How to Prevent Burnout as a Female Leader Using Somatic Awareness
In today's fast-paced world, women often find themselves juggling multiple responsibilities, from work commitments to family obligations and everything in between. Add to that society’s expectations and how women are taught to care for others first and themselves last.
With such a busy lifestyle, it's easy to overlook the signals that our bodies send us, leading to a heightened risk of burnout. However, by cultivating somatic awareness, women can develop a deeper understanding of their physical and emotional states, and in doing so mitigate the risk of burnout.
Topics I’ll share with you today:
1. What is Somatic Awareness?
2. What burnout can look like in your body, mind, and emotions.
3. How to prevent getting into Burnout?
4. Two Somatic Awareness Practices to start today.
5. How to grow your business or career sustainably over time without burning out?
What is Somatic Awareness?
Somatic awareness involves tuning into the sensations and cues that our bodies provide, allowing us to recognize signs of stress or fatigue before they escalate. Not only that, somatic awareness can help women to understand and identify their nervous system states.
If you don’t know what the nervous system states are, don’t worry at the end of this article I share the link to a free masterclass that explains in detail what they are and the influence they have on your emotions and thoughts. But first let's talk about how burnout may be showing up in your mind, body, and emotional world.
What burnout can look like in your body, mind, and emotions?
Research has shown that burnout is related to being for a considerable amount of time in a constant hyper-state, where cortisol levels are high due to stress in the body. These hyperstates can translate into signals in the body, mind, and emotions.
On a physical level, it can look like a fast heart rate, tenseness in different parts of the body, digestive problems, sleeping problems, etc. Then on a mind level, it can look like racing thoughts and highly critical thinking, and emotionally it can look like anxiety, anger, frustration, etc.
Maybe you are already feeling some or all the things I just described, so imagine having that hyper state for months or years, with minimal rest.
That’s when you may find yourself feeling like you can’t cope emotionally with things, you start to feel tired all the time, you may have brain fog, low concentration, feel highly reactive, and then other physical symptoms may appear as part of burnout.
So, how can you avoid getting to that point?
By incorporating simple somatic practices into your daily routines, you can proactively manage your well-being and reduce the likelihood of burnout.
Somatic awareness means that you are intentionally paying attention to what your body needs, and then taking action to make it happen. In our day-to-day busyness we may override our needs, and our body cues constantly, but once you start to practice noticing and tuning into body sensations, emotional triggers, and thought patterns you will gain a different awareness of yourself.
Most of us go through life without realizing that so much of our behaviors and ways of being, come from deeply rooted patterns we acquired at some point and that our moods and actions are influenced by them all the time. We think we can work our way through these patterns by thinking ourselves out of them, as it turns out a lot of the time there needs to be a deeper dive into our bodies, and is there where we can truly transform.
By creating a deeper knowledge and awareness of your inner reactions and patterns, you can start making proactive changes. In the specific case of burnout, what is happening is a constant override of your needs, and a constant stimulation of your nervous system that can end in collapse.
Now I want to share with you two powerful practices that I use myself to get in contact with your body sensations and start getting familiar with your individual cues and emotional world.
Two Somatic Awareness Practices to Help You Prevent Burnout
To help you start creating practices to identify and prevent burnout I will share here two somatic practices that women can integrate into their day-to-day lives:
1. Body Check-Ins: Throughout the day, take a few moments to check in with your body. Notice any areas of tension or discomfort, and take proactive steps to address them. This may involve deep breathing exercises, gentle stretches, or simply adjusting your posture. By staying attuned to the needs of your body, you can prevent physical strain. Also, remember that physical symptoms can be a great signal that something is not going well. Think about digestive problems, neck, shoulder, or back pain, sleep disorders, etc.
When something keeps happening, pay attention when it comes up. Ask yourself what is going on in your life that could have brought that up.
Consider that sometimes it will not be enough to sleep more hours, or take more vacation days, because even though that can help, the root cause of your feeling exhausted is the amount of work hours you are putting in, or the number of activities on your weekends or favors you are saying yes to, beyond your real capacity.
So take into consideration your life as a whole, and try to check where can you make some adjustments to work on the root cause of things, while also keeping a practice of somatic awareness to check in with yourself.
I want to emphasize this last thing, no matter the number of techniques and practices you use, if you are only addressing surface-level stuff, there won't be change and there won't be lasting relief. Sometimes you will need to look for specialized 1-1 attention to really understand and safely navigate that inner world, that can be with a Coach like myself or with a Therapist depending on your goals and your needs.
2. Grounding Techniques: Grounding practices can help you anchor in the present moment and give you relief when feelings of overwhelm arise.
One effective technique is to practice "earthing" by walking barefoot on natural surfaces such as grass or sand. Alternatively, mindfulness exercises that focus on connecting with the sensations of the body can promote a sense of calm and relaxation.
Again, here it will be an exercise of trying different things and finding what is best for you. For example, people often find that focusing on their feet touching the ground or their back being supported against a chair or bed, provides a sense of calmness and ease. That may not be the case for you, and if it isn’t that is OK.
I recommend you try a whole body scan, just going over each part of your body and then finding where in your body you feel the most support and ease. This place may change from one day to another, and that’s great.
The important thing is to take some time for yourself and let your attention wander along your body, even if no particular body part grabs your attention, the practice of body scanning will already be enough to help you bring your attention to the present moment.
By incorporating some of these somatic practices into your routine, you can start cultivating a greater sense of self-awareness and resilience in the face of life's challenges. By listening to the wisdom of your body, you can increase your emotional capacity and also help prevent getting to burnout by identifying early the body, mind, and emotional signals and acting to adjust your life so you can hopefully live a more balanced life.
How to grow your business or career sustainably over time without burning out?
Are you a Female Leader or Female Founder? I invite you to my Free Masterclass: Emotional Growth to Sustainable Business Growth, where I go deeper into the connection between body and mind, and explain each of your nervous system states with examples of how it can look in your business day-to-day decisions.
I also share how to start expanding your emotional capacity so you can embrace success, increase income, get more exposure, and drive sustainable growth without burning out in your business as a Female Entrepreneur.
In this link you can access the Masterclass and Three Guided Somatic Practices to increase your Emotional Capacity: I want free access to the Masterclass
Are you a Spanish Speaker Female Founder? The Masterclass is also available in Spanish! Use the same link I shared above.
