In this episode, the host discusses burnout and the importance of health and wellness. He provides tips on nutrition, sleep, exercise, and reducing environmental toxins. He also emphasizes the need to make big changes in life to prevent burnout from recurring.The host expresses their plans to expand the podcast into a blog, a podcast platform, and potentially a book. They thank the guest for their time and mention upcoming episodes. They also mention keeping the episodes available and offer to notify listeners when their new platform goes live. The host expresses gratitude for the support and feedback received over the past year. They encourage listeners to rate and review the podcast to help spread the word.
[00:00:02]
Unknown:
This week on developer weekly.
[00:00:05] Barry Luijbregts:
Food, sleep, exercises also very important because we are made to move not to sit down, which means that we should move all day long. Small micro movements, let's say, basically means don't sit too long. Hey, friends. Are you stressed, burned out, or on your way to burn out, or do you just want to become healthier? My new course will teach you what stress is. And how to recognize a burnout and also how to prevent it and recover from it by working on the pillars of health, like sleep, food, exercise, clean living, and active relaxation, and also by changing your life, your work, relationships, and your environment.
Even if you are not burnt out or stressed, you can use these tactics to become healthier and live a longer and happier life. Check the course out at asherberry.com/burnout. And if you don't have access to Pluralsight, reach to me on Twitter or email, and I'll send you a 30 day free trial code that you can use for this course and all other pluralsight courses. Again, check it out at asherberry.com/burnout. Welcome to another episode of developer weekly. This week, I am talking with my wife Emily Lieblacks about burnout and health. Actually, she's gonna interview me on this podcast.
And that's special, and we are also doing that because I'm ending this podcast. I'm ending developer weekly. After 52 episodes, so after a year. Because although I do love technology, I am more passionate about, health and wellness topics, really. So I want to dive into that more that world and, create content for that. And so, to start that pivot, then we are going to do this podcast where My wife is going to interview me about health and, burnout. Thanks for doing this. You're welcome.
[00:02:18] Unknown:
This isn't the first time that I've been on. So, at least it's, but it's gonna be the first time that I really take over the questioning. It's gonna be, so it should I should shine a light in your eye or something.
[00:02:28] Barry Luijbregts:
Yeah. Don't do that. So, you know, let's get started. Okay.
[00:02:32] Unknown:
So I think one of the things that I do so for everyone that doesn't know who I am, I'm a project manager, but I'm also a coach and mentor. And over the last year, especially since the coronav pandemic, I've been seeing a lot of the people that I coach and mentor, but also in my teams struggling with, burnout, struggling with stress, and kind of the effect that this has on their health. Now this is something that we both have quite a, quite a personal view on because we've both had a burnout in our careers already. And I think that know, I really wanted to be able to spend some time and use your use your platform to be able to maybe demystify some of the some of the assumptions that maybe people have around burnout and depression, but also maybe to kinda shine a little bit of a light on the support that is there. But also for developers, what is available to them. So I know that you've just done a pluracyte course on this topic. Is that correct?
[00:03:32] Barry Luijbregts:
That's right, Jim. I did, like, a month or so ago, and that's called, jeez, I don't even know. It's, they they make me, create these, course titles, which are marketing wise. So it I think it's called prevent, manage, and recognize burnout, something like that. But the point of the whole course, is that burnout is not a be an occupational thing, but it's a thing that comes through, lifestyle and other stressors. So burnout is actually in my view, the result of chronic prolonged stress and stress can come from your work that is one, stressor can also come from diets, from, lack of sleep, from environmental toxins, from other stressors at home. You name it. There are many that can stress the body and also the mind, and those things add up and then can cause burnouts eventually. Do you think that developers or technologists are at more risk of a burnout or the more risk of,
[00:04:38] Unknown:
not being so maybe stress resilient. Do you think this could be something that you're that you've seen in your experience?
[00:04:45] Barry Luijbregts:
That's that word stress resilience, I really don't like that because that's something that comes up in, interviews quite a lot, you know, in job interviews where they say, here's a job. Are you stress resilience? So that that tells you where we're gonna add a lot of stress to your life, which is not not ideal for a job. But to your question, I don't think that developers per se or software folks are more prone to burnout than other people. They do have some inherent lifestyle factors that might make them less healthy and therefore add stress to their lives, like sitting all day, for instance. Potentially exercising less, but that's not true for everybody.
Although we have, a sedentary occupation, You know, lots of folks do things with standing desks, with, walking around, you know, there are many other people that, work behind the computer as well, like accountants and, most other information workers. So I don't think that's that's actually the case.
[00:05:49] Unknown:
Okay. So if we kinda take a take a bit of a step back, so towards kind of burnout and, you know, and stress, What is it? What is burnout?
[00:06:01] Barry Luijbregts:
Ah, so, then we have to go back to the actual stress response. So in your body, you have a stress response, which just can also sometimes be called the fight or flight response. And that's a very good thing. You know, because that's why we are all still here. Back in the day, there are actual dangers in the world, like saber toothed tigers and such. And when you faced one of those or another stressor like that, then you you had to make quick decisions. Like for instance, I going to fight this creature or, am I going to fight? Literally. And so, your body has mechanisms to aid you in that. So to put your, nervous system into a state of stress, where you activate your sim sympathetic nervous system, that means that you are excreting more adrenaline, more cortisol, all those stress hormones that you hear a lot about. Which helps you to react to those things. So, they enhance your, senses. You can see better. You can hear better, but they, restrict your other functions. So for instance, you're not focused on digesting food or, or on sex hormone and things like that because those are not important in those moments. Now, you need to be able to act in that moment and to run or fight or flight or do something like that. And so cortisol, for instance, and adren adrenaline also help you to, put more glucose and lipids in your, bloodstream so that you can use those as nutrients for your cells and for your muscles to actually run very quickly there.
That's all very good if you're facing a saber tooth tiger. But less if you're facing what should you watch on Netflix next? Exactly. Now so the the stress response itself, that's something that's very helpful, evolutionary wise, and that's why we are still here. And that is, very, it it is meant for acute, short lived stressor. Like a saber tooth tiger, or for instance, when you're in the car and you, almost have an accident. You you know that feeling? Yeah. Or you almost have an sense. And then you you just feel the rush of adrenaline. You're like, you're breeding, speeds up. Your your pupils dilate. All things that help you to react there, which is very good in that moment, and then you, calm down there. So you're not criticizing my drive right now? Well, I do have those experiences when I'm in in the car with you.
But, you know, to your credits,
[00:08:40] Unknown:
you are good driver, and you never actually get into an action. So that's Thank you. And I'd like that to be noted by everyone that I have, yet to have a crash as that. But, I guess, you know, for me, I when I had my burnout, I had my burnout in 2013, and it was a culmination of probably around 6 to 8 months of excessive stress. So within my day, job. I was working, ex I would take extraordinary hours. It was, you know, the 12 to 14 hour days. I was traveling to clients. I was in the car a lot. I was not sleeping very well. And, you know, things in my personal life were very, difficult at that time where it just struggled. And I, at one point, I I kind of called it. I couldn't see the woods for the trees. I was just, completely, I don't wanna say I just I was just too far. But I needed to be able to take some time out of my my work to be able to kind of calm down. And as you say, like, with this adrenaline response, you know, you kind of work on it and you kind of thrive on it, but that can be good in certain situations. So stress isn't necessarily a really bad thing. It can be, you know, a good thing for very short periods of time. But it's when you do have those prolonged periods of stress that it kind of comes into, you know, comes into its own. So have you found any good, any good ways of kind of, you know, reducing or relieving stress? Now I'm not just talking about you need to go out for a five k jog in every day. You know, I know that you're very big on supplements. I know you're very big on, you know, looking at someone holistically.
So what's your advice if you if, you know, if you are someone that's listening to this podcast right now and you are kind of seeing, a lot of these kind of symptoms that that you've just mentioned. What could you do? What can you do if you kind of see that you're on the precipice of that burnout, or you're on the precipice of having so much stress, and you just you wanna try and see how you can try and pull yourself back. Have you got any advice?
[00:10:37] Barry Luijbregts:
I I do, but before I, get through there, I want to finish answering your your previous question about what actually is a burnout because I was talking about, what the stress response how that is, useful for acute and short lived stressors. But then if that doesn't go away, for instance, a stressor could be that you, keep eating things that your body is intolerant to. For instance, I am lactose intolerant. There is various degrees to that you could be lactose intolerant to the point where you do not really notice it, but you just feel a bit like crap all the time. But, you know, you you don't relate that to your, to your diet. So if that's, for instance, the case, then you have a constant stressor that is always there. That's always ramping up your stress response a little bit to adrenaline and cortisol and all those things that, dilute your digestion and and do all those things constantly.
When you add that all up and that keeps on going with other stressors, like, for instance, work and, your home life, financial worries, the pandemic, you name it, all those types of things that adds up all those stressors add up together. And when they stay there for a very long time, chronically, then you come into a state of burn where your body is literally not able anymore to to produce the stress response. So to, actually create enough cortisol. So your as oil production, for instance, burns out a little bit. What, what actually happens is that your cells also become less sensitive to the cortisol in your body.
So and you also then, do not create enough cortisol anymore. So you need cord all, for instance, to wake up in the morning, you spike with cortisol a little bit, and then it goes down to hit its lowest point, at night before you go to bed before you go to sleep. Which is good. But if that mechanism doesn't work anymore, and this is just one of those mechanisms that is critical for a normal, normal life, Then you come into a state of burnout. So that means that many systems in your body that are related to the stress response as well, but also to just normal human function don't work as well anymore. And what that then means is that you get all sorts of symptoms like, for instance, anxiety, you are irritated.
You can be extremely tired, for instance, I had that as well, where you just can't get out of bed anymore. You don't have any creativity, motivation. You can get, bowel problems where in my case, I had lots of irritable bowel syndrome symptoms as you, as you could call them. Lots of stuff where basically you just feel like crap, you can't do anything, and you just don't see your way out of there. To me, that's what burnout is. And then when you go to the doctor with that, you say, hey. These are my symptoms. What's up? You you know, you might even feel that you have, that you you're coming on with heart attacks because you feel palpitations and you short of breath, which is often the case when you have panic attacks. They are very similar things.
But you don't know that if you if you don't know that. I didn't know that at the time. When you go with symptoms like that to the doctor, they say, oh, well, I don't know. Maybe they guess that it's a burnout. And when they do, they usually send you to a psych just say, well, you should go talk to somebody and work it out because it's all in your head. It's just a mental thing. And and here is where we can get to, more of a solution part because it isn't. Partly can be you know, stress can be cost of, obviously, by things in your head, you know, if you worry about money, for instance, that actually, activates the stress response with adrenaline and cortisol. All those things that physically happen in your body. You can make those happen with negative thoughts with stressful thoughts.
But also physical things, for instance, over exercising if you exercise too much, if you run a marathon, for instance, that is too much for your body, regardless of who you are, That stresses your body. So that's a physical thing over exercise. And that adds up with that mental, stressor as well, as well as, for instance, bad diet thinks that you eat, that you are intolerant to, environmental toxins, like, for instance, that you eat with antibiotics in it, stuff like that, those all add up. So if you want to then prevent or remedy or mitigate, a burnout, what should you do? That's your question. Right?
That's obviously not a simple thing, but I think what you should start with is look at what your stressors actually are in your life. What things stress you out. Well, I think the first thing that most people come up with are the things that mentally stress you. Like, you know, I feel stress by my job, for instance, because, you know, I need to work 12 hours a day. I hate my boss. I don't know. I have, 5 kids running around, and it's difficult. Okay. Make a list of all those stressors. And also then take into account for instance. I'm not sleeping well. I'm not exercising. I'm exercising too much, maybe. I don't I'm I'm not sure if you're doing that. Make a list, and then you can also, then indicate for yourself, well, these are things that I can actually change, and these are things that I can't change. For instance, if you have 5 kids, You can't change that. You can't just get rid of tree or something. And then, then that's it. But, you know, you can change aspects of that, for instance, asking for more help.
Now that is all subjective because, you know, I I'm stressed because I am worrying about finances, for instance. Sure. But how stressed are you, you know, that you don't know how stressed you actually are. There are several ways to measure your stress level. In a bit more of an objective way, but still is always subjective because it is relative to distress level in your own body and what you can actually, deal with or not. And one way, for instance, to measure HRV, which is heart rate variability. Your heart rate, goes, I don't know, 60 beats per minute, for instance. And within, after every beat, there's an interval to the next beat.
And that's the, those intervals are never the same. So for instance, could be one second, could be 1.2 seconds could be 0.9 seconds, and that's good. It doesn't have to be, exactly the same. That's the variability between your heartbeats. Now when you're not stressed, the variability is very high. So those things are very, very, very variable. Your heart rate is very variable. That's good. If you are very stressed, your heart rate variability is very low. So all of the beats happen exactly at the same time with the exact same interval because your heart's trying to pump us as as consequent as it can. So that you are ready for your action for fight or flight. So what you wanna see is a high HR fee.
Now you can measure HRV with several things. I, for instance, do that with an aura ring, which is a ring I wear that measures sleep, but also HRV. Amongst other things. Lots of wearables do it. There's also apps on your phone that do it, through the camera, for instance. Not all of them are as accurate, but they do work. And then, you know, the question would be, well, what is a good HRV to have, well, obviously, that depends on your own baseline. So what I would advise is to measure your HRV over, let's say, a week or 2 weeks. And then you have kind of a baseline, and then you can see, you know, what happens when I, when I drink, some wine, for instance, before I go to bed, does my HIV go up or down and buy how much? And then you can see, if you are stressed relative to your own baseline. So that's a bit of a more objective thing.
So making a list of all your stressors and actually measuring
[00:18:58] Unknown:
it with something like that would be my first start. So this has actually brought on a a good question, but I just wanna follow-up on about HRV. So, you know, as you mentioned, you know, you need to track it over, you know, a period of time, so 2, 3 weeks to see kind of what, you know, what can impact or affect it. Now you mentioned alcohol. That's a really kind of interesting thing because, I know a lot of people that self medicate with, with alcohol for whatever reason. Have you kind of noticed just based on your experience on what, you know, the the data that you have? Cause I know how much you love your data. That have you noticed that, you know, the alcohol is a big stressor for you or say, for example, specific sports that you do? Like, I you know, walking, running, weight training, because I'm just thinking, because there's a lot of people out there that might be thinking, well, you know, there's so much there can be so many deviations and so many kind of old, you know, things around the HIV, you know, how can you work out what's best for you? Is it just doing it over a longer period of time and experimenting?
Or have you kind of had something that you've kind of seen over your stats that you've seen that's kind of worked really well for you?
[00:20:05] Barry Luijbregts:
So basically you're asking, what stresses me and what doesn't stress me because in my case, the HRV is basically a, a measurement of my stress in this case. So for me, what stresses me is when I eat bad. For instance, when I eat the fries, burgers, stuff like that, high carb stuff, I see that my HRV crushes down and I wake up more irritated as well and have a lower stress, boundary. So instance, when my kids are, are being, since, you know, there are days where I can deal with that better than other days. And when I'm more stressed, I I deal with that less well. So high carbs for me, alcohol, interestingly, that that just destroys my sleep, regardless if I have just one glass wine or 10, for instance, it does, I can see that, also in my my data, I know alcohol is a confusing thing. It does feel like, you know, I can't sleep well. So let's let's just have a couple of glasses of wine or whatever or beers. And so you fall asleep faster.
That's true. So you don't have the the ruminations in your mind because of the GABA that's produced, which is a hormone in your your brain, the happiness, hormone in your brain that makes you, a bit more relaxed. And and that's good. You know, to go to sleep, you need to be a bit more relaxed to actually fall asleep. But then during the night, you constantly wake up micro wake ups, which you don't even notice, and you don't have any ram sleep, rapid eye movement sleep. Where you actually decompress and, learn new things and also buffer your brain for the next day to handle more stress. So even though alcohol feels good and might make you fall asleep faster, it produces less good quality sleep, you know, even if it's as long as you normally sleep.
So please don't do that, too much before you go to bed. What you could do and, you know, your boss might not agree with this, but you could just start drinking earlier in the day. Oh, seriously. The French do it. You know? If if you have, I don't know, a couple of glasses, of wine with your lunch, for instance, it would be out of your system before you go to bed.
[00:22:34] Unknown:
Now that's fine. So you're encouraging daytime drinking. I will make a note of this. I will make that. Who cares? Why not? But I I noticed what you were saying about, you know, if you are feeling stressed, make a list and kind of, like, see what your stresses could be. One of the things that I would actually add here as a bit of a recommendation as well is, if you have a trusted person, so this doesn't have to be your spouse. This can be, you know, a very close friend or something else, talk to them about it, talk to them about maybe what is currently stressing you out, and then maybe see if they have an additional insight So because they probably know you the best, they'll be talking to you the most frequently, you know, they might say, well, actually, you know what? I think this is a bigger for example, financial worries, I think this is a bigger stress than you are letting on, or when it comes to something like, like, work stress or some something like that saying, well, you know, I've noticed that, you know, that you are maintaining a lot of good boundaries, and I think it's just mainly the the period that you're kind of going through at work, maybe you need to have a chat to your boss about, you know, motivation or kind of the projects that you're on. Kind of having a look at it from another point of view. So that's one thing that I would, kind of add in here is when you do make a list and you're kind of checking it twice and trying to work out if you've been naughty and nice. It's, it's important to also kind of check this list as well and and kind of see if you are being completely accurate, which I think is important because, you know, sometimes you especially where I was, is I didn't even know I had a problem them. It wasn't until someone came up to me, and they said, you know what? I I don't think that you're entirely well, that this kind of really spurred me to kind of make a change and and make, a big, a big difference to to my life. Yep. And, you know, one of the things that I would say is that once you've done So let's just say I have made my list. I've made my stresses list. What do I do next? What do I how do I how do I kind of remedy that? How can I go about that? Because you know, that feeling of helplessness that you have when you just don't know which way to go and you don't know which way to turn, would it be going to someone like your GP or your, you know, your general practitioner Is it a functional doctor we should be looking for? Should I be going to see that psychotherapist to, to kind of let me talk out my concerns? Or, you know, what do you do next? Yeah.
[00:24:52] Barry Luijbregts:
Well, that's actually very interesting. So I think what you said there, first of all, is that you don't know when you are on your way to burnout. And that's true for many people. They don't know how far they are on their on the spectrum of burnout or how stressed they actually are. I sure didn't know. Because, you know, you just you just go through it. Right? You're busy. Everybody's busy. We all have our stuff in our lives, and we're just You just, you you just go through it, and it's fine. You know, just and as long as you just don't give up, you can just keep going because you're adrenaline just keeps on going until it doesn't until your body says no.
And, you know, in in my case as well, physically, I was just feeling like crap. All the time, but I didn't know it because that was my baseline. And I think that's true for many people. They have to feel like crap syndrome syndrome because they don't know what it's like to not feel like crap. And only when you do, then you actually want to strive for that because you don't know how how bad you are actually feeling. In your body with digestion and and all all the other things, energy. So, what can you do Like we said, try and make an inventory of your stressors.
Yeah, you could go to all those, those people GP functional doctor, but I think you can do a lot yourself as well because, you know, there there are lots of common lifestyle factors that introduce stressors to your life that you should take a look at, and I cover these in more detail in the course. But for instance, you have nutrition, So what do you eat? And when do you eat? I don't really talk about how much do you eat because, when you eat is, I think, is way more important than what you actually eat. So what you eat should be, for instance, healthy things. Of course, we all know this. But difficult to do. We are all very busy, but you can obviously clean things a little bit up, you know, try to eat more veggies.
Try to eat less processed food. And then when you eat, try to shorten your time frame in in when you eat, you know, most people eat whenever they can. You know, you eat before you jump in the car to stand in in traffic to do your whole day of work. And then when you come back home, late at night, you eat again dinner, and then maybe have some snacks at night just before you go to bed. That's an extremely long eating window. If you can restrict that to 12 hours, for instance, then you have a 12 hour fast immediately after that.
Just baked in. With with 8 hours of sleep or however long you sleep, re relatively effortless. And just by doing that, you already give your body the time to actually clean up and, heal itself. That's a very powerful thing. You can extend that, that period a little bit, but that also gives a bit more stress because a fasted state introduces stress, more fasted state of your body because that makes your body want to need to go out and look for food. And, a fed state introduces rest and relax usually, unless it's for too long and you're just stressing your constantly with food that it doesn't need. So those 2 things clean up your diet and look at when you eat and how long you eat, are very important.
The next thing is sleep. Sleep is so extremely important that our our evolution actually decided that it's so important that you're just knocked out for 8 hours and, you're vulnerable to being mold by a bear because you you're blind to the world. It's that important that we actually do that for one third of our lives. Why is that? Because during sleep, we actually heal ourselves as well. We do all sorts of healing processes, including cleaning out the brain, which means that we clean out the plaques and all the inflammation that happens during the day because we use our brain there. And also, storing memories getting rid of excess information that we do not need, things like that. It's it's kind of like therapy, self therapy, every every nights that we do that. And it's it's just, it's very, very needed. You immediately know when you had a bad night's sleep the day after. Right? Uh-huh. Because you feel like crap, and you also know when you had a good night's sleep.
Right? That that's for sure. That's extremely immediate. With food, it's not the immediate. It could take a couple of days before you feel like crap. If if you ate something that you can't handle that well. So sleep isn't extremely important. To prioritize, and you can help sleep with a couple of things, like, for instance, making it extremely dark in your room, making sure your room is only for sleeping. So no TV or in your room, for instance. No lights. Try to not read in your room because programs to brain that. If you're reading your bed, that your bed is for other things like reading and not for sleeping, your brain is an association machine. Other things like don't, drink caffeine too late in the day because caffeine has a very long, half life if that's still in your system when you go to bed, then the hormone, molecule adenosine, which actually builds up sleep pressure to help you go to sleep is less available in your brain. And so you can't sleep that well. And, you know, there are lots of other things like movement, getting out early in the in the day to get the 1st sunlight to start your circadian rhythm. Lots of tips there that are all covered in, in the course.
So food, sleep, exercise is also very important because we are made to move not to sit down. Which means that we should move all day long in small micro movements. Let's say, basically means don't sit too long. Just don't sit still too long. And make sure you exercise on a regular basis. And what do I mean by exercise? Just get a sweat on. You know? You don't have to run a marathon or something. Just do do something. Do something that you like because that's something that you can stick with. If that is tennis, that's tennis, if that is running, that's running, cycling, walking, whatever. It doesn't have to be an Ironman or, lifting all sorts of super heavy weights, but you should just do it simple combination of, for instance, hit training, high intensity interval training, which can be super short. You can do it in 20 minutes, and you a you had a complete training in there. You can do that. If you're not super fit or when you're super fit, it doesn't really matter. You can decide the intensity of such a thing yourself.
You can go for a for a stroll and also make sure you lift some weights here and there. Just lift something. And, if you can, in a functional matter, you know, you can do that with, squats. You lift your own body weight. With, push ups. You lift your own body weight, or you actually lift some weights. Doesn't really matter. But resistance training is very important as well. To, keep your muscle mass intact and to your bone structure as well and helps you sleep as well. The flip side of exercise, like, so you should exercise, but you should also not over exercise. Because then people think, well, you know, I should run every day, for instance. No. You should really should not run every day. That was something that proposed in the seventies will also low fat high carb was proposed.
It was a running craze and an exercise craze. Exercise is obviously very good for you, but don't go overboard on that. So, an exercise is a stressor when you exercise size, you actually stress your body because you create, oxidative stress in your body. You know, you're basically burning fuel on a very high level, which you do always, but now on a very high level. And burning fuel, like burning glucose in your body, creates free radical you know, those things that, cause havoc, in your cells and that you need to clean up with those things that are called antioxidants, which are in vitamin for instance, in plants, there are lots of types of antioxidants that clean those things up. Your body also produces antioxidants itself.
Is actually also triggered by exercise. But when you exercise too much, you have, a big stressor and you don't give your body enough time to recover from that stretcher. Now how do you know that if you do that? For instance, if you, measure your HRV when I do some hard exercise today, for instance, right now in the mid day, my HRV will be a bit lower tonight during sleep because I am recovering there. If I, rest tomorrow, And I do some walking or some some other stuff, but not hard exercise. And then my HIV will go up higher even than it was the day before this day because my body's learned from that stressor of the exercise. It gained, it gained from it. You know, because, maybe I gained some muscle or something or some aerobic, exercise.
And it recovered well because I gave it time. And so HRV, my stress level is actually lower because of it. So exercise, but don't over exercise. Try to fill that out. It's a bit of a difficult thing. So we had nutrition. We had sleep. We have exercise. There's also environmental toxins. Now this sounds like, oh, toxins. What are you talking about? But toxins can be quite stressor on your body. And toxins can be lots of things like, mercury poisoning that is in fish, for instance, should definitely eat fish. But if you eat a lot of big fish, like tuna, swordfish, things that are high up in the food chain, things that eat lots of other fish You get lots of toxins in your body. And also like aluminum, right, like in, like deodorants and stuff. Like, there's also a lot of toxins that can be in there. Yeah. So in your food, there's lots of toxins like, especially in very processed food. For instance, chickens and stuff get, growth hormone, antibiotics, although, everything that, the meat that you eat, eats, you also eat, of course. Sure. You know? It's it's simple.
So try to eat clean stuff and, like, organic vegetables and, and things like that that are not sprayed with, best sites because then you get those in your body as well. But like you say, as well, things that are in your personal care products, like your deodorant, If there's aluminum in there or whatever, read the label of your deodorant. Do you know what any of it means?
[00:35:42] Unknown:
No. The only reason that I know this is because my mom had breast cancer in 2014, and she, was, you know, very clearly advised to avoid, any kind of, I don't know, manufactured deodorant, but she had to go towards you know, any deodorant that was very natural based. So there was a couple of stores in the UK. And they they they they, you know, they said that was a a real mandatory thing because you are, as you say, you're spraying metal directly on your lymph nodes. Yes. And that can cause a lot of problems I know that for her, that's why, you know, she was trying, I think, for a year to find, basically a natural deodorant that didn't suck. It was a it was a, you know, a trial and fail period. So, yeah, that's, how I know about that one. Ah, okay. I didn't know that they actually, recommended that to your mom. Yeah. That's a great thing.
[00:36:32] Barry Luijbregts:
Unfortunately, they only recommend that after you had cancer. Obviously, that is a good that's just great advice for everybody. So in your personal care products, what I would advise is if you wouldn't eat it, then don't put it on your body because, your skin absorbs stuff. Right? Like you can have a nicotine patch, for instance, that absorbs nicotine. So it will also absorb whatever else you put on your face or or under your armpits. So if you if you can't really eat it, if you wouldn't eat it, Then why would you put it on your body? That's toxic. Just don't do it. Now I don't follow my advice always exactly. I see I see it look. I put plastic on my head which is gel, which is just terrible stuff. Yeah.
[00:37:17] Unknown:
That's, so if I am a person that close to burnout right now. So I've made my list. I am looking. I'm gonna be cleaning up my diet. I am gonna be trying to, you know, look at my exercise regime, see what I can do. I'm also gonna be trying to see if I can resolve some of my sleep. And I feel better. You know, I'm feeling like I have come over the hill or I'm feeling better within myself. Have you got any tips for, you know, what happens after the burnout? So can I make sure that I don't go back into that situation? Now I know that, you know, there are some changes that can't be made for whatever reason, you got any tips, you know, from your own experience or from something there for, like, how to not get back into this situation again?
[00:38:00] Barry Luijbregts:
That's a very good question. So all these things we've just talked about, it sounds very overwhelming, like, oh, man, I'm burnt out now. I need to work on the thousands of other things. In in the course, I explain, for instance, for sleep, I have like 10 tips for that, and then I I explain, well, you know, pick one that's easy for you and try to stick with it, see if it helps. If it does, stick with it, pick another one. You know, try an easy one. So those things are all the lifestyle factors that we've just talked about. And you can choose and pick a couple that you can work on, and and you feel that would improve your situation. But maybe there are some bigger things going on as well that might come out of your list. For instance, work, work can be a very big stressor.
For instance, if your manager sucks, if you're not appreciated, if you're super busy, but you're just doing, things that really don't matter, you know, that that you'd feel don't really matter. You have lots of meetings that just who cares about those meetings? Meetings that don't add any value, you mean? Yes. Meetings that don't add any value. I yeah. Now I'm very lucky to not have that problem. But if you do, and for instance, work would be, a big stressor. So, you're getting out of your burnout or or you're still in it, still, you need to think about this. And you need to think about what what should you change there, or you could tell your boss, well, you know what? I'm I'm not gonna do those 12 hour days anymore, renegotiate there.
But probably, maybe you should think Well, do you actually like to work where you work, or do you actually like to work in the industry even that you work? Maybe you should change that. So, to actually make sure that the burnout doesn't come back, you should probably change some big things in your life. And those things can be work, for instance. Those things could also be relationships, you know, maybe get rid of toxic relationships that cause stress for you, could be the place where you live, for instance. These are all big changes And you might not be ready to make those big changes, especially when you are burnt out and overwhelmed or you just came out of a burnout.
But often a burnout is is a time of reflection where your body stops you in your tracks to force you to reflect on what's actually going on in your life. Because you need to stop. In fact, you you actually you have no choice. Your body makes you stop, so you can't go to work. You can't do all of the things that you usually do. It just it's impossible. And in that time, try to take that time and reflect on what you actually like to do, what you actually would like to spend your time on. Is it is it this work?
[00:40:58] Unknown:
Is is this worth your time? Is this company worth your time? Are these people worth your time? See, this is where I call it when I'm coaching people. So, last year, I had a a colleague of mine, go off on burnout, and I actually identified the burnout before they did. And I I did like a mini intervention between them and their boss to be able to kind of in a nice way, be able to say, you know what? This person is not handling their stress. They are really struggling with what is, with, you know, with where they are currently. And, you know, when they were coming back and they were kind of asking questions and we were having a a coaching session on this, I said, you know, find your joy.
Where is your joy in every day? Now is your joy in, you may be going to do some gardening? Is your joy in, you know, going for a walk, going cycling, you know, find what makes you just that that little inch of happiness that you can have. And especially when you are, very much struggling with stress, this can be something so minute. This can be sitting outside because it's nice weather and having a cup of coffee. This can be whatever, but it's trying to find that little bit of joy in your life and then building from that. I find it interesting you were saying, you know, you might have to tackle. If we kind of, you know, the analogy around, you know, in your day, you have the the glass jar. You have your big rocks, and you have your little rocks of things and activities that you need to do. And I find it interesting what you say there about you know, some of the big rocks you might need to be changing. So whether that is your work, whether that is relationships, whether that's, you know, where you're living, And maybe kind of tackling those, you know, within a good time frame and then focusing on the little of things, you know, or maybe, you know, starting out with of things and then adjusting to these big rocks.
But I think that's really kind of interesting point that you say about, you know, also looking very critically at your life as it is. Because I think there's also going to be a very difficult reflection point for yourself in in understanding where you're at and maybe of the things that maybe aren't going so well, whether there is work or whatever.
[00:43:03] Barry Luijbregts:
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. You know, we should try to do the things that feed your soul. And get rid of the things that, that take energy from it. And that can be very difficult. But, you know, try it because we're all gonna die anyways. So why not? Nobody's getting out of this life.
[00:43:23] Unknown:
So try to find your joy, like you say. But, you know, it's like, yeah, you can get out of this. No no one is getting out of this alive. Correct? And but, you know, if you do have stress, it is going to shorten your life. So it is in your best interest to make sure that you can try and fix the the causes in roots of your stress because otherwise, you know, you may be getting out quicker than you maybe would like to. Yeah. And, and,
[00:43:49] Barry Luijbregts:
That's another point. All of these things that we discuss here, including the lifestyle factors, they are good against stress, to reduce your stress, and to maybe get out of a burnout, but also to, enhance your health overall. And therefore, also your, health span, which is the time that you are healthy during your life. So hopefully throughout, for a long time. So all of those lifestyle style factors, like eating better, sleeping better, exercising, getting rid of, toxins and also actively relaxing, they all help you to live longer and better as well.
[00:44:26] Unknown:
So this is kind of a a great summary into saying, okay. You know, we are looking at burnout. We are looking at what you can do if you either experiencing burnout if you're coming back from it. But let's maybe take a little bit of a swing. So, you know, this is, as you've said at the start of the podcast, this is be one of your last podcasts, on developer weekly. So what's gonna be coming next? Is there's is is there anything coming
[00:44:53] Barry Luijbregts:
Yeah, there is. I'm not sure about the name yet. But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna be writing about health and wellness topics because I like that. I like to learn new things, and then I like to, absorb that and try to teach that to other people. So I think that, That's the only thing that I'm actually good at.
[00:45:17] Unknown:
But why choose a deviation in the first place? Instead of technology. Yeah. Well, like, why stop when, you know, you are very, very good at being Azure Berry.
[00:45:27] Barry Luijbregts:
I will still be Azure Berry, so I will still create courses for Pluralsight and also, occasionally write some things. About technology and such and do some consulting here and there. But this platform sort of developed a weekly, technology pot about technology. Obviously, it takes time to do this, and I am very conscious about my time, and I want to spend it on something else. So on health, because I'm more passionate about that than about, this technology. And I think, it would help people a lot more to talk about those types of topics than to talk about technology because there is already
[00:46:07] Unknown:
so much out there for technology. So this is something that you're seeing from people that you're talking to as well, that, you know, this that this is something that is being called for by the by the wider public. This isn't some like a niche topic. This is something that's now coming into the mainstream of the people that you're talking to, the people that are contacting you. This isn't like a This isn't a rare topic anymore. This is something that is gonna be really important in the coming period. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
[00:46:33] Barry Luijbregts:
So I'm gonna just gonna start with a blog. And then at some point, it's gonna be a a podcast, platform with probably some YouTube videos as well. And we'll just see how it goes. Maybe I'll create more courses around the topic. Maybe a book if I have the time, Who knows writing a book is very painful. But, yeah, just wanna create more. Okay.
[00:46:59] Unknown:
Well, this is the the end the questions I had that I just wanted to kind of pick your brains about because I I know that there are a lot of people out there that are asking more questions and want to get more information around burnout and kind of how they can help themselves. So this was the end of my questions. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your very, very busy schedule to, to come and talk to me and, to give me some of your feedback input. That was really great. Yeah. Thank you very much for
[00:47:26] Barry Luijbregts:
asking me all those questions because it takes time as well. And, to the listener, we still have a couple of episodes to go in this series of developer weekly. So stay tuned for those. They will be interesting. I also will keep all of the episodes up and running for quite a while. So the feed will be up. So you can go back and listen to all the other episodes as well. Still be available in your favorite podcast player and and developer weekly podcast.com. And if you sign up for the newsletter or have signed up for the news letter of developer weekly. I won't send you any weekly newsletters anymore for the developer weekly podcast, but when my new platform goes live, I will send you, one email to, notify you of that, and then you can choose to, you know, stay in the list or just unsubscribe and, and leave that if that's not a topic that you are interested in. And really, thank you very much for your support over the last year. Because many, many of you have, listened to these podcasts and sent me messages, online to, share what you've learned and that you found it useful.
I found it very useful myself as well because I've learned a lot from my, incredible guests. They've shared so much, knowledge that, that I was lacking around all sorts of stuff, technology, but so career, being an introvert, trends, what's coming for developers. It was just it was a great adventure. So thank you very much. And stay tuned. Could you please go to rate this podcast dotcom slash developer weekly and rate this podcast and leave a review. This helps me to spread the word about the podcast and helps other people to find it. That is.
Rate this podcast.com/developerweekly. Thank you so much.
This week on developer weekly.
[00:00:05] Barry Luijbregts:
Food, sleep, exercises also very important because we are made to move not to sit down, which means that we should move all day long. Small micro movements, let's say, basically means don't sit too long. Hey, friends. Are you stressed, burned out, or on your way to burn out, or do you just want to become healthier? My new course will teach you what stress is. And how to recognize a burnout and also how to prevent it and recover from it by working on the pillars of health, like sleep, food, exercise, clean living, and active relaxation, and also by changing your life, your work, relationships, and your environment.
Even if you are not burnt out or stressed, you can use these tactics to become healthier and live a longer and happier life. Check the course out at asherberry.com/burnout. And if you don't have access to Pluralsight, reach to me on Twitter or email, and I'll send you a 30 day free trial code that you can use for this course and all other pluralsight courses. Again, check it out at asherberry.com/burnout. Welcome to another episode of developer weekly. This week, I am talking with my wife Emily Lieblacks about burnout and health. Actually, she's gonna interview me on this podcast.
And that's special, and we are also doing that because I'm ending this podcast. I'm ending developer weekly. After 52 episodes, so after a year. Because although I do love technology, I am more passionate about, health and wellness topics, really. So I want to dive into that more that world and, create content for that. And so, to start that pivot, then we are going to do this podcast where My wife is going to interview me about health and, burnout. Thanks for doing this. You're welcome.
[00:02:18] Unknown:
This isn't the first time that I've been on. So, at least it's, but it's gonna be the first time that I really take over the questioning. It's gonna be, so it should I should shine a light in your eye or something.
[00:02:28] Barry Luijbregts:
Yeah. Don't do that. So, you know, let's get started. Okay.
[00:02:32] Unknown:
So I think one of the things that I do so for everyone that doesn't know who I am, I'm a project manager, but I'm also a coach and mentor. And over the last year, especially since the coronav pandemic, I've been seeing a lot of the people that I coach and mentor, but also in my teams struggling with, burnout, struggling with stress, and kind of the effect that this has on their health. Now this is something that we both have quite a, quite a personal view on because we've both had a burnout in our careers already. And I think that know, I really wanted to be able to spend some time and use your use your platform to be able to maybe demystify some of the some of the assumptions that maybe people have around burnout and depression, but also maybe to kinda shine a little bit of a light on the support that is there. But also for developers, what is available to them. So I know that you've just done a pluracyte course on this topic. Is that correct?
[00:03:32] Barry Luijbregts:
That's right, Jim. I did, like, a month or so ago, and that's called, jeez, I don't even know. It's, they they make me, create these, course titles, which are marketing wise. So it I think it's called prevent, manage, and recognize burnout, something like that. But the point of the whole course, is that burnout is not a be an occupational thing, but it's a thing that comes through, lifestyle and other stressors. So burnout is actually in my view, the result of chronic prolonged stress and stress can come from your work that is one, stressor can also come from diets, from, lack of sleep, from environmental toxins, from other stressors at home. You name it. There are many that can stress the body and also the mind, and those things add up and then can cause burnouts eventually. Do you think that developers or technologists are at more risk of a burnout or the more risk of,
[00:04:38] Unknown:
not being so maybe stress resilient. Do you think this could be something that you're that you've seen in your experience?
[00:04:45] Barry Luijbregts:
That's that word stress resilience, I really don't like that because that's something that comes up in, interviews quite a lot, you know, in job interviews where they say, here's a job. Are you stress resilience? So that that tells you where we're gonna add a lot of stress to your life, which is not not ideal for a job. But to your question, I don't think that developers per se or software folks are more prone to burnout than other people. They do have some inherent lifestyle factors that might make them less healthy and therefore add stress to their lives, like sitting all day, for instance. Potentially exercising less, but that's not true for everybody.
Although we have, a sedentary occupation, You know, lots of folks do things with standing desks, with, walking around, you know, there are many other people that, work behind the computer as well, like accountants and, most other information workers. So I don't think that's that's actually the case.
[00:05:49] Unknown:
Okay. So if we kinda take a take a bit of a step back, so towards kind of burnout and, you know, and stress, What is it? What is burnout?
[00:06:01] Barry Luijbregts:
Ah, so, then we have to go back to the actual stress response. So in your body, you have a stress response, which just can also sometimes be called the fight or flight response. And that's a very good thing. You know, because that's why we are all still here. Back in the day, there are actual dangers in the world, like saber toothed tigers and such. And when you faced one of those or another stressor like that, then you you had to make quick decisions. Like for instance, I going to fight this creature or, am I going to fight? Literally. And so, your body has mechanisms to aid you in that. So to put your, nervous system into a state of stress, where you activate your sim sympathetic nervous system, that means that you are excreting more adrenaline, more cortisol, all those stress hormones that you hear a lot about. Which helps you to react to those things. So, they enhance your, senses. You can see better. You can hear better, but they, restrict your other functions. So for instance, you're not focused on digesting food or, or on sex hormone and things like that because those are not important in those moments. Now, you need to be able to act in that moment and to run or fight or flight or do something like that. And so cortisol, for instance, and adren adrenaline also help you to, put more glucose and lipids in your, bloodstream so that you can use those as nutrients for your cells and for your muscles to actually run very quickly there.
That's all very good if you're facing a saber tooth tiger. But less if you're facing what should you watch on Netflix next? Exactly. Now so the the stress response itself, that's something that's very helpful, evolutionary wise, and that's why we are still here. And that is, very, it it is meant for acute, short lived stressor. Like a saber tooth tiger, or for instance, when you're in the car and you, almost have an accident. You you know that feeling? Yeah. Or you almost have an sense. And then you you just feel the rush of adrenaline. You're like, you're breeding, speeds up. Your your pupils dilate. All things that help you to react there, which is very good in that moment, and then you, calm down there. So you're not criticizing my drive right now? Well, I do have those experiences when I'm in in the car with you.
But, you know, to your credits,
[00:08:40] Unknown:
you are good driver, and you never actually get into an action. So that's Thank you. And I'd like that to be noted by everyone that I have, yet to have a crash as that. But, I guess, you know, for me, I when I had my burnout, I had my burnout in 2013, and it was a culmination of probably around 6 to 8 months of excessive stress. So within my day, job. I was working, ex I would take extraordinary hours. It was, you know, the 12 to 14 hour days. I was traveling to clients. I was in the car a lot. I was not sleeping very well. And, you know, things in my personal life were very, difficult at that time where it just struggled. And I, at one point, I I kind of called it. I couldn't see the woods for the trees. I was just, completely, I don't wanna say I just I was just too far. But I needed to be able to take some time out of my my work to be able to kind of calm down. And as you say, like, with this adrenaline response, you know, you kind of work on it and you kind of thrive on it, but that can be good in certain situations. So stress isn't necessarily a really bad thing. It can be, you know, a good thing for very short periods of time. But it's when you do have those prolonged periods of stress that it kind of comes into, you know, comes into its own. So have you found any good, any good ways of kind of, you know, reducing or relieving stress? Now I'm not just talking about you need to go out for a five k jog in every day. You know, I know that you're very big on supplements. I know you're very big on, you know, looking at someone holistically.
So what's your advice if you if, you know, if you are someone that's listening to this podcast right now and you are kind of seeing, a lot of these kind of symptoms that that you've just mentioned. What could you do? What can you do if you kind of see that you're on the precipice of that burnout, or you're on the precipice of having so much stress, and you just you wanna try and see how you can try and pull yourself back. Have you got any advice?
[00:10:37] Barry Luijbregts:
I I do, but before I, get through there, I want to finish answering your your previous question about what actually is a burnout because I was talking about, what the stress response how that is, useful for acute and short lived stressors. But then if that doesn't go away, for instance, a stressor could be that you, keep eating things that your body is intolerant to. For instance, I am lactose intolerant. There is various degrees to that you could be lactose intolerant to the point where you do not really notice it, but you just feel a bit like crap all the time. But, you know, you you don't relate that to your, to your diet. So if that's, for instance, the case, then you have a constant stressor that is always there. That's always ramping up your stress response a little bit to adrenaline and cortisol and all those things that, dilute your digestion and and do all those things constantly.
When you add that all up and that keeps on going with other stressors, like, for instance, work and, your home life, financial worries, the pandemic, you name it, all those types of things that adds up all those stressors add up together. And when they stay there for a very long time, chronically, then you come into a state of burn where your body is literally not able anymore to to produce the stress response. So to, actually create enough cortisol. So your as oil production, for instance, burns out a little bit. What, what actually happens is that your cells also become less sensitive to the cortisol in your body.
So and you also then, do not create enough cortisol anymore. So you need cord all, for instance, to wake up in the morning, you spike with cortisol a little bit, and then it goes down to hit its lowest point, at night before you go to bed before you go to sleep. Which is good. But if that mechanism doesn't work anymore, and this is just one of those mechanisms that is critical for a normal, normal life, Then you come into a state of burnout. So that means that many systems in your body that are related to the stress response as well, but also to just normal human function don't work as well anymore. And what that then means is that you get all sorts of symptoms like, for instance, anxiety, you are irritated.
You can be extremely tired, for instance, I had that as well, where you just can't get out of bed anymore. You don't have any creativity, motivation. You can get, bowel problems where in my case, I had lots of irritable bowel syndrome symptoms as you, as you could call them. Lots of stuff where basically you just feel like crap, you can't do anything, and you just don't see your way out of there. To me, that's what burnout is. And then when you go to the doctor with that, you say, hey. These are my symptoms. What's up? You you know, you might even feel that you have, that you you're coming on with heart attacks because you feel palpitations and you short of breath, which is often the case when you have panic attacks. They are very similar things.
But you don't know that if you if you don't know that. I didn't know that at the time. When you go with symptoms like that to the doctor, they say, oh, well, I don't know. Maybe they guess that it's a burnout. And when they do, they usually send you to a psych just say, well, you should go talk to somebody and work it out because it's all in your head. It's just a mental thing. And and here is where we can get to, more of a solution part because it isn't. Partly can be you know, stress can be cost of, obviously, by things in your head, you know, if you worry about money, for instance, that actually, activates the stress response with adrenaline and cortisol. All those things that physically happen in your body. You can make those happen with negative thoughts with stressful thoughts.
But also physical things, for instance, over exercising if you exercise too much, if you run a marathon, for instance, that is too much for your body, regardless of who you are, That stresses your body. So that's a physical thing over exercise. And that adds up with that mental, stressor as well, as well as, for instance, bad diet thinks that you eat, that you are intolerant to, environmental toxins, like, for instance, that you eat with antibiotics in it, stuff like that, those all add up. So if you want to then prevent or remedy or mitigate, a burnout, what should you do? That's your question. Right?
That's obviously not a simple thing, but I think what you should start with is look at what your stressors actually are in your life. What things stress you out. Well, I think the first thing that most people come up with are the things that mentally stress you. Like, you know, I feel stress by my job, for instance, because, you know, I need to work 12 hours a day. I hate my boss. I don't know. I have, 5 kids running around, and it's difficult. Okay. Make a list of all those stressors. And also then take into account for instance. I'm not sleeping well. I'm not exercising. I'm exercising too much, maybe. I don't I'm I'm not sure if you're doing that. Make a list, and then you can also, then indicate for yourself, well, these are things that I can actually change, and these are things that I can't change. For instance, if you have 5 kids, You can't change that. You can't just get rid of tree or something. And then, then that's it. But, you know, you can change aspects of that, for instance, asking for more help.
Now that is all subjective because, you know, I I'm stressed because I am worrying about finances, for instance. Sure. But how stressed are you, you know, that you don't know how stressed you actually are. There are several ways to measure your stress level. In a bit more of an objective way, but still is always subjective because it is relative to distress level in your own body and what you can actually, deal with or not. And one way, for instance, to measure HRV, which is heart rate variability. Your heart rate, goes, I don't know, 60 beats per minute, for instance. And within, after every beat, there's an interval to the next beat.
And that's the, those intervals are never the same. So for instance, could be one second, could be 1.2 seconds could be 0.9 seconds, and that's good. It doesn't have to be, exactly the same. That's the variability between your heartbeats. Now when you're not stressed, the variability is very high. So those things are very, very, very variable. Your heart rate is very variable. That's good. If you are very stressed, your heart rate variability is very low. So all of the beats happen exactly at the same time with the exact same interval because your heart's trying to pump us as as consequent as it can. So that you are ready for your action for fight or flight. So what you wanna see is a high HR fee.
Now you can measure HRV with several things. I, for instance, do that with an aura ring, which is a ring I wear that measures sleep, but also HRV. Amongst other things. Lots of wearables do it. There's also apps on your phone that do it, through the camera, for instance. Not all of them are as accurate, but they do work. And then, you know, the question would be, well, what is a good HRV to have, well, obviously, that depends on your own baseline. So what I would advise is to measure your HRV over, let's say, a week or 2 weeks. And then you have kind of a baseline, and then you can see, you know, what happens when I, when I drink, some wine, for instance, before I go to bed, does my HIV go up or down and buy how much? And then you can see, if you are stressed relative to your own baseline. So that's a bit of a more objective thing.
So making a list of all your stressors and actually measuring
[00:18:58] Unknown:
it with something like that would be my first start. So this has actually brought on a a good question, but I just wanna follow-up on about HRV. So, you know, as you mentioned, you know, you need to track it over, you know, a period of time, so 2, 3 weeks to see kind of what, you know, what can impact or affect it. Now you mentioned alcohol. That's a really kind of interesting thing because, I know a lot of people that self medicate with, with alcohol for whatever reason. Have you kind of noticed just based on your experience on what, you know, the the data that you have? Cause I know how much you love your data. That have you noticed that, you know, the alcohol is a big stressor for you or say, for example, specific sports that you do? Like, I you know, walking, running, weight training, because I'm just thinking, because there's a lot of people out there that might be thinking, well, you know, there's so much there can be so many deviations and so many kind of old, you know, things around the HIV, you know, how can you work out what's best for you? Is it just doing it over a longer period of time and experimenting?
Or have you kind of had something that you've kind of seen over your stats that you've seen that's kind of worked really well for you?
[00:20:05] Barry Luijbregts:
So basically you're asking, what stresses me and what doesn't stress me because in my case, the HRV is basically a, a measurement of my stress in this case. So for me, what stresses me is when I eat bad. For instance, when I eat the fries, burgers, stuff like that, high carb stuff, I see that my HRV crushes down and I wake up more irritated as well and have a lower stress, boundary. So instance, when my kids are, are being, since, you know, there are days where I can deal with that better than other days. And when I'm more stressed, I I deal with that less well. So high carbs for me, alcohol, interestingly, that that just destroys my sleep, regardless if I have just one glass wine or 10, for instance, it does, I can see that, also in my my data, I know alcohol is a confusing thing. It does feel like, you know, I can't sleep well. So let's let's just have a couple of glasses of wine or whatever or beers. And so you fall asleep faster.
That's true. So you don't have the the ruminations in your mind because of the GABA that's produced, which is a hormone in your your brain, the happiness, hormone in your brain that makes you, a bit more relaxed. And and that's good. You know, to go to sleep, you need to be a bit more relaxed to actually fall asleep. But then during the night, you constantly wake up micro wake ups, which you don't even notice, and you don't have any ram sleep, rapid eye movement sleep. Where you actually decompress and, learn new things and also buffer your brain for the next day to handle more stress. So even though alcohol feels good and might make you fall asleep faster, it produces less good quality sleep, you know, even if it's as long as you normally sleep.
So please don't do that, too much before you go to bed. What you could do and, you know, your boss might not agree with this, but you could just start drinking earlier in the day. Oh, seriously. The French do it. You know? If if you have, I don't know, a couple of glasses, of wine with your lunch, for instance, it would be out of your system before you go to bed.
[00:22:34] Unknown:
Now that's fine. So you're encouraging daytime drinking. I will make a note of this. I will make that. Who cares? Why not? But I I noticed what you were saying about, you know, if you are feeling stressed, make a list and kind of, like, see what your stresses could be. One of the things that I would actually add here as a bit of a recommendation as well is, if you have a trusted person, so this doesn't have to be your spouse. This can be, you know, a very close friend or something else, talk to them about it, talk to them about maybe what is currently stressing you out, and then maybe see if they have an additional insight So because they probably know you the best, they'll be talking to you the most frequently, you know, they might say, well, actually, you know what? I think this is a bigger for example, financial worries, I think this is a bigger stress than you are letting on, or when it comes to something like, like, work stress or some something like that saying, well, you know, I've noticed that, you know, that you are maintaining a lot of good boundaries, and I think it's just mainly the the period that you're kind of going through at work, maybe you need to have a chat to your boss about, you know, motivation or kind of the projects that you're on. Kind of having a look at it from another point of view. So that's one thing that I would, kind of add in here is when you do make a list and you're kind of checking it twice and trying to work out if you've been naughty and nice. It's, it's important to also kind of check this list as well and and kind of see if you are being completely accurate, which I think is important because, you know, sometimes you especially where I was, is I didn't even know I had a problem them. It wasn't until someone came up to me, and they said, you know what? I I don't think that you're entirely well, that this kind of really spurred me to kind of make a change and and make, a big, a big difference to to my life. Yep. And, you know, one of the things that I would say is that once you've done So let's just say I have made my list. I've made my stresses list. What do I do next? What do I how do I how do I kind of remedy that? How can I go about that? Because you know, that feeling of helplessness that you have when you just don't know which way to go and you don't know which way to turn, would it be going to someone like your GP or your, you know, your general practitioner Is it a functional doctor we should be looking for? Should I be going to see that psychotherapist to, to kind of let me talk out my concerns? Or, you know, what do you do next? Yeah.
[00:24:52] Barry Luijbregts:
Well, that's actually very interesting. So I think what you said there, first of all, is that you don't know when you are on your way to burnout. And that's true for many people. They don't know how far they are on their on the spectrum of burnout or how stressed they actually are. I sure didn't know. Because, you know, you just you just go through it. Right? You're busy. Everybody's busy. We all have our stuff in our lives, and we're just You just, you you just go through it, and it's fine. You know, just and as long as you just don't give up, you can just keep going because you're adrenaline just keeps on going until it doesn't until your body says no.
And, you know, in in my case as well, physically, I was just feeling like crap. All the time, but I didn't know it because that was my baseline. And I think that's true for many people. They have to feel like crap syndrome syndrome because they don't know what it's like to not feel like crap. And only when you do, then you actually want to strive for that because you don't know how how bad you are actually feeling. In your body with digestion and and all all the other things, energy. So, what can you do Like we said, try and make an inventory of your stressors.
Yeah, you could go to all those, those people GP functional doctor, but I think you can do a lot yourself as well because, you know, there there are lots of common lifestyle factors that introduce stressors to your life that you should take a look at, and I cover these in more detail in the course. But for instance, you have nutrition, So what do you eat? And when do you eat? I don't really talk about how much do you eat because, when you eat is, I think, is way more important than what you actually eat. So what you eat should be, for instance, healthy things. Of course, we all know this. But difficult to do. We are all very busy, but you can obviously clean things a little bit up, you know, try to eat more veggies.
Try to eat less processed food. And then when you eat, try to shorten your time frame in in when you eat, you know, most people eat whenever they can. You know, you eat before you jump in the car to stand in in traffic to do your whole day of work. And then when you come back home, late at night, you eat again dinner, and then maybe have some snacks at night just before you go to bed. That's an extremely long eating window. If you can restrict that to 12 hours, for instance, then you have a 12 hour fast immediately after that.
Just baked in. With with 8 hours of sleep or however long you sleep, re relatively effortless. And just by doing that, you already give your body the time to actually clean up and, heal itself. That's a very powerful thing. You can extend that, that period a little bit, but that also gives a bit more stress because a fasted state introduces stress, more fasted state of your body because that makes your body want to need to go out and look for food. And, a fed state introduces rest and relax usually, unless it's for too long and you're just stressing your constantly with food that it doesn't need. So those 2 things clean up your diet and look at when you eat and how long you eat, are very important.
The next thing is sleep. Sleep is so extremely important that our our evolution actually decided that it's so important that you're just knocked out for 8 hours and, you're vulnerable to being mold by a bear because you you're blind to the world. It's that important that we actually do that for one third of our lives. Why is that? Because during sleep, we actually heal ourselves as well. We do all sorts of healing processes, including cleaning out the brain, which means that we clean out the plaques and all the inflammation that happens during the day because we use our brain there. And also, storing memories getting rid of excess information that we do not need, things like that. It's it's kind of like therapy, self therapy, every every nights that we do that. And it's it's just, it's very, very needed. You immediately know when you had a bad night's sleep the day after. Right? Uh-huh. Because you feel like crap, and you also know when you had a good night's sleep.
Right? That that's for sure. That's extremely immediate. With food, it's not the immediate. It could take a couple of days before you feel like crap. If if you ate something that you can't handle that well. So sleep isn't extremely important. To prioritize, and you can help sleep with a couple of things, like, for instance, making it extremely dark in your room, making sure your room is only for sleeping. So no TV or in your room, for instance. No lights. Try to not read in your room because programs to brain that. If you're reading your bed, that your bed is for other things like reading and not for sleeping, your brain is an association machine. Other things like don't, drink caffeine too late in the day because caffeine has a very long, half life if that's still in your system when you go to bed, then the hormone, molecule adenosine, which actually builds up sleep pressure to help you go to sleep is less available in your brain. And so you can't sleep that well. And, you know, there are lots of other things like movement, getting out early in the in the day to get the 1st sunlight to start your circadian rhythm. Lots of tips there that are all covered in, in the course.
So food, sleep, exercise is also very important because we are made to move not to sit down. Which means that we should move all day long in small micro movements. Let's say, basically means don't sit too long. Just don't sit still too long. And make sure you exercise on a regular basis. And what do I mean by exercise? Just get a sweat on. You know? You don't have to run a marathon or something. Just do do something. Do something that you like because that's something that you can stick with. If that is tennis, that's tennis, if that is running, that's running, cycling, walking, whatever. It doesn't have to be an Ironman or, lifting all sorts of super heavy weights, but you should just do it simple combination of, for instance, hit training, high intensity interval training, which can be super short. You can do it in 20 minutes, and you a you had a complete training in there. You can do that. If you're not super fit or when you're super fit, it doesn't really matter. You can decide the intensity of such a thing yourself.
You can go for a for a stroll and also make sure you lift some weights here and there. Just lift something. And, if you can, in a functional matter, you know, you can do that with, squats. You lift your own body weight. With, push ups. You lift your own body weight, or you actually lift some weights. Doesn't really matter. But resistance training is very important as well. To, keep your muscle mass intact and to your bone structure as well and helps you sleep as well. The flip side of exercise, like, so you should exercise, but you should also not over exercise. Because then people think, well, you know, I should run every day, for instance. No. You should really should not run every day. That was something that proposed in the seventies will also low fat high carb was proposed.
It was a running craze and an exercise craze. Exercise is obviously very good for you, but don't go overboard on that. So, an exercise is a stressor when you exercise size, you actually stress your body because you create, oxidative stress in your body. You know, you're basically burning fuel on a very high level, which you do always, but now on a very high level. And burning fuel, like burning glucose in your body, creates free radical you know, those things that, cause havoc, in your cells and that you need to clean up with those things that are called antioxidants, which are in vitamin for instance, in plants, there are lots of types of antioxidants that clean those things up. Your body also produces antioxidants itself.
Is actually also triggered by exercise. But when you exercise too much, you have, a big stressor and you don't give your body enough time to recover from that stretcher. Now how do you know that if you do that? For instance, if you, measure your HRV when I do some hard exercise today, for instance, right now in the mid day, my HRV will be a bit lower tonight during sleep because I am recovering there. If I, rest tomorrow, And I do some walking or some some other stuff, but not hard exercise. And then my HIV will go up higher even than it was the day before this day because my body's learned from that stressor of the exercise. It gained, it gained from it. You know, because, maybe I gained some muscle or something or some aerobic, exercise.
And it recovered well because I gave it time. And so HRV, my stress level is actually lower because of it. So exercise, but don't over exercise. Try to fill that out. It's a bit of a difficult thing. So we had nutrition. We had sleep. We have exercise. There's also environmental toxins. Now this sounds like, oh, toxins. What are you talking about? But toxins can be quite stressor on your body. And toxins can be lots of things like, mercury poisoning that is in fish, for instance, should definitely eat fish. But if you eat a lot of big fish, like tuna, swordfish, things that are high up in the food chain, things that eat lots of other fish You get lots of toxins in your body. And also like aluminum, right, like in, like deodorants and stuff. Like, there's also a lot of toxins that can be in there. Yeah. So in your food, there's lots of toxins like, especially in very processed food. For instance, chickens and stuff get, growth hormone, antibiotics, although, everything that, the meat that you eat, eats, you also eat, of course. Sure. You know? It's it's simple.
So try to eat clean stuff and, like, organic vegetables and, and things like that that are not sprayed with, best sites because then you get those in your body as well. But like you say, as well, things that are in your personal care products, like your deodorant, If there's aluminum in there or whatever, read the label of your deodorant. Do you know what any of it means?
[00:35:42] Unknown:
No. The only reason that I know this is because my mom had breast cancer in 2014, and she, was, you know, very clearly advised to avoid, any kind of, I don't know, manufactured deodorant, but she had to go towards you know, any deodorant that was very natural based. So there was a couple of stores in the UK. And they they they they, you know, they said that was a a real mandatory thing because you are, as you say, you're spraying metal directly on your lymph nodes. Yes. And that can cause a lot of problems I know that for her, that's why, you know, she was trying, I think, for a year to find, basically a natural deodorant that didn't suck. It was a it was a, you know, a trial and fail period. So, yeah, that's, how I know about that one. Ah, okay. I didn't know that they actually, recommended that to your mom. Yeah. That's a great thing.
[00:36:32] Barry Luijbregts:
Unfortunately, they only recommend that after you had cancer. Obviously, that is a good that's just great advice for everybody. So in your personal care products, what I would advise is if you wouldn't eat it, then don't put it on your body because, your skin absorbs stuff. Right? Like you can have a nicotine patch, for instance, that absorbs nicotine. So it will also absorb whatever else you put on your face or or under your armpits. So if you if you can't really eat it, if you wouldn't eat it, Then why would you put it on your body? That's toxic. Just don't do it. Now I don't follow my advice always exactly. I see I see it look. I put plastic on my head which is gel, which is just terrible stuff. Yeah.
[00:37:17] Unknown:
That's, so if I am a person that close to burnout right now. So I've made my list. I am looking. I'm gonna be cleaning up my diet. I am gonna be trying to, you know, look at my exercise regime, see what I can do. I'm also gonna be trying to see if I can resolve some of my sleep. And I feel better. You know, I'm feeling like I have come over the hill or I'm feeling better within myself. Have you got any tips for, you know, what happens after the burnout? So can I make sure that I don't go back into that situation? Now I know that, you know, there are some changes that can't be made for whatever reason, you got any tips, you know, from your own experience or from something there for, like, how to not get back into this situation again?
[00:38:00] Barry Luijbregts:
That's a very good question. So all these things we've just talked about, it sounds very overwhelming, like, oh, man, I'm burnt out now. I need to work on the thousands of other things. In in the course, I explain, for instance, for sleep, I have like 10 tips for that, and then I I explain, well, you know, pick one that's easy for you and try to stick with it, see if it helps. If it does, stick with it, pick another one. You know, try an easy one. So those things are all the lifestyle factors that we've just talked about. And you can choose and pick a couple that you can work on, and and you feel that would improve your situation. But maybe there are some bigger things going on as well that might come out of your list. For instance, work, work can be a very big stressor.
For instance, if your manager sucks, if you're not appreciated, if you're super busy, but you're just doing, things that really don't matter, you know, that that you'd feel don't really matter. You have lots of meetings that just who cares about those meetings? Meetings that don't add any value, you mean? Yes. Meetings that don't add any value. I yeah. Now I'm very lucky to not have that problem. But if you do, and for instance, work would be, a big stressor. So, you're getting out of your burnout or or you're still in it, still, you need to think about this. And you need to think about what what should you change there, or you could tell your boss, well, you know what? I'm I'm not gonna do those 12 hour days anymore, renegotiate there.
But probably, maybe you should think Well, do you actually like to work where you work, or do you actually like to work in the industry even that you work? Maybe you should change that. So, to actually make sure that the burnout doesn't come back, you should probably change some big things in your life. And those things can be work, for instance. Those things could also be relationships, you know, maybe get rid of toxic relationships that cause stress for you, could be the place where you live, for instance. These are all big changes And you might not be ready to make those big changes, especially when you are burnt out and overwhelmed or you just came out of a burnout.
But often a burnout is is a time of reflection where your body stops you in your tracks to force you to reflect on what's actually going on in your life. Because you need to stop. In fact, you you actually you have no choice. Your body makes you stop, so you can't go to work. You can't do all of the things that you usually do. It just it's impossible. And in that time, try to take that time and reflect on what you actually like to do, what you actually would like to spend your time on. Is it is it this work?
[00:40:58] Unknown:
Is is this worth your time? Is this company worth your time? Are these people worth your time? See, this is where I call it when I'm coaching people. So, last year, I had a a colleague of mine, go off on burnout, and I actually identified the burnout before they did. And I I did like a mini intervention between them and their boss to be able to kind of in a nice way, be able to say, you know what? This person is not handling their stress. They are really struggling with what is, with, you know, with where they are currently. And, you know, when they were coming back and they were kind of asking questions and we were having a a coaching session on this, I said, you know, find your joy.
Where is your joy in every day? Now is your joy in, you may be going to do some gardening? Is your joy in, you know, going for a walk, going cycling, you know, find what makes you just that that little inch of happiness that you can have. And especially when you are, very much struggling with stress, this can be something so minute. This can be sitting outside because it's nice weather and having a cup of coffee. This can be whatever, but it's trying to find that little bit of joy in your life and then building from that. I find it interesting you were saying, you know, you might have to tackle. If we kind of, you know, the analogy around, you know, in your day, you have the the glass jar. You have your big rocks, and you have your little rocks of things and activities that you need to do. And I find it interesting what you say there about you know, some of the big rocks you might need to be changing. So whether that is your work, whether that is relationships, whether that's, you know, where you're living, And maybe kind of tackling those, you know, within a good time frame and then focusing on the little of things, you know, or maybe, you know, starting out with of things and then adjusting to these big rocks.
But I think that's really kind of interesting point that you say about, you know, also looking very critically at your life as it is. Because I think there's also going to be a very difficult reflection point for yourself in in understanding where you're at and maybe of the things that maybe aren't going so well, whether there is work or whatever.
[00:43:03] Barry Luijbregts:
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. You know, we should try to do the things that feed your soul. And get rid of the things that, that take energy from it. And that can be very difficult. But, you know, try it because we're all gonna die anyways. So why not? Nobody's getting out of this life.
[00:43:23] Unknown:
So try to find your joy, like you say. But, you know, it's like, yeah, you can get out of this. No no one is getting out of this alive. Correct? And but, you know, if you do have stress, it is going to shorten your life. So it is in your best interest to make sure that you can try and fix the the causes in roots of your stress because otherwise, you know, you may be getting out quicker than you maybe would like to. Yeah. And, and,
[00:43:49] Barry Luijbregts:
That's another point. All of these things that we discuss here, including the lifestyle factors, they are good against stress, to reduce your stress, and to maybe get out of a burnout, but also to, enhance your health overall. And therefore, also your, health span, which is the time that you are healthy during your life. So hopefully throughout, for a long time. So all of those lifestyle style factors, like eating better, sleeping better, exercising, getting rid of, toxins and also actively relaxing, they all help you to live longer and better as well.
[00:44:26] Unknown:
So this is kind of a a great summary into saying, okay. You know, we are looking at burnout. We are looking at what you can do if you either experiencing burnout if you're coming back from it. But let's maybe take a little bit of a swing. So, you know, this is, as you've said at the start of the podcast, this is be one of your last podcasts, on developer weekly. So what's gonna be coming next? Is there's is is there anything coming
[00:44:53] Barry Luijbregts:
Yeah, there is. I'm not sure about the name yet. But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna be writing about health and wellness topics because I like that. I like to learn new things, and then I like to, absorb that and try to teach that to other people. So I think that, That's the only thing that I'm actually good at.
[00:45:17] Unknown:
But why choose a deviation in the first place? Instead of technology. Yeah. Well, like, why stop when, you know, you are very, very good at being Azure Berry.
[00:45:27] Barry Luijbregts:
I will still be Azure Berry, so I will still create courses for Pluralsight and also, occasionally write some things. About technology and such and do some consulting here and there. But this platform sort of developed a weekly, technology pot about technology. Obviously, it takes time to do this, and I am very conscious about my time, and I want to spend it on something else. So on health, because I'm more passionate about that than about, this technology. And I think, it would help people a lot more to talk about those types of topics than to talk about technology because there is already
[00:46:07] Unknown:
so much out there for technology. So this is something that you're seeing from people that you're talking to as well, that, you know, this that this is something that is being called for by the by the wider public. This isn't some like a niche topic. This is something that's now coming into the mainstream of the people that you're talking to, the people that are contacting you. This isn't like a This isn't a rare topic anymore. This is something that is gonna be really important in the coming period. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
[00:46:33] Barry Luijbregts:
So I'm gonna just gonna start with a blog. And then at some point, it's gonna be a a podcast, platform with probably some YouTube videos as well. And we'll just see how it goes. Maybe I'll create more courses around the topic. Maybe a book if I have the time, Who knows writing a book is very painful. But, yeah, just wanna create more. Okay.
[00:46:59] Unknown:
Well, this is the the end the questions I had that I just wanted to kind of pick your brains about because I I know that there are a lot of people out there that are asking more questions and want to get more information around burnout and kind of how they can help themselves. So this was the end of my questions. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your very, very busy schedule to, to come and talk to me and, to give me some of your feedback input. That was really great. Yeah. Thank you very much for
[00:47:26] Barry Luijbregts:
asking me all those questions because it takes time as well. And, to the listener, we still have a couple of episodes to go in this series of developer weekly. So stay tuned for those. They will be interesting. I also will keep all of the episodes up and running for quite a while. So the feed will be up. So you can go back and listen to all the other episodes as well. Still be available in your favorite podcast player and and developer weekly podcast.com. And if you sign up for the newsletter or have signed up for the news letter of developer weekly. I won't send you any weekly newsletters anymore for the developer weekly podcast, but when my new platform goes live, I will send you, one email to, notify you of that, and then you can choose to, you know, stay in the list or just unsubscribe and, and leave that if that's not a topic that you are interested in. And really, thank you very much for your support over the last year. Because many, many of you have, listened to these podcasts and sent me messages, online to, share what you've learned and that you found it useful.
I found it very useful myself as well because I've learned a lot from my, incredible guests. They've shared so much, knowledge that, that I was lacking around all sorts of stuff, technology, but so career, being an introvert, trends, what's coming for developers. It was just it was a great adventure. So thank you very much. And stay tuned. Could you please go to rate this podcast dotcom slash developer weekly and rate this podcast and leave a review. This helps me to spread the word about the podcast and helps other people to find it. That is.
Rate this podcast.com/developerweekly. Thank you so much.
Introduction to the episode
The importance of health and wellness in preventing burnout
The relationship between stress and burnout
The stress resilience of developers
The stress response and the development of burnout
Factors that contribute to burnout in developers
Tips for preventing and mitigating burnout
Making big changes in life to prevent burnout from recurring
Plans to expand the podcast
Upcoming episodes and availability
Gratitude for support and feedback
