#296 Dr. Emily Amos – Transcript

Jess Brady
Today I speak to Dr. Emily Moss, we’re going to talk about big uncomfortable topic, mental health. We’re gonna talk about stress, chronic stress, and ultimately burnout. We’re going to learn about em story, and how we as financial advisors can make sure that we are proactively managing our mental health journey. The conversation is confronting, because many of the things that she talks about a symptoms that I personally have experienced and you might have as well. I hope that from today’s chat, you’re able to use some of the red flags to really think strategically about how it is that you’re living, and whether you too, are on the path to burnout. Hello Dr. Emily Amos

Dr. Emily Amos
Hi Jess.

Jess Brady
Thank you so much for being here. I am so excited. And if I’m very honest, a bit nervous about today’s conversation, because I suspect as we go through today’s conversation, I’m going to have a lot of revelations about all the things that I should be doing a little bit differently. Now, I am keen to jump straight into it. Can you tell us a little bit about you and your story.

Dr. Emily Amos
So I am a GP. I’ve also got a lot of other hats that I wear on top of that one. Registered yoga teacher registered meditation teacher, I’m also an international board certified lactation consultants. And as you can guess, I’m the sort of person who chases training, knowledge and likes to stay very busy. And that all came to a fairly soul destroying halt in 2019, when I completely burnt myself out, which probably doesn’t come as much surprise to a lot of people when they hear my story on the on the surface. But despite me being a doctor who helped other people deal with stress, and who actually even taught mindfulness and practice mindfulness and meditated, I still completely burnt myself out. And it was a pretty harsh revelation to, to come to. And that was a very difficult lesson to learn firsthand. So I’ve spent the last two and a half years or so I guess, consolidating some of that knowledge, and then rebuilding in a really purposeful and deliberate way and actually starting to engineer my life with a bit of rest, factored into it, and prioritizing what’s important and learning how to let go of the things that are outside of my control and that are so important. So lots of hard lessons learnt.

Jess Brady
So if we can, can we go back to 2019? And talk about the sort of life that you were living? And were there red flags? And what were they and? And did you could the people around you see the red flags, or were you really good at hiding it as well.

Dr. Emily Amos
And it’s probably a bit of column A bit of column B, on that. I’ve always been a high achieving person, I’ve always been used to being able to push through whatever barrier was in front of me and I could achieve what I wanted to achieve or what I said I set my mind to. So you know, you don’t you don’t get into medicine and through specialty training and that far down the path I was on without some degree of tenacity and being able to push through what appears to be hurdles. And I was just I was used to that. So I did feel in that lead up to 29th of June 2019. When I actually burnt myself out. I was feeling in hindsight, a lot of those hallmarks of rising stress and really the hallmarks of burnout because no stress is different from burnout, obviously unresolved and unmanaged chronic workplace stress leads to burnout eventually, but burnout is really it’s pushing yourself. It’s not growth, you’re not sort of pushing into your growth edges. You are working on borrowed time. And and I was doing that for a very, very long time. I’m just telling myself I was sort of pushing, pushing my limits. And it was difficult, I guess, for those around me because there’s, there was no precedent of me ever falling in a heap. There was no real precedent of me not being able to cope. So there was no reason for family and friends, perhaps to suspect that I was pushing myself too hard. And certainly within my industry within medicine, there wasn’t caused my colleagues to question it, because so many of them were doing the same thing. And, you know, we’re feeling the same way it was. And it still is, you know, it is quite accepted, to be chronically stressed, to not be sleeping well, to not be putting off after work to be working all hours of the day and night, taking your work home with you. This is these are all very accepted sort of features for most of us in our day to day lives. And where’s the point where that becomes burnout? Well, unfortunately, for all of us, the only way you know that point is when you’re looking at it in the rearview mirror, and you’ve gone well past that. So it’s it’s yes, there were warning signs. Yes, there were red flags. Were they different from what a lot of people are probably experiencing in their lives right now? Probably not. Was there was there an almighty crash that that really pushed me over the edge? No, it was a pretty innocuous for the sequence of events and what actually the straw that broke the camel’s back and really sort of sent me into a tailspin triggered a series of panic attacks that culminated in me just not even being able to get out of my front door. They weren’t huge events, in the state of things. I’ve certainly were the biggest stones in the past. But that cumulative load of just chronically poorly managed stress. And you know, when we’re talking about burnout, we are talking, by definition of workplace stress. It was it had been mounting up for too long. And I had just not heeded the warning signs.

Jess Brady
I’ve heard your story. And it’s not a nice one, because it has required you to go through a pretty hard journey, but in some ways, probably saved your life. I think you say that when you had, you know, the moment you felt like sort of the world was coming crashing down on you while you were getting I think you were trying to get the kids into the car or getting off to school. Can you talk about like physically what what did happen? Like, as you said, you’d wear the hardest storms? It was it just that your body said no. And you just physically couldn’t, couldn’t go anymore? Is that Is that how bad it got to

Dr. Emily Amos
them? It’s really interesting to look back when I mean, I can I can actually detach myself from it in some ways and talk about it very non emotive Lee now. Because I’ve had a lot of I’ve had a lot of supportive time in reflection. And I’ve sort of done a lot of personal growth since then. But certainly at the time, yeah, it was my it was my body giving up. And I couldn’t actually, I couldn’t pinpoint for you why that happened to then and there. But if I looked back over the sort of months, and even probably the last couple of years before that, there been changes in my work life balance. That was sort of the that were quite insidious, I had tailored down my practice in medicine to a fairly niche area, which meant that I was increasingly professionally isolated. But I also had a patient population that were really quite intense and needy, I was working with new parents, and, and I wasn’t expecting my field surrounded by not a lot of other people doing the same work locally. So I was actually creating this sort of situation where I was intensely needed. And I had this perception that I couldn’t, I couldn’t switch myself off and that I couldn’t sort of ever get away from it. And this was part of my own when I look back my own coping mechanisms that perhaps I was quite fixed in my mindset of how I thought I had to be in terms of adopt being a doctor. And that’s something that I’ve worked on since. But then as I sort of, I kept taking on more and more work, because I kept telling myself, you know, I have to help people if they need my help. I can’t not do it. I can’t I just have to keep going. So this workload was snowballing and I wasn’t, I wasn’t even I was working part time because I had young kids. It was increasingly less part time because there was so much more permeating into what otherwise would have been time that I was meant to be. Being a mom, a wife, doing the things that actually would have helped balance things out a little bit more. Although, you know, being a mom, being a wife doesn’t necessarily it’s not easy. It’s not that it balances that out because it’s easier than paid work. It’s just having that sort of enriching, different facets of my life would have been would have been something that probably should have prioritized. And then in the lead up to those last few months before I actually burnt out You know, I wasn’t sleeping well, I was constantly waking up, as well, I really set the full night’s sleep at all that I could remember in those months leading up, I’d always wake up at three or 4am, with thoughts rushing through my head that I couldn’t switch off. I was feeling really overwhelmed by work, I’d get home. And I’d be thinking about work constantly. And in medicine, one of the hallmarks that you find sort of approaching burnout is increasingly defensive medicine where you’re practicing as you’ve, you’re already worried about every rock thing that could go wrong. And I’m practicing medicine in a way to try and defend myself against all these things that could go wrong, when nothing had gone wrong. And so that totally switches your mindset where you actually start to practice in a way that is defensive medicine, which isn’t good medicine.

So there’s, there were a lot of those hallmarks. And then in there, sort of the actual lead up I had this series of panic attacks. The first one, why did I had panic attacks before I’d never sort of had any, any symptoms of anxiety or anything. And the first one didn’t actually even feel like a panic attack. It was, it was a really odd sense of feeling like I was I was dying. But being you know, surrounded by people, I was actually, I had committed to going to this 40th birthday of a friend of mine, and standing there holding my husband’s hand surrounded by people who knew and cared about me. And I’ve never felt more alone in my life, I was internal. I’d sense that my body was just caving in was on itself. And that lasted about 48 hours and had the foresight to say, Well, you probably need a break. I had weeks of patients booked in. So I booked myself in a week holiday, a few weeks out, and I just was hobbling along saying I need to get through I need to get through. And it’s just, you know, I wasn’t listening to these, these rising symptoms in my body. The heart was constantly racing, I was feeling out of breath, I was feeling exhausted, even though, you know, I’d sleep and wake up exhausted, I’d be waking up in the early hours and ruminating about things. And these are all hallmarks of really poorly managed stress. But I just kept saying to myself, I’m just stressed, I just need to get through that holiday. And then it was a Thursday morning. And as you said, I was I had the kids ready for school, and they were all dressed. And I was ready for work. And I just I went to go out the front door, and I just had this, like this was a full blown physical panic attack where you just your heart’s racing can’t breathe. Everything just really came caving in. And it’s, again, it’s, you know, lots of people experienced panic attacks. Why did this one stop me in my tracks? I don’t actually know, I can’t tell you why my body stopped. But it stopped that day. And actually, I haven’t gone back to practicing clinical general practice since that day. And to some extent, I know that, you know, even two and a half years later, I’m not entirely sure if I’d be ready to do that. Because I had pushed myself, I’m far into that borrowed time, more energy, that the recovery since then has been dead flies, you know, I had to, I had to take six months off completely. And then I came back to doing surgical assisting, which has continued to do and I’ve built up some other pursuits, some other work. That is really, I’m really enjoying it. But that stress of managing patients still I think I wouldn’t manage well, with even this at this point, this far down the track. So I think it was a it was a really huge point to push myself to. And I don’t think there’s any way that I can describe it. Now, that actually does honor that fact, other than to say that, like I said before, you don’t you don’t know that you get to that point until you see it and then revision mirror. And, you know, any, any one of us could be skirting just below that point at any given time. Oh, my gosh,

Jess Brady
I have so many questions. I think for the cohort that will be listening to this there is I would have picked up when you said you had six months completely off because naturally our brain asks one question, which is, how did you do that? Did you have insurance? Can we talk about sort of, I want to go more into helping advisors, you know, before they reach that point, but before then I would love to share your story around how you did Copan what you wish you’d known before time and what worked and what didn’t excetera

Dr. Emily Amos
so I am eternally grateful to have put income protection insurance into place many many years before possibly part of my type A personality. Being in the industry that I mean, I was already feeling a lot perform for other people’s income protection insurance. It certainly was something that was high on my agenda from Quite an early point in my career, so I had organized it. And I did it through a broker. And he’s wonderful advice to us at the time, when my husband and I set it up was just do what you can afford now. I mean, you can, you can incrementally increase it or change it over the years as your situation changes, but get it now and just get something in place now. And so, in the scheme of things, it was, you know, we, we had sort of a longer wait period, when it was a shorter time that we actually are insured that both of us were insured for. So we did what we could afford. And that’s a very, I am very grateful for, because it meant that that six months, you know, the immunity from the initial stress of having to sort of prove you’re unwell enough to climb on it, that was awful. And I think for anyone who ever needs to climb on income protection insurance, it is it is a really scary point, because you sort of put this insurance in place, never ever expected to use it. It’s something that you really actually never, ever hope to claim on. And so the point of claim time can be a really scary point to get to, and there’s a lot of fear, you know, will this be accepted easy step? Am I Am I debilitated enough, even though you know that your life literally crumbling around you. And that in that regard, I was very grateful to have purchased insurance through a broker, because it meant that I did actually have a broker who was helping me to navigate that process. And that was an unexpected, I guess, sort of positive from from the experience that he was very supportive and very ready to sort of go into bat for me, I think having known me for many years by that stage. He could also say that I was pretty unwell. So it was there, it was really helpful to have his support and his help in the claiming time, in terms of having income protection insurance, I mean, just tell everyone who listened that if you’ve got an income worth ensuring, then that you should be insuring it you know, even even before it like we had, we had bought our house, and that’s why we did it. And then we had the kids and after that, so I think they just do it if you if you have the capacity, and it’s something you’ve been thinking about, it’s it’s really it’s been the difference between me actually being able to take the time to get better. And now build a life that actually is going to hopefully stand me in really good stead to not get not ever get back to that point ever again. Whereas had I not had this opportunity, I really do think I would have been jumping straight out of the frying pan into the fire of having to scrape life together again, which I don’t think I would have come out the other side with the insights that I’ve gained through through my own process.

Jess Brady
We are very glad that you had income protection. And that is really what it’s for. And yet so many people, particularly young, Type A personalities, as you call it, who are very successful, who can manage multiple things. You know, the classic is, I got this, I’m young and ferocious, and I’ve got the world ahead of me to conquer. I can’t imagine what life would have looked like for you and your small family should you have not have had income protection. So very happy to hear that that helped you on your journey. Albeit, insurers might need to think more about how they can make a less stressful claims process for genuine claims. Because you are not the first person who has told me that it is overwhelming. And the irony is you’re going to claim because life is overwhelming. And then to throw this process on board that is very overwhelming. seems not very fair. Not fair. Yeah.

Dr. Emily Amos
I mean, it’s hard to know where the balance lies. Because again, I’ve had experience on the other side of the table of filling in these forms and supporting claims and doing all that sort of stuff as a gap. And it is hard to know where the balance lies, because it is an expensive industry. And as much as I have now claimed online. I didn’t ever go into it expecting to claim and I think very few people who ever claim well, they don’t really know who claims on their income protection insurance ever expects to claim on it. So and I guess the vested interest of an insurer is always going to be to not pay out where they don’t have to. So how do you how do you find that balance? And you’re right, it could it could possibly be less stressful, but then I don’t have I don’t have a sort of really helpful suggestion as to how to make it less stressful at this point.

Jess Brady
No, that’s okay. I think that’s not your job. Your job is to look after yourself. It’s the insurance job to figure that out. So I don’t know the exact industry research but alas, we are up there as a profession of one of the most stressed mentally unwell in Australia as financial advisors And sadly through the last few years, we have lost a number of financial advisors due to self harm and suicide. And so this is a conversation that I think needs to be very front and center. We’ve gone through a Royal Commission, we have constant legislative change, you know, there are always bad apples that create media sensations. And it does put into question all of the good work that we do every day. And by virtue of that a lot of financial advisors today have probably woken up feeling quite stressed. And maybe some of the the signals that you were saying, of, you know, this sustained stress in the system, is it? Is that really the burnout, like what is the classic difference between signs of stress, which is, I guess, normal and overcome Apple versus burnout, that’s going to lead you to really significant detrimental health problems? Is it easy to identify?

Dr. Emily Amos
Short answer no. Long answer coming away. In terms in terms of the short, no, it’s not, it’s not a really easy thing to identify because chronic stress is not healthy, either. Whether or not it leads to burnout, it’s chronic stress isn’t a great thing. Acute stress is actually an amazing thing, our body responds to acute stress really well, it has a series of sort of physiological events that actually fall into place beautifully, and allow us to respond to stress. And then as we then close off that stress cycle, everything comes back to normal. And then we can start again to mount the stress response against the next stressor. But in the mean, in this modern world, the stress is constant, you know, there isn’t just there isn’t often we talk about their saber toothed Tiger coming at you. There’s not a saber toothed Tiger trying to chase us down. In this modern world, you know, we are the saber toothed Tiger because it’s our thoughts. It’s it’s, it’s actually it’s coming home with us inside our heads. And then it’s also the world around us. So we’re just surrounded by saber toothed tigers, both inside and outside. And so how can you ever close off and acute stress response if you’re constantly perceiving stress? So chronic stress is not healthy, either. It’s not sort of if I have chronic stress, but I don’t have burnout? Well, I’m just adapting and I’m rising to the challenge. So I guess in answer to your question, whether or not to chronic stress away, not as burnout is still not healthy. Burnout is probably that tipping point, like I said that you that, you know, in a revision mirror where it’s just, it’s gone. It’s gone way too far, unless you’re very insightful. And you can see it coming, which obviously not, but I mean, the hallmarks of burnout, the World Health, well, the ICD 10, the International Classification of Disease, what included burnout in 2019. And it I mean, the definition that they give of what burnout is, as a syndrome, it includes things like energy depletion, feeling exhausted, feeling more distance between yourself and your job and sort of switching off mentally from your job, not really engaging with it feeling quite negative and cynical about your work. And then just reduced professional efficacy. So not actually performing as well as you’re used to. I mean, that’s a fairly wishy washy definition like that applies to chronic stress, that most of those things would cover moments of chronic stress in our lives. So it’s not an easy thing to define, and whether or not you have to define it in order to actually do something about it, I think remains to be seen, because neither of them are actually they’re not, they’re not good things to be dealing with.

Jess Brady
What do you do? If you think I am part of this camp? What are the what are the ways that we can or actually maybe I think someone in my team, or the business that I run is starting to have some of these classic signs? I suspect it will be us sort of looking at ourselves. I mean, I think about some of the things and I’m ticking boxes going, Oh, this is scary. What do we do? How do we rectify this Em?

Dr. Emily Amos
Perhaps this is where I’ve had a lot of soul searching about, you know, the definition of burnout is very much about workplace factors. And in a lot of definitions, it sounds like it’s working within large organizations where you lack control. But really, I was self employed. I was balancing parenting by self employed work my own business. So it does apply to any sort of any sort of field. But the thing is that, yes, it’s an occupational definition. But when it comes down to it is pervasive. This is spilled into the rest of your life. Even though I knew that I was an impact. When I took medicine out of the equation when I stopped working for six months. It was such a load lifted, that I was actually pretty functional for six months that I head off the quest data to gradually increase my workload again. So there really was this huge centering on work. And that I think in the first instance is it is possible for you Taking work out of the equation for an extended period, you know, often, I sort of gave myself three weeks off, when I first burnt out of my I’ll take three weeks, and I’ll come back for the three weeks, and I was still a mess. But the practice managers did take some more time off, got to some secret, still a mess. And at every point that I sort of gave myself, you know, in inverted commas gave myself off, I got I got to that point, and that rising sense of fear and overwhelm, and actually going back into that, that fire that had really burnt me out, I could feel it, it was a powerful one, because a visceral reaction within me. And so any standard time off, I think, is pretty widely accepted that you’re looking at around three months, as a minimum, if you’re actually wanting to, to start doing some of the work to come back into balance and perhaps manage chronic stress a little bit better. I mean, you think of last time going on holiday, your wife or wait two weeks, or whatever it is, generally, that’s a couple of weeks, you sort of coming back to work, you just start back at work where you left off with, maybe you get a few days, Gracely, you’re excited to be back and you miss your friends and your co workers, but really easy to strike back where you left off. So actually having an extended period period off, where you can then check back in and perhaps that to spend some time in self reflection workout, are there personality traits that actually predispose me to working very hard pushing the limits, not saying no, not ever being able to switch off, maybe like I’ve had a bit of a savior complex, you know, there’s a lot of things that actually then might contribute to feeling burned out at work and taking some time to either do it on your own, which is quite a friends and family or maybe even some professional help with psychologists, counselors, teepees, to start on picking some of those sort of patterns of behavior that might be predisposing you to not managing chronic stress all that well. I think that’s probably an important thing. But then, I guess the flip side is that often you see someone at work is stressed. And you’ll say just go home, just go and take a day off. And while it’s it’s not a bad thing, like we said before, for most of us, the saber toothed Tiger is in our thoughts. Well, you know, we’re taking it home with us. So you’re stressed, overwhelmed, or chronically stressed and overwhelmed, you’re at work, right? You’ve gone past the point where you’re actually able to manage this on your own, you get sent home for the day, you’re actually often still taking all that stress home with you. It’s just you then sitting uncomfortably with it at home on your own. That extended periods off with some supported reflection and probably some supported work on on your own sort of personality and behaviors is probably important.

Jess Brady
Is there a stigma in the doc do world? The medical world probably called the medical world? Yes, there’s a stigma around doctors and mental health.

Dr. Emily Amos
Yeah, definitely. And we’ve got the added pressure, which I’m not sure if you’ve got in your industry of the fear of being reported to our regulating body APRA, for any sort of issues around mental health, which is it’s a very scary thing when your livelihood is, is working as a doctor seeing patients. But I mean, it’s probably a mis misunderstanding in that really the only grounds to report a doctor with any mental health issues to appraise if they were lacked insight, and were perhaps endangering patients or anyone or themselves by poor practice. And that’s, you know, that’s not the same as having depression or anxiety, feeling burned out, you know, that doesn’t mean that you lack insight. And you’re definitely a stigma, though, that I think over time we are trying to chip away at, because when we’re different, you know, there’s just because we’ve gone to medical school, and when we’ve got a doctor before I know, doesn’t mean that we are no longer human and mental health issues affects such a significant portion of the population, you’d be naive to think that it’s not affecting doctors, and particularly in the industry that we work in with the things that we say and the people we have to help and the workload that we deal with. It’s, it would be ridiculous to think that mental health issues were not affecting this entire portion of the population.

Jess Brady
Hmm. It’s funny, so a lot of financial advisors in Australia are holed up and possibly come from that generation where mental health isn’t seen or respected as it should be. And you know, sort of the old school you’ll be right sort of mentality, which clearly is not working, given what I was saying before around the level of mental health issues that exist in our profession. Can we talk a little bit about mindfulness and why mindfulness is very important and we shouldn’t think that it’s some wishy washy, dare I say, girl thing. Yeah, might so very important.

Dr. Emily Amos
Yeah. So I mean, mindfulness is probably the, the joy of my life these days, and I don’t I teach it in so many different ways. It does bring me a lot of joy. The interesting thing is, though, that I learned about mindfulness. Well, I was 15 years ago, as a medical student. So I was practicing it to an extent, as I burnt myself out. And in fact, it probably was part of part of that was probably what allowed me to push myself so far beyond the limits of what I was capable of was, you know, treading water by doing yoga, meditating, practicing mindfulness, doing all the things that I tell my patients to do. And it bought me extra borrowed time, and, and then I sort of woke up to myself well past the limit of my capabilities, and very overwhelmed. And so I think it’s important to understand that mindfulness is it is a concept is a bit, it’s a secular concept. It’s not at all religious in any way. But it just gives us a framework in which to bring our awareness back into the present moment, again, and again and again. And I mean, that sounds so incredibly simple and straightforward. But if it was that simple, then why aren’t we all doing it? Why are we all sort of ruminating about mistakes we’ve made in the past? Or is about things coming up? That may not even happen? Why? Why are you in our heads, so much. So it’s not that simple. It’s certainly not the default state. And for most of us, myself included, even as I was listening to my diligently listened to my guided meditations before then practicing mindfulness, I wasn’t really being mindful, I wasn’t tapping into my own bodily awareness of how I felt, you know, that how have stress actually felt in my body in the past, but it took them and how I allowed it to move through me what sort of thoughts and feelings felt like in my body, and how again, I could hold on to them lightly and allow them to pass and come and go. And what I found that I didn’t often not was I was holding on to things. And I was trying to force thoughts out of my head. And I was worrying about things I’ve done in the past that I actually had no control over. And I’m constantly stressing that things are coming up. So I was very rarely actually living in the moment, I was living in a lot of different moments that were not the here and now. And I never had any control over the moments, obviously, that weren’t here now. So this is what the practice of mindfulness gives us the ability to just remind ourselves to come back. So I mean, if you think when you get home from work, at the end of the day, it’s been a busy day, perhaps you made a few mistakes, perhaps you’ve got a lot of work coming up that multiple deadlines, lots of things mounting up, what are you What’s going through your head, as you sort of come home, have some dinner, winded, what’s actually going on in your head?

Jess Brady
For me, everything. I was just sitting here thinking, I’m not very good at this. It’s so hard. And I too am someone who I’m really interested in this. And I’ve gone and done yoga camps, and I’ve gone and done meditation, you know, silent retreats, which people who know me would find quite comical, I have more than one. And I grapple with it. But then I have also learned that that is normal. And that that is part of the journey, and that your brain is a machine that is very good at staying on, which is fantastic for survival, but not ideal for the burnout and stress that we’ve been talking about today. But I’m also someone who lives at home alone. And so I find that really hard because I don’t have someone else to distract me and talk about their day and what have you. And so yeah, I’m I’m pretty, I’m pretty guilty of all of this stuff. So from from a practical Oh, that makes me feel

Dr. Emily Amos
we all are. And even it’s interesting, you say that you’re living at home, you don’t have anyone to distract you. Because what the trap that most of us fall into is thinking that when I have these thoughts or feelings that I don’t like, you know, uncomfortable thinking about work, deadlines, or mistakes I’ve made or things that are outside of my control makes me feel uncomfortable. When we have them, the natural inclination we have is I’ll distract myself from them. I’ll scroll on my phone, I’ll eat some food, I’ll put the TV on or call a friend and I’ll chat for hours and stay up way too late. Or I’ll go for a run. I mean, some of these coping mechanisms are more healthy than others. But by and large, the coping mechanisms we engage in are about distracting ourselves from these thoughts. And the problem with that distraction is that we’re constantly actually having the thoughts that go away do that they always say so we’re constantly engaging in more practices, more stimulation, in an attempt to distract ourselves from something we find that comfortable. And what mindfulness gives us the ability to do is to actually realize that we don’t need to distract ourselves from these, these feelings, these thoughts, you know, it’s kind of like you have a glass full of water, you put a teaspoon of sand into it. So most of us we’re living our lives. staring up at water, It’s all cloudy, it’s all sand stirring around. That’s what we’re doing most of the time. And learning how to be still perhaps is through meditation, perhaps it’s just through Mindful self awareness, we learn that stillness allows that sort of sediment, the thoughts and feelings that are in all of us to fall to the bottom of the glass is still there, we’re not actually getting rid of any of those uncomfortable thoughts or feelings, we just change our relationship with them. So the problem isn’t actually the existence of these uncomfortable thoughts or feelings. The problem is our attachment to those thoughts and feelings. And that’s what mindfulness really focuses on, is working through that attachment, that identification we have with the thoughts that going on in our head, that feeling so

Jess Brady
you know, what I was thinking about this morning, I was sort of I was pondering self care, in contemplation of this chat. And I had sort of reflected and I’ve, I’ve, I’ve been dangerously close, I think, to where you have been before, and I am the person that gets up goes a million miles, crashes, gets up, because a million miles and crashes and my immunologist keeps reminding me that I have a body that can’t do that, that I have to slow down. And I’m like, yeah, yes. Soon. Soon, soon, soon, soon. Later, when I’ve got time, Q never. And I was thinking about myself, and being really honest and vulnerable, and saying to myself, you know, the times where I’ve been the closest to burning out, I’ve taken the least care of my body. We’ve so glamorized overwork work. And we’ve put success through such a fine filter in terms of what is success and what’s deemed successful? And the times where people have probably thought, for me, personally, I’m doing the best, I’m probably doing the worst. Because when I’m in that state, am I don’t move my body, I don’t eat well, I don’t sleep well. And yet, I know all these things are needed. Why? Why is it and I’m sure I’m not alone. Why when we need it the most. And we’ll know what to do, why don’t we do the exact opposite of what our body needs from us,

Dr. Emily Amos
cuz you don’t learn to swim when you’re drowning? You know, there’s expectation that we have, that I can, I can live my life at 110%. And I can push myself to the limit. And then when I’m drowning, I’ll just learn between then I’ll put all the healthy stuff into practice, then. It’s really It’s so counterintuitive, when you actually break it down like that, that the frameworks that we have the self care framework that we’ve put in place when we are well, when life is on an even keel, that’s the safety net. That’s what catches us when we’re drowning. You don’t learn to swim at that point. So all of a sudden go, I’m going to start meditating 20 minutes a day, I’ll also go for a run, I’ll do a Pilates class, I’ll eat more vegetables and all. The reason you’re at that point is because you’re overwhelmed, you have outstripped your capabilities at that point in time. Which means that creating a new habit, which takes a lot of time and energy is impossible. It means that actually being kind to yourself and showing yourself compassion and sort of flying things down is really difficult because often that voice of the critic inside us is actually pretty loud at those points from there, when we’re really burnt out, because it’s a default voice. For most of us. It’s the one with the microphone in the spotlight, when we’re feeling overwhelmed. And then the final thing is that it’s actually it’s such a modern thing. To think that that rest is, is sort of wasteful time. And often we don’t rest unless was forced to. But it’s it’s so subversive, like saying to people now that I am scheduling in rest, that I take myself out for lunch that I have days that I dedicate, you know, I run the trade with a beautiful colleague of mine, we run them to doctors, and I know that those sort of four day retreats are incredibly draining for me. And that’s okay, because I schedule in that week that I’m back, rest. That’s this is how I close my stress cycle. It’s actual rest. It’s not sort of restaurants sitting on my laptop watching a bit of Netflix, multitasking, it’s that constant bombarding stimulation, it was actual rest. And it’s, you know, how many times have you actually spoken to someone and this is how they talk about their life about their schedule. Prioritizing, resting my schedule has been taking a pay cut yet, because it means that I’m actually not necessarily dedicating as many hours work. But I’ve also learnt the hard way what the alternative is, and that was quite a significant pay cut. So, in the scheme of things, this is actually less so it also means that I have capacity, you know, this is this is that closing of the stress cycle that then gives my body the ability to rebound to respond to have an acute stress response. Again, you cannot have an acute stress response from a grounding of constant chronic stress. All you’re doing is just dialing up the chronic stress response. It’s actually really hard I have a true acute normal stress response from a basis of poorly managed chronic stress.

Jess Brady
You’re stressing me out talking about this, because I’m guilty of so many of these things. And it’s beautifully ironic. And that’s why I wanted to have you on today because I suspect I’m not the only person. And you’re right, we have to live with an uncomfortable truth that we are so often so overstimulated, and we have probably associated rest with being lazy.

Dr. Emily Amos
Yeah, and I mean, I haven’t no melody that I tend to use. So I mean, we might not ring as true to non medically minded people. But basically, the way our heart beats the cells of our heart that the electrical charge moves through the heart and really coordinated fashion from top to bottom. And in order to for that to happen, it has the electrical charge has to move from one cell to the next to the next, the next down the path that contracts the muscles that pumps the blood, it has to be really coordinated. And as each service charges, it goes into a restful state where then is allowed to repolarize and it cannot have another beat, until that restful state where it discharges all the electrical activity comes back to zero and then can be charged again. And it can’t beat normally, unless it has that restful state after each charge. And this is this is our heart, this is a muscle of our heart. Okay, so that restful state is so important to the fundamental part of our being it pumps blood around our body without it we don’t exist. Rest is important in every heartbeat, how many times that heartbeat a day, 10s of 1000s. And every heartbeat has to conclude with rest. So a stress cycle, you know, it’s cycles, cycles, ubiquitous, with everything that lives in the world. You know, plants are seasons, everything, everything cycles, everything that is alive cycle, and stress cycle. Rest is always that point of the baseline, it is so important, you know, you think about what happens even to the natural world, you think about what happens in winter, when things lay dormant. And then after winter, we have spring and everything rebounds, like if that point of rest is actually so important, in order to then start again. And we cannot have a full cycle of anything in the natural world, without a top risk being part of the sample. And yet, as humans, we’ve totally forgotten them.

Jess Brady
We’re bringing it back here and now.

Dr. Emily Amos
Starting it is and it’s but it is uncomfortable first step, because one, you’re going to be judged for it, or you’re going to feel as as a judge, so you’ll get an uncomfortable feeling. Because you’ll feel as though other people are judging you, too, you’ll probably judge yourself. That you know, critic is a pretty loud voice for most of us. And you find yourself having to justify, I’m resting because you’re over justifying why I’ve scheduled in a day of rest. And then you also often, we notice that when so I’m used to resting, that when we come to rest and feels uncomfortable. We keep busy, we scroll, we do all sorts of things, because rest in itself, our bodies have forgotten how to do it.

Jess Brady
Totally, totally, I Yes, I have had to learn how to rest. I had someone point out to me that I was watching a film that I just can’t sit and watch a film, I have to I can hear the washing machine go and so I’m quickly putting the dryer on the dishwasher or folding clothes. And I have spent the last probably two years and I’m still not there yet, actually learning how to switch off, I’m getting much better. And I think it is a bit like what you said like it’s a muscle that has to be sort of worked regularly to learn how to do it. But I would say even with that level of awareness, I’m still on a journey. And I think you talk about this as well, like it may be it’s a journey with no destination. And we’re just all constantly learning how to do it better. But I completely agree, especially with social media and the temptation that there’s always stuff to consume. You have to override the want to be back in absorbed in that world.

Dr. Emily Amos
You have to override is interesting though, because this is like trying to push those uncomfortable thoughts out of our head. What mindfulness teaches us it’s not about overriding that uncomfortable desire. It’s about noticing it. And then perhaps, you know, with a curious mind, we start to see changes over time as we noticed that non judgmentally I noticed when I feel uncomfortable, I reach my phone. That’s interesting. Mindfulness gives us that ability to notice things about ourselves that we perhaps wish were different. But notice the non judgmentally and that first step of any sort of behavior change cycle is learning how to notice something non judgmental, you know, change really happens from guilt and break, breaking ourselves. change happened through showing yourself compassion and gently, small changes amplified over time bring about huge changes. It’s about those little ripples that were able to stop over time. embedded become amplified, and that becomes sustainable behavior change.

Jess Brady
Oh my goodness, I have so much to learn. Thank you. In the interest of time, I’d like to fire off some rapid fire questions if I can. And then I would love for people to learn, clearly learn much more about this topic, because I feel like we have only just scratched the surface. So learn more about where they can learn more and learn more about the great work that you do. Can we do some rapid fire questions? Yeah, hit me. I think you’ll like this one. This is one that I give to everyone. And I feel that you’ll be proud that I even include it. That is one thing you do to look after your mental health.

Dr. Emily Amos
I pick my kids up from school. I love it. It makes me smile.

Jess Brady
Oh, that’s so beautiful.

Dr. Emily Amos
They are happy when they see you waving there. They run at you with their school bag. It is amazing. It’s such a little joy in my life.

Jess Brady
Oh my gosh, so cute. One piece of advice that you would give your younger self.

Dr. Emily Amos
You’ve got some hard lessons coming up, but they’re worth learning.

Jess Brady
What’s something big that’s on your bucket list that you haven’t ticked off yet?

Dr. Emily Amos
I’m going to put myself on a TED stage. Oh, that’s exciting. Yeah. Yeah, it’s definitely on the bucket list is getting closer.

Jess Brady
Stay tuned. Affected book club. Do you have a book for me to put on my fake book club?

Dr. Emily Amos
Yes. One of my favorites. So Rick, Dr. Rick Hansen, has the Buddha’s Brain the it’s the neuro psychology of health and happiness. I think it’s a beautiful book and that it’s about neuroscience and meditation and mindfulness. And it’s a lot of a lot of really interesting stuff. You’ll devour it. So Buddha’s Brain, the Buddha’s Brain. Got it.

Jess Brady
Thank you. Now, how can people find out more about all of the amazing work that you do?

Dr. Emily Amos
So my website www.dr, Dr. Emily amo.com. And I also pretty active on social media at Dr. Mia moss on Facebook and Instagram. And I’ve also got my podcast which you have been a wonderful guest so that the mind life made podcasts.

Jess Brady
Amazing. We’ll have links to those in the show notes as well. Thank you so much for such an important conversation. I really appreciate your time. Thank you Dr. Emily Amos.