want to look at some of the reasons why

21:16

we need to take our research with a little

21:18

bit of a grain of, of salt, because

21:22

a lot of this specific study

21:24

was a cross sectional analysis, So

21:26

it looked at points of time in

21:29

their data and utilizing

21:31

this data from another study. So they really

21:33

didn't have a lot of control over looking at specifics

21:37

other than what the original scientists

21:40

collected. So there's a little bit of difficulty

21:42

there with controlling for confounding

21:45

variables for like diet,

21:47

because there's lots of things that affect diet

21:49

and it's hard to control for all of them.

21:52

Additionally, this was a. Self reported

21:54

mail in questionnaire they used and

21:56

so there's a lot of room for like bias

21:59

and a lot of room for self selection

22:02

into or out of this study

22:04

and so that can affect the results.

22:07

Additionally, As I stated,

22:09

this was a phased study and

22:12

they only did a clinical evaluation of these,

22:14

of these individuals at phases

22:16

3, 5, and 7. And so they only

22:19

collected the data about heart rate and blood

22:21

pressure and cortisol levels at

22:23

these distinct phases.

22:25

So it's not a

22:27

and what were the phases? Were they three years?

22:29

Five years? Is that what that means? They were

22:31

all dependent. It was, it was really

22:33

like two years and then like a couple of years

22:36

in between the phases starting in

22:38

85 or 88

22:40

and ending in 2005 or

22:43

2008. Okay.

22:45

I think it was the eight. So over

22:47

20 years, okay. Every couple of years

22:50

but not they obviously they didn't take the same

22:52

data at every,

22:53

Oh, that's interesting. That's a big limitation.

22:55

It's a huge limitation because there's and

22:58

like you see three, five and seven, there were

23:00

nine total phases. So

23:02

there were a lot where they missed that amount of data.

23:04

So this is, that's just something to absolutely keep

23:07

in, keep in mind as well. And they, they

23:09

assess their health behaviors on a binary. You

23:11

either do these things or you don't do these things.

23:14

And, and that is a, that is a limitation as well,

23:16

because we know health behaviors. are

23:18

not existent on a binary. Just

23:21

because you do something once doesn't mean you do it all the time,

23:24

but you've done it once, so you no longer don't do it.

23:26

So that's difficulty as well.

23:28

And then it's not exclusively in men.

23:30

There were women included, like I said, 10,

23:32

000 men and women. And it was in the UK.

23:35

So, some

23:37

serious limitations here as well, but

23:39

it's important to give ourselves a little bit of

23:41

context of the, you know, the research

23:44

that's happening. But this

23:46

gives us a good context, a good level

23:48

of understanding of where more

23:50

research is needed and what more we can do, right?

23:53

100%. And that's one thing I'll

23:55

say about this. There is very, there

23:57

is almost no data on

23:59

burnout in U. S. men specifically.

24:02

A lot of it is kind of

24:04

interpreted from other studies

24:06

that were about stress. And maybe not necessarily

24:09

about burnout specifically, lots

24:11

of times obviously women are included in

24:14

these studies and things like that. And

24:16

so we just have to think about, you know, how cultures

24:18

may differ, how gendered

24:20

responses may differ how

24:22

socialization affects these things. So that's just

24:24

something to think about when you're looking at

24:26

data from research

24:28

papers.

24:28

Looking at health consequences of burnout.

24:31

So other than heart disease, what do we see?

24:33

Well this study, we, it

24:35

was a systematic review

24:37

of 61 prospective epidemiological

24:40

studies. So this means looking forward and

24:42

looking at disease development. And

24:45

they found that burnout is a risk factor

24:47

for sleep disorders, including

24:49

insomnia, depression, depression Musculoskeletal

24:52

pain like neck pain, back pain knee

24:55

pain, things like that, type 2 diabetes

24:58

high LDL levels, and low

25:00

HDL cholesterol levels and

25:02

then also what I found really interesting about this, this

25:05

particular paper is that they talked

25:07

about absenteeism and

25:09

sick leave, and how burnout

25:11

Is correlated with an increased risk

25:14

of not going to work going

25:16

to work and being sick called presenteeism,

25:19

and then increasing in sick leave. And

25:21

you can see how all three of these, these

25:23

would affect your ability to be efficient

25:26

and effective at work. And lead

25:28

into that personal satisfaction side of things.

25:31

Yeah, especially, especially that presenteeism

25:33

where people aren't taking their... paid

25:36

time off. Absolutely. Yeah.

25:38

That's, that's a condition I see with not just men,

25:41

but with all clients that I work with, or

25:43

most clients that I work with, they got weeks

25:45

of vacation that they just don't end up using.

25:48

And there is, there's also an expectation

25:51

of what they should or how

25:53

they should be working. It's almost as

25:55

if they're expected to give

25:58

up that part time or that. Paid

26:00

time off in order, in order

26:02

to be more productive and to

26:04

kind of almost be like everybody

26:06

else. I call it the new keeping

26:09

up with the Elon Musks. Meaning

26:13

instead of keeping up with the Joneses, it's keeping up

26:15

with working 80 hour weeks or

26:17

100 hour weeks. And we just don't have

26:19

the time in the week to do

26:20

all that. No, and we don't have the emotional

26:22

bandwidth either that, you know,

26:24

that plays into the burnout absolutely

26:27

plays into the burnout and the burnout plays into it,

26:29

vicious cycle. And so what this study

26:31

is really looking at is, is exactly that identifying

26:35

those risks,

26:37

those symptoms, those feelings of like, I

26:39

must go to work, but I really don't want to.

26:41

And then how to. intervene

26:44

early so that we're not getting

26:46

to the point where they have insomnia,

26:49

they have neck pain, they have

26:51

diabetes, they are uncomfortable

26:54

and they hate their job. Really

26:57

can snowball. And so again, just looking at

26:59

kind of scrutinizing this paper,

27:01

I am not criticizing you scientists, but

27:04

that's okay. This

27:06

paper was not on men specifically, although

27:08

a lot of them were men. It was majority

27:11

in Nordic countries, so culturally

27:13

different. The timeframe was shorter,

27:15

hard to see that development. Of

27:18

these diseases in a short period of

27:20

time. And then because

27:22

it is a systematic review of different papers

27:24

across the papers. The criteria

27:27

for participants was different. The

27:29

number of participants was different in the measurement

27:32

techniques were different. And

27:34

although they control

27:36

for these, for the most part, when they're analyzing

27:38

their data they can still have some effects

27:41

on how that data is interpreted

27:43

and analyzed. So I

27:46

do think the study is, is extremely relevant to

27:48

the development of these diseases. So

27:51

we just want to look at like community and food

27:53

choices and how those are influenced

27:55

by loneliness and burnout in general.

27:58

And this study was a scoping review

28:00

of 29 studies. I mean, what it

28:02

showed was up to 24

28:04

percent. of U. S. Adults report

28:07

feeling lonely, and that is a huge proportion

28:10

of adults that are reporting this loneliness

28:12

feeling. So this is something we really need to

28:14

approach, and we really need to think about and talk

28:17

about. And especially

28:19

because they find that this loneliness is

28:21

associated With lower cardiovascular

28:24

health and mental health. So kind

28:26

of going back to how not

28:28

only loneliness and emotional exhaustion

28:31

both play into this decrease in,

28:33

in overall health. And it

28:35

also talked about how there are many

28:37

determinants to food choices, including

28:39

like your social pressure and emotional stressors,

28:42

like we've been talking about. So

28:44

approaching food choices

28:46

from my. Comprehensive

28:49

view is so important because there are

28:51

so many things that affect it. But one

28:53

thing that can affect it in a positive way

28:55

is community. Eating together

28:57

has benefits to the nutrient

28:59

content and the food choices people make. When

29:02

you eat with people, you may tend

29:04

to have higher diversity in your food choices,

29:06

meaning more fruits and vegetables, different...

29:09

Types of food cultures of food, things like

29:11

that. And also these people have a higher probability

29:14

of eating three meals. And this goes back

29:16

to kind of what you're talking about that eating pattern that

29:19

that rhythm that you have and

29:21

helping establish that rhythm and

29:24

how community can affect that and

29:26

that it's bi directional. So that's one

29:28

of the big things I wanted to pull out of this, that it's

29:31

not just loneliness or lack

29:33

of community affecting eating.

29:35

It's eating also can affect it.

29:38

Your experience community, your

29:40

socialization. Exactly. So

29:42

you can address it and it will

29:44

work in this cycle, right? Like,

29:47

it's not a one way street. And

29:49

that's awesome. I think that's really helpful to remember.

29:52

And again, in this study. Women

29:54

were included often in the majority,

29:56

so that's something to really consider.

29:58

UK based, and again, the participant

30:01

numbers were smaller, and there wasn't as

30:03

much long term data used, so

30:05

just consider that. Yeah, but

30:07

And I just want to circle back to that depersonalization

30:10

that I think was so critical at the very beginning

30:12

that Mr. Allen too was also feeling.

30:15

And that is that That ties into the

30:17

alexithymia, which is the inability

30:20

or the difficulty understanding or recognizing

30:22

your emotions. And therefore,

30:25

when there are these exasperations

30:27

in your mental health or

30:29

your physical health, I mean, it's

30:31

just time after time after doing it

30:33

over and over and over again. And this

30:36

chronic condition is what

30:38

leads to this burnout. And that burnout is so

30:40

tied into. All of those hormonal

30:42

fluctuations that occur at

30:44

both the physiological level and

30:46

then that emotional burnout as well. So

30:49

tying it all together, I love what you're doing here, especially

30:51

talking about the importance of community. So

30:53

you can really see how it's a draw

30:55

picture. Our lives are not happening

30:58

in isolation. There are so many things being thrown

31:00

at us and that's something we all need to think

31:02

about. But I'm the same in

31:04

the same vein as that. Kind of the same vein.

31:08

The data from the

31:10

UK shows that men, and

31:12

also in the US, but this specifically

31:15

was in the UK, men have lower

31:17

health literacy when compared to women.

31:19

And so what health literacy is, is

31:22

the ability to really find, understand,

31:24

and utilize health information.

31:27

And so what they're finding is that men

31:29

are twice as likely as women to have inadequate

31:31

health literacy. So an inadequate understanding

31:34

of how to, how medicine. how

31:37

their medicines work, when they need help,

31:40

and all of those kinds of things that play into

31:42

medical care. And women, you

31:44

know, are, are shown to attend

31:46

their primary care physicians at

31:48

rates twice as often as men. So

31:51

you can see how that can affect these, this early

31:53

intervention that I'm talking about earlier. If

31:56

we're not seeking help, we're not able to get

31:58

help. And, and men are, are

32:00

typically, are often delaying seeking help

32:02

until they meet this higher threshold

32:05

of pain. Of discomfort,

32:07

of unhappiness, exactly. I mean, I'm

32:10

just guilty, just as

32:12

guilty. Yeah, so I think that this all

32:14

really comes to this kind of

32:16

masculinity we were kind of discussing earlier.

32:18

This idea of preserving masculinity and

32:21

avoiding the feminine considered

32:23

topics. And health is one of

32:25

those. Again, there's that perceived threshold,

32:28

the downplaying of symptoms because concern

32:31

for your health can be seen as a feminine

32:33

characteristic. In a lot of cultures

32:35

and in a lot of men. And so this kind of.

32:38

It is, again, with that depersonalization,

32:40

that avoiding openness, that maintenance

32:42

of control and of stoicism

32:45

that's preventing this help seeking

32:48

behavior in men. And, and

32:50

just to kind of reinforce this

32:52

idea of the importance of community

32:55

in the, in Culture and in

32:57

men in general. And there's this amazing association

32:59

called the Australian Men's Shed Association.

33:02

It's an international across

33:04

multiple countries. And it's This

33:06

tagline is that men don't talk face to

33:08

face, they talk shoulder to shoulder. And

33:11

what they utilize, is this idea of

33:13

men working on things together and talking

33:15

while they're doing that. This problem focused

33:18

approach to community, this this

33:20

side by side working forward versus

33:22

looking at each other working together.

33:25

And so I think that that kind of just demonstrates the

33:27

difference in approach we need to be taking

33:29

with this community forming. We need to be

33:31

with Looking at ways to make this

33:34

as accessible as possible, as easy as,

33:36

as, yeah, as easy as possible for men

33:38

to form these communities. And that's to look at how

33:41

do we, how do we add in these times where

33:43

they can be shoulder to shoulder, right?

33:45

So how can low health

33:47

literacy be addressed then?

33:50

Yeah. So, I mean, it's a very complex idea

33:53

and an issue. But the first

33:55

step. That everyone kind of

33:57

recommends is this idea of being

33:59

your own advocate, asking

34:01

questions and listening to the professionals

34:04

Being a participant

34:06

in your health care, right? And not

34:08

sitting back. Like

34:11

participating, being part of it is the first

34:13

step. And in that way, you can start gathering

34:15

the knowledge. That's how knowledge is gathered,

34:17

right? Asking questions and listening. So that's

34:20

the first step. Go to your, go to your doctor.

34:24

Awesome. Well, I do want to add that one

34:26

of the ways that I think I help with

34:28

that health literacy is. in

34:31

a lot of the things that I do in

34:33

my life, one of the things that I notice is

34:35

that this masculinity, this role

34:37

that I'm trying to fill, it does create

34:40

that isolation in my life. It creates

34:42

greater loneliness and it gets harder

34:44

and harder and harder as we age,

34:46

especially for us men to

34:49

cultivate relationships. So

34:51

I made it a point to

34:53

have a biking group. My

34:55

friend and I decided to set up a biking

34:57

group. And we have now 12

35:00

guys that bike with us. And every Sunday,

35:02

we ask, Hey, who's going on a ride? Who's going on a

35:04

ride? And what happens is so fun. When

35:07

we're riding and we're not these, you know, super

35:09

spandex cat one type cyclists

35:12

that do 20 miles an hour of the Tour

35:14

de France kind of style. I'm talking about,

35:16

we're a ragtag group of guys that wear

35:18

whatever we want on bikes that we pick up

35:20

off the street kind of thing. But. Putting

35:23

that aside, we have these great conversations

35:25

when we're riding, and then we stop for coffee

35:27

or something to eat after our ride, and

35:30

we're just shooting the breeze and having a good

35:32

time, and we've gone out

35:34

on these dates,

35:36

these guy nights where we all hang out

35:38

at restaurants, we've done plays,

35:41

we've gone to each other's

35:43

houses, we've had these

35:45

great Guy nights of the neighborhood kind of thing

35:47

happening. So it's really turned into this incredible

35:50

camaraderie. We even have these events

35:52

where we go up to the mountains and a friend

35:54

of ours has a mountain house and

35:57

we've done a guy's weekend with this big hike.

35:59

It was really, it's been really fantastic. So I

36:01

just wanted to add that that is probably another

36:04

way of not only getting at the health

36:06

literacy, but also getting at a lot of the

36:08

other problems too, because a lot of times We can

36:10

say to the guys, Hey, you know, you should definitely

36:12

see a doctor about that, man. Don't, don't be afraid. And

36:14

that vulnerability is big. That's

36:16

community sharing

36:18

of information. Yeah. That's

36:19

the shoulder to

36:19

shoulder stuff, right? I was just about to say, and you're,

36:22

and I mean, it went past shoulder to shoulder.

36:24

You guys were getting dinner. You guys are sitting face to face,

36:26

continuing that conversation, but it was

36:28

ignited by utilizing

36:31

this idea. So yeah, awesome.

36:33

But like onto the like, we understand what

36:36

burnout is and kind of what it does. What

36:38

can we do? What's the positive

36:40

side of this? Right? And the positive side

36:42

is that there's a lot of avenues that we

36:44

can explore to help. Nutrition

36:47

strategies. Specifically this comes

36:49

from a paper on nutrition strategies

36:52

for reducing risk of burnout in physicians

36:54

again. So another idea is that

36:56

this is specifically for physicians, but does

36:58

not mean that it can only be applied to

37:00

physicians. And so what this study

37:03

found is that individuals that included

37:05

more fruits and vegetables in their diet had

37:07

lower risk of burnout. Individuals

37:10

that had adequate protein

37:12

intakes, specifically of certain

37:14

amino acids that are involved in sleep

37:17

like ornithine and tyrosine,

37:20

that are involved in, in the, the production

37:22

of sleep hormones, and then also

37:24

adding complex carbohydrates into your diet

37:26

when you can. And this was specifically

37:29

talking about how that can help feed

37:31

the gut microbiome, and play

37:33

a part in the brain gut axis

37:36

affecting mental health. So, diet

37:38

and mental health, again, coming back into

37:41

the, into the picture. On the lifestyle side

37:43

of things, I mean,

37:45

this is so ambiguous, but getting adequate sleep,

37:47

whatever that means for people

37:49

well, I did, I did talk about adequate

37:51

sleep in the last episode and I've had various

37:54

sleep specialists and experts

37:56

on my show, but I keep talking

37:59

a lot about sleep because you can't have enough conversation

38:01

about this. So

38:02

don't worry about it. Exactly again, because it's

38:04

so complex. So

38:06

involved, so many things involved

38:08

in adequate sleep. So that's what I'm saying. Blow ambiguous,

38:11

but and then also the importance

38:13

of nutrition, education and nutrition counseling,

38:16

seeing people like you, like

38:19

us, like, yeah, my gosh. Right. Like and,

38:22

and getting that. Increased health

38:24

literacy there, that education, that

38:26

help, that community, that counseling. And

38:28

then the third one that this one kind of talked about mostly

38:31

is mindful eating and what that is.

38:33

So just a quick look into what it is. It is

38:35

about making conscious choices when you're

38:37

eating. Feeling aware of

38:40

hunger cues and fullness

38:42

cues. And through

38:44

that, cultivating awareness to

38:46

internal, external

38:49

triggers to hunger and fullness. So internal

38:51

meaning like, feeling hungry

38:54

feeling angry, things like that. And external

38:56

triggers that might be like, an emotion,

38:58

or maybe your schedule,

39:01

or things like that. Being aware

39:03

of all of these things that play into our eating

39:06

and then noting the physical or emotional

39:08

responses that comes from those foods.

39:10

If you note it, you're aware of it, you might,

39:13

you know, choose foods that make you feel more

39:15

energetic. You might choose foods that make you feel

39:17

happy. And that's intentional

39:19

and that's what we're looking for. And what

39:21

does it do? Well, it can increase the ability

39:23

to relax. When distressed,

39:26

not only just in eating feeding situations,

39:28

but in regular life as well and

39:30

help prevent automatic or emotional eating

39:33

through being present. That is

39:35

the biggest thing is, is eliminating

39:38

distractions to the best

39:40

of your ability while eating the

39:42

ability to focus, which is

39:44

a difficult one. I will not lie.

39:49

So I got a question. Can you go into

39:51

how mindful eating may be beneficial

39:53

during depersonalization?

39:55

Yeah. So one of the things that we've been talking

39:58

about throughout is that depersonalization as

40:00

this removal, this withdrawal

40:02

from existing as

40:04

part of a community. And

40:06

mindful eating in and of itself

40:08

maybe isn't exactly supportive

40:11

of re involvement into community,

40:13

but what it can do is re involve

40:16

you in personal emotions, re involve

40:18

you in how your body is feeling, and

40:20

allow you to then notice outside

40:23

of yourself. Because if you can't notice what's

40:25

happening here, it is going to be way harder

40:27

to notice what is happening with

40:29

other people. So it's a really good

40:31

way, a first step, into

40:34

realigning with your emotions. Re

40:36

engaging.

40:38

Very good. I, I also want to say

40:40

that it's this idea of mindful eating

40:43

is being present. It's the ability

40:45

to interceptively aware

40:47

and then be aware and that's very,

40:50

very beneficial. And I, I just

40:52

want to tie it in again to the last episode

40:54

that I did about sleep and

40:56

what we can do and their circadian

40:58

rhythm, I'm sorry, and eating rhythm and

41:00

what we can do. And that is the

41:02

ability to slow down the importance of slowing

41:05

down and how. Taking time

41:07

for yourself, giving yourself

41:09

that me time back,

41:12

and therefore giving that opportunity

41:14

for you to be mindful with your eating. So I'm glad

41:16

that you're saying this. Go on. 100%.

41:19

We're going to look right into that, because we're going to go

41:21

ahead and go back and talk about our Mr. Allen,

41:23

if we can all... Pulling back up in our brain,

41:26

and he went through a version of what

41:28

we just talked about, and he said yes, I

41:30

love this idea of mindful eating, I

41:32

feel like I can apply that in my life, I'm excited

41:34

about applying that in my life, and we say

41:36

where, where's the easiest for you?

41:39

What is going to be the best? For you.

41:41

And he says, I'm going to try it at lunch and

41:44

he devises this plan that he's going to turn

41:46

his phone and computer off and he's going to

41:48

open his office door. That is it.

41:50

While he eats his lunch. Okay. Yeah.

41:54

So he's going to eat his lunch without

41:56

technology and with his door open. And

41:58

what he's finding after him, you know, including

42:01

this in his day, he is feeling way

42:03

more satisfied after his meals. He

42:05

is eating every bite of that and he is noticing

42:07

every bite of his meal. He's tasting

42:10

the food, which he wasn't before. So he finds

42:12

himself snacking less because he's feeling satisfied.

42:16

I like that. He's savoring.

42:18

Exactly. He's feeling he's actually

42:21

involved in the process of eating.

42:23

It is not an automatic part of his

42:25

life that just he has to get through, right? It's

42:27

exciting. It's fun. And, and in this

42:29

way, he's able to start talking to coworkers during lunch,

42:31

which he never did before. This allowed him

42:33

to start being involved in more of these after work events,

42:36

building a community through one

42:38

small thing. He did interesting.

42:41

Right? And so he says, I love how

42:43

this is working. I'm going to do this. I'm

42:45

going to do this more of my day. I think I can

42:47

apply this elsewhere. And so he decides

42:50

to, and this is in molar meetings with

42:52

us. And so he

42:54

devises this new routine where

42:56

he, you know, he's going to eat his breakfast with his partner.

42:59

They're going to eat together. They're going to sit down, even involving

43:01

the children in this. And that's great for the kids. He's

43:03

going to add a snack, an intentional snack where

43:06

he takes a break from his work for three

43:08

to five minutes. It's a granola bar, eats

43:10

whatever he wants, right? And

43:13

then he's gonna have dinner with his partner

43:16

and they're still gonna have their snack, but

43:18

they're going to do it intentionally.

43:20

They're going to do it mindfully. They're going to turn

43:23

the TV off and eat and talk

43:25

about what they're feeling. Right. And so that's

43:27

going to help develop more of an emotional connection

43:29

as well. And so. He

43:32

continues on with this. What does he find? Well,

43:34

all of these projects and after work things he's getting

43:37

involved with. He's maybe up for promotion,

43:39

right? Like he's feeling accomplished. He's feeling

43:41

satisfied at work. So he's coming

43:43

home and he's Not feeling like he needs

43:45

to unplug from the day by going on

43:48

his phone. He is more

43:50

patient. He is kinder.

43:52

He feels closer to

43:54

his family than he has in the past because

43:56

he's spending more quality time with them. You

43:58

know, he's involved in the cooking. He's involved in

44:00

their eating. They're involved. And

44:03

he starts feeling more energized in the morning.

44:05

You can see maybe his bedtime starts creeping

44:07

up because he's not feeling like he needs to be on his phone that long

44:10

anymore at night. Like, he's feeling good. He's feeling

44:12

really good. So, so what does this look like moving

44:14

forward? He says, I've implemented

44:16

all these things. What do I do now? Well,

44:19

then we start approaching other things, right? Maybe

44:22

he's able to start adding more fiber into his

44:24

diet. Maybe he's able to start removing

44:26

some of that saturated fat that he's

44:28

eating. Making, you know, more diverse

44:31

choices in fruits and vegetables. Exploring

44:33

things he might like. And he's

44:35

sticking with a, with a regular eating schedule.

44:38

So what we see is that he's getting improvements in

44:40

all these things that originally brought him in. And...

44:43

Improvements in his burnout symptoms. He's

44:46

feeling engaged at work. He's feeling like

44:48

he's got a community at work. He is

44:50

not coming home drained. Right?

44:53

So major improvements in aspects

44:56

of his life through one small thing.

44:58

One small bite. And so what I kind

45:00

of want to just encompass here is that

45:03

his one choice. Could lead to

45:05

so many of applications this

45:08

choice to try mindful eating can

45:10

be applied in his eating and then

45:12

in the rest of his life as well through my just

45:14

mindfulness in general. So while

45:16

burnout is complex and everything we talked about is

45:18

incredibly complex, you

45:20

can make one choice. And find a way

45:22

out.

45:24

That's very nice. I like that. This is really,

45:26

really good. He sounds like many of my clients.

45:28

That's crazy.

45:30

It's almost like I got to sit in

45:33

and gather some data. I

45:35

wonder where you got that from. I

45:38

appreciate you for doing this. And there

45:41

was some really good information. I mean,

45:43

I think it really touches on, on so many different

45:45

areas that we have

45:48

talked about both you being

45:50

in the rotations with me and the

45:53

sessions with me, the research that

45:55

you've done. And a lot of the

45:57

podcast episodes and blogs

45:59

that I've written in the past, it's just,

46:02

Really, really, really interesting how important

46:04

this is, especially for men. Now, granted,

46:06

I did obviously note that

46:09

there are a lot of similarities

46:11

between burnout with men and

46:13

with women. Absolutely. I think

46:15

that it is. Something that is

46:17

important to understand that it doesn't matter

46:20

your gender identity. However,

46:22

it is interesting to see the nuanced

46:24

differences on how men end up creating

46:28

the burnout in areas where women

46:30

may not or vice versa too, which

46:32

is really good.

46:33

Absolutely. And I mean, that's a good point in that

46:35

maybe depersonalization doesn't sound like something that

46:37

happens. To every man, right? Like anyone

46:40

listening to this might be like, that doesn't sound like something

46:42

I do. Maybe it isn't. Maybe your

46:44

trigger is emotional exhaustion. Maybe your trigger

46:46

is that personal, like, it's ambiguous

46:49

and complex, but hopefully

46:51

this gives a little bit for each of those aspects

46:53

to help address moving

46:55

forward.

46:56

Very good. Very good. Well, Laney, thank

46:58

you so much for doing this. This was fantastic.

47:01

Do you have anything else that you want to leave

47:03

everybody with?

47:04

Just thank you to you for allowing me,

47:06

you know, to speak to your listeners. It's amazing

47:09

and I'm hopefully someone Catch

47:11

is one thing that they can start applying.

47:14

Yeah, folks. And this is, this is really

47:16

important what Lainey's saying here. I think if

47:18

you understand the context of

47:20

this podcast, One Small Bite, it's really

47:22

about one small thing that we do

47:25

on a regular basis that builds over

47:27

time and has domino effects in

47:29

other areas in our lives. And so

47:31

we can then grow from there

47:33

instead of trying to make something big.

47:36

Like a big change or massive

47:38

change or overhaul of your entire

47:40

dietary system. So thank

47:43

you so much, Laney. I appreciate you

47:45

for being here with me. I appreciate you for

47:47

being my intern and helping

47:49

me out for with so many other things.

47:51

So great job with this great

47:53

presentation. And I look

47:55

forward to hearing wonderful

47:58

things about you and your career in the future.

48:00

All right. Thank you very much, Laney for

48:03

an excellent presentation. I

48:05

hope you all got some great

48:07

information here. I know I did. I

48:09

am definitely going to

48:11

relax a lot more and take

48:13

it easy, especially. During the holiday

48:15

season, things are so crazy. So busy

48:18

burnout is so rampant

48:20

in this time of year. So

48:22

I hope you do the same taken

48:25

maybe a little bit of mindful eating connect

48:27

with some of the guys or people in your

48:29

lives so that you can start

48:31

engaging. I just want to say thank

48:33

you once again to Laney. She's amazing.

48:36

The level of intellect of rigor,

48:39

the initiative and the hard

48:41

work that was put into this presentation.

48:43

Is amazing. And you know, so many of my interns

48:46

provided me with the research

48:48

and the background for a lot of these shows

48:51

as well. I want to thank Laney once

48:53

again for doing a great job. I just

48:55

want to say thank you very much for listening in.

48:57

Please remember to rate and review the show. And if

48:59

you've got one or two friends that would

49:01

benefit from listening to this, please share

49:04

it on. You know, these shows can

49:06

really help people that need this kind

49:08

of information. And, uh,

49:10

stay tuned because next week.

49:13

I'm going to talk about the connection of the eating

49:15

rhythm and the digestive

49:18

system. I'm continuing with my

49:20

eating rhythm series, so

49:22

listen in because the information is going to be

49:25

awesome. All right, folks. Thanks

49:27

again. Remember chop that diet mentality

49:29

fuel your body and nourish your

49:31

soul until next time. Ciao.