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Episode 272:
Show Notes
The podcast episode discusses strategies to manage feelings of overwhelm, especially in the context of metabolic health, weight management, and mindset.
Dr Mary Barson and Dr Lucy Burns address the challenges of maintaining metabolic health, particularly for women experiencing overwhelm due to societal, familial, and work pressures. They emphasise the importance of mindset and small, sustainable changes over perfection and drastic overhauls.
- Overwhelm is Normal: The hosts normalise feelings of emotional and mental overload, acknowledging that it's common, especially for women due to societal and familial pressures.
- Diet Culture Trauma: There is discussion about the negative impact of diet culture, where weight loss is excessively emphasised as a marker of worth, leading to anxiety, guilt, and shame.
- Progress Over Perfection: Taking small, manageable actions is encouraged as a way to begin change; perfection is not required and even tiny steps help build momentum and new habits, according to neuroscience.
- Practical Tiny Steps: Examples include:
- Drinking morning tea or coffee outside for sunlight exposure.
- Prioritising protein in the first meal of the day.
- Utilising leftovers for breakfast.
- Establishing a regular bedtime routine to improve sleep.
- Active Relaxation Techniques: Deep breathing, meditation, mindfulness, and hypnosis are recommended for stress reduction, with special mention of their free hypnosis resource for relaxation. You can find our free relaxation hypnosis on our website: www.rlmedicine.com/nurture
- Metabolism and Mindset: Good metabolic health depends not just on physiological factors but also on effective mindset management for sustained well-being.
Takeaway Messages
- Overwhelm is normal and should not be stigmatised; taking tiny steps can make meaningful change.
- Effective health and weight management programs should prioritise sustainable habits and mindset over strict diet culture.
- Healthful changes begin with the easiest, most manageable actions, with ongoing emphasis on self-compassion and realistic progress.
Episode 272:
Transcript
Mary Barson (0:04) Hello, my lovely friends. I am Dr Mary Barson.
Dr Lucy Burns (0:09) And I'm Dr Lucy Burns. We are doctors and weight management and metabolic health experts.
Both (0:16) And this is the Real Health and Weight Loss podcast!
Dr Mary Barson (0:21) Hello lovely friend, Dr Mary here, joined by the fabulous Dr Lucy. Together we are Real Life Medicine. How are you Dr Lucy?
Dr Lucy Burns (00:32) I am fabulous. Thank you for asking Dr Mary, I am. You know I think sometimes I'm not fabulous and I tend to just say great or good anyway so you don't always — you know, when people ask you how you are, you don't necessarily want to tell them, “oh well, I'm a bit tired, I'm a bit overwhelmed, I had a crappy night's sleep, I feel shit.” You don't really necessarily want to say that, so sometimes we just answer with “yeah, good.” But no, I am — I am feeling very, very good this week. You know we usually record well and truly in advance of our episodes being released, and this time we're cutting it a little bit close. But I think the thing is that we've just started this round of the 12 Week Mind Body rebalance. It's always — it's my favourite thing to see new people coming in, getting excited, seeing the hope in their, you know, in their posts and all those sorts of things. So I guess, you know, surrounding yourself with hopeful people is, you know, to use a slightly cringy word, uplifting.
Dr Mary Barson (01:28) Definitely, definitely. It has a beautiful aura of a lovely fresh start, doesn't it? Barking on something together. I love it too.
Dr Lucy Burns (01:37) Yeah, absolutely. So I thought it's a good time then to talk about, you know, some mindset things. And, you know, it's so interesting — even in my clinic, people like to come and talk to us, or they like to turn up when things are going well. And I understand that because humans love, you know, some feedback, some positive feedback, a bit of a pat on the back, “yay, great, yay!” And when things aren't going well, then there is the tendency to either not show up, or to run away, or, you know — and again, if you're having medical appointments, you might postpone the appointment or cancel the appointment. And the interesting thing is that that's often when people need us the most.
Dr Mary Barson (02:15) Yeah absolutely. I had an exercise physiology appointment last week, and I'd seen them a month before. But for the first two weeks of the month in between, I got sick, the kids got sick, and I had all these exercises to just do some rehab on my hip. And, you know, for two weeks I didn't do very much of it at all. So I only had like two weeks of rehab under my belt, and I really wanted to cancel it — I just wanted to run away and hide. But I didn't. I turned up and fessed up to how, you know, two weeks further away from where I should be, and of course it was fine and extremely helpful.
Dr Lucy Burns (02:47) Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think that is — it's our tendency when we feel like we're not doing it well enough, we're not doing it good enough, we're not being perfect enough, that we will do nothing.
Dr Mary Barson (02:59) And I think this is a very common feeling that people have: overwhelm. Overwhelm can hit us in all aspects of our lives, but I think it's particularly common in the field of health. And, you know, Lucy, we were debating — are we going to talk about weight loss overwhelm, or are we going to talk about, you know, health overwhelm? And because we have a love-hate relationship with the term weight loss, don't we? Because we are not — we're not really about weight loss as much as we are about health and metabolic health, and then that healthy weight loss you get as a happy side effect of metabolic health. But even if we're talking about metabolic health here, and the steps we can take to be metabolically healthy, full of energy, and a healthy fat burner, just taking those steps can seem overwhelming. And addressing the overwhelm is an important place to start.
Dr Lucy Burns (04:00) Yeah absolutely. So I mean, overwhelm is often when our brains, you know, are juggling all the balls — it's got so many things on it, flitting between what it should be doing, what it could be doing, what's important. Sometimes it doesn't even have a great handle on what's important — everything seems important. And so two things can happen: either the things that are about, you know, you, the person, they get put down the list because, you know, other priorities — other people's priorities — seem more important. Or alternatively, when we are overwhelmed, we often do nothing. Like, nothing, because everything feels hard. So you do nothing. Procrastination sneaks in. You start scrolling on whatever phone, or you start — you know, some people will do what I love to call noble procrastination, which is where they start, you know, cleaning the house or something. So it's not useless stuff, but it's perhaps not actually a priority really, particularly around their health.
Dr Mary Barson (04:58) And this emotional and mental overload — I mean, it can affect anyone, but it is particularly common in women. Women experience high rates of overwhelm due to the unique, you know, societal pressures, family pressures, work pressures that we face. Certainly I struggle with intermittent overwhelm — I think that everybody, most women, do. I think it's a really, really common experience, and I think it's important to normalise it. These feelings are normal, and we shouldn't feel shame around moments of overwhelm or indeed, you know, entire seasons of overwhelm. It's not a shameful thing, and attaching stigma to it is only going to make it worse. So I think it's good to try to encourage some open conversation about it. Like, you know, but it is hard. Like I said — how are you today, Lucy? Like, I'm good, but if you were completely drowning in, you know, emotional overwhelm and mental overwhelm, you might have still said, “yeah, I'm good,” so don't necessarily open up about it all that.
Dr Lucy Burns (05:57) Often no, because I think sometimes the phrase, in inverted commas, “they're not coping,” implies that there is some failing with the person. So the person's not coping, rather than looking at perhaps their environmental stressors and the load that they're carrying. Not all people carry the same load, and the phrase “the straw that broke the camel's back” is never more true than with people who are carrying big mental loads. And then something else just tips them over. It's not that they're weak or hopeless — I mean, they're carrying an enormous load, and then it's just one little thing, and you feel like your whole life's unraveling. Again, when I say you feel like it, it may be that your whole life's not unravelling, but it can feel like that.
Dr Mary Barson (06:44) Absolutely. We start zoning in on the negative and focusing on all the things that we're doing wrong, all the things that are going wrong. I reckon in the sphere of health and healthy change, there are additional reasons why women feel overwhelmed. You know, there's a lot of conflicting health information out there — a lot of it's confusing, a lot of it's contradictory. Decades and decades of diet culture have put pressure on us, have created anxiety about food, about food choices, anxiety about body image, which adds layers of complexity, adds layers of shame, guilt, and self-blame that are often perpetuated by diet culture. Yeah.
Dr Lucy Burns (07:23) Absolutely. Which is again the reason why, you know, we have a love-hate relationship with the phrase “weight loss,” because for many people that's embedded in the whole, you know, fabric of diet culture: weight loss at any cost, thin is best, that you're only valuable if you've been… you know. That messaging is so far from what we believe, what we teach, and how we practice. But it can trigger that for other people. So when, you know, if we talk about weight loss, they think again around thinness. And I think it's really important to recognise that all of us — you know, we talk about diet trauma, diet culture trauma — we're all vulnerable to it. We are all vulnerable to it. And this is particularly so when you are overwhelmed, because your brain just goes to the fact that you're failing, that you're hopeless at everything. And now, look, on top of all of this, you know, my brain used to say, “and on top of all of this, you're fat, so what good are you?”
Dr Mary Barson (08:23) Yeah. Absolutely, my brain does that too. Sometimes, you know, I still fall into that trap — those stories, you know. Having lived my whole life, you sort of, you know, battling my weight to some degree has made these stories pretty deeply entrenched that thinness is associated with worth. And although the voices are much more quiet now, they're still there and they're much more likely to rear their ugly head when I'm already overwhelmed, when my brain is already, well, everything is going so badly — “you're already doing such a terrible job, oh and look, there's another thing that you're doing terrible.” So it could be so much easier to engage in those healthy mindset habits when things are going well, harder when things aren't going well. And so if you feel like you're drowning, if you feel like you're overwhelmed, what can you do?
Dr Lucy Burns (09:12) Well, It's interesting. What our brain wants to do is it wants to run away and hide. And, you know, we often teach this beautiful — it's a picture of a grizzly bear hiding behind a tiny, tiny tree, and it thinks it's hiding. And our brain does that. So it stops engaging in anything. It doesn't want to go for a walk because, you know, in its mind, a walk's not worthwhile unless you're doing a proper walk. So don't bother just going halfway down, around, you know, down the end of the driveway — that's not going to do anything. And so it'll talk you out of doing anything. So we kind of run away and hide. So what we want to do is go, okay, just being aware of that — our brain does it because it keeps us safe, so there's some logic to it, but it's just not that helpful. So we know that momentum begins, like everything — and it sounds like a cliché — but with the first step. So doing something is helpful. And so I do love the phrase, you know, it's an oldie, another oldie but a goodie: something is better than nothing. And it truly is progress over perfection, and don't let perfection be the enemy of good. We need to be reminding ourselves of those sorts of phrases because sometimes, once we start something that's manageable, that's easy, that's almost a no-brainer, well then you can layer it when you're ready. You don't have to even have a timeline on it.
Dr Mary Barson (10:39) Yep, this is exactly right. This is working with your brain — working with your brain when your brain feels overloaded, just starting with something small. And it can be tiny. I mean, neuroscience shows us that even just a small, tiny, consistent little habit that we're able to do consistently — we don't have to do it perfectly, just consistently — it starts to build new neural pathways. And then, with those new neural pathways, it becomes easier to maintain. So, like, tiny little steps, tiny little habits that we start now are far easier to maintain than drastic overhauls. drastic overhauls don't generally tend to work. So something small, even if it feels trivial, can still create that momentum that you discussed. And then that momentum helps to change our brain. It helps create the ripple effects that then we're able to do the next little change when we're ready, and then the next little change. So practical tiny steps are good. And if you're really drowning, maybe you just need to grab on to some sort of metaphorical life vest and just hang on to it for a while and just float on that until you can find your feet, you know, on the sand again. And I think it could be good, Lucy, to talk about what — so the metaphorical life vest that you could grab on to, or what are some practical little tiny steps that you could try.
Dr Lucy Burns (12:00) Yeah, so I think we can give you a list of options, and then what I would recommend is that you go with the immediate one that sounds the easiest — so whatever your brain suddenly latches on to and goes, “yeah, I think I could do that,” not what you think you should do, or what would be the best, or what would be the most effective, but what is going to be the easiest for you. So it could be something like, you know, having your cup of tea or your cup of coffee outside in the morning, getting a little bit of morning sunlight into your eyeballs to reset your circadian rhythm and help manage your underlying cortisol and melatonin. Okay, for some people that might be easy. For other people, they might be going, “oh my god, you've got no idea, Lucy, I live in Tasmania and it's negative 20 degrees every morning,” in which case you go, “okay, don't do that.” So that's one idea. What's an idea from you Miss?
Dr Mary Barson (12:52) I think protein. And just the first meal of the day, whenever that is — if it's 6 a.m. or 12 p.m., or whenever — for the first meal of the day, just put the protein first. Think about protein for your first meal of the day. You don't necessarily have to count it, you know, anything, but just put protein first. And that is a great way to start supporting your satiety and your metabolic health.
Dr Lucy Burns (13:15) Absolutely. And so for me, at the moment, I am — I've made them up in advance. And again, you know, you don't have to if you're overwhelmed, don't worry. But, you know, even the night before, I put some yogurt. I've got this, not so interesting, it's not high-protein yogurt, but it actually has a lot of protein in it because it's a Chobani yogurt — it's made with some milk solids, so it's got some extra protein in it. So it's not kind of completely enhanced or anything. So it's a Chobani yogurt, I add a few, you know, tablespoons of chia seeds in it. I put some frozen berries in it, which melt overnight, and stir all that up. You know, it's just plopped in a jar, and then that's ready. And it gives me — it's not a savory breakfast, again I know we've got evidence around savory breakfast, but it's an easy breakfast and doesn't have to be perfect. And then in the morning, I'll fling in a few walnuts, which are my current thing at the moment. And good to go
Dr Mary Barson (14:09) Beautiful. I love it. For me, I'm a big fan of leftover dinner for breakfast — it's just already cooked, and I'll just heat it up. That would not suit everybody, but it suits me. Yes, mornings — mornings are busy in my life. Yeah, yeah.
Dr Lucy Burns (14:29) Yeah, which is interesting. I mean, and this is a, you know, side topic, but we did do a couple of posts, and we probably need to reinvigorate this once. Kellogg's in America started promoting cereal for dinner as a way to increase their cereal sales, and it was like, “great breakfast!” So instead of brekkie for dinner, we're doing dinner for brekkie.
Dr Mary Barson (14:47) We are — yep, sweeping that, just flopping that around.
Dr Lucy Burns (14:50) Yeah, absolutely. But you're right — that is a great, easy option if you've got leftovers.
Dr Mary Barson (14:56) Hmm, what's another one, Lucy? Another little tiny practical step.
Dr Lucy Burns (14:59) Yeah, so for me, going to bed at a reasonable time. So when I'm a little bit stressed or overwhelmed, my brain wants to just comfort-watch Netflix or comfort-watch some telly. So that's okay. And in the olden days — so today’s, like, before streaming services, there wasn't a lot of choice, so you watched your show, and if the next show that came on was not of interest, it was sort of a good punctuation point to go to bed. Whereas now, of course, you can watch your shows, and they just automatically loop over, and you suddenly realise you've said you're gonna watch one show, and you've watched four, and it's now midnight. And yet drag — you’re, sorry, asked to bed. And, you know, at some stage in there, you were sort of thinking, I should go to bed, but you're almost too tired to go. I used to have this wish that I had some sort of magic carpet that would just bundle me up and plop me into bed. No, I've had that before — too tired to move. Yeah, yeah. So again, you know, for me, when I realise that's happening, I do a couple of things. I'd actually get ready before I watch the show. So I'll go and, you know, do my nighttime routine, which for me is usually slapping on a bit of HRT, put on my pajamas, and then brush my teeth. Then I'll go and sit down, and then I have an alarm. And again, you know, sometimes I'm good at that, and every now and then I'm not. But at least it's something, because I do know that going to bed is a gift to my future self, and my future self is the next-day self, not, you know, the future self in 20 years.
Dr Mary Barson (16:30) Yeah, yeah. Future Lucy, thanks you.
Dr Lucy Burns (16:32) Yeah, yeah. She does.
Dr Mary Barson (16:34) I reckon another really simple thing, if you're feeling overwhelmed or unsure of where to start, is to do some kind of active relaxation. And this can be tricky because if your brain is stressed and overwhelmed, it's not going to want to relax. Because at some level, the stressed and overwhelmed brain, with that activated fight-or-flight response, deep in your brain, literally believes that your life is in danger. You might not consciously think that, but the deeper emotional part of your brain literally believes that, and believes that it has to be hypervigilant — you know, scanning around looking for the threat, looking, how can I keep myself safe? How can I keep my children safe? How can I stop ourselves from being harmed? And that's churning away in the back of your mind, which is of course really, in itself, very overwhelming. But just taking a few minutes to break that cycle, as best you can — like if you relax one out of ten, that's still a victory. You don't have to reach this beautiful, you know, Nirvana-like state. But a few minutes of an active relaxation practice — like deep breathing, a short meditation, some mindfulness, or, what we love, a little hypnosis session — all those beautiful added benefits can help sort of reset the nervous system. They can help send signals of safety from your conscious brain and signals of safety down to that emotional brain. It can just dial it down, and that has huge benefits for your mindset, even huge benefits for your metabolism, benefits for your sleep. It has a beautiful sort of flow-on effect. So just a few minutes a day can really make an impact. So that's one that I love. Lucy, what are some easy ways that people could get some relaxation into their day?
Dr Lucy Burns (18:24) Yeah, well I think you're right. I mean, the thing I like about hypnosis is that because part of the process of hypnosis is to actively relax each muscle group. For example, there's the concept of the top-down approach to relaxation and the bottom-up approach. The bottom-up is where you use your muscles — like, you're starting with your body and you're relaxing the body. And when the body is relaxed, again, as you mentioned, it sends really powerful signals to the brain that I'm safe, I'm okay. Because, you know, nobody who's standing in front of a lion decides to relax all their muscles, and nobody who's standing in front of a lion decides just to, you know, pat themselves gently on the arm — which are all the things that we do, do to reassure people, reassure ourselves. So I think that, yes, a muscle relaxation component is really helpful. And as you said, if you're then inclined to tie it in with a hypnosis, well that's like winning twice because you've got these lovely positive suggestions into the subconscious mind that are helping you, that are really powerful, even though your logical brain will go, yeah, I don't think that's gonna work. That's right.
Dr Mary Barson (19:37) Yes, in hypnosis, your logical brain, the thinking brain, is still there — it's still aware of what's going on as you enter this lovely relaxed state, but it's just sort of put on the shelf for a moment. And when it's put on the shelf, it means that the lovely relaxation, and also those beautiful positive suggestions, can embed in your subconscious, and you can use the power of your subconscious to start to change those neural pathways. So it's lovely. And we've got a free hypnosis that you guys could listen to if you want to give it a go. Lucy and I are both medical hypnotherapists. We love hypnosis. We bonded, I think, over hypnosis. We both discovered we've done the same hypnosis training, not together but at different times. So, you know, hypnosis is a big part of our story. And yeah, you can get that on our website: rlmedicine.com/nurture, and we'll put the link in the show notes as well.
Dr Lucy Burns (20:26) Indeed, yeah. And I think it, you know, again, it comes back to — at the end of the day, health comes down to two things. We want really good metabolic health, and that affects so many systems in our body — you know, around insulin resistance, around bone health, around muscle health, all of that, brain health. That's all part of metabolic health. So we want really good metabolic health. And sometimes, in order to have that, we need some help with our mindset management because our brain, whilst it at many levels is trying to keep us safe, is often trying to use primitive techniques in our modern society, and they don't necessarily match up. And so we sometimes need some help with managing that as well. So metabolism + mindset — that's where it's at.
Dr Mary Barson (21:13) Yes, all right, wonderful people, wherever you are. I hope that you can feel a little bit less overwhelmed and keep moving forward towards beautiful health, a fabulous calm mindset, and wonderful metabolic health.
Dr Lucy Burns (21:26) Absolutely, so you can live your glory years feeling glorious. All right, HOTis, we will catch up with you next week. Take good care.
Dr Lucy Burns (22:38) The information shared on the Real Health and Weight Loss Podcast, including show notes and links, provides general information only. It is not a substitute, nor is it intended to provide individualised medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, nor can it be construed as such. Please consult your doctor for any medical concerns.
