Fire! Fire!—What To Do When You’re Feeling Burned Out

People often say they feel “burned out” by their struggles with anxiety, but most are unaware of the deeper truth behind this metaphor.

Imagine soaking your hands in bleach for several hours, even days. You would get a chemical burn that left your skin severely raw and irritated. Even brushing up against something afterward might hurt tremendously. In a similar way, the chemicals (glucocorticoids) produced by the brain’s fear response are caustic. When persistently stressful or traumatic events trigger prolonged or too intense exposure to these chemicals, they create something like a chemical burn on your amygdala, the CEO of fear/protection system. At the very least, this can cause us to feel every stressor more acutely. Making it harder to respond in a calm. Rational way. If anxiety persists, the amygdala blasts chemicals at another part of the brain called the hippocampus, which stores emotional memories.

If the amygdala is the CEO of your fear/protection system, the hippocampus is the board secretary. While the amygdala is triggered in the presence of a threat, its the hippocampus’ job to “take notes” and remember that a particular event was anxiety-producing the past. The next time you encounter that same event, or even something remotely similar, the hippocampus triggers the amygdala and reminds you that you “should” feel anxious—even if there is no practical immediate threat present.

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For more on understanding and overcoming your anxiety

Check out:

Unworried—A Life Without Anxiety

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Calming down this threat system in our brain is an important aspect to overcoming burn out and finding peace.

Here are three ways to recover from burn out:

Be aware of your physical signs of stress—Stress shows up in our body (i.e. tight muscles, sweaty palms, wrinkled forehead) before our brain is willing to admit to itself that it’s stressed (i.e. feeling stressed/overwhelmed/anxious). Be conscious of these physical signs and when you start to notice your muscles tensing, or your breath becoming shorter/your chest feeling tighter or heavier. Focus on relaxing these physical responses to stress through rolling out your shoulders, stretching your neck, or taking slow deep breaths in order to decrease the stress chemicals in your brain before they take over your feelings.

Take breaks—Taking breaks from stress to do things that occupy you mentally and physically is a great way to decrease anxiety. Go for a walk while counting how many runners or cars you see, engage in a brief exercise break like doing 25 sit ups or 15 pushups, or take deep breaths as you say a short prayer. These breaks are not about finding long escapes from stress, but instead focus on taking down your anxiety in your environment.

Focus on Controllables—Increased anxiety often leads to a sense of powerlessness. We often focus on what we can’t control or what we wish we could do which leads to greater anxiety due to a heightened sense of a perceived threat in our brain. Focusing instead on what we can control—such as our responses, our breathing, our next step towards a solution—we are able to decrease the level of perceived threat and subsequently decrease our anxiety.

If you want more tips or greater support for overcoming your anxiety, visit us online at CatholicCounselors.com

Experiencing Advent in a Catholic HŌM

The Advent season is a beautiful time, full of anticipation and hope as we wait for the Christmas season and all that comes with it—the fun, the food, the family time, the presents, and the traditions. While it can be hard to wait, all this anticipation is meant to point toward our need to learn patience as we wait for the Glory of God, the Hope of Nations, to enter our lives more fully on Christmas Day.

So how do we communicate the spiritual benefits of waiting through this season to our kids?

Being patient is something that is often hard for adults, never mind kids, but the Rite of Christian Relationship can help us take advantage of this Advent season to develop and strengthen the virtue of patients.

Make Waiting a Positive Experience—Children (especially young children) struggle with the concept of time in general, which makes waiting even more difficult. When parents set a time frame on something, (such as getting a snack, when we’ll arrive at our destination, or when we get to play a game) our kids often ask (maybe a million times), “Is it time yet?”  Take this as an opportunity to make being patient a positive experience. When your child asks you over and over if it’s time, stay kind, loving, calm, and affirming in your response. Say things like, “I know you’re excited to have your snack (or play your game), you’ll be able to have it in X minutes. Can you tell me about what you’re most excited for (about your snack or game)?” This type of response is affirming and engaging. It helps the child process their own excitement and allows them to focus on preparing to receive their gift. Remember that your child is not being selfish or rude in asking you over and over how much time is left, they don’t yet have the ability to conceptualize time. Use your relationship with your child to teach them that patience is a good thing and model to them how to effectively practice the virtue of patience by being patient with them in your responses.

Fulfill Your Promises—Just as God fulfills His promises to us, it’s important we (do our best) to fulfill our promises to our children. If we tell our child a timeframe and fulfill our promise to them—such as, “You can have a snack in 10 minutes” then set a timer and give our child a snack in 10 minutes—we’re able to help them develop a better sense of time, and also develop a real sense of trust in their relationship with us. It’s easy to tell our child a time frame for something, then hope they forget about said thing in that amount of time. But using this “out” causes our child to learn that “10 minutes” maybe means hours or days—which hurts both their understanding of time, and their trust in us/their ability to rely on us.

Create a Visual—creating a visual representation of time passing is a great way to help our kids learn to be patient (and even enjoy the wait)! Of course, Advent calendars are a fantastic way to help our kids understand each day in the Advent season. However, we can do things like this even on a smaller, daily basis. If we need our child to wait for a few minutes, set a timer that they can see. If they ask you how much time is left, ask them to tell you what the timer says so that they can be engaged in the waiting. If you’re on a car trip, draw a map and every hour move a sticker closer to the destination. Make a schedule for the day and allow your child to color in the boxes that depict the hours as they pass or the tasks as they are completed. Creating a visual for time helps our kids to better understand the passing of time and learn to be patient.

Waiting is hard, but it doesn’t have to be bad. As we see in this Advent season—this time of patience and preparation—there is real beauty in waiting and it makes the reward that much better.

If you want more ideas for experiencing Advent in your Catholic HŌM, join the conversation on Facebook at Catholic HŌM—Family Discipleship!