Burnout or Depression?

0:00 good morning I am coming at you guys today because I just got done doing an interview with Lynn Smith on HLN on her new show on the story and it was a really quick segment on mommy burned out versus depression and so I want to go over some of the things that I didn't get to say that I think are really important points and so I anticipate this video will be about five minutes but it may be one of the most important

0:26 five minutes that any of us really can spend because depression affects millions and millions of people in America probably about 13 million women in America they say one in four one in five women will experience depression sometime in their middle age and it's a very serious worldwide disability so I can't make the case enough that depression and anxiety are two things that we really need to be focusing on so

0:58 here's here's what we kind of talked about and here's what I want to add first of all people I wrote mommy burnout and so sometimes people have said well burnout sounds like depression so let me break down how I see the difference from stress acute stress we all experience it we have financial stress we have marital stress raising children just not enough time in the day right so we all experience a lot of acute stressors and then there there

1:26 goes to chronic stress it's like well kind of always feel this way now I don't feel the brakes so much in between the way I used to and so all of a sudden what feels like pretty typical stress now is cop is chronic stress and we really are kind of like wow don't feel out of a break when that crosses over into the next stage which I call burnout what happens in burnout is three hallmark things you have a reduced sense

1:51 of personal accomplishment so you don't feel like anything you do is really worth much of anything you start feeling physically and emotionally exhausted so no matter how many hours of sleep you get no matter if even if something kind of good happy you just still feel this level of exhaustion a lack of kind of being able to renew yourself and then there is this sort of like the cynicism so that comes along with being like you know I never

2:23 liked it here anyway with it's a job setting or at home feeling cynical like well my family's never gonna be that great perfect family so the three combinations of like reduced personal accomplishment you don't feel that great you feel pretty cynical about your situation and you feel physically and emotionally exhausted is burnout and then I think that next part of the continuum is depression / anxiety for at least half the people that experience depression and depression is different

2:52 depression causes feelings of sadness and a loss of interest in activities that you once enjoyed so there is overlap in burnout symptoms or when I focus on moms I talk about mommy burnout and then having depression in depression you have a lack of interest in things you used to enjoy you have usually you see a physical response like weight gain or weight loss the other physical experiences you have are either insomnia so you can't sleep or you're over

3:24 sleeping you can't get out of bed or a real lack of energy so that physical exhaustion again is a crossover symptom like I said earlier about half the people that experience depression also experience anxiety and so not only is it difficult for you to do things that you once enjoyed and find pleasure and things that sometimes your mind tells you I have a great family I'm such a blessed person I have good relationships in my life but you can't experience the

3:52 goodness the feeling the love and so sometimes there's a split between how you're feeling of what you're thinking usually though when you couple that with anxiety the thoughts are pretty negative and the thoughts are overwhelmingly just really pessimistic and you have to fight them which when you're feeling exhausted is really difficult to do so as you can see between stress burnout and depression there is a lot of overlap but there are something that distinguish them I think you can be

4:21 burned out from being a parent from being a caretaker or being an employee or the CEO of a company I think you can be burned out but not necessarily have depression I also think you can experience depression and not feel burned out from certain things that you do so it's really important because depression needs professional intervention most of the time I would say it's really really important that we understand and that was what Lin Smith story was about today was let's not just

4:53 all walk around saying how stressed out we are and how burned out we are and use that term lightly when actually it has really significant physiological and emotional consequences to the point where the World Health Organization estimates that by the year 2030 depression will be not only the leading cause of global disability because it's currently already that but also the leading cause of how do they put it global economic burden so this is a

5:26 really big deal so one of the things that I'll say the last piece that I'll say to distinguish are some tips for dealing with burnout and tips for dealing with depression tips for dealing with burnout I'm gonna say the top three although there are more one identify your stress style do you fight do you fight do you fight do flight or do you freeze when under stress you got to figure out if it's functioning if it is

5:53 a dysfunctional what you're doing or do you handle stress well so number one what's your stress style number two is compartmentalize your stress if things going pretty well at home and things are really terrible at work you got if you've got create boundaries set them and hold them so that they don't bleed over into each other which is what we really really see in burnout so compartmentalize is number two and three is learned how to say no so many people

6:19 struggle with learning how to say no to the things that don't cause them joy or aren't productive or they don't know time for them in their lives and then there's people that need to learn how to say yes to the things that do knew that joy and fulfillment and that's a real struggle so three tips for burnout again identify your stress style number two is compartmentalize where stress comes from and number three is learn how to say no and learn what to

6:46 say yes now three tips for depression there are a lot but I just picked the top three number one is to create community so you need to stay social so many people with depression get isolated and they really push away relationships so you want to create your community so it's either created join it or stay engaged with a community if you already have one number two is really mind your sleep are you experiencing insomnia do you need maybe help with figuring out

7:15 ways to get better sleep are you over sleeping are you staying in bed way too late you've got to have a way to figure out what the right amount of sleep is for you because it's incredibly tied into your mood and number three is movement and sunlight we know I don't say this in a really light or trite way it's not go out and exercise and saying that flippantly actual movement is something that's really important for

7:37 people struggling with depression because your tendency when you're depressed is to lay down stay still be pretty immobile and so we want you moving taking in the vitamin D from the sunlight getting out into nature these are things that are research-based of course so our meditation and yoga and there's lots of other things but I think people hear that a lot and they get turned off but I'm trying to share with people what we actually really do know

8:02 is helpful and those things are helpful as well as the top three that I just said to you again which we're create community get get good sleep and get movement and sunlight get out in nature it's very very helpful it's very difficult when you're when you're experiencing symptoms of depression when you go when you have done these things and maybe you don't feel like your depression is getting any better seek professional help we have to do that in

8:25 order to stamp out the stigma that we know is plaguing America depression is not a sign of weakness depression is genetic depression is environmental and it can be treated but you need to have usually a combination of professional therapy a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy can be very helpful medications are sometimes helpful or useful or necessary and your community is very important thanks so much for listening about this

8:56 super important topic I'm sure I'll be talking about it more I'll be talking about it next week at a conference here in Denver but women depression and burnout is something that I'm going to keep marching on and trying to help people how to deal with so thanks again for listening I hope you have a great day