Aditi Nerurkar

But now, because I have a handle on my stress, because I actually walk the talk and practice the five resets and have for over 25 years, now my tell or my canary is when I am irritable and my husband will often say like, it's time to really double down on those five resets when he sees me like, you know, being snappy or snippy, because that's my tell. And really the signs and symptoms are very individualized. And that is what makes stress so difficult to identify in yourself,

There is also a new kind of burnout. So what happens with burnout and the connection to this maladaptive stress, Joanna, is that when the stress, when that amygdala response is on, you know, in the background at a low hum, it can increase your risk of maladaptive stress, right? And the greater you have maladaptive stress unchecked, that's what leads to burnout.

When you're thinking about how to manage your maladaptive stress and burnout and the connection, that's what the connection is. Now what we're seeing is that stress presents in so many different ways. I shared some mental health manifestations, physical health manifestations. There is also very commonly something called the gut-brain connection, which we can dive into. If people have questions, feel free to ask. Just like I shared that there's a mind-body connection, there's also a gut-brain connection. A lot of people have

syrjinnän syrjintä, ja syrjintä on todennäköisesti sinun toisiasiasiasiasiasiasiasiasiasiasiasiasiasiasiasiasiasiasiasias

which is a group of trillions of bacteria, whose sole purpose, by the way, is mood regulation, managing your stress, resilience, etc. So there's also disorders of the gut-brain connection. And the other thing, Joanna, to remember is that, yes, there are so many ways that stress presents itself, making it difficult to identify in ourselves and others. In the same way, burnout, modern day burnout, is something that we're seeing more and more. And again,

showing atypical features. So for example, this one particular study found that 60% of the people with burnout had an inability to disconnect from work as their main feature. So think about what burnout, you know, when you think about someone who's classically burnt out, what are you thinking? You're thinking about someone who's apathetic, not really engaged, you know, unmotivated. But now you might think, I don't have burnout. I'm chronically engaged in my work. I can't shut off.

In fact, that could be the new kind of modern day burnout. And so the first step is always if you're thinking, could I be stressed? Chances are, you know, I hate to say it, but chances are, yes. I mean, me knowing all of the science, I have had moments, particularly this past year, where I felt a sense of burnout and stress simply because it is no longer the exception. It is the rule. So 70 percent of people, you know, on this call today are experiencing a lot of these things.

Tämä on tärkeä asia, jota haluan sanoa Joannalle ja kaikille. Jos tuntuu tästä niin, ensimmäinen asia tietää, että et ole yksin ja se ei ole sinun ongelmasi. Whitney kertoi tätä asiaa, jota kutsutaan stressiparadoksiin, ja minä olin nähnyt tätä joka päivä klinikassani Bostonissa. Minä olisin nähnyt tätä joka päivä.

Patients would sit in the packed waiting room, shoulder to shoulder, coming in to see me for stress. But no one was talking to the other person, right? Because we have all of these preconceived notions of what stress is and who gets stressed, etc. And then they would come into my office, the door would close, and then they would burst into tears. And it just goes to show you that we, what is the stress paradox? It's that we are all stressed.

joutuvat yhdessä ja yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä yhdessä

I love that question, Michael. I feel that very much. As someone who's an academic, I also am very interested in pop culture. I feel like that's one of the ways that I can really stay attuned to what's happening, what people are talking about and thinking about. There is a phrase I would love to share with you, which when I first heard it, it knocked my socks off and really gasped. Horizonlessness. It is a phrase coined by a journalist.

I was doing an interview for a publication, and the journalist asked me, tell me a little bit about horizonlessness. Human beings, we are meaning-seeking, purpose-driven creatures, and when we have something that we can look forward to, then you have a sense of purpose. We can talk about the difference between hedonic well-being and eudaimonic well-being. Again, very long fancy words, but there's two different kinds of well-being.

And when you're thinking about this idea of like the future and excitement, you're looking forward to it. Think back, you know, when you back in like 2015, you probably had lots of things that you were looking forward to. But now at this stage, like most of us have that feeling of horizonlessness, which is like this blank bleak feeling. You're thinking about the future. And that, of course, is very detrimental to our mental health because you want that forward motion. I will share something that I hope can, you know, one of the

ways that I like to think about is when you're going through a difficult experience like stress and you're experiencing that stress paradox that we just spoke about, Michael, you and everyone else, including me and Whitney and all of us talking today. You know, the first thing to do is to normalize and validate this difficult experience because that automatically makes you feel better. And so I want to share a kind of idea with you that your brain is like a dam and all of us, the human brain is like a dam.

So think back to 2020. We don't have to talk about it. It was the pandemic. We all had individual and collective stressors. And so what happens when you're feeling a sense of acute threat or stress? And likely we're feeling that again now. What happens is you shore up your internal reserves. You keep it together at all costs. And that's what I would see a lot of times. My patients would come in. Patients with cancer, they would be referred to me to help manage their stress. And they would say, yeah, I have a cancer diagnosis. They'd be doing chemotherapy, radiation. And they were stoic.

You know, like completely fine. They'd be like, I'm great. I'm fine doc. They would come see me regularly. I'm doing great. They would get the clean bill of health from their oncologist.

Congratulations, your cancer is clear. See you in six months. The next day they'd be in my office weeping. And it was because they were experiencing that experience of the dam breaking. And so when you are feeling a sense of stress, acute stress, like all of us are, perhaps now more than ever. We felt that in 2020, but certainly many of us are feeling that particularly now. You shore up your internal reserves.

Pidät sen yhdessä kaikissa kohdissa, ja kun tunnet, että olet terveellinen psykologiallisesti, ja se on loppunut, silloin seuraukset pysyvät, ja oikeat tunteet voivat edetä. Haluan kertoa sitä sinulle, koska jos tunnet jotain näistä asioista, kuten ympäristöä, ja kun ymmärrät, että yhteiskunta kertoo minulle, että meidän pitäisi tuntea hyvältä, me olemme post-pandemian aikana, kaikki on hyvä, kaikki on avoin,

And yet you don't feel like that. And so when there's a disconnect between your lived experience and what the world is sending you in terms of messaging, that can feel really challenging. And so I hope today that we can normalize and validate this difficult experience because we are all feeling it together. And to that point, I feel like so many of the strategies that you've offered have been focused around this idea of like things that you could do for yourself to think about how you're experiencing stress internally.

knowing that the brain is a dam, very much you might feel isolated and alone. And so when you are feeling a sense of stress, also because of the shame and stigma and taboo around feeling stress, because we shared the resilience myth, which is like, I'm not stressed, I'm resilient. People who are resilient don't get stressed. We know that's a myth now, right? And so what can you do collectively? Lean in and check in on your people and lean into your community.