New Burnout Recovery Cycle (Strategy for Avoiding Autistic Burnout)

so it's pretty common for autistic people to struggle with burnout today i'm going to share a new strategy that i've come up with a new recovery cycle that is working pretty well for me so far hi everyone paul mickalef here from autism from the inside i make weekly videos sharing the human side of autism so make sure you hit subscribe to get the latest content part of this video was sponsored by short form book summaries see the link in the description to get 20 off an annual subscription so it's no secret that a lot of us in the autism community uh struggle with burnout uh struggle to find a balance between following passion following energy getting really hyper focused on something and actually prioritizing self-care at the same time i know for myself i find it really hard to get going in a task so once i'm finally there once i'm finally in the minds i've got my mind frame going i've got my headspace in the right place and everything is actually working i don't want to stop i want to keep going i want to leverage all of this energy that i've used to get the train going like to think about like a huge massive momentum that i have to push and push and push until eventually i've built up some speed i don't want to have to stop it's really hard to come to a complete stop and then rest and then do something else and actually let my body and my brain recover so what tends to happen is i end up being a little bit binary about the situation either i'm super hyper focused on something going full speed ahead on my projects burning myself out at a rapid rate or i tend to be completely off not doing anything at all and finding it really difficult to maintain the everyday kind of executive function of just getting stuff done from day to day so um that pattern is also replicated in the binary burn the binary pattern is replicated in the burnout cycle because when things are going well i'm functioning really well and then when i run out of energy suddenly i can't do anything at all which is kind of what we what we call burnout where it's not just being tired it's being completely incapable of doing basically anything for a period of time um so that crash can be pretty intense and for a long time i thought well maybe that's just part of the process maybe i'm supposed to burn out every week and crash and then have to you know recover by doing nothing for a while and what i found is that when i tried to put that into practice it didn't quite work because i would work and work and work and then crash and then i would be so ready to get back into it so eager to get back into work to start up the project again that i wouldn't give myself enough time and i wouldn't have efficient and effective rest which means that i would burn out quicker and then quicker and then quicker and then quicker which is the big problem because that leads to long-term burnout if i don't ever fully recover from my burnout cycle then it leads to a chronic uh cycle of burnout almost recover burn out almost recover and it's like you're building up a sleep debt or something that it just builds up and builds up and builds up over time and then what happens is we can have a huge burnout period and and maybe you've come across that in your life it's quite common especially for late diagnosed autistic adults that sometimes the the reason we discover the autism is because of a massive burnout which is kind of unfortunate so that is kind of like a chronic inability to rest and what i was trying to do you may have seen my video on my my strategy to go 12 months burnout free what i was trying to do was have like a mini burnout um every week so that i would have i would completely crash i would have my down time every week so that i could fully recover and get back to a hundred percent on a regular basis and so this is working reasonably well but there's been a new development in this uh new burnout cycle that i've that i've discovered something that radically increases my my recovery so the key is that i need to be fully recovered i need to wait till i'm fully recovered before jumping into work again and what i what i found was that my old strategy was work burn out crash work burn out crash work burnout crash so i read a book recently well re-read i suppose technically uh it's a book called the gifts of imperfection by brene brown you may have heard of it it's a very famous book i highly recommend that you take a look if you haven't already or if you're the kind of person that really appreciates good summaries of a book you might like to check out the short form app with the link in the description not only do books have one page summaries but they also summarize each chapter as well so the specific chapter that really spoke to me this time around is guidepost number seven she has 10 guideposts for wholehearted living that's kind of the the framework of the book and guidepost number seven is cultivating rest and play letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth and when i was reading this chapter what really struck me was that yes i rest kind of i crash i don't do anything but there was something missing in my rest cycle something missing in my in my recovery cycle where was the play how does play impact my recovery and what is necessary about that that i was kind of missing so as i said before previously i was kind of doing work burnout crash work burnout crash and what i've learned to do now instead to to try and incorporate what i was learning from from this book into my life is that i work crash rejuvenate and then recover and so i'm still incorporating like a crash kind of of sorts into my routine and for me that crash might look like sleep it might look like a power nap it might look like zoning out or what i call zombie mode where i'm kind of physically present but my mind is just not doing anything and i will do that i will zone out i will i don't know watch something on the internet or do a puzzle or do something else that is is really like a distraction just getting my my brain to go from work mode to nothing and i'll do that for a little while but then i need another step in the process so my next step is my rejuvenation step and my and to get energy i will do things like i will go out i will join a meetup group i will go out with friends i will do a sport i will go to the gym i will go rock climbing i will i will actually actively do something in terms of some active recovery there and what i find is again this is a secondary stage getting my brain out of work mode but i'm also tiring my body out at the same time so it's still not that that restful in that sense and now and then i will add the play aspect what is play well for me play is the ability to follow my energy without any i should be doing this i'm not spending enough time on this i need to do whatever so instead of doing what i think i need to do i can do whatever i want i can be alone if i want i can do a hobby if i want i can read a book if i want i can create an ex cell spreadsheet to solve the daily wordle for me that's not a joke i actually did that um right so these are the kind of things that i actually that i actively do in my play time that help me to reset my brain so that when i get to the work part again i've had a full recovery cycle so i guess what i learned from this chapter uh from the gifts of imperfection is that rest and play are both kind of important in the recovery cycle so it's not just a matter of not doing work i need to actively do something that's playful and creative and interesting for me so that i can get back on get back onto it so crashing is in itself not recovery um but it you might notice that it's still part of my recovery so now instead of thinking oh it's the weekend i have to go out i'm like no after i finish work i'm allowed to crash and do nothing for a little while as part of my cycle so this has been working really well for me in the last little while my my goal is that when whenever i crash in the week it might be on a wednesday or it might be on a friday or it might be on a tuesday afternoon even if i have run out of energy for that week then bad luck i am resting until monday the next week because i know that if i don't rest properly then i'll build up this debt of rest and recovery that just hasn't built up and that will eventually lead to long-term burnout so i really would like to avoid long-term burnout it's been really challenging especially with covert in recent years and lockdowns in melbourne and and everything so now that i've got a slightly better schedule with gym and friends and other things that i that i can actually leave the house and and do then incorporating play into this into the schedule into into this new and improved uh recovery cycle has been really good so i hope you found that that valuable i would highly recommend the entire book of of gifts of imperfection and basically every other book that brene brown has ever written big fan here but again if you're if you prefer the kind of detailed summary then maybe you'd like to check out the short form app so uh thanks for watching um i hope you've enjoyed this video and i will see you again next week bye you

Channel: Autism From The Inside

Views: 28,819

Keywords: autism, autism spectrum disorder, asd, autism spectrum, what is autism, autistic, autism experience, what autism feels like, autism awareness, paul micallef, paul micallef autism, paul micallef youtube, paul micallef melbourne, paul micallef aspergers, paul micallef autism explained, recovery from burnout, recover from burnout, how to destress, how to prevent burnout, mental health, burnout recovery, burnout recovery stages, burnout recovery strategies, burnout recovery tips

Id: aG_41uh-WAI

Length: 11min 33sec (693 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 18 2022