"Someone that you'd high five but not hug"

The more I learn about anxiety, the more I begin to see evidence of its presence all around. In the world, and in the lives of those close to me.

In a recent episode of the wonderful Ologies podcast about "ergopathology", Dr. Kandi Wiens joined host Allie Ward to discuss the study of burnout. Burnout is just one of many ways anxiety can push people to the brink, and I’m glad folks like Dr. Weins are working to understand how it happens and how we can learn to recognize it early.

Sidebar: I adore the idea of "someone you'd high-five, but not hug" as a simple, instinctual way to gauge the closeness of a friendship. I think life gets better the more "hug" friends you have.

Here’s what I highlighted:

Ergopathology, it's the science of Ergon, which is work in Greek, and pathology, which is something bad. But what exactly is burnout?

There are really a number of ways we can pay attention to the fact that stress is turning into something that's a little bit more dangerous, potentially getting to a point where we're going to break down or burn out. I would say first and foremost, pay attention to the physical signs. Most of us can notice things like headaches, not sleeping well, not being interested in exercise, not being interested in intimacy with our partner, all kinds of physical manifestations that if we were to just really pay attention, they are there, those signs are there.

We get stressed and that turns on our nervous system and that nervous system switch is turned on for a long period of time or it gets stuck in the on position. We start to burn through our adrenaline first, and then our cortisol kicks in and that's meant to protect us. But over time, burning through all that cortisol really, really quickly can lead to other physical symptoms. It will immediately cause your blood vessels to constrict. So you're experiencing lack of oxygen and healthy blood flow to your brain, which puts you in what we call fast thinking mode. It's like a chain reaction where we first have an unconscious physical reaction through the release of these kinds of hormones, whether it's adrenaline or cortisol, or in some cases with good stress, it's dopamine and oxytocin and other things that help us manage stress—but it's those physical things that happen without us even knowing it before we start to feel the psychological effects of stress.

Higher levels of neuroticism and lower levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, extroversion, and openness are associated with higher levels of burnout. No surprise. So, the neuroticism and hiding from the world and being stubborn that I think protects me from failure? Nope, it does not.

…the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team mascot…gets his name from the grit of the Flyers team. Gritty looks kind of like a Jim Henson character who owns more than one bong. And he was designed to represent someone that you'd high five but not hug.

When our brains are always online, even if we're consuming good productive content, it's not allowing your brain or your psyche enough time to rest.