Episode #8 Understanding Burnout With Dr. Jessi Gold
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In our 8th episode, Kerry interviews Dr. Jessi Gold MD, MS who is a nationally recognized expert on healthcare worker mental health and burnout (particularly during the pandemic). She is an Assistant Professor and the Director of Wellness, Engagement, and Outreach in the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in Saint Louis. Dr. Gold also writes for the popular press and has been featured in, among others, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, TIME, Self, and InStyle.
In this episode we discuss:
What is burnout?
How to prevent it
How to seek help
Depression vs burnout
Programming Your Day Base On What You Need
About Dr. Jessi Gold
Jessi Gold, MD, MS, is an Assistant Professor and the Director of Wellness, Engagement, and Outreach in the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in Saint Louis. She is a nationally recognized expert on healthcare worker mental health and burnout (particularly during the pandemic), college mental health, using social media and media for mental health advocacy, and the overlap between pop culture and mental health, including celebrity self-disclosure. She works clinically as an outpatient psychiatrist and sees faculty, staff, hospital employees, and their dependents, particularly their college aged kids.
Dr. Gold is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. and M.S in Anthropology, the Yale School of Medicine, and completed her residency training in Adult Psychiatry at Stanford University where she served as chief resident. Dr. Gold also writes for the popular press and has been featured in, among others, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, TIME, Self, and InStyle. Dr. Gold is actively working on a book about healthcare worker mental health and burnout during the pandemic for Simon Element and is a member of the Expert Advisory Council for the ViacomCBS Mental Health Storytelling Initiative and Co-author of the Mental Health Media Guide.
Show Notes
Show Notes
Paid Resources
Free Resources
Article: I'm a Psychiatrist and Even I Kept My Mental Health Meds a Secret
How Can I Tell if I’m Depressed or Burned Out?
Transcript
Kerry Finsand: 0:10
Hello there and welcome to Successfully Depressed. And I'm your host, Kerry Finsand. This shows all about helping solopreneurs navigating mental and physical health in life and business. Today's guest is Dr. Jessi Gold. She is an assistant professor and the Director of Wellness, Engagement and Outreach in the department of Psychiatry at Washington University School Of Medicine in St. Louis. She's a nationally recognized expert on healthcare for workers dealing with mental health and burnout. And she's been focusing more on this during the pandemic. Dr. Gold also writes for the popular press and has been featured in amongst other things. The New York times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Time, Self, and In Style. Welcome to show Dr. Jessi gold.
Dr. Jessi Gold: 0:56
Thank you for having me.
Kerry Finsand: 0:57
I appreciate your time and you are very busy. Uh, I've impressed with how many, just different articles that you've contributed to, or, or, or written on your own and just all over. So I found that really fascinating. So a friend of mine, uh, the guys at the Rik's Mind podcast, you were on their show recently and they said, Hey, Kerry, I think she'd be great for your show too. So I appreciate you coming on here today. And I wanted to learn a little bit more about you cuz you have quite the, I mean, I didn't, it would take quite some time to read all the different things you've accomplished, uh, in your life and, and going to, uh, Ivy league schools. And um, so tell me. a little bit about your life and kind Of how you got to where you are today and very fascinated by that.
Dr. Jessi Gold: 1:39
Sure. Um, you know, if you want just the work school path, which tends to be the short version. Um, you know, I went to Penn university of Pennsylvania for college and when I was there, I thought I was gonna be. Pre-med I wanted to be a doctor. I thought that's what you did. Um, if you were good at science. And so I went there expecting honestly, to be like a biology major or something like that ended up really falling in love with anthropology and like the stories that people tell, um, was an anthropology major and also. Uh, ended up getting a master's in anthropology at the same time from there. Um, mostly cuz I wanted to take more interesting classes and do a research project. Um, then I took a year off before going to med school in part just to make sure I was sure I wanted to go to med school, but also because I wanted to try like incorporating healthcare and anthropology, which was like health policy in as many ways as it can be. So went for the summer to The World Health Organization in Geneva and then I worked in DC doing sort of adolescent health, non-profit policy work, um, right about the time. Obama was working on Obamacare. So I got to have a pretty good understanding of like, how that might change some of medicine and then went to med school. Uh, there, I had really no idea what I wanted to do, to be honest, like again, kind of went because that's what science people do. My dad's a psychiatrist. I honestly didn't wanna do that because I didn't wanna follow in anybody's footsteps. So was like, all right, like what else can I do? And then kind of was consistently drawn to, again, people's stories and the ability to actually have time to listen to them. And that's what psychiatry afforded me. Um, so I did med school and then psychiatry training and kind of ended up where I am, have been really interested in a couple of things over time. Like, uh, the intersection of like how we train people and their mental health. So that can be any workplace, but I have a better awareness of. Healthcare work space because I work in it and I've gone through all that training myself too. So have a, I have a practice where I see a lot of healthcare workers, but I also see faculty and staff and their college age kids, um, have been consistently interested in that college population as well, because I think they're pretty ignored in that space because you kind of are are a kid and then you're not a kid and there's no like awareness of all of the extra stressors in that age group. So I've like consistently been interested in that. And then probably the third thing being this sort of like overlap between pop culture and mental health. So. Whether it's portrayals of mental health on TV or movies, having an ability to digest that by writing and giving people extra information around it, or, uh, working kind of behind the scenes and helping with some of that and shaping the stories. Because I think that's where stigma in a lot of ways, originates that's a summary. I don't know how good a summary that was.
Kerry Finsand: 4:40
That's a lot. I mean, there's, it's a lot to, it's hard to instill like all the different things you do or just how to even remember all the different things that we do in our lives and everything. So, no, that, that was great. I wanted to get the basic understanding of how you became a psychiatrist but obviously there's influence in your family. And, and that's, it's interesting when you necessarily want to do that. And then somehow just, it was around you and you're like, oh, okay. This actually makes sense. Cuz like my wife's in the finance world, that's kind of her dad was in that world too. So she ended up kind of going to that world as well.
Dr. Jessi Gold: 5:08
I don't know if your wife would agree, but if you asked my father, he'd say I'd always been going in that direction. And he knew it. He was just trying not to push me. And I think it was helpful, you know, to kind of have him not say like, This is where I think you should be and what you should be doing and kind of let me fall into it on my own. And we do really different things inside the field. I'm much more of a clinician and all the writing and stuff is like, then the popular press facing stuff is very different than what he does now, for sure.
Kerry Finsand: 5:37
Well, yeah. And, and the thing that I found yeah. Interesting is your research that you do on social media. I know you're using social media as a platform to kind of help spread mental health awareness and trying to break through the stigma of what it is. But I also see that you talked about celebrities and how they're dealing with mental health. Where I'm trying to go with, this is, you know, social, media's kind of a double edged sword. There's been some good things that come from it, you know, and communicating with people and getting the word out there quickly. But then it's been really a, a challenge for us because our brains aren't designed to see so much information. It's just a short period of time. So, I guess what are your kind of thoughts and tips for people and how they use social media?
Dr. Jessi Gold: 6:17
I agree with that description, the double edge sword, you know, like I think in a lot of ways, like, The research that comes out on social media is very one sided and not at all nuanced. So you'll see a study that says, like being on social media is bad for your mental health. And that's like the conclusion that comes out of it. But if you look at it, it's a small study or the nuance in it is completely neglected or the specific populations that are using social media. Um, I think. Best data we have is it's bad for self-esteem. And I think that makes sense. I think anxiety, depression, it's kind of mixed and I'm a big believer that the pandemic, it was like one of our only ways of actually communicating with people. So you couldn't say like that wasn't helpful. Like maybe there would be better, uh, connection if we were in person, but since we didn't have that option, I think it's just really bad to sort of. Wave a magic wand and say social media is the worst and we can't do social media and you need to keep kids off social media. Um, I agree with kind of waiting in part because of a self-esteem issue, but I do think like college kids for sure are gonna find it and you're not gonna keep them out of it. And you know, their mental health. In a lot of ways can be affected by the things that they're reading just as much as we can the news is quite depressing if that's your formal like way of getting the news, which is the way that most people get news these days, like even just following like news sources on social media. It's not uplifting. Like there's not a lot of stuff that you're like, this is great news. That's why I liked that thing that John Kazinski did over the pandemic where I was like, good news, because we don't get that enough. Like, and for the most part, uh, it's hard. And I think being aware that social media affects your mental health and treating it that way is the best way of approaching it. So is this making me anxious? How am I feeling? Am I grinding my teeth? Am I angry? If. What can I do to change that a lot of that is gonna maybe be limits or doing something else instead. Um, but I think really just being aware that it can have an impact and that's not your fault, if it's having an impact and you can do something about it. If it is, and say like either I'm gonna take a little bit of a break, I'm gonna do something else. Or I'm just gonna check in with myself repeatedly, make sure this is okay, or blocking certain words or blocking certain people. Whatever you need to do to make that a safer place for you, but you know, you don't owe anybody, anything on there. So feeling like you're safe in that place to talk or meet people or learn about the news is a, it's a great place for that. But I think you just have to kind of take it with a grain of salt and say like, this is an imperfect medium, but it's also not going away. So how can I exist within it?
Kerry Finsand: 9:06
Yeah. I think that's a good point. I know what I've started to do is, uh, I don't look at the, my social media or my email for a while. I wake up and I do some meditating and some journaling and then some movement and, um, plan the day. And then once I do that, then I said, okay, now I, if I want to look at my email or anything elseI can. And I know that's helpful for me cuz before I would go down like rabbit holds or I get an email, I'm like, oh, what's going on with this particular email? And is this something I really need to take care of right now? So, um, yeah, I think that's just, it's all trying to find the balance. I know I've interviewed some people that they spend just certain amounts of time, the day on it. Other people have deleted it from their phones and other people just love it. So I think it just depends on kind of who you are and where you're at in your life and everything.
Dr. Jessi Gold: 9:53
Yeah. I mean, I've never gone as far as like deleting it. I can't, I feel like it's actually part of my career at this point, but in a lot of ways, like I pay attention to the, before sleep, not the waking up part. So I'm sort of different than you in that aspect. But like I noticed over the pandemic, I would stay up like scrolling and then I wouldn't go to sleep. And so when it starts to get a, be a problem, I try to not spend the first. 30 minutes before I'm going to bed. Like on social media, I try to read or listen to a podcast or nothing, whatever I have to do to not be on social media for that part right before bed and then sleep. You know, I think I tried for a while to consider using a regular alarm clock so that I wasn't like using my phone for that too, but I kind of failed. So you know, it's, it's all a work in progress. Even with the people who do this for a job, you know,
Kerry Finsand: 10:45
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's one thing about you is that you're very, um, genuine in, in talking about how you're a psychiatrist, but you also deal with some mental health challenges as well. And, tell me a little bit about, like, that was probably something really difficult to start putting their out in the world, uh, especially with what you do, cuz then people are gonna be like, oh, well how come you know, she's this expert and then she's, but we're all human. Like we, you know, no one, we all have to work through things. So just tell me a little bit about kind of like, you know, that probably was a very tough thing for you to do and just kind of what it, what it feels like now.
Dr. Jessi Gold: 11:22
It's interesting because I think people always made jokes that like psychiatrists had a lot of mental illness, but like, I think it was secret, but I think their jokes were because they didn't like psychiatrists. Not because we are human, you know? And so that was always like in the background, but in my field, there's a lot of like, I'm a blank slate. You don't get to know who I am. I'm just here to. Do you support you be here for you? That's what mental health like training kind of psychiatry, but also therapy training has emphasized for a long time. And, you know, even being a person with a social media platform is going against that. Let alone a person who then talks about anything about themselves or their lives or their mental health. Right. I sort of have always felt comfortable with the therapy side of it and talking about going to therapy. And that was never like something that was hard for me. I always figured that made sense. Um, and that it should be talked about. Um, so I never had trouble talking about that at all. Um, I noticed over Covid there was this time period where. A healthcare worker, uh, in New York died by suicide and a bunch of healthcare workers on social media were like, let's talk about our mental health, basically like a kind of viral thing where they were like, I take this med, I do this, whatever. It rarely happens in healthcare. We have a ton of stigma and a ton of problems talking about this stuff. But anyway, everybody's like talking about their meds and I, I said something about therapy and realized like, On reflecting that I've never talked about being on meds and I'm a person who prescribes meds and I was like, that's hypocritical, but it's also odd. Like, I don't know how to reconcile the fact that I spend all day telling people they're normal and they don't affect you. And like, you can be a great doctor and take them and not be able to say that myself. Um, so I actually took. To therapy and talk to my therapist a bit about like what that was and where that came from and how this is a thing. And, and she was very much like, You don't have, you don't owe people that, like, if you don't wanna tell people that you don't have to tell people that, but is there a reason you feel like kind of compelled? And I was like, I just feel like I'm seeing the population that are my friends and colleagues and people following me on social. And it, it feels like if I'm encouraging them to do it, I should be honest about what I've been doing too. Um, it was also around the same time that Brittany Spears had given a testimony where she talked about being on lithium. And I was really worried that kind of the perception of psychiatry was gonna go down again as being like a bunch of people who just drug people and don't care about the person. And there are a lot of misconceptions about lithium, but also just meds in general, come from people with bad experiences, which make a lot of sense. But if you're a really famous person who had a really bad experience, it can cause a lot of rupture in people's like belief and faith in the field. So I had that in the background and was like, I need to work through this and talk about it. And I wrote this piece for in style, um, called like I'm a psychiatrist and even I stigmatized myself for taking medicine or something like that. The, the title is, uh, not it, not perfectly in my head, cuz I don't actually write the titles, but really with the ability to process. That whole thing that I was kind of talking about, you know, why I can like, not talk about it, but also talk about it for other people. And, and that difficulty, and I felt really safe being able to do that in that platform because I've written with the editor, who's the lead editor for me. Um, for, I don't know, since residency it's become a really long time, honestly. So I felt comfortable with her having the story and giving me feedback on my story, which is. Challenging thing in itself and putting that out there. Um, I realized in a lot of ways that I harbored a lot of stigma against my own self for being on meds, even if I didn't think that about patience. So like, I. Thought if I talked about meds, like somehow that made me like a less good doctor, whereas that makes no sense to me cognitively, but I, I actually did Harbor a lot of that internally for myself. And, you know, I've been on Wellbutrin since college unchanged, like as far as meds go, I'm pretty boring, but you know, they've been really helpful for me. I haven't gone off of 'em because they've been helpful for me and I don't really need. Test that, um, but you know, talking about it has mostly been positive. Um, you know, there's a couple of people who don't love it and, uh, probably some people in the older generation. And more academic than me. I work in an academic environment, but there's a different kind of academic person than I am. Like, I do a lot of this like outward facing stuff, a lot less like research research. And there's a lot of people doing the other side that would never understand that. And I think it's important that I talk about it because I don't want people to feel alone. I don't want people to feel like we're not human. And I also want people to realize like, It's all a process like that decision was. Easy for me either. And I understand what that decision's like for other people. Like when I'm saying vulnerability makes teams closer or, you know, try to find some social support in your workplace because that's how you can deal with some of this stuff. I'm also aware that like, not everyone can tell their story. In depth and that most people should just say the pandemic's been really hard. What's it been like for you? Right. And that's enough, but that's actually more vulnerable than most people are in the workplace. So being able to kind of reconcile all those things and weigh all those things, have I think informed my ability to do my job better. I think it's kind of interesting sometimes though, like my patients don't always Google me and my patients don't always. Read what I write and very rarely bring it into the office. Um, you know, I wrote another piece about being burntout at one point during the pandemic. And I had a couple people mention that, but it's very interesting, cuz like I do it with the perspective of like anybody can see it, including my patients that it's not directed at my patients in any way. And. Honestly, it's like, I kind of wanna protect them from not knowing things that they don't wanna know, but sometimes they've read it, but most of the time, honestly, it's like just everybody else who doesn't see me in the office, which is kind of interesting.
Kerry Finsand: 17:56
We will link to that article. I have a note on it here. I'm a psychiatrist and even I kept my mental health meds a secret.
Dr. Jessi Gold: 18:03
Oh, yeah. I knew it was better than that. They're they're so good over there. I, yeah, that's definitely not what I said.
Kerry Finsand: 18:08
But we'll have a link to that in the show's for people to to read but I appreciate you being brave to go out there and tell people, um, it's not easy. It's like this journey for me doing this podcast, isn't been easy, but it's been very fulfilling, just meeting different people like you in the space. I think the, the one thing that people need to understand too, is that. You know, therapy is very helpful and that medication can be also be very helpful. And I've had certain medications that have been great, but I've had other ones that have been very bad. And actually this year I've had some that were very bad. And so you keep trying something different. And so that's one of the challenges I know that I have as a patient and sometimes getting things prescribed. It's hard for everyone involved to figure out how is this person going? To handle this and then also the side effects, you know? And so those are some of the things that I have to think about too. And then is there something that is more natural? That could be better for me? I'm in the opinion where try different things out, see what works for you. Someone uses, you know, Prozac. That's great for them. Then someone else maybe uses CBD or something else or whatever it may be. We're all different. So give people a little bit of space for, you know, determining what works best for them.
Dr. Jessi Gold: 19:22
Yeah, I. If you see a psychiatrist who doesn't think our field is imperfect, like there's, that's a red flag. You know, I think there are a lot of things we don't know about the brain. A lot of things we don't understand about mechanism and a lot of things we don't understand about like, care for a specific person. Like we just have these clusters of illness when they're really more of a spectrum of illness. And at the same time, like we don't know because of your symptoms, you really should have this med versus someone else having this med it's like what side effects did you experience? And can you wait an, uh, really long amount of time before we change it to figure that out. And so, you know, for us, like, I mean, I can only really speak for myself, but it's a painful process on this side too, because you know, I don't want you to sit around depressed and I always, certainly don't wanna make you angry at me for whatever me I gave you. Giving you side effects and more side effects, and then we change it. And then I have more side effects. Like that's not fun and it's not a part of my job I enjoy doing. And it's definitely a weakness of the medicines we have for depression. But like when they work, they work and that's really powerful and has been why I still like, you know why I do meds, but I do a lot of the outreach stuff. And a lot of the talking about mental health, because I don't want everybody to see a psychiatrist. Like I want people to be more aware of their mental health before they get to that point. Like, there are certain illnesses, you have no choice and there are certain like family histories or your own history where you might have no choice and a certain level of severity where you have no choice. But if you could be a person who's like, when I start to do X, like not sleep. Uh, not eat normally like yell at people like isolate, whatever that is. If you could say, when I do that, I am heading into a path of negativity that might lead to something like depression. Then you can actually make an intervention then, and not end up in my office. At least not everybody. Of course. Some people might still do that. Right. But I think it's important that we focus a bit more on like the spectrum of mental healthcare, which we don't do. Well. It's sort of like, here are these people doing yoga and here are these really sick people and there's nobody in between. Um, but the vast majority of people are in between. And I don't wanna see everybody. I want people to get better before they need to see me. And then I only have to see the people who really, really need to see me. Right. And I think. We just don't view that, right? Certainly not in the workplace, but in general, too.
Kerry Finsand: 22:01
Well, I think you mentioned earlier too. about, uh, you know, with college students too, like making sure that they had the right resources in place. Uh, I know when I was in school, I didn't really know of any resources really like that. Um, maybe they were there, maybe they weren't, I don't know, but I think it's really great to, you know, try to spread that, that word and those resources. One thing I did recently last month, I took the mental health first aid certificate. Um, are you familiar with that program?
Dr. Jessi Gold: 22:27
Yeah, I think it's really good. Especially for like managers and supervisors and people who might have people coming to them with stuff and not know how to support them, because you're not trained in that. I am, you're not.
Kerry Finsand: 22:39
Yeah, exactly. But just, it was interesting like some of the framing and not putting labels on. I mean even is someone that deals with my own mental challenges. I put labels on things on myself and I don't even mean to. This is just kind of what I'm used to. That's one thing I liked about that is how to talk to people framework. And then the idea is a assessing a situation. You're, you're no expert, but at least you know, resources. you can find ways to help people out.
Dr. Jessi Gold: 23:02
For sure. Like most of what I do is listen, right? Like a vast majority of what psychiatrists or other mental health professionals are doing is giving you a place to talk and validating that. And not saying anything that you are saying is wrong or making some sort of judgment about it. Right. And I think it's just not the way that we are taught to communicate. And so it feels different and it feels more supported and it feels unique, but it doesn't have to be, it can be how we all talk to each other too.
Kerry Finsand: 23:32
Yeah, Yeah. That's one thing I've learned about is it's you don't have things don't always have to be good or bad, They can be, uh, and if you have a feeling you. You don't bottle it up, you know, actually feel it, unless there's some reason that you shouldn't cuz it's so, so difficult to deal with. I know that's just in society and stuff that we're just so used to kind of just brushing things under the table or whatnot. Um, so you went to University of Pennsylvania, is that correct? And so I've been reading a fair amount on like self-help and stoicism and things like that. And I see that the father of positive psychology Martin, Seligman, was at your university. I don't know if you took any courses or he was there when you were. What I saw online is, he was, he at least he did for a while serve as a director of a clinical training program at the university of Pennsylvania in the psychology department. And I've been just in my studies recently come across him and everything. So I don't know if it was at any, did you
Dr. Jessi Gold: 24:30
I, the name sounds familiar and I kind of understand positive psychology in the like bare bones, minimum of what I understand. But I think, um, you know, Penn actually also had the Beck. So all the people who formed CBT Aaron Beck and, um, his daughter, Judith Beck, uh, cognitive behavioral therapy really originates there too, but I was not into psychology or mental health when I was in college, I, it wasn't like a thing I was paying attention to. It was my dad did, and it was a thing I was avoiding getting help for So I wasn't taking psychology classes. I don't even think I took a psychology class. Um, not that comes to mind, maybe like 101 or something, but not anything interesting.
Kerry Finsand: 25:19
Well, well, interesting enough is you went to a school that was very good for it.
Dr. Jessi Gold: 25:22
Maybe it was in the water. Like maybe it's just another thing that contributed to my background of like ending up there without actually knowing why, you know,
Kerry Finsand: 25:31
Yeah. You're somehow influenced. So. I wanted now to kind of get into one of the topics that I know that you speak a lot about. And one of the topics that I would like to learn more about some, someone has experienced burnout multiple times. Um, I want to kind of go through in a couple different phases. If you could kind of explain what burnout is.
Dr. Jessi Gold: 25:49
Sure. So everybody uses the term wrong. So burnout really is not just, you're tired from work and you're over it. Like that's what people use it for. Like, I'm burnt out with school. I'm burnt out at home. I'm burnt out whatever burnout as defined by researchers as defined by like really classification systems, but not the psychiatry one yet is. This concept of three things. So the first one is emotional exhaustion and a lot of people that looks like physical exhaustion, but it's just like really being like weighed down by the things that are going on. The second thing is depersonalization. That is like, You're going through the motions, feeling a lot less connected to things. So like, let's say you're a clinician and usually you're really like empathetic with patients. You're very like removed and kind of like next person, next person, next person, next person. Right. Um, the third thing is reduced sense of personal accomplishment. That's like when people, in my opinion really start to notice this stuff, which is like, Hey, it's affecting my work. Like someone's noticed, I notice I'm not getting as much done. I feel ineffective. That's a problem. All three of those things have to happen at work in a workplace like that's burnout is related only to the workplace. People have asked me if you're a caregiver, if you're a mother, how that then leads to burnout, all of those are jobs. They're just kind of like different jobs, right? So you can view it like that and still use the same term. But the reason it's just not like you're burnt out in your day to day life it's at work or because of work.
Kerry Finsand: 27:30
Yeah. And I see that, um, it says something I found online. It says burnout is now classified as a mental illness caused by unmanaged stress at work.
Dr. Jessi Gold: 27:40
Yeah, so the, ICD10, which is like, or maybe they did it in 11 is like the international classification of diseases. And like it's where a lot of coding for billing and hospital systems comes from, they called burnout, a workplace associated disease, basically like they don't, it's in a different category than like organic diseases. It's in a one called workplace associated and that's where it falls. We don't. We haven't done that yet. So it's not in the, like the DSM, we haven't considered it a psychiatric illness. Um, maybe someday, I think we probably should. We get up seeing a lot of people for it. And I think it's helpful to define it relative to everything else and where it falls for us. But, um, you know, I, you burn out more as like a, a path to things like depression or risk factor for things like depression, as opposed to, um, like depression or. Psychiatric illness necessarily organically itself.
Kerry Finsand: 28:40
Yeah. I think what I was reading is like, basically it's, a syndrome versus a disease, um, is one way to look at it. And, but I also know now that. Now that it's being recognized. It's also now being recognized under the, the American disabilities act, uh, which is, which is good as well for people, you know, in the workplace that need help. And, you know, they're under that act they're supposed to get reasonable, assistance and stuff like that. So, uh, I think that's a good check mark in the positive way to kind of help people more out in that way. Cuz at work, it's a very difficult to talk about mental health. And it's not really dialed into culture and especially in America, we're kind of a, a hustle culture. So, uh, it can be looked down upon, uh, for someone that you know is going through a challenge. Yet most people go through a challenge at one point.
Dr. Jessi Gold: 29:31
Yeah. I mean, I feel, I feel like for the most part, burnout's like an expectation of the American workplace. And so people sort of are like, oh, I worked really hard. I'm burntout. Like, that's what the answer is. If I'm doing my job really well, I'm gonna be burnt out and. It shouldn't be like that, but that sort of the auspices it's under. So it's really hard to say, like at what point burnout is a problem or at what point that's not your personal failing because of the way that we've used stuff.
Kerry Finsand: 29:59
What are some ways that people can prevent burnout?
Dr. Jessi Gold: 30:03
I would love to say that we are like super good at prevention in this culture, but for the most part, the first time you're gonna notice burnout is when you're burnt out. I'd love to tell you it's not, but it probably is when you're at that level where it's like interfering with your workplace, you probably need time off. Um, not, you don't need to take months off. You can even just take like a long weekend, but you probably, when you're getting to the point where it. Interfering. You're probably gonna need time off. My therapist describes it as like taking a pale out of a sinking chip and then you like get a little bit better and you're floating higher in the water, but then you sink again pretty quickly. And so all that's doing is helping you sort of briefly reset. It is not a permanent fix at all. Right. So if you get. Briefly reset. Or if you're one of the rare ones who's able to pick this up early, you know, noticing signs and symptoms again is really big. Like, what does it look like for you? Um, for me, it's like early signs are like, if you send me another email, I'm gonna throw my computer across the floor. Like that's not a normal reaction to an email that is a burnt out reaction to an email. Right. And so being aware that. Out of proportion reactions to things that people ask me for things is burnout for me is a sign. Then when you notice that something's wrong, you know, the first thing you can do is like, whatever coping skills work for you. So we tend to be told that certain coping skills are better than others, because that's just how things are. But I think it's just like what works for you is the coping skill that you should use. Um, you. Sometimes it's in different settings and different times, different things work. And so I think that's important to keep in mind. Um, you know, the other things that research really shows that prevent against burnout are like, I'd say probably four things. So meaning and purpose kind of go together. Like, how do you get meaning? And there's like big, like philosophical questions about life in the workplace. Right. But what do you derive? Meaning from the way to find something like that out is one to reflect on it. And two. Go through your day and like pay attention like hour by hour, like 30 minutes by 30 minutes, whatever your blocks are to like where you're getting energy and where the energy's going away. And like why, what emotions associated with that? What situations associated with that? And like, can you mess around with your schedule a little bit to have more of the meaning, even on days that might be longer because they were so burnout inducing. Like, can you put that back in? Um, a lot of people, you know, get meaning from like mentoring or. Something like that. So can you put some of that in. To balance it, you know, in doing that, you then come across the like second thing, which is control, right? So if you can have any sort of control over something, it feels like better for burnout. It's also great for anxiety, anxiety, just not like not being able to know the outcome, but you know, if you can put some control back in your workplace by saying like, you know, this is meeting always is horrible. I'm gonna take five minutes after it every time. Like, that's your choice, you did it. It'll help. Um, and then. Last one really is like social support, which I kind of briefly mentioned before, but you know, all the studies show that like social support and then like supportive leadership are preventers for a burnout. So social support is like peer to peer and like having somebody who can, you can talk to openly about some of this stuff. And then, um, you know, leadership support, supervisory support is. Very subjective. Like, I feel like my supervisor's supportive. I don't know what that means. Like it might mean to you that they talked about mental health or knew all the resources. It might mean just their whole demeanor. It might mean that you went to them for something and they were helpful. I don't know. But like the, the idea that a supervisor is supportive is helpful for burnout too.
Kerry Finsand: 33:56
Yeah, those, those are some good points. I think too. It's you're not, you're taking on too much. Um, and I know like with this podcast, that's why I have it come out every other week, just to make sure that I don't over overdo it and stuff, because I think I'm like a lot of people in the fact, you have an idea and you're like really passionate about it. And then just, you kind of. It envelops you, and then you just put too much energy into it and it starts off as something fun, but then it becomes this thing where you're just doing all the time. You're thinking about it and you just, it's gotta be better. It's that whole perfectionism thing kind of kind of kicks in and stuff. I guess one question I have is, okay, let's say someone, you know, kind of talked about different levels of burnout. Let's say someone is to the point where, you know, they've tried things and things haven't worked for them. Um, I know that's kind of where often that you would come in and where someone potentially would, would see you. Not as advice, but as education, what's the kind of the process for someone that might be dealing with burnout? What can they do as far as seeing help and whatnot?
Dr. Jessi Gold: 34:51
I mean again, I think a therapist is helpful for the whole thing, but if you're at the point that it's like interfering with your life in some capacity, a lot of what you're gonna need to do is skill based and understanding what your workplace is like based. So that looks like therapy and that looks like occupational therapy sometimes too. So how do you set up your workplace to like, maximumly help you, right. In terms of therapy, they're really gonna focus on like, where's the burnout coming from? What kind of stuff, how do we help you in the workplace with the things that I was talking about? What little things can you change? How can you, like, what's your perspective on some of this and where is that coming from? Like, that's important to being able to then go back to the workplace and feel better. Right. Um, I would say psychiatry can help with some of that. And some psychiatrists are therapists, but there's not a ton of meds that are gonna help you with this stuff. Like understanding your skills and understanding what's going on and being able to implement changes and having control. And all that is the answer. Meds are probably not, unless you have concurrent other mental health problems, so sleep problems or anxiety, or like I said, it's a risk factor for depression. So then you have depression. Then I think that we're more helpful in the drug side of things than the, you know, coming up with skills. Some people don't wanna go to a therapist and they'd rather see like an executive coach. And I think. It's a very good topic for them. You know, it's, it's not quite mental health, but it's very workplace associated. So sometimes those people can be quite helpful with like, again, what, what skills work for them and what works for you?
Kerry Finsand: 36:35
Yeah. My first interview I did was with this woman Jill Anderson, who's a trauma coach and it was, you know, very fascinating just to kind of talk about it because, you know, you think about if you play sports or whatever you do growing up you have a coach and sometimes especially I'm a good coach who really. Teach you a lot about more than the game itself and having a coach even with a, you're already working with a therapist to say, but having a coach too, kind of takes a different perspective. So I think there's a lot of different things out there to there's a lot more than there used to be as far as resources and people helping people out, which I think is great. In that we were talking about kind of the collective trauma that we've all experienced in the pandemic. And obviously in some of your research, you talk about that within the healthcare workspace, um, which is fascinating, cuz I had friends that were nurses and just all the things they had to deal with being frontline workers. So, um, we, we appreciate your work and the work of the first responders. The next thing I wanna talk about is you recently contributed to an article for the New York times that was called How can I tell if I'm depressed or burned out? Could you maybe kind of talk a little bit more about, about that.
Dr. Jessi Gold: 37:45
Sure. It's super nuanced and kind of annoying in its nuance, like all things, you know, so I think it, that article's quite good at trying to peel off the layers and explain the nuances of it, but really like burnout is the symptoms I told you about, and it's workplace associated. Depression is not just workplace associated. Depression also has effects on like sleep and appetite and interest in things. So you used to be interested in stuff like watching stupid television or going for a walk. And now when you do, you hate it, like that's important to note and that's much more likely to be like depression because it's your whole life affected and not just the workplace. Depression also comes with things like more severity and suicidal thoughts and hopelessness, and that doesn't tend to come with burnout unless you're in a job that's not getting better and not changing no matter what you do. And then you've become depressed. Right? So again, burnout is linked very much so to depression because of that, like, it's a constant stressor. That's not going away. you're like stuck in it. Right. Um, you know, I think burnout tends to like, be solved somewhat if you remove a person from the workplace, right? Like you might feel substantially better on weekends. Depression's not like that. Like the weekend doesn't matter. Like. You're still depressed, you know? So I think that's important to note, like, are you really only feeling that way at work when you're at work, when you're with the work people, when you're dealing with work stressors, whatever. Right. Um, you know, the importance of the nuance and knowing what it is is probably like. Less important for a human as it is just like being aware of what's going on with you, where the symptoms are coming from, and being able to tell that to someone like me or a therapist, to be able to better help you with the tools. Like, I think sometimes like the things that we do for depression or for burnout are similar. Like, you know, like, but maybe you're not getting out of bed because of depression and you need more motivation and people need to like help you. Behaviorally activated out of bed. Like that's very unlikely to just burnout. Burnout you're gonna need to look at like ways to structure your day, the ways to have social support, things like that.
Kerry Finsand: 40:06
Yeah, those, those are good points. I like just kind of how you kind of broke it down there. One thing that's hard is that, you know, we don't wanna put labels on people, but it's also. sometimes you wanna kind of understand, I guess, which label you are in, in, in theory, but then it's hard because you might be labeled with depression, but maybe it's something else maybe it's bipolar or something. So that's also a really hard thing too, is like, um, understanding what you are going through and making sure you're on the right medication. You know, understand how your mind works. And I think that's the one thing that I've been kind of looking about is this year is kind of, we all gotta kind have to write a manual for ourselves. You know, you know, what's our own algorithm to kind of make us, uh, you know, work well and be, and thrive every day. And I think that's different for everybody. But what we do know is obviously sleep number one is what we need. But one thing that, um, I've been researching to lately is, James clears, Atomic Habits, Systems versus goals. And that's kind of interesting. I dunno if have you read that book before?
Dr. Jessi Gold: 41:08
Um, I don't think so.
Kerry Finsand: 41:11
Okay. Well, it's, it's interesting. It's based off of, um, Scott Adams, who did the Dilbert cartoons and it just basically talks about how like, goal setting can be helpful, but systems are, are better. Cuz they're, you know, once you reach your goal, you're like, what do I do now? Like, and then you like might go off your goal. Like, you know, this happens to me sometimes if I do like an exercise goal, I'm like, oh, well I just did this Spartan race. Uh, what do I, what do I do now? And so, um, I think that's really kind of interesting thing too, kind of understanding ourselves of programming your day. So you'll be successful. Um, so how do you program your day to be successful?
Dr. Jessi Gold: 41:50
I don't have, you know, I just shrugged for anybody who's li listening and not watching me.
Kerry Finsand: 41:56
yeah,
Dr. Jessi Gold: 41:57
I don't think there's good answer to that. I think that every day is a different day and some weeks are worse than other weeks and some days are just hard. Um, but I think that I have an acceptance around that, which is also important and like a, this is what I can't control aspect that I think is also important, but, you know, I think the things I can change are. Paying attention to things I'm doing that I know I'm doing because I don't wanna be like feeling something or coping with something. like, I try very much, like if I'm angry or if, if I have really strong emotions to go, like do something to get rid of them, like. Honestly, just like rage, but like, I, you know, like I'll just try to distract myself with something like that's mindless or like, uh, you know, I have stress balls, things like that. Um, I think that sometimes I need to just like feel feelings and not hide them. So trying to be aware that like, I'm allowed to have feelings. And I have to ask myself about them because the way I feel is relevant and not just like another part of the pro like problem, right? Like I think I'm, it's very easy to go through my day and spend a lot of time asking other people how they're doing and never asking myself. So, um, trying to just pull up a chair for myself in the conversation and let myself have feelings has. You know, the biggest way I've been working on it and trying to just be more aware of like what my body's trying to tell me, my therapist be like, super happy than I'm saying that. But, um, you know, like if my body says sleep like sleep, but is it because I'm avoiding something or is it cuz I needed it and I think that's important. It doesn't mean you can't sleep. It just means. They had different purposes. And it's important to know because avoidance means something else is going on. You might still be tired from it, but you still might have to solve that to stop sleeping all the time. So, you know,
Kerry Finsand: 44:07
Yeah, that I think that's a really healthy way to look at it. Just trying to stay in tune with yourself each day. Cuz like you said, each day's different. If you didn't sleep well, then you're kind of your, your tank's half empty. So it's uh, It's harder to have your full brain capacity in everything. So I think that's, I like that point there. Um, is there anything that you're working on right now that you're excited about, that you want to get out there and let people know, any research or any projects or?
Dr. Jessi Gold: 44:33
Good question. I mean, anytime I write something it's on my website, which is just like drjessigold.com. You know, if you are interested in some of these things that I do, or you might wanna see some of the pieces, like it always goes up there. I have a regular column and In Style. So. Like following me there helps same with on Twitter probably is the easiest place to find me, but I have the same account on Instagram and on TikTok. Um, I have a book that I'm working on that is a beast and I'm not done with it yet. and I'm learning how to write long enough to write a book. But I think the goal is like, I mean, it's gonna sound so long from now, but I think it's like, Marchish in 24. Um, so, you know, apparently once you turn a book in, it takes like a whole nother year for it to like get edited and put out because of marketing and things like that.
Kerry Finsand: 45:26
So it's gonna be a little bit, but that's on like really healthcare worker, mental health and the affect of Covid, but it's told through patient stories and my own stories. So you get a lot more of the stuff we were talking about, which is like, what's it like to be a person taking care of people going through hard things, but also like if you're a human, you know, Yeah, well, I really like how you have a very friendly, bubbly personality, and especially with all the things that you're dealing with your own stuff, but then just on a daily basis hearing from your your patience and everything. I mean, that's a lot to take in, so it's good that you figure out some, some ways to be grounded for you. And then awesome about the book. I mean, but you're doing so much writing right now, so at least that's a good thing. You kinda get your, you get your reps in and stuff. And I know writing books, something different, but, um, but that's
Dr. Jessi Gold: 46:13
a whole different beast in a way that I wouldn't have predicted. Like, I would've been, like, I read articles so fast, like look at me, go, but it's very different.
Kerry Finsand: 46:21
Just a lot of little mini articles is basically, you know,
Dr. Jessi Gold: 46:24
That you keep someone interested in, right. Like, I think that's the hardest part. Like I could probably write one of those books where each chapter's on something completely different. And if that was like thematic, but if you're like trying to get people interested in characters and whatever, that's totally different.
Kerry Finsand: 46:41
I wanna thank you for your time today. And I know you mentioned here a brief moment ago, how people can, uh, get ahold of you. If you wanna mention that again, how people can find you online.
Dr. Jessi Gold: 46:50
Uh, Dr. Jesse gold, like J E S S I on most social media platforms, like, uh, Twitter predominantly, and then same website, drjessigold.com. Like that's a easy place. There's a contact me form there. You're also welcome to go through that.
Kerry Finsand: 47:07
Okay, well again, thank you for your time.
Dr. Jessi Gold: 47:09
course. Thanks for having me.
Kerry Finsand: 47:10
And I always like to end this show with, remember you're not alone in life or business.
