This Simple 3-Step Method Can Help You Avoid Burnout for Good

 Burnout is on the rise. Defined as “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed,” it was recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a phenomenon in 2019. During the pandemic, the blurring of work/life boundaries has made burnout even more ubiquitous: a survey from Mental Health UK found 46% of UK workers feel “more prone to extreme levels of stress” compared to the year before.

It can be hard to anticipate when  burnout will strike. People may feel varying levels of stress and tiredness, but when this heightens significantly, we often don’t notice until it’s too late. A long, gradual phenomenon, there are plenty of things you can do to prevent burnout from reaching its most intense point.

One technique recommended by psychologists to manage and prevent burnout is the ‘Three R’ approach. “Burnout happens when our stress response continues for a long period of time, which leads to exhaustion,” explains Dr Audrey Tang, a psychologist, mental health and wellness expert and author of books on mindfulness and resilience. “The three R technique helps you deal with stress responses as they arrive.”

The three Rs used in the method to prevent and deal with burnout are: recognise, reverse and resilience. Each of these three steps can help people deal with different stages of  stress. “Think of your stress response like an elastic band being stretched  – burnout is the band snapping,” Dr Tang says.

“Prevention is really important because we need to build up our emotional strength just as we build up our physical strength,” she continues. “Dealing with emotional issues at the point of crisis is not very effective.”

The three R method can help you deal with each stage of stress, so you can build up a toolkit to deal with burnout long term. Here, Dr Tang breaks down the method simply to help you learn how to use it.

Recognise 

The first step of the three R method is learning to recognise when your body is stressed. “It’s OK to feel a stress response as long as you recognise it,” Dr Tang says. By recognising your stress, you can figure out what’s triggering it and try to deal with that trigger head on.

To help you learn to recognise when you’re stressed, Dr Tang recommends doing regular body scans, either at the beginning or at the end of the day. “

She also suggests doing regular breathing practices to keep track of how you’re feeling and to understand how your breathing is affected when you are stressed. 

Reverse

If you haven’t been able to recognise your stress and deal with it before it becomes an issue, the next step is to try and remove that stress from your life while it’s happening. “Most of us overthink while we’re stressed so trying to stop ourselves from getting carried away with our thoughts is a good way to deal with stress,” Dr Tang says.

“Ask yourself what you can do to stop yourself feeling stressed because taking action will stop your thoughts from spiraling,” she says. “Our brains and our bodies are really adaptive so unless we push them too far, you can always reverse your neuropathways.”

The action you take might be sending an email to the person who is causing you stress or putting a plan in place so you know the thing that is stressing you out won’t be a long-term issue. Figure out what it is that will allow you to calm down and find ways to try and do that, to avoid a prolonged stress response leading to burnout.

“You can’t feel stressed while you feel grateful”

Resilience

According to Dr Tang, resilience to stress is something you should try and build up all the time to prevent burnout. This is particularly important after you’ve dealt with a stressful situation. “Building resilience isn’t about how quickly or easily your stress response is triggered – it’s about how long it takes you to calm down from it,” Dr Tang says.

To help you improve the ways you deal with stress and stop you from reaching the point of burnout, Dr Tang recommends practicing mindfulness techniques, as well as meditation, affirmations and breathing techniques, so you have tools available for the next time you feel stressed.

“It’s also important to stop taking on other people’s stress and try to surround yourself with positive people who make you feel good,” Dr Tang continues. “Try to change your approach to life to one of gratitude and try some gratitude practices. You can’t feel stressed while you feel grateful.”

 

New design strategy marks a potential advance in the fight against Alzheimer's disease

Researchers have found a way to design an antibody that can identify the toxic particles that destroy healthy brain cells - a potential advance in the fight against Alzheimer's disease.

Their method is able to recognize these toxic particles, known as amyloid-beta oligomers, which are the hallmark of the disease, leading to hope that new diagnostic methods can be developed for Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.

The team, from the University of Cambridge, University College London and Lund University, designed an antibody which is highly accurate at detecting toxic oligomers and quantifying their numbers. Their results are reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

There is an urgent unmet need for quantitative methods to recognise oligomers - which play a major role in Alzheimer's disease, but are too elusive for standard antibody discovery strategies. Through our innovative design strategy, we have now discovered antibodies to recognise these toxic particles."

Michele Vendruscolo, Study Lead Author and  Professor, Cambridge Centre for Misfolding Diseases

Dementia is one of the leading causes of death in the UK and costs more than £26 billion each year, a figure which is expected to more than double in the next 25 years. Estimates put the current cost to the global economy at nearly £1 trillion per year.

Alzheimer's disease, the most prevalent form of dementia, leads to the death of nerve cells and tissue loss throughout the brain, resulting in memory failure, personality changes and problems carrying out daily activities.

Abnormal clumps of proteins called oligomers have been identified by scientists as the most likely cause of dementia. Although proteins are normally responsible for important cell processes, according to the amyloid hypothesis, when people have Alzheimer's disease these proteins -including specifically amyloid-beta proteins - become rogue and kill healthy nerve cells.

Proteins need to be closely regulated to function properly. When this quality control process fails, the proteins misfold, starting a chain reaction that leads to the death of brain cells. Misfolded proteins form abnormal clusters called plaques which build up between brain cells, stopping them from signalling properly.

Dying brain cells also contain tangles, twisted strands of proteins that destroy a vital cell transport system, meaning nutrients and other essential supplies can no longer move through the cells.

There have been over 400 clinical trials for Alzheimer's disease, but no drug that can modify the course of the disease has been approved. In the UK, dementia is the only condition in the top 10 causes of death without a treatment to prevent, stop, or slow its progression.

"While the amyloid hypothesis is a prevalent view, it has not been fully validated in part because amyloid-beta oligomers are so difficult to detect, so there are differing opinions on what causes Alzheimer's disease," said Vendruscolo.

"The discovery of an antibody to accurately target oligomers is, therefore, an important step to monitor the progression of the disease, identify its cause, and eventually keep it under control."
The lack of methods to detect oligomers has been a major obstacle in the progress of Alzheimer's research. This has hampered the development of effective diagnostic and therapeutic interventions and led to uncertainty about the amyloid hypothesis.

"Oligomers are difficult to detect, isolate, and study," said Dr Francesco Aprile, the study's first author.

"Our method allows the generation of antibody molecules able to target oligomers despite their heterogeneity, and we hope it could be a significant step towards new diagnostic approaches."
The method is based on an approach for antibody discovery developed over the last ten years at the Centre for Misfolding Diseases.

Based on the computational assembly of antibody-antigen assemblies, the method enables the design of antibodies for antigens that are highly challenging, such as those that live only for a very short time.

By using a rational design strategy that enables to target specific regions, or epitopes, of the oligomers, and a wide range of in vitro and in vivo experiments, the researchers have designed an antibody with at least three orders of magnitude greater affinity for the oligomers over other forms of amyloid-beta.

This difference is the key feature that enables the antibody to specifically quantify oligomers in both in vitro and in vivo samples.

The team hopes that this tool will enable the discovery of better drug candidates and the design of better clinical trials for people affected by the debilitating disease.

They also co-founded Wren Therapeutics, a spin-out biotechnology company based at the Chemistry of Health Incubator, in the recently opened Chemistry of Health building, whose mission it is to take the ideas developed at the University of Cambridge and translate them into finding new drugs to treat Alzheimer's disease and other protein misfolding disorders.

The antibody has been patented by Cambridge Enterprise, the University's commercialization arm.

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Humans May Recognize Disease with Their Eyes. Study Finds

What does a sick person look like? Could you recognize one if you saw them on the street? These queries feel more pertinent than ever in light of the coronavirus outbreak, but also in general. A fascinating recent study published in the biological research journal 'Proceedings of the Royal Society B' tried to provide the answers.

How Was the Research Conducted?
The researchers started out by taking face photos of 16 healthy people. Later on, those same people were injected with a shot of lipopolysaccharide, a harmless molecule found on many pathogenic bacteria, which releases a response from the immune system. Within only 2 hours, the participants’ faces developed visual symptoms of “sickness”. Another round of photos was taken. Both times, the subjects wore a plain white t-shirt and looked straight into the camera with a neutral expression.  

The pictures were shown to 2 groups of 60 people. The first group was asked to rate simply if each person in the photo looked sick or healthy. The second group was asked to rate how tired or alert each person looked on a scale of 1 to 7.

The researchers point out that the features that revealed people as sick to the observers were mainly:

    Paleness of the skin and lips
    Hanging eyelids
    Swollen face
    Droopier corners of the mouth
    Patchy skin.

How Accurate Is the Research?

It is important to note that the study has a few limitations. The observers were not allowed to look at the photos for longer than 5 seconds, and the study didn’t look at the visual symptoms ad sickness past a few hours’ time. Another setback is that the age, ethnicity, and backgrounds of the participants were not diverse enough for the findings to be generalizable, as most of those who took part were Caucasian young adults.

Out of 1,215 photos that were categorized by observers as ‘sick’, 440 were actually healthy.

So can superficial characteristics we instinctively connect with sickness really be trusted? John Axelsson, one of the lead researchers in the study says that despite those limitations, the overall conclusion is that untrained people are able to recognize sickness in other individuals above chance level. According to him, the information that was collected could be of use in the future – for example, in improving the technology used to monitor how sickness spreads across populations or in diagnosing patients.

There is still a lot to be learned and expanded on the topic – for example, is detecting sickness something that we know genetically or something that is learned? Undoubtedly, more research needs to be done before we can have a clear cut resolution on this interesting topic.

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How to Be Optimistic Around Negative People

If you think you’re a natural-born pessimist and there’s no hope of ever turning your mindset around, then think again! According to mental health experts, it is actually very possible to turn into a glass-half-full kind of person, and here's how you can do it, just follow these words of advice experts have found are really helpful when it comes to seeing things in a brighter light.

1. Choose to Be Optimistic Optimism
Life is all about choices. You can opt to spend the entire day reading or cleaning. You can make dinner yourself or choose to go out to eat. You can make that call you've been thinking about for a while or you can put it off for another day.

What's more, you can also choose to be positive or you can choose to simply carry on living as you are. Being optimistic in a negative world starts with the decision to be positive and to carry on that way for the rest of your life.

2. Avoid Energy-Draining Vampires
Some people call them 'toxic' while others call them 'whiners', but we can all recognize a pessimist when we see one, and can recognize their horrible ability to suck all of the positive energy out of a room. This is why it's important to establish healthy boundaries with such people, otherwise, they might end up sucking all of the life out of you.

3. Imagine a Positive Future Optimism
It might sound a little pathetic right now, but actually writing down your ideas of an optimistic future will make a huge difference when it comes to your overall outlook on life. You may also want to consider a serious challenge you have in life right now, and simply sit back and think about all of the possible positive outcomes.

4. Bestow Positivity on Others Optimism
Making others feel good about themselves can have lasting positive effects on your own life. Never forget to praise your family, friends, and colleagues for the good things which they are doing in their lives, even if they don't directly affect you. Of course, you should never forget to praise yourself either, even for what might seem like the most trivial of things.

5. Recognize Your Negative Thought Patterns Optimism
It’s fine to acknowledge that bad things in life might happen at any time. After all, ignoring reality isn’t the most helpful tactic either. Being excessively negative though can seriously sabotage your chances of finding happiness in this life.

When you begin to think in a negative manner, take a moment to work out just how realistic your thoughts really are. Reframing your awkwardly negative thoughts into more realistic patterns may be the key to helping you maintain an optimistic outlook.

6. Practice Gratitude Optimism
Spending some time thinking about all of the things you have to be thankful for will often provide you with an instant optimism boost. You could even choose to keep a gratitude journal, where you can jot down anything which makes you smile. If nothing else, take a moment every once in a while to stop, smile and be thankful for the positive things in life.

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     

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How to Release Emotions Stuck in Your Body and Let Go of the Pain

We are emotional creatures, and we were born to express emotions freely and openly. Somewhere along the way, however, many of us learned to suppress emotions, especially those deemed “negative,” in order to fit in, earn love, and be accepted. This was my experience.

I grew up in a home where the motto was “Children are to be seen, not heard.” There was little emotional expression allowed, let alone accepted. No one was there to validate or help us process emotions in a healthy way. Anger was met with anger, fear went unacknowledged, and there was plenty of shame to go around.

My parents didn’t model how to deal with difficult emotions, as they struggled with that themselves. When those emotions showed up, I often felt overwhelmed and inadequate, ashamed of my failure to be a “good girl.”

I learned to bury my pain deep inside, feeling invisible, ashamed, angry, alone, and unable to ask for what I needed. Trying to hide the pain—from others and myself—I built walls, put on masks, and soldiered on. For better or worse.

My pain was buried so deep, I didn’t realize it was there until I had my own children. Motherhood opened up old wounds, the house of cards fell apart, and I began to unravel.

In my thirties, faced with growing angst and creeping depression—and motivated to be the best parent I could be to my children—I began to deal with repressed memories and old emotional residue that has left me suffering from C-PTSD, chronic back pain, sciatica, headaches, and anxiety.

As a child, I hid from the emotional pain by delving into the world of books, music, and academics. As an adult, I realized I was strong enough to face it. I wasn’t a little child anymore; I didn’t have to hide. Now I was more mature and had resources I needed to finally face the pain that used to overwhelm my young brain—and begin to heal it.

The truth is, we all hide our emotions occasionally. We pretend, avoid, and deny uncomfortable emotions in an effort of self-preservation, as a defense mechanism.

We do this most often with difficult emotions like shame, fear, or anger. When we experience events that emotionally overwhelm us and we’re unable to process what is happening, accept our emotions, and express them through our body and mind, we hide them deep inside us where others can’t see them. And we end up hiding them from ourselves too. Yet, they’re still there.

The unresolved emotions get trapped in our body where they build and fester, draining our energy, leading to burnout, emotional imbalance, and eventually disease. When we chronically repress emotions, we create toxiciy in our body, mind, and heart.

This unprocessed emotional energy is stored in our organs, muscles, and tissues. It leads to inflammation and chronic health problems, and it undermines our overall well-being.

3 Steps to Processing Emotional Energy Stuck in Your Body

The opposite of repression is expression. In order to process our emotional distress and move it though and out of our body so it doesn’t get stuck there, we need to learn to express our emotions in a healthy way, in the body and mind. But first, we need to learn to recognize and accept our feelings as they come and go.

Step 1: Recognize (self-awareness)

The challenge is to recognize the emotion and feel it in your body. This is where mindfulness comes in. The goal is to notice what is happening within our body, accept it, and feel it fully, without judgment.

If you’ve ever come across Tara Brach’s teachings on radical acceptance, the practice of R.A.I.N. should sound familiar. R.A.I.N. stands for recognize, allow, investigate, and nourish (with self-compassion), and it “directly de-conditions the habitual ways in which you resist your moment-to-moment experience,” according to the teacher.

Buddhist teachings tell us that human suffering is caused by aversion and resistance to what is happening. Acceptance is liberating, and the practice of R.A.I.N. teaches us to accept our moment-to-moment experience instead of running from it. It teaches us to face any difficulty head on, with self-compassion and the understanding that it will eventually pass.

We have to feel it to heal it—we have to fully experience the emotion in order to process and integrate it into our experience.

But we must feel it in the body; this is the critical point. As Brach writes, “If the process of including difficult emotions in awareness stops at the level of cognitive understanding without a fully embodied experience, the genuine acceptance, insight, and inner freedom that are the essence of true healing will not be complete.”

Practice mindfulness to get better at recognizing your feelings and observing the bodily sensations connected to those feelings, as they come and go throughout the day. Offer yourself self-compassion as you go through more difficult emotions.

PRACTICE:
Sit still for few minutes with your eyes closed. Listen to your body and become curious.
What does your body feel like right now? Is there any pressure or tingling? Where? Do you feel heavy, hot, contracted, warm, or cold? What is the texture, weight, and shape of sensations you notice in your body? What emotions are those sensations connected to? Can you breathe into the parts that call your attention? What do those parts of your body want to tell you? What do they want?

Step 2: Respond (self-expression)

Emotions need to be expressed to be processed. The goal is to move the energy of emotion through and out the body so we can let it go.

This self-expression must be authentic and embodied. Remember, true healing occurs when body and mind integrate, so express the emotion on the bodily level first and foremost.

Still sitting, Ask yourself: What does this emotion you just connected with need from you? What feels right in this moment? What do you need?

Maybe you feel the need to cry, scream into a pillow, go for a swim, walk or run, dance it out, hit a punching bag, do some gardening, tapping, yoga or TRE, paint your feelings out, or simply breathe deeply while facing the sun—whatever feels cathartic in that moment, do it.

You will free the poisonous emotion that you carried within yourself, and free yourself from its shackles.

Follow this step with one of the best forms of emotional healing—journaling. Writing can be a very therapeutic experience of self-discovery, reconnecting with our true self, and processing our deepest feelings and emotions.

When we write we give our internal world a voice. We process and make sense of what is happening within us and around us. And we gain perspective; by writing about our fears and hurts we can look at them from a distance, detach from their grip, and eventually let them go. That release can be truly healing.

Practice journaling every day to get better at expressing and processing your feelings. Don’t censor or judge yourself; let it all out, completely unfiltered. Over time, your journal will become a safe space for you to free yourself, get unstuck, and move forward.

We often don’t have the time and space to process emotions in the moment, so make sure you allow yourself the space to feel the emotions you’ve had through the day and journal about it at the end of each day.

WRITING PROMPT
What is happening in your life right now that you wish you could change? What is the biggest source of frustration? As you write, notice the sensations in your body. Tune into the parts that are numb, in pain, or frozen. What are they trying to tell you? What needs healing, attention, or change?

Step 3: Reset (self-care)

If we’ve habitually neglected our bodies and ignored our emotions, we have to re-dedicate ourselves to body-mind self-care, and indulge in healing habits that will bring in the feeling of well-being.
The goal is to realign back with your authentic self, reset back to a relaxed and open state, and come back into wellness and balance.

Take time to slow down and be alone, get out into nature, make art, listen to music while you cook your favorite dinner, meditate to cleanse your mind and relax your body, take a bubble bath or a nap to restore. Take good care of yourself to awaken to life’s joy and simple pleasures that will nourish your body, mind, and soul.

My Own Healing Journey

When I decided to take charge over my own healing , I had no idea where to start. A lifelong book worm, I quickly discovered writing to be therapeutic. It became my refuge, a place where I could connect with my inner world in an authentic way. Writing became my most trusted way of processing emotions I didn’t even know I harbored inside since childhood. I discovered shame, anger, fear, grief, and eventually, self-compassion.

With mindfulness, I learned to allow my pain to surface, if only for a brief time, then surround it with tender love and care. My pain was a part of me and I was done running from it; it was time I faced it.
I learned to sense into my body, little by little, as the anxiety of reconnecting with my physical sensations was very powerful. But I realized the only way out was through—through the body—so in order to move the stuck emotions that had a tight grip over me for decades I had to allow and accept them, I had to feel the anger, the shame, the grief.

Slowly, I learned to give my inner child the support she never received. I listened to and validated her pain—and helped her let go of it. I learned to love and accept her. And I finally learned to love and accept myself.

Healing is a taxing process. Remember to give yourself all the care and compassion you would give to a friend doing this hard work. Offer yourself understanding, love, and care. This is hard work, and you are doing the best you can with what you’ve got.

Trapped emotions get in our way. They sabotage our efforts to create the life we want and make us miserable along the way. Freeing this emotional energy stuck in our bodies can shift our lives in a positive way. It’s healing and liberating. And you are worth it!

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