Work Stress Stays Home | Breaking the 'Always On' Anxiety Cycle

The Wired But Tired Feeling

0:27 Great story teaches us something about being human. I'm Cheryl Parris and this is Work Stress Anxiety. Together let's borrow a little wisdom from a story to help us navigate a very modern world.

0:49 Have you ever reached that finally reached, I shouldn't really say, that quiet bit of the day, and the laptop is finally closing, the door is finally going to be closed, nobody needs an answer from you, and yet your body is behaving as though the next demand is already on its way. You know, your shoulders are somewhere near your ears, your eyes are tired and red, your jaw is tight, you can feel that your breathing is shallow, and a notification sound just before you even looked at the screen sometimes makes you jump on the inside.

1:39 Now, I'm not talking about logic here, because logically you know that nothing is happening, but physically that knowledge isn't terribly convincing. Then comes the heavy thought, why can't I just relax? So let's explore why the body may remain alert after pressure has paused and how to respond without turning calm into another performance target.

Joan’s Leave That Still Feels On

2:12 Okay, I'm gonna call her Joan. That's not her real name. But identification details have been changed to protect the innocent. Joan is 25, she works as a dentist, she's had time away from work, which ought to have meant that she could switch off, at least, yeah, in theory. But in the quiet, her jaw is still quite tight, her breathing remains shallow, and at night she was exhausted but alert, as though her body had already, you know, agreed to lie down, but not to stand down. And she wanted her time away from work to feel like time away, right?

3:02 That's the whole point of vacations and leave, right? Instead, she wondered why her body hadn't noticed that work had stopped. So Joan did what many intelligent, capable people do all the time. They tried to reason with themselves. So that's what Joan did. She tried to reason with herself. There is nothing to worry about. I'm not at work, nothing needs doing right now. And that may have been logically true, but one of the things that I've learned is that your body doesn't always update itself because it's received a strongly worded memo.

3:45 Hmm, no. When the sensations continued, Joan began checking, you know, was her breathing? Was it why didn't she feel calm? Without meaning to, rest became another task to complete. And every signal that she wasn't calm looked like evidence that she was failing. Now the activation itself of this was alarming her. Now, before we go any further, I want to say thank you to everyone who makes space for this podcast during such demanding days, right? It's just mad at the moment how much work there is to do.

4:36 And today I want to say a particular, particular hello and thank you to a listener in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Knowing that these conversations are traveling that far means more than anyone could probably realise, to be honest with you. It's not the way that I still get so excited hearing how far the podcast has travelled.

When Rest Becomes Another Task

5:06 Anyway, being tired enough to need rest, but being too alert to access it, is far from rare. One belief underneath it, I think, is it can sound perfectly reasonable. If if I'm genuinely safe, I would feel calm immediately. But what if that belief, understandably, as it is on its own, is making an already uncomfortable state feel even more unstable. When calm doesn't arrive on schedule, time off, especially time off from work, can start to feel as if it's been wasted. Yeah? I know that feeling. You may sleep nightly, fill the days with activity designed to make you feel relaxed, or keep checking yourself for proof that something has shifted.

6:02 And then there is this cruel little contradiction. The harder you work at not working, the more work you kind of create. And if the immediate pressure hadn't stopped, why might the response continue? And has all that pressure really ended, or is it just only the working day ended? You know, one of the things I've noticed is that we treat rest as if it should be like an on-off switch. You know, work finishes, you sit down, your entire system should politely start powering down. And I don't know about you, but one of the things I've noticed that human beings are less obedient than household appliances, right?

6:54 After sustained pressure, many of us may remain watchful. The calendar may say a day off while our body still anticipates receiving that next message on the phone that doesn't prove anything other than that a symptom is harmless. It's meaning the circumstances and the bodily state don't always change at that same speed that you want it to. And sometimes the pressure hasn't disappeared as completely as it first appeared. You know, you've put your phone down and it's beside you. Its notification sound has accomplished urgent requests many, many times before, unresolved conflicts awaiting.

7:47 Your mind is already rehearsing that return to work. There may already be caring responsibilities or a workplace thing that genuinely isn't healthy, you know, and a quiet room cannot cancel those realities. Now, this isn't about pretending everything is fine. It's one of the reasons why I say calm first, reality first, then change, right? You've got to deal with reality. And we name the pressure before deciding what is within your influence. Okay, now. Now for some of us, that is a loot. Sensation, interpretation, check-in, more renal, more sensation, and you are not making it up at all or deliberately causing it, but you may already be reacting to your reaction.

Why Your Body Needs Cooldown

8:46 And I think, I think of it like this, right? An engine has been travelling fast for a long time. You know, you've been you've been out, you've been enjoying yourself in the car, you take your foot off the accelerator, but every moving part doesn't instantly become cool, does it? Or still, you wouldn't shout at the engine, oh, I've stopped accelerating, why are you still warm? Yet that is how we often speak about ourselves. Yes, you know you're not a machine, and there is no standard cooling time for the human nervous system.

9:29 But the useful distinction, I think, is that reducing demand matters even when the effect is immediate. That being said, I want you to think of this. Instead of why can't I calm down? I want you to think about what might my body still actually be responding to. Is it the notification beside me on the phone? Or the feeling of anticipation about returning to work? Or is it that your body's taking longer than expected to shift? I know nose of people say to me that when they take leave or they go on vacation, it takes them about two or three days to start relaxing.

10:17 Not relaxed, they're not relaxed yet, they're starting to. It doesn't mean that we need to start decorating our um our existence with breathing exercises and calling it well-being. It just means looking honestly at the conditions before making yourself feel that you're the problem. Now, the belief we need to loosen, I think, spray it with a bit of WD40 is this. If I were safe, I would feel calm immediately. Now, to me, calm can accompany safety, but its absence isn't automatic proof that you're unsafe or incapable or you're resting the wrong way.

11:09 Your thinking mind may recognize the quiet room, the absence of all those immediate tasks before your body feels persuaded. And perhaps your job isn't to force the feeling, but to offer modest evidence of what is true now, and notice whether your response becomes more flexible, not perfectly calm, just slightly more able to move soft softly or soften, you know, towards recovery.

The Two Percent Grounding Practice

11:48 Now, here's one little small experiment, okay, it's not a test, all right? But I just want you to just try this. Choose one physical sign that tells you you've been activated. Do you know what I mean? Like you're it maybe it's the ping of the phone, but that sends, you know, your mind racing back to to work again. But I want you to choose one because you are gathering evidence here. You're not conducting a full-body inspection. I want you to try it during a manageable moment, not for the first time while you're feeling overwhelmed.

12:29 No. The purpose is to notice your starting point and offer one cue to yourself that belongs to the present. If it feels comfortable, let yourself notice the contact of both feet on the floor. Then look around and name three things that you can see. Nothing profound is required, you know. As I do this now, I'm looking around a door, a lamp, a mug. This is called orientation, noticing where you are now without insisting that you feel different. Then allow one exhale to lengthen comfortably and return to the signal you chose, not to demand it disappears, but to notice what it is.

13:23 And ask yourself, has anything shifted? Even it's if it's only by, you know, two percent. Perhaps your jaw is fractionally less tight or your shoulders have moved back down a little bit. Perhaps nothing changed today. That's okay. All of this is information. The aim is to pass, isn't to pass some sort of relaxation test, right? The aim is to notice the degrees of movement when your mind would previously allow only two categories. Either you've you're totally calm or you're not calm, right? I'm talking about flexibility here.

14:09 Flexibility so that you can measure your progress from that perfect calm state, right? From that feeling of being anxious. Now, modest cues might easily be received from one enormous demand to relax now. Now, let me just say this. You go on leave, you're all vacation, and like I said, a lot of people say to me it takes them a couple of days. But the thing is, in their mind, they're basically saying, Why am I not relaxed? Why am I not relaxed? I'm talking about let's change that to let's notice, practice this somewhere safe where you're not being demanded, and notice the degrees of evidence that you can collect that allow you to move sometimes sequentially, sometimes not, from a feeling of anxiety about not being relaxed to actual relaxation.

When To Get Support

15:19 Now, this practice cannot explain every symptom, right? It's not about that. It's about grounding, grounding yourself. And I appreciate it doesn't suit everybody. If focusing on your body increases distress, you need to stop. But you haven't failed. It just might not be the right moment right now. And if you have persistent insomnia or panic attacks or pain or palpitation, then actually you probably deserve appropriate medical um examination. And my podcast, any podcast, can't offer understanding.

16:03 It can't assess you like that. So get support, right? It's about being part of what I would it's about responding to what's actually going on, reality, right? It's not about expecting too much of yourself. Now, if this episode has helped you put words around that wired but tired feeling, I'd really appreciate it if you'd leave a review at lovethepodcast.com forward slash work stressanxiety. The thing is, reviews help other people who are paying too much of a price for COVID at work find these conversations.

16:51 They also tell me which episodes are genuinely useful so that I'm not merely just adding noise to an already noisy world. And then let me think about this for a minute. Let's come back to Joan. Sitting in that quiet room with a body that hasn't quite received the memo yet. Joan's body stays alert, doesn't mean that she's broken or she's bad at resting. It just means there's a mismatch somewhere between understanding and demand. So I say to you, take your foot off the accelerator because it matters even when everything doesn't cool immediately, and notice what may still be keeping engine reviv.

17:47 Okay? So your tiny challenge today is to choose that one physical symptom or signal. Notice three things that you can see. Feel your feet, make sure it's comfortable, and allow that one easy exhale to lengthen. Then ask only whether anything has shifted, even by two percent. You don't have to manufacture con to begin making room for it. And just remember every step you take, no matter how small, is a step towards a brighter, more balanced future. Trust your journey and remember progress is progress, no matter the pace.

18:36 I hope today's episode gave you something useful to carry into your week. Now, finish your coffee, take a breath, and remember progress is progress no matter the pace. Until next time, bye for now.