The Burnout Recovery Podcast

Episode 206 kicks off a 10-episode series on connection: with yourself, your colleagues, your patients and your purpose. We start with the brain, because connection is not a nice-to-have for people with spare time. It is biology.
Dr Jo takes you to a women in leadership course in Prato, near Florence, where a values exercise shifted her top values from integrity, growth and fun to connection and courage. Values aren’t tattoos. She got clear on her new values in a room full of people.
The research behind why isolation feels like a threat:
Eisenberger and Lieberman (UCLA): social exclusion lights up pain-related brain regions James Coan (University of Virginia) social baseline theory: holding the hand of someone close calms the brain’s threat response
Julianne Holt-Lunstad (BYU): lacking social connection carries a mortality risk comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, via biological, behavioural and psychological pathways
Her EAR framework: Educate, Assess, Respond
Arnsten (Yale) on chronic stress and the prefrontal cortex, and Maslach on community as a driver of burnout
Tools for this week:
The Weekly Connection Audit: ten minutes, four questions
Mindset: a values check
Support: the two-minute connection
Movement: move with other people
Sleep: poor sleep makes you feel lonelier and look less approachable (Ben Simon and Walker, UC Berkeley)
Try this week: do the audit once, message someone you’re overdue to contact, and share one idea from this episode.
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Boundaries don't fall over in the planning meeting. They fall over when you're tired. So decide before you are.
Episode 205 is the final episode of the Boundaries series. You already know the skills. This one is about holding them in October, when the tank is low and the year still has weeks to run.
Why "when I have the energy" rarely arrives (my morning walk and the rain)
The 30-minute starter block for the job you keep circling
Why a tired brain says yes and adds, instead of removing
If-then plans across the four pillars: Mindset, Movement, Support, Sleep
The drop, defer, downgrade stop-doing list for the home stretch
Three reflection questions and one action step
The research:
Arnsten (Yale): chronic stress impairs the prefrontal cortex
Gollwitzer & Sheeran (2006): if-then plans and goal attainment, 94 studies
Adams, Converse, Hales & Klotz (2021, Nature): people overlook subtractive changes

No Is a Full Sentence: boundary scripts for work, family and off duty. The scripts are the basic tier, and the premium tier adds the masterclass. drjobraid.com/store

Next week: a new series on connection.

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Produced by @propodcaststudio. Supported by MIGA.
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Doctors are supervised at every step of training, then told "good luck, carry on for 30 years." Dr Suzi Hamilton thinks there's a better way.
Suzi is an emergency physician in Christchurch, New Zealand, who also works in the Chief Medical Officer's team as Director of Workforce Development, and coaches and supervises doctors on the side. Her path here includes a ski-field season, a boat in Antarctica and a high-altitude rescue post in Nepal.
In this episode, Jo and Suzi cover:
The difference between mentoring, coaching and professional supervision, and why supervision is not a performance issue
Why individual resilience was never going to be the whole answer
Suzi's four cornerstones of team resilience: connection, culture, recovery and reflection
Why reviewing what went brilliantly belongs alongside reviewing what went wrong
How one question after a game of five-a-side changed a hard stretch in her training
The self-care routine Suzi actually keeps (it isn't a routine)
Reflection: what kind of support do you need right now? Advice from someone who's been there, a goal to work towards, or a safe place to think out loud?
Also mentioned: the Doctors Who Coach Doctors group, a directory of doctors who coach other doctors. Find out more here: https://www.doctorswhocoachdoctors.net/
**Content warning: death of a child mentioned in this episode.
Connect with Suzi: https://www.hamiltoncoaching.nz
Connect with Jo: IG/FB: @burnoutrecoverydr
LinkedIn: drjobraid
The Sunday Long Game weekly newsletter: https://drjobraid.com/subscribe
Produced by @propodcaststudio. Supported by MIGA.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Your phone doesn't need to ring for it to cost you. In this episode, Dr Jo Braid shares a moment from her own coaching session when one glimpse of a lit-up screen quietly pulled her out of the room, and what the neuroscience says about why that happens.
This episode covers:
The telepressure trap. Why the felt urge to respond immediately predicts worse sleep and higher burnout, even when you never actually reply. (Barber & Santuzzi)
The 23-minute reload. Dr Gloria Mark's research on task-switching shows a single interruption costs an average of 23 minutes to fully recover your focus. There's no such thing as a quick check.
Why willpower isn't the fix. The variable reward mechanism behind your urge to check, and why redesigning your environment beats trying to out-discipline your own brain. The right to disconnect.
What Australia's after-hours contact laws actually mean for healthcare workers, on-call rosters included. Practical tools: the real difference between Do Not Disturb and Work Focus mode, a two-line after-hours auto-reply, and one recurring block in your week worth protecting with a hard boundary.
Reflection question: When was the last time a phone glance pulled you out of something that mattered, and what did it actually cost you?
Action step: Choose one recurring commitment this week and put your phone on Do Not Disturb. Properly off, not just silenced.
Connect with Dr Jo Braid: Instagram/Facebook: @burnoutrecoverydr LinkedIn: Dr Jo Braid Newsletter: The Sunday Long Game — drjobraid.com/subscribe Produced by @propodcaststudio. Supported by MIGA.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You can know every script. You can know that no is a full sentence. And you can still say yes — because some quieter part of you doesn't believe you're allowed to say no. This week Jo goes underneath the boundaries series to look at the self-esteem doing the real work behind every hard conversation.
THE SIGNAL
→ Self-esteem = your satisfaction, confidence and self-respect. Not fixed — trainable, like any other skill.
→ Four scenarios where it shows up: family, patients, colleagues, yourself.
→ A script is only half the equation. Words + self-esteem, not words instead of self-esteem.
→ Boundaries have two parts: the request, and the consequence.
→ The neuroscience: social disapproval activates the same pathway as physical pain (Eisenberger, UCLA). That's why willpower alone doesn't hold a boundary — but the circuitry is trainable.
→ Counterintuitive truth: weak boundaries look like closeness. Healthy ones are what actually build trust.
THE RESET
→ Family: practise one small no this week, no justification, no rush to fill the silence.
→ Patients: "I want to give this the time it deserves — let's book you back in." Protecting quality of care, not abandoning it. → Colleagues: before saying yes, try "let me check and come back to you."
→ Yourself: end each day this week noticing where you spoke to yourself in a tone you'd never use with a colleague.
Pick one scenario. Practise one boundary. Write down what you notice afterwards — that's your evidence file.
RESOURCES
No Is a Full Sentence, Jo's boundary scripts resource, is live now: drjobraid.com/store
The Sunday Long Game newsletter: drjobraid.com/subscribe
IG/FB: @burnoutrecoverydr | LinkedIn: Dr Jo Braid
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.