Notes from "Burnout" by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski

  xiii- "Exhaustion happens when we get stuck in an emotion."

        "Human Giver Syndrome":  must at all times be pretty, happy, calm, generous, and attentive to the needs of others, which means they must never be ugly, angry, upset, ambitious, or attnetive to their own needs.

xix- "We thrive when we have a positive goal to move toward, not just a negative state we're trying to move away from....The "cheese" of Burnout isn't just feeling less overwhelmed and exhausted, or no longer worrying whether you're doing "enough."  The cheese is growing mighty, feeling strong enough to cope with ...anything the world throws at you."

20- research-based body therapies for people who don't like to exercise.  
            -lie in bed... then progressively tense and release every muscle in your body, starting with your feet and ending with your face.  Tense them hard, hard, hard, for a slow count of ten.  Make sure you spend extra time tensing the places where you carry your stress....while you do that, visualize, really clearly and viscerally, what it feels like to beat the living daylights out of whatever stressor you've encountered...You should notice your body responding, like your heart beating faster and your fists clenching, until you reach a satisfying sense of victory.

20-21- There are so many ways to complete the [stress] cycle...Physical activity, affection, laughter, creative expression, and even just breathing....do something.

One thing we know for sure doesn't work:  just telling yourself that everything is okay now.  Completing the cycle isn't an intellectual decision; its a physiological shift.  Just as you don't tell your heart to continue beating or your digestion to continue churching, the cycle doesn't complete by deliberate choice.  You give your body what it needs, and allow it to do what it does, in the time that it requires. 

22-23- Don't worry if you're not sure you can recognize when you've "completed" the cycle.  Especially if you've spent a lot of years-like, your whole life, maybe-holding on to your worry or anger, you've probably got a whole lot of accumulated stress response cycles spinning their engines, waiting for their turn, so it's going to take a while before you get through the backlog.  All you need to do is recognize that you feel incrementally better than you felt before you started.  You can notice that something in your body has changed, shifted in the direction of peace."

24-25- Signs you need to deal with the stress, even if it means ignoring the stressor:
            1- You notice yourself doing the same, apparently pointless thing over and over again, or engaging in self-destructive behaviors.

            2- Sudden, overwhelming burst of pain so you intesen you can no longer contain it...out of proportion to what's happening in the here and now, but not out of proportion to the suffering you're holding inside.

            3- hiding from life

            4- Body feels out of whack.
                "stress is not "just stress," but a biological even that really happens inside your body...can cause biological problems...chronic illness

27-my emotions and my thoughts and my body are all connect to one another.

    To be "well" is not to live in a state of perpetual safety and calm, but to move fluidly from a state of adversity, risk, adventure, or excitement, back to safety and calm, and out again.  Stress is not bad for you; being stuck is bad for you.  Wellness happens when your body is a place of safety for you, even when your body is not necessarily in a safe place.  You can be well, even during the times when you don't feel good.

34-Positive reappraisal involves recognizing that sitting in traffic [for example] is worth it.  It means deciding that the effort, the discomfort, the frustration, the unanticipated obstacles, and even the repeated failure have value-not just because they are steps towards a worthwhile goal, but because you reframe difficulties as opportunities for growth and learning.

36-Struggle can increase creativity and learning, strengthen your capacity to cope with greater difficulties in the future, and empower you to continue working toward goals that matter to you.  

50-A gap between reality and perfection is not abnormal or a sign of dysfunction; it's a normal part of life.  In fact, as we've seen, the Monitor (the brain mechanism that controls the emotion of frustration (xv)) thrives when things are a little frustrating, when there's always some fresh challenge, some new skill to develop, some unknown territory to chart.  The quality of our lives, day to day, is measured by our freedom to choose to stay or leave.  

57-"meaningful" activities are describes as ones" seeking to use and develop the best in oneself, " in contrast to those devoted solely to "seeking pleasure."  In the trauma-healing model, "meaning" includes learning to "live with" chronic illness.  In the first case, it's like getting your nutrient from vegetables; in the second, it's like getting nutrients thorough a painful but effective injection.  Most of us would prefer the veggies, but sometimes the injection is our only choice.

68-A study of more than three thousand U.S. veterans who had all experienced trauma found that those experiencing PTSD symptoms were more likely than those without PTSD to experience post-traumatic growth.  This included both a better sense of personal strength ("I discovered that I'm stronger than I thought I was" and "I know better that I can handle difficulties") and appreciation of life ("I have greater appreciation for the value of my own life.")

    You can never be separated from your "something larger", because it is inside you.

69-70 Origin Story ******

73-"Meaning in life" is made when you engage with the Something Larger that's waiting for you inside your own body, linking you to the world.

100-My Something Larger is ________________________.
        Something I do to engage with my Something Larger is ________________________.

107-What if the shape of our bodies was peripheral to our relationship with our bodies, and we could pay compassionate attention to our body's need without assessing whether it "deserves" food or love?

    Bikini Industrial Complex (BIC)- hundred-billion-dollar cluster of businesses that profit by setting an unachievable "aspirational ideal" for us, convincing us that we both can and should-indeed we must-conform with the ideal, and then selling us ineffective but plausible strategies for achieving that ideal.

108-Everything in the media is there to sell you thinness...BIC, has successfully created a culture of immense pressure to conform to an ideal that is literally unobtainable by almost everyone and yet is framed not just as the most beautiful, but the healthiest and most virtuous.

111-With the time and money we spend on worrying about the shape of our bodies and attempting to make them "fit, " what else might we accomplish?  Along with that comes "self-regulatory fatigue"; if you're using up decision making and attention-focusing cognitive resources on choices about food, clothes, exercise, makeup, body hair, "toxins," and fretting about your body's failures, what are you too exhausted to care about, that you would otherwise prioritize?

112-It's women's times, money, mental energy, opportunity, health, and lives that are being drained away in the endless pursuit of a "better" body.

119-Listen to your inner voice, which has probably been begging for mercy for years.

    Approaches to combating the BIC
    1- practice body acceptance
    2-embrace body diversity
    3-listen to your body

124-Turn your attention away from the mirror and other people's bodies, and notice what it feels like inside your body. Greet your internal sensations with the same kindness and compassion you practiced when you thought about the shape of your body.

**whole section on pages 124-125  "Turn your attention away from the mirror and other people's bodies, and notice what it feels like inside your body.  Greet your internal sensations with...kindness and compassion...
Many of us have grown up to be world-class ignorers of our own needs, just as we were taught to be....our bodies are sending us all kinds of signals, but we live from the neck up, only attending to the noise in our heads and shutting out the noise coming from the other 95 percent of our internal experience...
Imagine that your body is the body of someone who needs your care, like an infant...Instead of just looking at your body to evaluate her well-being...turn to her and ask her how she feels...She can definitely tell you , if you listen...
Bodies are imperfect, and sometimes they let us down.  They are susceptible to disease and breakage and entropy.  Our bodies can disappoint us, and the world can punish us when our bodies aren't what they "should" be.  So we are not suggesting that you "love your body" is an easy fix.  We're suggesting you be patient with your body and with your feelings about your body.  
Your body is not the enemy.  The real enemy is out there-the Bikini Industrial Complex.

126-Be patient with your body and with your feelings about your body.

 133-Just as our early experiences shape our present-day relationship with food, so our early experiences of connection shape our present day relationship with other people.

157-9- We are built to oscillate between work and rest.  Study that asked one group to relax between challenging mental tasks versus group that wasn't instructed to relax, but rather just sat and waited.  Group that relaxed did much better on next task than the second group.  "Rest makes us more persistent and productive."..."Resting after a depleting activity eliminates the effects of fatigue.
Mental rest is not idleness; it is the time necessary for your brain to process the world.  

162-Physical activity is not complete without sleep.  While your sleep, your bones, blood vessels, digestive system, muscles (including your heart), and all your other body tissues heal from the damage you inflicted on them during the day.

Learning is not complete without sleep.  Your memories consolidate and new information is integrated into existing knowledge...Any motor skills you practiced...get integrated [during sleep].The benefits of the practice itself come not during the practice itself but during sleep; without it, your skill will actually decline no matter how much you practice.  If you're not going to sleep, you're studying and practicing [and exercising] for nothing."

Emotions are not complete without sleep.

189-When you are burned out, it's because you burned a specific gear in your brain, but the Lord gave us a lot of different gears.  When you use the other ones, you regenerate.