Burned Out & Running on Fumes? 12-Min Walk to Feel Better | 46

Burned out? Feeling crispy, wiped out?

This is your permission slip for a 12-minute "do the bare minimum" walk. No gold stars, no pep talks. Just breathing, walking, and not feeling alone in the messiness.

We'll talk about how to let yourself off the hook, deal with decision fatigue, move life down to low-power mode, and why "done is better than perfect." (Easier said than, well, done.)

Halfway through, you'll hear a bell. If you're outside, that's your friendly cue to turn around if you want to.

Today's walk also includes completely unnecessary stories about using body wash instead of body oil, losing a mule on the train - the shoe, not the animal, the treadmill of life going faster and faster, and why you should absolutely celebrate anything that's 80% done.

If this feels like what you need, hit Follow or Subscribe so next week's walk shows up for you.

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Walking & Talking with Helen are audio walking workouts. You can walk outside or walk indoors (on a treadmill, walking pad, or just marching in place-while) we chat, get some energy, clear your head, and have a little fun. I share silly real-life stories, too. Let's go for a walk and get those steps in. 

Transcript

Helen Ryan: 0:03

We are going to start out at a warmup pace. Deep breath in through your nose. And exhale through your mouth. I've been feeling burned out for couple months now, or is it maybe 50 years? I don't know, but the last couple of weeks I have not been doing all the stuff I should be doing because I just didn't want to. I thought maybe that you were too. And so today we can get out a little bit, get some fresh oxygen going, and kind of chillax a little bit as we walk, and then figure out what we can do to help reduce burnout and how we can kind of all feel a little more human again. Keep your breathing going nice and strong still in the warmup pace. You can walk inside on a walking pad, treadmill, or some loops in your house or at the mall or march in place or outside. And if you're walking outside, there'll be a bell at the halfway point in case you want to turn around. This is a zero pressure walk. We're just going to get you out of that crispy zone. Your shoulders are down, away from your ears.. Sometimes we store a lot of tension in our jaw, so just kind of relax it and even relax your tongue. Your hands are soft. Sometimes, when we're burned out, we get too much in our head and we don't pay attention to what's going on. I have a Brazil nut body wash and a Brazil nut body oil, and I don't use the body wash right now, so it's in the cabinet. So I took a shower and then I came out and I put body oil all over my body. And then when I got to my arms, I looked down and I see that there is a little bit of a white film, and I realized, yep, I put the body wash on my freshly clean body. So then I had to jump back in the shower. And I just told myself, you know what, you need to just chillax and take a step back and kind of focus on what you're doing at this very moment. We can go just a little bit brisker, you can still talk. We're not going to work super hard today. We're just going to get that blood flowing. Hopefully just help get rid of some of that burnout. Burnout is basically your brain and your body saying, I can't keep going at this speed with this load. I remember one of my aunts told me when I was a teenager, you know, before I understood what burnout was, she said, I feel like every year I'm on a treadmill that's going faster and faster and faster. Keep walking. Steady pace, keep breathing. Gentle movement like we're doing today, helps kind of unstick that fight or flight and freeze feeling. Or the putting the body wash on feeling instead of the, instead of the body oil. Walking also lowers our stress and helps our brain think more clearly. It also helps us sleep a little better. Taking walks and taking time for ourselves isn't selfish. It's really one of the ways that we can keep going without completely burning out and keep moving. Even just a few minutes to get out there. Deeper breath in again through your nose. Really fill up those lungs all the way. Exhale through your mouth. Pay attention to your steps. They're kind of quick. They're kind of light. Shake all those hands again. It's a little bit of a brisker pace, but it's still comfortable. It's not a hard push. Keep those shoulders down away from your ears as we walk. Right now let's just do a quick little scan and adjust to see how we're doing and reduce any tension in our bodies. So as you walk, ask yourself to pick one area right now to focus on your jaw, your shoulders, or your feet. And then if it's your jaw, like we talked about, let your teeth unclench, relax your tongue. If it's your shoulders, drop them down away from your ears. And if it's your feet, make sure you're not gripping the bottom of your shoes, because sometimes we do that and we don't even realize it. Like I wear mules for some reason, and sometimes when I walk they stretch after a while and then my feet start to slip. And so I grab with my toes so that my shoes don't fall off. Maybe I'll tell you a story about what happened with my shoes on a train in Oslo, Norway, because I wore mules while getting on a train. I'll tell you that in a minute. Keep your breathing going. And I always cue you to pay attention to your body, but we also need to do that throughout the day. Pay attention to where we're tight. Pay attention to your jaw. Pay attention to maybe your hands are in fists. Pay attention to your toes. Just pay attention to those tight spots before it gets to the point where it's like the check engine light comes on for your car. Get it early. And that really helps with your mood and it helps you chillax a little bit. And hopefully that will help your burnout. Keep your breathing going. Make sure your stomach is relaxed too, so it's not in knots. If you want to go faster, you can, but it's not a sprint. What a lot of us don't pay attention to, including me, is what I call energy leaks. And that's one thing that drains us every day, and it doesn't have to be that hard. It could be like answering messages at all hours of the day, saying yes automatically. Those are little leaks that you don't realize that slowly, slowly, slowly, like a slow drip drains your energy out. I feel like burnout can ease faster when we look for and plug those tiny energy leaks. So kind of think about those little energy leaks throughout the day and where we can plug them so your boat doesn't sink. Continue your breathing, continue that pace. Another thing we can do is ask ourselves, where can I be okay with 80% done instead of a hundred percent perfect this week? And that's something as I've gotten older, I've been really trying to learn to do. Done is better than perfect, but sometimes it's hard because I'm a perfectionist, which doesn't help with burnout, does it? For example, if I design a logo or design for a client, I'll give them three versions, but yet the first version is the one that they pick. But I spend all this time making these other versions because I want to make sure they're happy. Sometimes done is good enough. Even with the podcast, sometimes I'm not doing a perfect job. Sometimes I talk too much. Sometimes I'm late on the episode. Sometimes I'm completely off topic, but that's okay. I just want to get something out there for you. When can we settle with 80% done instead of a hundred percent perfect. Stay with that pace. Brisk, but you can still talk. You want to feel refreshed. There's nothing wrong with taking the moment for you. When you're overwhelmed and burned out, sometimes decisions are really hard. It's like decision fatigue. And it doesn't matter, like what am I going to have for dinner? That's like sometimes the hardest question in the world, and you just don't want to deal with it. And that is decision fatigue. You don't want to make one more decision. That's why a lot of times I just have cereal for dinner. If you don't know what to have for dinner, have cereal night. And right now for the next few minutes, we're not going to be making any decisions. We're just going to focus on our body moving. And the only decision you're going to make is if you want to lead with your left foot or your right foot. And just kind of focus on you're not making decisions. Where is your body tight right now? And how does it feel? Is it buzzing? Is it exhausted? Is it feeling pretty good? And ask yourself, how's my brain feeling right now? Does your mind race? Does it feel foggy? Does it feel numb? Find out where your body's tight and how's your body feeling inside. Is it tight? Is it tingly? Is it stressed? You know that low level stress? We want to kind of release that. Use our breathing, distract yourself just like you would do with a toddler or a puppy. If you start to feel really stressed, just distract yourself. Keep your breathing going. Now, shake in with your mind. Is your brain racing? Is it foggy? Is it feeling numb? Whatever that answer is, that's okay. That's where we're right now and that's why we're walking today. See if we can clear it just a little bit. We don't have to make the big decisions right now. Just check in with ourselves and see where we can ease our load a little bit. What is really important, what is stressful? What's not quite so important? We're not going to overhaul our whole life. We're just going to stop ignoring burnout until it knocks us flat on our backs. Slow it down just a little bit now. Deep breath in again. Exhale through your mouth. Just going to walk along. Oh, I gotta tell you that story. What was that story? Now see, I told you I forgot already. I had a big suitcase full of Norwegian cheese and chocolate when I was leaving Norway to bring back to my extended family. It was last year and I wear my little Sketchers mules, which I love, but they get a little big after a while. I'm trying to get on the train. As I get my suitcase up on the train, my backpack's on my back, and then suddenly my mule falls off and lands on the platform behind me. So I've got one barefoot and a sock on the step up to the train. And then the other one is on the platform. And luckily there's like a little stair. My shoe didn't fall down between the train and the track where I would've been outta luck. The suitcase was on the very top step and I'm like, what am I going to do? I can't bend over, I can't move. So this lady behind me was really nice and she grabbed the shoe and then I continued up and got on the train. I put my luggage in the little luggage area, and then she handed me back my shoe and I put it on like, really? I'm going to lose my shoe right now. That's what happens sometimes. Starting to bring your pace down, let your breathing catch up with you. It's always good to laugh at yourself sometimes. I have so many stories and so many things that happen to me, mostly because I'm distracted and I'm in my own head a lot. And if you're feeling burned out, you know it's not because you're lazy or you're bad at life . I mean, you could have ADHD, but maybe it's just you're doing too much and we always try to do everything for everyone with too little support for too long. So it's important to take this little time for ourselves to walk, to meditate, clear your mind and breathe when your body feels, you can feel the anxiety or the stress coming on. Just do your breathing, deep breathing relaxed, and it's okay. You're allowed to be tired. You're allowed to need recovery. And if you can try to pare down your to-do list and see what can you do, that's enough. That's not going to make you feel bad about yourself and your productivity, but that gives you a little bit of a break. Take those little pockets of time for yourself and this walk counts. Even if the rest of the day is a lot, just take this time for you. Relax, recover, breathe. Shake out your hands. And you can use this walk anytime you feel crispy around the edges, like you've been in an air fryer. Slow it down a little bit more now. And breathe. And when you're done with your walk, you can do just a couple of minutes of stretching. That'll help you as well. Front of your thighs, calves, my calves are really tight. Your feet. You know those little balls that you can roll your feet on, those will feel amazing after walk. Thank you for walking with me today. I hope this walk helped you even just a little bit. And if you want to connect on social media, on Instagram and Facebook, it's yourwalkingpodcast. And I also have a hashtag called walktalkwithhelen. If you want to share pictures from your walk or your shoes or your mules that fall off as you're getting on the train, I wish I would've had that on video. And I will see you next time.