[00:00:36] Vesna: Welcome to the Peak Revival Podcast. My name is Vesna. Today I'm gonna talk about how stress does not prove that you're busy, in fact, points to low mental bandwidth.
[00:00:46] If you are feeling the effects of stress, you know, feeling overstressed, anxious, rushing around, never having enough time, feeling frazzled, overwhelmed, you know, busy mind, that sense of adrenaline cosing through your body. So those symptoms of feelings of stress does not equal a busy.
[00:01:04] Life doesn't even equal a successful business or a successful life. What it does point to is low mental and emotional bandwidth. So what do I mean by this? So I was watching a Netflix series the other day. a woman who had been running her own business for about 12 months, she was going to the doctor to get a checkup and the doctor said.
[00:01:24] Are you stressed? Have you been stressed lately? And she said, well, I run my own business. I'm self-employed. Of course I'm stressed. a lot of people see it that way, right? Whether you're a business owner, a leader, a founder, a female breadwinner mother, juggling it all, it, it looks like those things carry so much burden that they would cause stress.
[00:01:43] Now, I know for me, in my business, in the beginning, in my clinic days, I hit burnout and I just felt like. Business was inherently stressful and I couldn't cope with it, right? I wasn't cut out for that level of stress. But it's actually not true. What it does point to is your level of bandwidth. So even [00:02:00] if you are successful and you feel stressed, it's still not coming from your schedule.
[00:02:05] And the best way that I can explain it is to get you to picture the, these two separate days. So some days you'll notice there is never enough time. You're racing around. You go to get your coffee in the morning and the woman seems like she's taking five hours to make your coffee. The traffic seems to be super slow.
[00:02:21] You don't have enough time for anything. Everything feels urgent. You're rushing around, Everyone's taking too long to do everything. You're in a meeting and it's, they're too long to get to the point you know, you just feel stressed and overwhelmed.
[00:02:34] And at the end of those days, you feel like you've never got enough done. You didn't tick off things from your to-do list. There's still so much more to do by the time you, you know, you lay your head down on your pillow at nighttime, you're like, oh my gosh, I didn't, today wasn't a good day. I've just, I've got so much more for even tomorrow.
[00:02:48] And like, you're just kind of rushing, rushing, rushing, right? And then there are days where you feel like you are just cruising, right? You're getting stuff done. You go to get your coffee. It feels like time has expanded. Like you've got so much time, right? The traffic, you get through everything that you need to, you feel calmer.
[00:03:07] You don't feel so rushed. People aren't bothering you as much, and actually you're getting so much more done, right? You're actually adding things to your to-do list because you've got more done that day, right? At the end of the day, you feel pretty energized. You feel like you've had a good day, you feel pretty good with yourself, and you go to bed and you feel more relaxed when you go to sleep at night.
[00:03:28] What do you think is the difference between those two days? What do you think that is that's happening there?
[00:03:33] The reason why some days feels like you're climbing a mountain and the other days feel calm, and cruisy is all due to the level of emotional and mental bandwidth that you have.
[00:03:45] Now people don't really see this. When I start talking about it in my programs, it's like a light bulb moment, right? Because you can, you've recognized those days, okay, but you don't really know what's going on there. And so another example I like to use is that if you've ever watched Master Chef, know, you see some people when they give you like, [00:04:00] six ingredients and they tell you to make something out of it, right?
[00:04:02] And you see half the people are like. They're just falling into pieces. You're like running around like headless chickens, you know, they dunno what to do. You can see that they're visibly stressed and they're overwhelmed and they're panicked. And there are others who aren't like that, and they look quite calm, they look quite methodical.
[00:04:18] And that again comes down to bandwidth. The ones that are running around, like headless chickens have very low bandwidth. So when it. The challenge comes to make a recipe outta six ingredients. They panic. They get really stressed, they get very overwhelmed, whereas others don't. They become quite creative.
[00:04:37] They can work through that. Okay. It's the same task, same pressure, different response to it. Okay? And that comes down to our mental emotional bandwidth.
[00:04:46] Unfortunately, bandwidth is not something that we value, okay? So the more space that we have mental space, the more bandwidth that we're going to have to be able to do the things that we need to do. And
[00:04:57] often we don't take bandwidth into consideration.
[00:05:00] So some days you'll just wake up and it feels like you've woken up on the wrong side of the bed, the day is already starting where it feels like time has shrunk.
[00:05:07] You don't have enough time for anything. You're rushing. You're rushing, and that day you have low bandwidth and you have to make some considerations. For those days that it's not going to be like the other days that you had high bandwidth and you are able to get through so much. And one of the things that I see for women in my programs is that when they really understand this concept of bandwidth and what increases it, and what decreases it, but the fact that when we have low B.
[00:05:31] We have to be a little bit kinder to ourselves. We have to pull back a little bit because
[00:05:36] those are not the days that we're gonna
[00:05:37] achieve our massive goals
[00:05:39] okay? And what ends up happening is that women get really frustrated with themselves. They're like, why? Why is it taking me so long? What's happening?
[00:05:47] What's going on? Oh my gosh, I'm making a mistake. I'm doing this. I'm doing that. They get very frustrated with themselves and they start making up stories about themselves, but that
[00:05:55] they create more tension, more frustration
[00:05:59] and they [00:06:00] lower their bandwidth even more.
[00:06:02] Okay? And it just means that even with a lower bandwidth, we can still get stuff done, right?
[00:06:07] But when it creates a frustration, when you don't understand that you have low bandwidth and that it will pass. In those moments, when you become frustrated, that's when we really keep ourselves stuck in that low bandwidth mode.
[00:06:20] So we really have to value our level of mental and emotional bandwidth, and I'm gonna talk about the things, the way we increase it and decrease it because
[00:06:27] bandwidth contributes to our emotional intelligence
[00:06:31] our ability to regulate our own emotions. Okay? And so when we are looking at reducing stress, life and business is stressful, there's, that's something you cannot escape.
[00:06:42] Challenges are thrown our way, and we have to find a way to deal with them. But stress is a different thing. So you've got challenges and then you've got stress. So they're two different things, and I'm gonna talk more about that on my next podcast. But. Understanding bandwidth. Bandwidth is what helps us to deal with our challenges without feeling stressed.
[00:07:00] Okay, so when I hear business owners, you know, in the past it used to be about adrenal fatigue. Well, of course I've got adrenal fatigue. I'm a business owner, or of course I'm heading into burnout. I'm a business owner and it just seems like that's part and parcel with.
[00:07:14] Doing what we do, which actually it's not. Your level of stress is pointing to how much bandwidth you have, and the more you are operating in a chronic stress mode, the less bandwidth you are gonna have consistently every single day, which means. Things are really gonna set you off, okay? Very little things which would not have stressed you out before now become stressful and trigger that constant stress all day long.
[00:07:43] And the next day. And then the next day, okay? So our bandwidth prevents our stress. And when we don't have enough bandwidth, we feel very stressed. So again. Our level of stress is pointing to our bandwidth, but the longer we stay in a chronic state of stress, the less bandwidth we're going to have.
[00:07:59] [00:08:00] Okay? And so that means that all the hormonal changes in our brain, our prefrontal cortex comes online. There's a lot of things that happen with chronic states of stress, but it just means we, bandwidth is something that kind of goes up and down when we're in a chronic state of stress and kind of burnout.
[00:08:16] It's just consistently low. Okay. And there is so much you can do to improve that, to be able to handle everything on your plate without feeling stress. And which is why I have women come through my programs. They're like, my business is too stressful. I don't want it. I want out, but I also know that I'm burnt out, fix my burnout, and then I'm gonna get outta my business.
[00:08:34] And then what happens when they fix their burnout and their mental bandwidth and emotional bandwidth increases? They don't leave their businesses, they expand them. Okay, because that wasn't the problem to begin with.
[00:08:46] So let's talk about what increases bandwidth. But the number one thing you have to understand is that
[00:08:50] until you appreciate and value mental bandwidth,
[00:08:55] you won't take care of it. that's one of the important things that I hope that this podcast I'm touching on. The importance of it for managing our stress and overcoming challenges.
[00:09:04] And like I said, that is what life is. It's pretty challenging at times, and we need that bandwidth in order to deal with that. Particularly in business, if you're a leader or a founder, you are going to have to overcome challenges every single day within your business or within your team. And so this is a really important thing for you to understand and to value and to increase.
[00:09:23] Okay, so how do we increase mental and emotional bandwidth?
[00:09:26] Taking care of your physical body
[00:09:28] okay, this is really important not to be missed. Nutrition, eating whole foods, natural foods, foods that are alive. Eating the right nutrition for your body to make sure that it's getting everything it needs to produce the energy Produce a mental energy to support the nervous system and support all the other systems in the body, which are going to help you to operate at your highest level. taking care of your physical body,
[00:09:51] self-care is without a doubt one of the most important things to increase your mental and emotional bandwidth.
[00:09:57] number two is sleep. So if you're not getting enough [00:10:00] sleep, you're not getting that restorative sleep so the REM or the deep sleep time. Okay, so the deep sleep is where we do all of the repair work in our body, but it's also the time where we process our emotions. So it's kind of like our brain does this.
[00:10:15] Well, it does. It does a cleanup while we're sleeping. It detoxifies, actually, our brain shrinks while we're sleeping, so it detoxifies and it processes our emotions and moves a lot of metabolic waste around, which if we don't get enough of that sleep and the deep sleep, so the time before midnight, so getting to bed by 9 30, 10.
[00:10:34] Then we are not going to have those activities take place, which, you know, just those metabolic, waste products that need to be moved around if they're not cleared out. That alone is going to give you a very hard day the next day. Okay. But we need to process a lot of the old. Thoughts from the day. So it's almost like, I guess in a way it's almost like, you know, when you do a meditation, it's to clear the mind.
[00:10:55] Well, you've got eight hours of sleep, but you've got pockets of deep sleep, which it's really doing that work, which is clearing the mind and processing our emotions. And if you are not having that deep sleep, you're not processing those emotions. So you gotta wake up and already you've got less bandwidth from the beginning of the day.
[00:11:13] Okay. And as the day progresses just gets smaller and smaller as you get frustrated and you're trying to push through things, but it's not the time to push through because you don't understand. and it gets worse and worse. Third one is gut health. ‘ we know that gut influences our brain right through the gut.
[00:11:28] Brain access and the microbiome has huge impact on our mental health. And so when we have poor gut health, and often it can be, asymptomatic, so there are no symptoms of poor gut health, but with chronic stress, there is always going to be some gut element. And then we've gotta look at diet, processed food, sugar, alcohol, caffeine.
[00:11:46] fried foods, all of that kind of stuff is going to break down the microbiome. If you've had antibiotic use is a massive one. so
[00:11:54] when the gut is disrupted, it's going to create inflammation
[00:11:58] which will inflame the brain which again
[00:11:59] [00:12:00] lower your mental and emotional bandwidth. And the fourth and final, and by no means the last, but the fourth most important one is having space having gaps.
[00:12:09] Right? And I talked about this in another podcast that we don't allow for any space in our life. Okay? And before, when you were younger, you would've had times where you had nothing to do and you, what did you do? You did nothing. Right? And I heard this guy say, like We don't need Mindfulness, when we were a kid, like our life was mindful, you know, when we were waiting for the bus to go to school. We were just waiting, like there was nothing to do. You know, we were on the bus, there was nothing to do. We were just sitting on the bus going home, right? But now we have devices that take up all the gaps, and if you're busy running a business, or you're busy juggling so many things, then you are going to use whatever free time that you have.
[00:12:51] If it's a minute to, you know, I'll prepare for the next meeting, or I'll put this email together, or I'll quickly run and do this right. We don't allow for the gaps. And the gaps is where we create more mental and emotional bandwidth. So not saying that you need two hours out of your day. It could be five minutes.
[00:13:09] Take that five minutes, allow decompression to happen, allow your mind to process emotions and just slow down.
[00:13:15] So if you are someone who is feeling really stressed, then I want you to have a look at the days that you get a lot done, the days that you don't, and really kind of notice that for yourself. 'cause those are the days that you have more or less mental bandwidth.
