Zoom Fatigue

MissDoctorMom with Dr. Krista Ryan

Zoom Fatigue

Hello and welcome Ms. Dr. Mom, family member. I'm so excited that you guys are tuning into the station. And if you are not a regular subscriber to this channel, um, we are a company that is devoted to helping you with your health in the comfort of your own home. And we want to empower you to take charge.

[00:01:02] So if you miss your medical doctor or it's too expensive and you can't, uh, our life is too busy and you can't get out to see your family doctor, you are able to go. Somewhere and to someone. And that is why we're building this channel. We want to give you an education that is foundation for your health, where you are taking charge of your health without diet and exercise.

[00:01:26] So I hope you guys. All get that. And we are going to strategize and talk about something that's been in mainstream media today, and that is called zoom fatigue. Um, I didn't know what that was when I saw it on a newsfeed. And so I want to kind of go through what it is and what it means and how you can take charge and take back your health just by doing a few simple things in the comfort of your own home, so that you miss out on all the.

[00:01:55] Fatigue and all the insomnia and the problems that might be coming with our social media culture today and our working environment today due to COVID. So, uh, we're gonna just dive right in into what is a zoom fatigue. So, and when do I get it? So people will get it when they've been working on the computer all day and all night, and the only way that they connect to a family members, the only way they can connect or work at a proper pace is through our social media channels.

[00:02:31] And the problem with this. Is that we're getting stimulated through our visual fields. So a lot of us, when you're out in nature, you know, our environment is still, uh, and so we're able to focus on movement. And so when we're working in our work environment, you know, a person might pass your office and it.

[00:02:58] It distracts you for a second. Well, when you're on a zoom call or when you're on social media, that distraction happens at a more frequent interval, which can cause, um, a disconnect and it will cause fatigue over time because your body and your mind has to sort through what is valid and what is relevant and what is not.

[00:03:23] Relevant or has no meaning for you to date. And if we're getting inundated with all these, um, responses that your body has to deal with, then your body has to work at a higher frequency N level. Now, um, What does that mean for you? It means that you might be experiencing, um, difficulty concentrating. It might mean that you're having a hard time connecting to the people around you, and you're not able to focus and listen, and you might find that.

[00:04:01] Your, um, your increase because you're getting an increase in fatigue throughout the day. You're having, um, a hard time living your life and not, and being present in the moment rather than just responding to whatever's happening within your environment. Um, now what that can do is that that can increase insomnia.

[00:04:23] It can increase muscle fatigue. You might have extra pain in your body. Um, just due to being in one position, having to deal social media on a regular basis. And literally when our body gets fatigued. If your nervous, system's fatigued, your, your body is concentrating on helping that system. And it might not be, um, concentrating on helping healing your muscles cause you did an awesome work out.

[00:04:47] Um, so we want to strategize, uh, we want to figure out ways that we can actually work better, smarter and feel more connected to the, our family members and have. Um, our needs met each and every one of us, uh, according to Tony Robbins, there's like seven main needs that people, um, have to have in order for their life to feel fulfilled.

[00:05:16] And when we're. We're living our lives through a screen. And when we're living our lives, without those connections that we would get on a daily basis and without the ability to relax and shut things down, um, then we get. We get into the state and we cause this thing called zoom fatigue. So how do we strategize that?

[00:05:40] Um, I wanted to talk a little bit, if you guys haven't seen any of my stuff before, I do have a mommy mindset challenge, and that challenge goes through. How do we become a peak performer within our family home? And how do we create goals in our life where we have, we don't just have goals for work, but we have goals for our family because a lot of us, especially this environment, we're not getting our needs met because we can't connect to our relatives.

[00:06:09] We can't connect to the people within our lives. And you might be at home with your family right now, but is each, every like, is all the family members. In their respective rooms, you might actually not be engaging and connecting properly. And that is a need that your body has. And when you cannot get your base needs met, you're not able to give of yourself in a way that's meaningful in a way that's important in a way that you might want to.

[00:06:38] I know for us, like when we don't feel like we're engaged, when we don't feel like we're doing our best at work. It brings us down. It, it causes like emotions that, that, um, might not be there otherwise. So for an example, in the last number of years, I've actually had a series of kidney stones and dis uh, an a disc herniation, uh, due to that kidney stone.

[00:07:01] And what happened within my office was I like, I love, love, love my job. And you guys might be in the same spot and if you're not that's okay. But yeah. You feel fulfilled and successful when you're doing the job that you want to do. And if you're not doing your best within your job, it kind of chips away at our confidence.

[00:07:24] It chips away at our ability to really, you know, give back and feel fulfilled in a way that you are not going to get. Within your family or working life now, um, we often set goals within our working life and we work so hard, um, to do those goals, but we forget to do the goals when it comes to our family.

[00:07:47] And I want to get into that a little bit because, uh, when my daughter was young and some people might've heard this story before, but when my daughter was young, Um, she would go through, I would have like screaming fits before I went into the office and I would kind of have to shake her off of my arm and the nanny was trying to get her away.

[00:08:08] And she was only, she was less than two at the time. And I ended up going on this trip where I, uh, went to a business conference and they talked about being present and really focusing on the person in front of you and focusing on the connection that you have with that person, because it'll fulfill their needs as well as fulfill your own as well as create an environment where you're listening and communicating properly.

[00:08:34] Now. Being disconnected on the phone or through your computer. It's very easy not to engage. It's a very easy to shut your mind off and not be present at the meeting that happens to be happening on zoom or at the meeting. Um, At the, at a physical meeting within your family dynamic or relationships. And so we don't want to practice shutting that attention of, we want to have our minds practice, turning that attention on and turning that focus on so that we can hone into our best selves.

[00:09:10] And we can really feel fulfilled at the end of our working day, but we have to use strategies that work, that increase productivity. And some of the things that I learned at this, uh, business course was how do I increase my product productivity in my life? And a lot of the strategies came by increasing the connection and getting your needs fulfilled at home.

[00:09:34] And so I realized very early that it was so important to have goals for my family life. And it was important to bring all these productivity strategies. Into my home so that I can actually feel excited and I can have some, I can have relationships where I'm working towards a certain outcome. So my ideal in a relationship is, is connecting to the people in my lives on a regular basis.

[00:10:04] That might mean a daily basis. That might mean on a weekly basis. But when I write those things down, I'm able to actually work towards my ideal. And if we never have a destination, we're never actually going to go towards that destination. We're never going to achieve any goal. And oftentimes in relationships, we take them for granted, we think, Oh, they're going to be here forever.

[00:10:25] And that simply doesn't happen. We're supposed to work towards a goal. And connect at a deeper level and that makes you more fulfilled. It fills up your love tank. And I want that for every single one of you. And when I went to this course, they talked a lot about presence and like really looking. Like I gazing looking into the person's eyes in front of you really hearing what they were saying.

[00:10:53] Sometimes we listen to what's going on around us, but our body just like the extra stimulation that we're getting from zoom, our body will. Create a filter. And sometimes we actually start filtering out the people that we love in our lives. And we simply don't listen. And when my daughter was upset and, um, was having a really hard time with me leaving for work, I decided when I came back from that seminar just to get on her level and to do some eye gazing.

[00:11:24] And so I looked her in the eye and I made it a game. I said, I said to her, okay, don't blink. And I simply looked at her and if she blinked, I tickled her and then, and then she tickled me if she thought that I was blinking and. She, it was really so profound for me because she turned to me and she looked at me and she said, okay, mommy, I'm fine.

[00:11:46] Now you can go to work. And she, and this is like, I literally spent less than two minutes with her and it changed the foundation for a relationship from that moment forward. And I didn't have to shake my two year old off and I didn't have to. Feel those feelings of guilt and devastation when I was moving into my working day, because her needs are met and actually it filled me up to just gazing at my little precious child.

[00:12:13] So I want you guys to be really intentional and try to. B, I want you to strategize, how are you going to get that connection to the people around you in your working day? So that might mean that you have to actually step up and create goals within your family life, or it might mean that you need to. Not be inundated with all the extra media and all the extra stimulation, and you might want to shut some of that stimulation down slightly so that you can perform at a higher level.

[00:12:49] So what does that really look like? So in zoom meetings, um, Oftentimes everybody's speaking, but nobody's looking at the camera. You can't see anybody. And so you're getting inundated with, um, with images that are going on in your eyeballs that you're supposed to entrap. You're supposed to be really focused on, but oftentimes we can't really connect to the people in the way that we would when we're present with them.

[00:13:15] So what does this mean? This means that you can. Turn off your screen and be an active listener. Sometimes it might mean that you have to actually in decrease the amount of stimulation that's happening by wearing a blue blocker sunglass. Um, so that the light coming into your eye, it's not as stressful for your nervous system and you're, you're not getting more energy.

[00:13:41] You're actually able to connect in a more relaxed state. Um, now. I I'm going to take that a little bit, like a step further, and I want you to practice engagement with people because sometimes it's a skill that we're learning. And if we're existing on computers all the time, even on, um, a FaceTime call with my family members, I'm not looking at to them.

[00:14:10] I might be looking at myself and how good my hair looks or how it doesn't look. Um, but I want you to. To be very intentional and practice and be engaged in the moment that you're in, because that's a way to take your life back and combat this zoom fatigue for people. Um, I'm going to talk a little bit further within the series on how to strategize ways to help your sleep.

[00:14:37] But I'm just going to mention briefly here that when it comes to extra stimulation and sleep, there's a link with the zoom fatigue to insomnia and. Things that we need to do is that we need to create rules around the devices that we're using such as I don't touch my phone or I put my phone down when I'm present with my family at six o'clock at night.

[00:15:04] So I want you guys to build in rules with the things like I don't do zoom meetings anymore. The clock now, I I've talked to a lot of people that are working at home and sometimes. Uh, and I'm actually, I've been working at home for a lot of years and I've had to strategize the way I mentally think about my working life.

[00:15:28] So. Um, I have to physically have rules, so I'm not within my office at a certain day, a certain time. Um, and I'm not, uh, if I'm having to do office stuff, I work at in office hours, uh, on the office stuff. And I create time within my working day, instead of taking that home. Now, when you're in a physical home, it's very hard to disconnect yourself from.

[00:15:59] Your working life. It all seems to be melding together, especially for us women because, um, everything that happens within our day, we tend to connect it to everything else that happens within our day. And so we need to actually have a space and have a strategy for turning your working life on. And off.

[00:16:19] And I talk about this through the mummy mindset challenge. I talk about how do we manage our transitions better? So how do we transition from being in a state of a mom to being in a state of a. For me chiropractor or for me a business owner. How do I take on and off that hat? And if I get better at that, if I get better at transitioning between one frame of mind to another, I'm actually more successful and more productive, and I have less mental stress and fatigue on my body.

[00:16:50] So I want you guys to get good at. Changing hats. I want you to get good at managing transitions within your working life, especially from working at home. So how do we, how do we do this? Um, I talked to a patient of mine and she was, she was having a very difficult time, um, because she was, uh, homeschooling our daughter as well as working from home, as well as trying to just get some time within her, uh, physical environment.

[00:17:19] For herself. And so what we ended up doing is we took two physical things. So she'd literally pick up a rock and, um, and she put it on her desk when she was in working mode and she had rules for that environment. So she said that, okay, the door's shut. Um, she talked to her daughter about not interrupting her, um, at that time when.

[00:17:44] When her door was shut and she made physical space and physical room for herself and for her working life. And I want that for you guys. So, um, there's lots of things that we can do to mentally, uh, strategize. How do we combat zoom fatigue? So I'm going to go through that very briefly. I want you to create.

[00:18:08] Goals for your family life. I want you to be more present. I want you to practice eye contact and, and getting your love tank filled as well as, as connecting to the people around you. Because on zoom, we miss that, um, in your working space and environment, I want you to change and turn, turn off. More stimulation.

[00:18:33] If you can use phone mode, uh, shut off your video and, and use active listening to be engaged rather than eyesight, as well as listening. And I want you to try to strategize by getting blue blockers, sunglasses, and work on practicing connection to your family members. Um, Create rules in your working life and use physical objects to anchor those rules so that you can manage the transition from being a mom, a family member, to being a working individual within your family home.

[00:19:12] If you guys are interested in more information, we do have Ms. Dr. Mom, YouTube channel, as well as Ms. Dr. Mom podcast. Um, you can. Look us up. I have a health help at home video library. That is a monthly membership site where you can look up things that you can do in the comfort of your own home with certain things like digestion problems with, uh, certain things like back pain or neck problems.

[00:19:38] Um, and all of these things are strategies that I give my patients within my clinic to help them. And I stay away. I typically stay away from Jesse using diet and exercise within those tools. These are habits that you're creating in order to be healthier tomorrow than you ever were today. So guys live with passion, have a great rest of your day and really go back through this material.

[00:20:05] Be intentionally. Yeah. I want you to be intentional about thinking how you're going to approach your working day. Starting tomorrow. Are you guys with me and excited about this stuff? This is a way you can take charge and take back your health, your time and your family. So guys live with passion and have a great rest of your day.