Protect Your Energy Before Work Stress Becomes Anxiety

Introduction

0:24 Speaker 0: Hi, welcome to Work Stress Anxiety by ABGW.

0:33 Speaker 0: Yes, I am Cheryl And today we are talking about something that honestly, it sounds so obvious until you realize absolutely nobody actually does it. What am I talking about?

protecting your energy

0:51 Speaker 0: I am talking about protecting that divine thing that the universe has provided for us. Yes, I know.

1:02 Speaker 0: I'm being silly about it, but I'm talking about protecting your energy, not protecting your Productivity or protecting that reputation that you crafted so well, not protecting everyone else's Emotional Comfort. No. No. No.

1:21 Speaker 0: Protecting your actual energy.

1:25 Speaker 0: Because what I've noticed is that a lot of High Functioning Women are walking around as if their energy is some unlimited subscription service.

High Functioning Women

1:38 Speaker 0: As if as long as we drink water and we do our breathing exercises and we look after that houseplant the way we should, we should be able to keep going infinitum. We can't.

1:53 Speaker 0: It's deeply inconvenient, I know.

1:57 Speaker 0: Actually, it's very annoying, but the thing is, it's still true.

2:03 Speaker 0: And this matters because especially when it comes to work. Yeah?

2:09 Speaker 0: Stress doesn't arrive, you know, in a nice little package for you.

2:16 Speaker 0: Sometimes it starts as low energy or a shorter temper or even something like your body just feeling heavier or even a slightly panicky feeling when you look at your calendar.

2:34 Speaker 0: A strange sense that your life is demanding a version of you who hasn't been available for several financial quarters.

2:46 Speaker 0: So today's episode is about how to protect your energy before Work Stress becomes work anxiety and I'm not talking about in a fluffy way, you know me, I'm talking about in a calm 1st reality 1st way because the way that I see it, your energy is not just a luxury, it's not just spare change, it's not just a nice little bonus. If everything else is going well.

3:20 Speaker 0: Your energy is so crucial to how you go about your day, the way you think, the way you interact with people and if you don't protect it, eventually your body will start protecting it for you unless, well, at least until the less convenient moment happens, yeah? Okay, may seem obvious. You know, it's really interesting.

3:54 Speaker 0: At the beginning of season 4, I did an episode called How to Step Back Why this Stress Coach Quiet During Stress Awareness Month and I'm referring to it because this is not as, how can I put it, I don't believe in theory, right? I believe in practice.

How to Step Back

4:18 Speaker 0: This is not me standing on a little well-being podium here.

4:23 Speaker 0: During Stress Awareness Month I was very aware of stress which frankly was not the brand new opportunity 1 might hope for and it reminded me how easy capable women can become experts in helping other people notice stress while quietly dismantling their own.

experts in helping other people notice stress

4:46 Speaker 0: And it was really funny, during Stress Awareness Month which was April here in The UK, I noticed myself bordering on anxiety.

4:56 Speaker 0: I'm not being dramatic here.

4:58 Speaker 0: I'm not talking about throwing everything in the bin.

5:02 Speaker 0: More like a creeping sort of edgy sound like in a horror movie.

5:08 Speaker 0: My system felt more activated than usual.

5:12 Speaker 0: My capacity felt thinner, had that feeling where everything technically looked manageable, but my body was starting to mutter things to me. Are you absolutely sure about this, Cheryl?

5:25 Speaker 0: And because I work in Stress Recovery, this is particularly a ridiculous thing to think about, right? No.

5:35 Speaker 0: You can find yourself thinking, well, I should be fine.

5:39 Speaker 0: This is my eary. Come on. Which is absolute nonsense.

5:45 Speaker 0: Knowing about stress does not make you immune to it.

5:50 Speaker 0: Being trained in calming tool doesn't turn you into some stainless steel, I don't know, nervous system app, okay?

6:01 Speaker 0: It just means you may notice the signals earlier if you're willing to be honest.

6:07 Speaker 0: That's 1 of the things I've learned over the years and when I hear other people talking about honesty, I literally jump up and down because that's what it's about, it's about being willing to be honest with yourself about what you don't like, what you don't do like, what you can say yes to, what you can say no to.

6:29 Speaker 0: And it was really interesting because around that time I was also noticing something else.

Garmin smartwatches

6:35 Speaker 0: You know, I have 1 of those Garmin smartwatches which I love by the way and sometimes it's really cool because it shows my energy.

6:46 Speaker 0: It has like a sort of like little sort of, I don't know, semi circular battery, body battery thing on it and it was low.

6:56 Speaker 0: But there are days when that happens when you feel like as if you don't wanna show up but the thing is it was sitting at 0 for a couple of days as if it was looking at me and saying Cheryl, I've run the numbers and frankly, I'd rather not get involved.

7:20 Speaker 0: And I was talking to a friend and she said her watch has been showing a similar thing, low energy, not properly recovering properly, she's running on fumes. We're both premenopausal.

7:34 Speaker 0: I don't know if that's got anything to do with it, I don't know.

7:37 Speaker 0: I'm not making any medical claims here.

7:40 Speaker 0: I'm not interested in diagnosing anyone through a podcast microphone because that would be deeply irresponsible and frankly quite weird.

7:51 Speaker 0: But I am naming the lived experience that many women recognize energy changes, hormonal shifts can affect sleep, stress, tolerance, recovery capacity, even just your mood.

Life doesn't always ask politely

8:08 Speaker 0: Life doesn't always ask, you know, politely whether your body has enough in the tank before it hands you another demand and yet, this is what makes me laugh, the world still expects the same output day in, day out.

8:25 Speaker 0: Work still wants the email, your family still wants the answer, the house still needs that laundry folding and your calendar still behaves like a little tyrant with color coding.

8:40 Speaker 0: Do you know, it's so funny, I was thinking about it this morning, how I'm normally very very good with my calendar.

8:49 Speaker 0: Normally, even if something's provisional, I'll pull it in, tentative, whatever, and I didn't, you know, and I kind of double booked myself, which rarely ever happens.

9:03 Speaker 0: And I remember sending 2 emails out apologizing to say, I'm really sorry, I've doubled myself. I feel quite foolish really.

9:12 Speaker 0: And then I thought to myself, why do I feel foolish?

9:15 Speaker 0: I feel foolish because I know that things have been affecting me recently and I haven't been on the ball as I normally am.

High Functioning Women get caught out

9:27 Speaker 0: This is where us High Functioning Women get caught out because we think I've done hard things before, I can do this and the question is what will it cost me though trying to keep doing all these things?

trained to ignore the cost

9:43 Speaker 0: Anyway, a lot of High Functioning Women have been trained to ignore those 4 words, sorry, 4 letters, that 4 letter word cost, C O S It's like we go around as if there are no consequences, there are no costs to the things that we do.

10:07 Speaker 0: We're very good at measuring output.

10:11 Speaker 0: We do it with our subordinates, we do it with other people.

10:15 Speaker 0: You know, I reply, did I keep everyone calm, did I meet that deadline? But we often are terrible at measuring depletion.

terrible at measuring depletion

10:26 Speaker 0: You know, what did that cost in my sleep?

10:30 Speaker 0: What did that cost in my patience?

10:33 Speaker 0: What did that cost my ability to enjoy that evening?

10:39 Speaker 0: And because energy loss is often invisible, often people don't treat it as if it's something real, right?

10:47 Speaker 0: If you had a broken leg, most people say to you, you know, could you just push through? No, they wouldn't. No, of course not.

10:57 Speaker 0: Because it's energy, we act act as though it's not there.

act as though it's not there

11:01 Speaker 0: And let's be honest, some workplaces might still create a webinar about these things, but the thing is, when your energy is low, when your nervous system is overloaded, when your sleep is progressively getting poorer, that's when you start noticing anxiety is creeping in and people often act as if the solution is simply effort. You hear it all the time, just try harder.

just try harder

11:35 Speaker 0: Maybe you need to plan better.

11:37 Speaker 0: Maybe this is the 1 that I love, okay? Think positive.

11:45 Speaker 0: Come on, be resilient.

11:48 Speaker 0: Look after yourself, but make sure that report is still done for me by Thursday morning. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

12:00 Speaker 0: It's a buffet of contradiction, and then the thing is we know that at an intellectual level but we still internalize it.

12:13 Speaker 0: We still say to ourselves, I should be able to cope.

12:18 Speaker 0: I'm just being dramatic.

12:21 Speaker 0: When things calm down, lovely to imagine, rarely seen in the wild though, because for most women, especially in Work Stress mode, energy becomes a thing they keep borrowing from.

12:41 Speaker 0: They borrow it from their sleep.

12:45 Speaker 0: They borrow that energy from their weekends.

borrow energy from their sleep

12:48 Speaker 0: They borrow that energy from their so called lunch breaks.

12:54 Speaker 0: They borrow that energy from joy.

12:57 Speaker 0: That's why I keep going on about outrageous unconscious joy.

13:02 Speaker 0: It's that boundless energy that you have when you're in that flow state where everything is balanced in life.

boundless energy

13:13 Speaker 0: I won't go on about it now, but I just want you to remember we don't have infinite amounts of energy and we keep borrowing it from our body and it's like we almost borrow it from tomorrow.

13:28 Speaker 0: Do you know what I mean?

13:29 Speaker 0: And eventually, then tomorrow arrives and the debt collector comes and that debt can look like anxiety, it can look like irritability, brain fog, It can look like being exhausted but just unable to switch off.

13:47 Speaker 0: And the thing is, I wanna say this out loud even to myself, this doesn't mean that you are weak.

13:56 Speaker 0: It means your system is giving you information.

14:00 Speaker 0: What do we do with information? We evaluate it.

the shift I want you to make today

14:05 Speaker 0: So here is the shift I want you to make today.

14:10 Speaker 0: Stop asking how do I keep doing, how do I keep doing this, how do I keep going. Ask yourself what is my energy telling me?

14:25 Speaker 0: Because your energy is not just like your fuel gauge on the car, it's feedback.

14:32 Speaker 0: Low energy might be telling you that the demands are just too high. Your role has expanded, but the support hasn't.

14:42 Speaker 0: Your body needs attention or simply that you know what, I need to start protecting my sleep.

14:53 Speaker 0: And sometimes yes, low energy might be a sign of something else and yes, it's appropriate that you speak to your GP or another health professional but this is about your ability to function.

15:14 Speaker 0: This is not about making a fuss or being dramatic.

15:18 Speaker 0: This is about dealing with something called reality.

15:21 Speaker 0: This is protecting reality and when Work Stress is part of the picture, we also need to look at the Workplace Conditions, not just your own personal Coping Mechanisms.

15:35 Speaker 0: Are the demands realistic?

15:37 Speaker 0: Do you have enough control over the pace, your workload priorities, decisions?

15:44 Speaker 0: Is there genuine support or is it just like that well-being poster in the work kitchen?

15:51 Speaker 0: Are the relationships that you have safe and respectful and is your role clear?

15:59 Speaker 0: Because I know that causes, that's 1 of the biggest things people talk to me about, that their role has changed and they're unclear of the expectations that are being asked of them.

16:12 Speaker 0: And has change been handled with clarity?

16:15 Speaker 0: Because that's really important.

16:17 Speaker 0: We work in a modern office environment now, change is happening all the time so because of that, you can't solve a demand problem with just, I don't know, having a nice bath or even lighting a nice candle.

16:37 Speaker 0: The candle may be doing its best but it's not a workload review.

16:44 Speaker 0: So I want you to think about doing this little practice today, I call it the energy cost check.

16:53 Speaker 0: Before you say yes to anything, before you push through, before you assume you should be able to do something, want to ask yourself 4 questions. These are the 4 questions.

1. what is this asking of me?

17:09 Speaker 0: What is this asking of me?

17:13 Speaker 0: And I want you to think not just about your time, I want you to think about your energy, your energy levels, okay, and your ability to be patient, manage people, your decision making capacity.

2. do I actually have the capacity for this today?

17:31 Speaker 0: Number 2, do I actually have the capacity for this today?

17:37 Speaker 0: I'm not talking about if you've had 9 hours, if you've had your 9 hours sleep here, that's not what I'm talking about.

17:44 Speaker 0: I'm talking about today, in this moment, is my body capable of this? Number 3, what will it cost me if I say yes automatically?

3. what will it cost me if I say yes automatically?

18:00 Speaker 0: Will it cost you sleep, your ability to be present, your concentration levels, your Self Respect?

4. what is smaller, clearer response that I can make?

18:09 Speaker 0: And number 4, what is 1 smaller, clearer response that I can make?

18:16 Speaker 0: It might be I need to check my capacity before I commit to this.

18:21 Speaker 0: It might be, I can't do this, but I can do that.

18:27 Speaker 0: Or it might be, do you know what, is this urgent?

18:31 Speaker 0: If this is urgent, I might need to put something else on the back burner. I to I need support with prioritizing this.

18:40 Speaker 0: And the thing is, this is not being rude.

18:42 Speaker 0: This is reality, reality in a sentence form.

18:48 Speaker 0: Is something, sometimes for me, the beginning of recovery.

Relief is different from Restoration

18:54 Speaker 0: As you know, relief is different from restoration, okay?

19:01 Speaker 0: Relief is the thing that happens that helps you feel a little bit better now, like having a nice cup of tea like I have here in my ABGW mug or a 5 minute reset or just going for a walk, Yeah?

19:20 Speaker 0: Relief matters, but restoration is so much deeper than that.

19:26 Speaker 0: Restoration asks what needs to change so that I not need emergency relief every day.

what I would like you to take away from this episode

19:35 Speaker 0: And that might mean a workload conversation.

19:39 Speaker 0: It might mean changing your sleep routine.

19:42 Speaker 0: It might mean less automatic availability, or it might just mean saying no more. Dread to think.

19:55 Speaker 0: This is where protecting energy becomes more than Self Care.

20:01 Speaker 0: It becomes about Self Respect because sometimes the bravest thing is not doing more.

20:08 Speaker 0: Sometimes the bravest thing is noticing I am not recovering here.

20:15 Speaker 0: So what I would like you to take away from this episode, if anything, I want you to remember you are not an infinite resource. Your energy is not some sort of moral test.

20:31 Speaker 0: Your tiredness is not some sort of character flaw.

20:35 Speaker 0: Your capacity is not proof that you are failing.

20:40 Speaker 0: It may be proof that the demands have exceeded the available resources, and that sentence is much more useful because once you stop calling yourself the problem, you can start looking at the patterns. You can protect your energy earlier.

20:59 Speaker 0: You can pause before the automatic yeses come out.

21:03 Speaker 0: You can choose smaller clearer responses. You know?

21:08 Speaker 0: It's a bit boring, I know, but it's called calm 1st, reality 1st, then change.

calm 1st, reality 1st, then change

21:15 Speaker 0: You know, if this episode has helped you in even the smallest way in terms of Work Stress, please follow the podcast.

21:24 Speaker 0: The link is in the show notes.

21:27 Speaker 0: And that way, the next episode is there when you need it without you having to remember where to go and find it or whether you've got enough tabs open on your laptop.

21:41 Speaker 0: You know this has been Work Stress Anxiety for ABGW.

21:45 Speaker 0: I am Cheryl and today I want you to remember this protect your energy. Yeah. Protecting your energy is not being selfish.

21:56 Speaker 0: It's not being dramatic or lazy.

21:58 Speaker 0: It's how you stay connected to yourself in this beautiful world that we have that keeps asking us, especially us women, to run around like as if we got invisible batteries and then act surprised when we start flickering.

22:16 Speaker 0: So today, go protect your energy.

22:22 Speaker 0: Just check it out before the next automatic yes, before the next I I'm just gonna push through, before the next I should be able to manage this. Just ask yourself, do I have the capacity?

22:38 Speaker 0: Because remember, every step you take, no matter how small, is a step towards a brighter, more balanced future.

22:46 Speaker 0: So trust in your journey and remember, progress is progress no matter the pace. Bye for now.