2.16 wait, do i know everything, or nothing? - bouncing between student and expert
it should be a smooth progression right? you start as a grad student, and you emerge as an expert! a doctor! a colleague!!
but why does it feel so bumpy? let's talk about all the reasons why you might feel like a superstar one day, and a trash racoon the next - and things you can do to soften the bumps, too!
and sign up for the FREE webinar on turning confusing feedback into effective edits - i'm hosting dr. bailey lang and i'm so excited!
I am giving away one FREE 45 minute session with me a month to anyone who reviews this podcast on Apple Podcasts! Leave a review and I'll announce the winners in the last episode of the month, and in my newsletter! Thank you so much for helping to spread the word about the podcast! And if you are user pcynde, you won this month's free session! Email to claim!
Summer Camp has officially kicked off!! Learn more about it here - and don't forget to use the code PODCAST for 10% off any sliding scale level or payment plan!
Get your free summer planning workbook here - get a more spacious, fun, and supported summer!!
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One minute you're flying high. Feeling yourself, knowing that you are a scholar and then the next minute you feel right back at square one. And like, you don't know a single thing. Let's talk about the balance between student and scholar on this week's episode of Yeah.
📍 Welcome to Grad School is Hard, But... A Thrive PhD podcast. I'm Dr. Katy Peplin and this is a show for everyone who's doing the hard work of being a human and a scholar. And in season two, I'll introduce you to various tools that might make the hard stuff from writing to managing your time to taking care of your brain just a little bit easier.
And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for a brand new summer planning template, all available for you for free. Now. Let's get into it.
One of the trickiest parts about grad school. And a lot of other experiences where we're expected to grow and learn while also doing something. Is that we are usually both the student and an expert. We're at least growing into an expert. And this feeling of being both, it causes major intellectual, emotional, and sometimes even physical whiplash.
One second. You're writing up your research and you need to state your authority and your originality and how brilliant you are. And then the next minute your supervisor is taking pains to remind you that you haven't read every book that they have and their 92 year career. And you, in fact know nothing.
One tradition, at least in a lot of the U S departments that I'm familiar with is to invite a successful candidate back into the room after they have their thesis or dissertation defense by using their title. Can you come back in? Dr. Pepin my advisor said a signal that I had left the room for their deliberation as a student but I was entering back into it as a colleague. And in theory, that transition happened smoothly over the course of my five years in the programs. I started as a student, I went through coursework. I took my exams, I passed it into candidacy. I did my reviews. I went to conferences and slowly and slowly and slowly, I built up that expertise until poof. I defended I was an expert.
I was a colleague. I was a doctor. But emotionally and physically, and even sometimes administratively, I went backwards and forwards all of the time. Sometimes I felt like I was more than capable to teach my undergraduates and being an expert to all of my students write up my research. I felt like I was making original contributions. And then at other times I felt like I couldn't even be trusted to know what email was or how other humans used it.
Yeah. And I want to be clear that I'm not talking about here, the separate, but related issues of imposter syndrome. And the very real feeling that many of us get that the university decides our status by convenience. I will briefly say that it was in my department's best interest to call me a student when they did not want to pay me as an expert. And it was in their best interest to consider me an expert administratively when they wanted labor. Like a class covered or somebody to volunteer at a conference or to give a talk or a guest lecture, then it was fine for me to be an expert because they weren't going to be paying me anything extra. That's the nature of being a student in a program. And it also is one of the reasons that I'm such a big fan of unions for graduate students, but that's a whole other issue.
I want to be clear here, because I am not saying that all of us are manufacturing this whiplash in our heads. There are administrative and systemic reasons why our advisors, our departments, or universities, even the field itself consider us students when it's convenient and they consider us experts when it's convenient.
That changing back and forth can be really disorienting if not dispiriting or even worse. So I just want to name this feeling. It is so hard to flop back and forth between student and expert all of the time. And know that for important structural and systemic reasons, you are never going to be able to think or self care or self confidence or hype yourself out of that switch. Some of it is completely outside of your control.
But the truth is that you can also be both at the same time. In fact, we are often expert and student. teacher and learner and a lot of aspects in our life. We are always learning to do things more efficiently, more effectively, differently, and often we're using those skills in our daily lives, too.
We're learning to write better while we're also producing a lot of writing. We're working on our, improving our focus and our time management. While we also learn more about what makes our brains work and what tools do and don't support them. The important thing here that I really want to drive home in this podcast episode is that your skills have value even if, especially if you are working to improve them. You are not only worthy as a person once you're an expert. You can share what, you know, even if there are other people who do things differently than you do. So much of what makes PhD candidates stand out and why we're recruited into these programs for the first place. is our life experiences, our identities, our previous work experiences, the communities we grew up in the perspectives that we have. All of those things make us experts in our own lives, our own communities, our own spheres of knowledge. But it's so easy to get into the hollowed white halls of academia and forget that any of that matters.
So, if you are waiting to feel proud of yourself until you're an expert with nothing left to learn. You will probably never get the chance to call yourself an expert. And even if you do, if it's going to be at the very end of your career, What would it feel like instead if you gave yourself the chance to be proud of where you are right now?
while also giving yourself space to grow and change. What would it change for you if you gave yourself permission to celebrate how far you already come on this path? While still acknowledging that there's more to go. Yeah, it is so destabilizing to be in an environment that depends on distinctions between experts and novices, for promotion advancement and in a lot of cases for even praise and feedback. But don't let the ego games of academia convince you that you're still a scrawny student at the whims of your teacher in every facet of your life. And to that end, here are three different things that you can try over the next week, or maybe even further along, that might help you feel into the ways in which you are already capable. You're already an expert.
You are already a person who can learn and celebrate what you've learned at the same time. So the first thing to try is owning your expertise. You might find that you are an expert in all kinds of things. You maybe are an expert in how to cook a fantastic set of pancakes for breakfast, or you're an expert in using the autoclave machine in your lab.
Maybe you are an expert in a particular method or a piece of software, maybe you are the grad student that everyone goes to to figure out how to get their canvas sites to work. In what ways is your expertise already being drawn on as a resource in your department, in your human life, in your communities?
And what would it feel like to make a list of all of those things that you're already really good at? Our brains naturally focus on the stuff that we wish we were better at already. Like the fact that I am not as good at Excel as I want to be, or I can't code an R yet, or I'm still taking this course to improve my language skills. Everybody's got those things and yeah, it's healthy to keep growing and striving and always improving our skills.
To a point. But if we never stop and name, the fact that we have already improved ourselves, we have already grown and changed and learned things. Then it can feel like you're caught on that. Never ending hamster wheel of just never being good enough. So take a moment list those things that you're already an expert at and see if there's any way that you can claim a little bit of that expertise for yourself. And the next week or so.
Option number two that you could try is owning your expertise in non-academic spaces.
Maybe you teach a class at your local yarn shop about how to knit. Because it gives you such a pure amount of pleasure to be an expert in share something that you love. Maybe you go and volunteer at the local museum and you give tours and you feel like, wow, I'm a docent. And I'm teaching these kids things and it feels great. Or maybe you pick the most complicated recipe that you know, how to make you invite all of your friends and you wow them with the fact that you can make souffle's right there on the spot.
You do not only need to be an expert in the thing that you were working on professionally. And sometimes that little bit of mastery feeling in another space can really go a long way.
Last, but not least I would love it. If you experimented with remembering that it is okay to still be learning. And if it feels unsafe or unwelcome or a little bit tender and vulnerable to do that at work.
Why not still learn in another space. That's completely separate. I love learning new hobbies for this. I think that. Taking on hobbies during my PhD was one of the reasons why I finished it was so great for me to go to a yoga class and work on a new pose. And fall down a bunch and you don't mess it up a bunch and mix up my left and right.
A thing that I'm notorious for doing. And remember that it was okay to play. It was okay to fall down. It was okay to not be good at something yet. That was such a liberating feeling when I felt like every other aspect of my life was such high stakes. I encouraged you to find someplace where it feels a little bit more comfortable to not be good at something.
Maybe you take a pottery class or you watch a bunch of YouTube videos and teach yourself how to watercolor. The sky's the limit, but giving yourself that chance to practice learning in another space. Might help you feel a little bit more comfortable doing it in your professional life too.
But anyway, you shake it. Grad school is one long apprenticeship in which your expert in student status in theory progresses in a linear line, but most of the time bounces up and down sometimes a million times a day. And anyone's nervous system is going to get kicked up by that. Just remember that part of that is how the system is designed.
And there's also a lot of space to give yourself support. As you move through the ups and the downs on the path to becoming a doctor.
And if you are struggling with the ups and downs of revision, make sure that you check out the show notes. I am hosting a free webinar on June 20th, all about taking confusing feedback and turning it into an actual plan to edit and revise your writing. I'm hosting the amazing Dr. Bailey Lang to give this workshop. And I'm so excited to have her and all of you join us.
More links are at the bottom sign up it's completely free and it will also be recorded and transcribed afterwards. In case you can't make it live. Otherwise, I will see you around the neighborhood. Bye. Great.
📍 Thank you for listening to Grad School is Hard, but... You can find more information and resources in the show notes and at thrive-phd.com. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
2.15 get out the good pens - switching to paper
i'm not sure what came first - my passion for notebooks and pens, or my reliance on those tools when i feel stuck and overwhelmed with my writing. this week, i'm talking all about the benefits of going pen on paper - to slow down, to be less linear, and to get unstuck! if you've been waiting for an excuse to get out the good notebook and your favorite pen, wait no more!
resources:
summer planning workbook - she's free!
summer camp - enrolling now for the rest of the summer!
giving away one FREE 45 minute session with me a month to anyone who reviews this podcast on Apple Podcasts! Leave a review and I'll announce the winners in the last episode of the month, and in my newsletter! Thank you so much for helping to spread the word about the podcast! And if you are user pcynde, you won this month's free session! Email to claim!
Summer Camp has officially kicked off!! Learn more about it here - and don't forget to use the code PODCAST for 10% off any sliding scale level or payment plan!
Get your free summer planning workbook here - get a more spacious, fun, and supported summer!!
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Get out that fancy notebook that you've been saving, your best pen, or those cool post-it notes. You out. Because this week's episode is all about taking your thoughts and putting them on paper.
📍 Welcome to Grad School is Hard, But... A Thrive PhD podcast. I'm Dr. Katy Peplin and this is a show for everyone who's doing the hard work of being a human and a scholar. And in season two, I'll introduce you to various tools that might make the hard stuff from writing to managing your time to taking care of your brain just a little bit easier.
And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for a brand new summer planning template, all available for you for free. Now. Let's get into it.
Computers are obviously amazing. They're so powerful. They're so capable. But have you ever met a really good notebook? That's bound just the way that you want to. And that pen that has the exact right ink flow. There's something that can't be beat about working on paper.
And one of the things that I encounter with a lot of my clients and even with myself, Is that there can be a real resistance to stepping away from the computer and working in another space. And I think a lot of that comes from this fear of not being efficient enough. Why would I do pre drafting work or outlining or restructuring? =On a piece of paper or a hard copy or a notebook, if I'm just going to have to quote, redo all of that work on my computer later. Now, I'm not here to try and turn any of us into people who write all of our drafts longhand, and then send them to the typist to get them ready for our advisor's eyes. But I am suggesting that in a few specific situations, it can actually help you speed up to slow down and work in the less efficient, but more tactile realm of the paper.
Computers are a place where you can move your writing forward really quickly. But this also creates a sensation of going a little bit too fast than the actual ideas are developing. If you have ever found yourself, lost scrolling through a long document, not finding what you needed, clicking way to Twitter to try and find it hunting down that citation, remembering that you needed to book a dentist appointment, Googling that.
The loop goes on and on then you've maybe experienced what I'm calling this sync up issue, where your brain is going at a certain speed and the computer allows everything else to go quite a bit faster. Writing, especially at certain points can be a slow process. You are generating new knowledge. Therefore it will take you a little bit of time to formulate these ideas, get them ready get them lined up sequentially so that you can write them down at a document.
Working on paper, it gives you a chance to break out of that linearity. Slow down and let your brain generate those ideas at the pace that's a little bit more comfortable for you. It's not to say that you won't get back to the computer and then have all of those temptations in scrolling that you might have already had.
But for the particularly sticky seasons, when you feel stuck, when you feel overwhelmed, moving to paper is actually a way to help break that pattern of kind of frantically clicking or typing and retyping and deleting things. That real frantic nature can be calmed down by a little bit of on paper work.
Here are a few of the ways that I like to work with my writing on paper. Take what's useful and leave the rest. But I think that these benefits alone are worth an experiment in the next couple of weeks. Writing on paper, it can open up a variety of different workspaces. Pop into an empty classroom to use the whiteboard.
Take your notebook to the library or a coffee shop, work in a different corner of your couch. This is one of those changes that seems really small. Why would it make a difference for me to go to the library instead of my office, where all of my things are and all of my special mugs. But if you were feeling really stuck, really sticky, really slow going somewhere else and going somewhere else without all of the trappings of all of the other jobs and roles that need your attention can really make the difference and get you a little bit of fresh air, so to speak.
Benefit number two. It can be easier to share your thinking with other people. If you're working on paper. A brainstorming session with a mind map that you make on a big piece of paper or a whiteboard in an empty classroom can be an excellent way to get your thinking about an argument more clear while you show your work to a writing group or an advisor.
I know that I used to sit in coffee shops with my very best friends and I would scribble things and be like, see, don't you see it? I would draw them diagrams and I would connect the ideas and having it on paper, helped them follow me a little bit more as I was trying to work out those ideas. And even if you don't have an extra person to share these ideas with, I have also done high quality brainstorming with my cats or with an imagined, interested. Yeah, kind of feedback giver. And the paper makes it easier for me to remember what I was saying and for them to follow along whether they are feline or human.
Writing long hand, whether in full sentences or just in bullet points. I can allow you to slow down the actual production of words and see your own thinking more clearly. I know that I think really fast and my fingers can almost get there, but if I'm writing long hand, it takes me quite a bit of effort to get all of those words out. So.
Free writing is one of those techniques where they slow the race and the kind of frantic nature of the thoughts down so that you can see them. As opposed to scrolling through the document, looking at the feedback, looking at the comments, imagining six different ways that you can restructure and trying to keep all of that in your head. If you're working through a particularly thorny organizational issue or argumentative change writing longhand, or even putting things on post-it notes can helpfully slow you down so that you can see what you're trying to do.
If you're in a very sticky spot. You're nervous. You're overwhelmed. Your nervous system is at an 11. Working on paper can make it easier to soothe that nervous system enough. And make it a little bit harder to bounce into a different task that ultimately is going to be a distraction from what you're trying to do.
I find that the slower pace of me writing my words out, hearing the scratch of the pen on the paper actually gives me a chance to kind of reduce that overwhelm feeling. And really dig into what I'm thinking and what I'm trying to say.
Now, there's no phase of writing that won't benefit from writing on paper. If you are feeling overwhelmed or frazzled, I find that it's particularly effective in two different phases, the pre drafting, and then the restructuring.
I have clients that start any writing project with post-it notes on the wall with big ideas, they might start with free writing in a journal or making a mind map on a big piece of paper. That pre-writing phase. Is often not linear. And when we force it into a linear by design piece of software, like word. Then it really can constrain us and make it hard to see how things might be organized.
The second phase that I recommend working on paper is if you're in the middle of a really big restructure. If you're in a restructure, then it can be really difficult to make all of those changes that people are recommending as you scroll through the document.
You might end up duplicating certain areas. You might accidentally delete more than you want to. You can get lost. It's really hard, especially with big, large scale documents to do that restructuring digitally. If you have access to a printer you might print it out, cut things up, make notes. You might re outline it or reverse outline it in a notebook just to give yourself a chance to sort of see what you have and then make a couple of changes on paper and then translate those changes back into the digital.
It's that translation process that I find stops a lot of people from slowing down and working on paper. And yeah, it is going to be a pain maybe. To sit down and type up those notes or to go through and make sure that your document lines up with the new outline that you made.
And it's this kind of tool that our brains like to tell us it's inefficient. That can be especially hard to reach for in the situations when you're feeling stressed or behind AKA the situations where they might help the most. But let me assure you that this really is one of those slow down to speed up situations. You might need to budget a little bit of extra time to input, work into your final document, but if working longhand, if writing in a notebook of doing it with your favorite pen gets you unstuck. It gets you a little more focused or support, then that benefit really outweighs the work that you need to redo. Plus pens and markers and stickers. And if you need any more of a pitch than that, I can't help you.
But if this is the kind of tool and encouragement that you really are looking for at this summer, then you are most cordially invited to summer camp. A new session is starting. It's soon. They start every two weeks and you can get more information at the link in the bio.
Plus you can download your free summer planning workbook and stay tuned for cool free webinars and all sorts of other things that are coming down the pike this summer. Thank you so much for listening and I will see you soon.
📍 Thank you for listening to Grad School is Hard, but... You can find more information and resources in the show notes and at thrive-phd.com. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!
13 - Why is it so hard to manage our nervous systems?
episode 13 - Why is it so hard to manage our nervous systems?
After nearly three decades of actively attempting to think my way out of anxiety and other nervous system concerns, I am here to report that it is hard! And it is especially hard to manage our nervous systems in a world where there's never enough time to do it, and we all believe that we'll feel better ONCE the work is done. This episode is about going body first to support our scholarship - because sometimes, our brains can't do it all.
Resources mentioned:
How to complete the stress cycle
Burnout book
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Welcome to Grad School is Hard, But... A Thrive PhD podcast. I'm Dr. Katy Peplin and this is a show for everyone who's doing the hard work of being a human and a scholar. We'll talk about why some of these things are so hard, and how that difficulty is showing up for you. Each episode has practical strategies to experiment with -- just because it's hard now doesn't mean it always has to be.
You can get my free working more intentionally toolkit@thrive-phd.com or the link in the show notes. If you want to go even deeper with the work.
In this week's episode, we're going to talk about something that I consider one of the secrets of scholarly work, at least sustainable scholarly work. And it's not your task manager. It's not your citation manager. It's not even the way that you outline your work. It's how you take care of your nervous system. The reason that this is so important is because it's one of those things that we're just not really encouraged to take a look at much less take care of throughout The day
and when those days the scholars could be filled with literally more work than you could ever complete in a lifetime, it makes sense that it doesn't always shoot to the top of our to-do list to check in with our nervous system, see how we're feeling and see if we could be feeling better.
Another reason that this can be really difficult is because so many of us have been conditioned to think that if we just finish our to-do list, if we just finished writing that chapter, if we just get that draft off our desk, If we just finish we'll feel better. And so I don't need to deal with my anxiety or the fact that I feel really shut down or lethargic because if I just work harder, I'll feel better.
But working through nervous system events often leads us to working less effectively. And most importantly it can cause some pretty serious short and long-term consequences. When I start working with a new client, one of the immediate first things that I do with them is I ask them to check in, okay.
How are you feeling? Not just today, but over time. And I am going to take you through the questions that I asked them and the experiments that I try with them. These are all things that I've used myself as a person. There are things I use with my clients, and I think that they're a really good set of tools and questions to help us get at what's happening with our bodies. When our brains are doing so much important work.
So let's hop right into those questions to consider. Number one. What does your body feel like when you're working? Do you have a protocol for monitoring how your body feels when you're working? It could be an app or a journal, or maybe it's just a little bit of a check-in before you stop or start a work session.
But what is your body doing while you're working? Do you even know. And it's okay if you don't. I hardly ever do. It's something I have to physically. Will myself to check in on. So. Question number two. Do you notice any trends in how your body feels. Maybe before or after work. The beginning or the end of the week, different points in the year.
Not just, how is your body feeling right now? Although that's a great place to start, but how does it change?
And lastly. The third question. If you have a list of activities that make you feel better. Exercise sleep walks meditation, a breathwork practice journaling. All sorts of things can be on this list, but do you consider those activities to be contingent on work? Do you put them in the category of great. If I get to it, it's a bonus.
Are they part of your literal workflow? how do these categories, the ways that you think about things like exercise or sleep or taking care of your mental health? How do the ways that you categorize them as things that you do at the end of the day, things that you do, if you get to them, make it easier or harder to do those things.
I've left a lot of time this week for the experiments to try, because there's a little bit of explanation needed, but I really hopeful that there'll be just as powerful for you as they have been for the people that I work with. And for me too. So the first experiment is called tracking your window of tolerance.
The window of tolerance is an idea that was coined by UCLA. Researchers early in the 2010s. I believe I'll have the exact dates of facts and figures in the show notes for you. But there's this idea that we all have a window, an optimal window that inside of it, when our nervous system is in this window, when our bodies are in this window, we're able to feel centered.
We feel grounded, things are easier. We're AB able to function to regulate. Great to self-regulate and be present. And what I mean. Our nervous system. I'm talking about that system in your body, that controls basically your response to external stimuli. So I have lots of resources in the show notes to help you get to know your nervous system a little bit better, but it's the.
The adrenaline part, the brain part, the anxiety part, the calm part, that whole. What is my body doing in response to the external sometimes internal stimuli. But if we all have this window where we're at our best, this optimal window. There's also nervous. System states above and below it. So if you're above it,
That's what we would call hyper arousal. And the waste that this can look and feel are high energy, anxiety overwhelm. It can feel a little bit chaotic for me in my body. This often feels like I'm bouncing between 15 tabs. I don't know what I'm working on. I can't stay focused. I'm really fidgety. I'm pulling on my thumbs. I'm not hungry. I haven't eaten in days. You know, hyper arousal is just like, everything is at an 11.
And obviously when everything's at an 11, we're not in that window of optimal function. But you can also be below the window. And this is a state that we would call hype. Oh, arousal. This can feel like being shut down or frozen or withdrawn. This is all a sort of feeling of, I just can't get myself to do the things I want to for me this often feels like I'm moving through quicksand or through mud.
Or I often describe it as like working on 10 X difficulty. That normally, if it's only one X difficult for me to get out of bed, if I'm hypo aroused, it can feel like 10 X it's just like, everything takes more out of me. So in this experiment, I would love for you to track your window of tolerance and how you feel above it, below it, write in it, moving closer to one edge or the other throughout the day.
I'm obviously not a medical doctor and nothing that I'm giving here is medical advice, but I found that if you can kind of dial into and collect some data, you know, my favorite about how you're feeling in regards to that window of tolerance, it can give you some really useful insight. Into what kind of conditions you're asking yourself to work through.
So everyone's window looks and feels a little bit different. There are a lot of reasons why some people have a little bit more resilience and are able to bounce. Within that window a little bit more effectively, there are lots of. KA neurophysical reasons and chemical reasons and history reasons why you might jump more easily than somebody else into hyper or hypo arousal, or why you might even get stuck in one of those spaces. But the first step, like any good thrive PhD experiment is to just notice it.
Okay. The second experiment is to, if you notice that you're outside of that window of tolerance to bring yourself or invite yourself back into it. Going through the motion, not as something that you'll do when you finish, but literally is part of the work. This is something that I often refer to as dealing with your nervous system body first, rather than brain first.
I know that when I first started paying attention to my nervous system, I would try very hard to think my way into a better zone. Right. I'd be like, okay, I'm going to set my timer. I'm going to think to myself, it's time to get focused now. And my body would keep doing whatever it was already doing because my brain wasn't powerful enough.
No one's is to completely interrupt the complex system of chemicals and hormones that anxiety or hyper arousal can feel like in the body. So in this experiment, I would love to invite you. To think about some of these techniques as something that you can do. As part of the work, it counts as part of your writing time or part of your teaching time.
But paying attention to which of these actually help you get back into a place where your work is more effective and it feels more supportive. So if you tend to be on the hype arousal side of the window this can look again like anxiety or overwhelm or just sort of that feeling of being amped up. Here's some things that can be really helpful.
First square breathing. So deep breaths that involve the diaphragm. I will put a link in the show notes about how to do this kind of breathing, but any kind of deep breathing can work, but hopefully one that is a little bit slower than your normal breath pattern. Brisk walking can be really great for this any exercise, but especially anything that uses both sides of your body.
Like jumping jacks or yoga poses or warm water can be really, really helpful. So, including any of those things, when you notice. That you're a little bit above, a little bit hyper aroused to try and bring yourself back down. If you find it that you're hypo aroused, you're underneath a little bit, shut down a little bit, slow a little bit quick, Sandy.
Here's some things to try smaller movements turning into bigger ones. So wiggling your toes and maybe moving that into a slightly bigger gesture where you shake your legs or kind of bounce them up and down on the floor. Anything that stimulates the senses can be really good for this. So lighting a candle, smelling it.
A strongly scented thing. Chewy or crunchy food can be really effective. Cold water can be really effective and anything that sort of like bounces your body. So if you're hyper aroused, it's a lot more vigorous because you're trying to let out some of that extra arousal and hypoarousal is sort of introducing a little bit into the system to kind of warm you back off.
So one is going down and one is warming up. But. Experiment with it and see what happened. What helps maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but it's worth a try. And most importantly, thinking about this as something that you are fully permissioned and allowed to do as part of your workflow. A lot of these things are things that I do throughout the Workday. So I include them as part of the poms. I think about my time when I go for a walk around the park, that's near my house, or get up and get a glass of water or do a couple of jumping jacks as part of my work and not something that I have to wait to do until I hit a certain point.
And that should do list. It's that integration into the workflow. That's really the magic here.
And last but not least. The final experiment is something that a couple of researchers who I'll talk about more in a minute call completing the stress cycle. So this is an experiment that's been derived from a book that I really enjoyed called burnout.
Dr. Emily Nagoski and Dr. Amelia Nagoski they're twins. They wrote this book about a variety of research and compelling studies around how modern people deal with stress. And why so many of us. Find ourselves in a state of chronic stress, sometimes even burnout. As the book title suggests. So the way they describe it is thus.
If a lion was chasing you. You would have an immediate reaction in your body. Your nervous system would kick in. You'd get a huge burst of adrenaline and you'd feel a lot of stress because a lion is chasing you. But you would also use that nervous system response to respond to the fact that the line is chasing you. So you might run away from the lion. You might freeze, you might hide, but.
Either way your whole body is getting involved in responding to the stressor that created a body event for you. So once the threat of that lion is resolved, you ran away from it, you hid from it, it left, you would feel a huge sort of burst of release. And this is something that we see in. In all sorts of mammals. If you see a zebra that's been chasing and it manages to get away.
It will literally kind of like shake on the ground to sort of release all of that extra stress. So that's the way that physiologically the stress cycle has evolved to work. However, if you're an academic and you submit a manuscript, which to our bodies can feel exactly the same. I have this thing it's so important. I have to get it done. It's due at five, but when you submit it, when you're done.
With it, you, you click the button. You really don't have that same sense of, wow. I survived a lion. Because you don't have a lot of sensory reinforcement that the threat is gone. It was just a couple of clicks and an email. And then all of a sudden, your body's just supposed to know that this thing you've been working on for months, or maybe years is completed.
So you really have to go out of your way to complete the stress cycle because we're not getting enough sensory inputs to know that it's done on our own. So some ways to complete the stress cycle.
Physical activity is one of the most effective and time efficient ones. So anything that raises your heart rate, but you can also use laughter. Deep breathing patterns can do it positive social interactions with friends, or even with strangers. Affection of all types, crying can be an effective release of the stress cycle and creativity.
So all of these things will help your body be like, okay, there was a wave of adrenaline and now I can release it. It completes that stress cycle. Instead of leaving you at that aroused state, even if the threat or the accomplishment has been completed. So in this experiment, think about building in some of those things to your natural workflow, whether that's daily or weekly, maybe it's twice daily, depending on how things are going.
But to regularly build in a release valve for this kind of stress cycle that we're all in, just because of what we do. And who we are and the world that we live in.
So in this experiment, you add one in, you see if anything changes, if it helps to kind of bring you back down into a place where you're closer to, if not in that optimum window, that window of tolerance.
I know this is a little bit different than some of the other. More scholarly focused episodes, but I thought it was really important to bring up because I've had just so many different clients come to me in the last couple of weeks saying, you know, I really wanted to feel more rested after break. I thought I was going to feel so much better. My anxiety is back. I am so shut down. It's I'm avoiding everything. And sometimes we can't think or use our, our scholarly tools out of that. We kind of have to go body first.
So I am right there with you incorporating a bunch of things to help support my nervous system. As I work through this bananas thing that we all call life, and I'm hoping that this week feels just a tiny bit more supportive. See you soon.
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