Busyness Addiction Is A Real Thing

Rest. What's that? Busyness? Oh, we know what that looks like! In fact,?busyness makes us feel in control when what we really are is often out of control. It's a default setting and busyness addiction has become?a real thing for many of you.?I know, because I walk this road too. The fact is that your adrenal glands need downtime and rest?to avoid burnout?and enhance your overall health and wellbeing.

If you are busy, you must be okay. Right? Wrong, actually. Busyness can:

• Make you?feel more productive
• Make you feel successful
• Be a a cover for what's not working in your life
• Make you?feel more in control when you?actually don't have a handle on things
• Distract you from what you?don't want to see or deal with
• Make you feel alive when what you actually want to do is drop into a hole of depression?and despair
• Wind you?up, stimulating the release of adrenalin?and cortisol into your system -fuel for action, an?upper balancing out your down or negative feelings
• Be a way of keeping going when you are so tired you just want to stop
• Make you feel needed when you?feel like everything is unravelling
• Stop you?from delegating what you perhaps could,?because you?think that you?can do it better or more efficiently?than anyone else

The roar of adrenalin

Many of the above apply to me too.?I have practised many different forms of rest during the day for the past 35 years (which is very different to sleeping at night), helping me to balance out my busyness addiction.?For sure, these interventions have kept me on the healthy side of stress.?

But, I also know what extended?adrenal overdrive feels like.

From the moment?we were attacked in our home in 2017 I?could?hear the roaring of adrenalin in my ears?to the extent that I never heard the shot that killed my husband.?Adrenalin increases your heart rate, elevates your blood pressure and boosts energy supplies to help you deal with a threatening situation.

That roaring lasted for nearly 18 months, so strong was the adrenal response within me.?Even after the noise died down?my adrenals continued at a rate of knots. My body and my being didn't know how to survive without?adrenalin. It is an incredible?drug?that can take away exhaustion and even physical and emotional pain.

Yes, I have been dealing with alot, as many of you have too, and balancing many balls in the air. So, we just keep going. Fortunately, I have been held and supported by many loved ones and?healthcare professionals both alternative and medical. I count myself extremely lucky.

Living on?adrenalin?is not sustainable

While I have done an enormous amount of healing work, had oodles of therapy, and grown in leaps and bounds through the aftermath of trauma,?I realised over a year ago that?anger and?adrenalin?were still fuelling?me, and that it?was not sustainable. The anger I let go of?in late 2021?and the adrenalin?finally stopped pumping so furiously in late November 2022.?The day my?youngest son finished his landscape architecture degree I came to a grinding halt.?I felt like I had been hit by not one, but eleven sledgehammers.?

I had learnt to use adrenalin?as a pick me up to keep me going, but no more. December to February were really hard as my entire being tried to remember how to operate on normal levels of this miracle substance. My endocrine system and my hormones went completely out of whack.

I am currently on a medically supervised liver detox?to reset every system in my body after five years of?adrenal overdrive.?It's been quite hectic but also incredibly calming and empowering. Amazingly,?I feel my body clock resetting itself too?and I find myself getting to the end of the day and my body just screams, "Stop!".?I have been so used to over-riding this sense with a boost of adrenalin. Do you think this may be happening to you too? I now feel less wired,?more calm and peaceful. It is a really good feeling.

Re-awaken your inner intelligence to stop

Sensing when we need to stop and rest?is a form of intelligence that requires us to be awake, aware and disciplined. It demands we look after ourselves.

When I ran a LinkedIn poll, 42% of respondents said that the addiction to being busy was a problem for them. Why not use the Easter break to start looking at the many different kinds of rest I talk about in this podcast?

Love yourself enough to build?rest?into your busy schedule beyond going to sleep at night.?Be aware of your addiction to busyness and how it ramps up your adrenalin and cortisol levels. Make sure you consciously try and balance it out with regular periods of rest in the day. It will also improve the quality of your sleep at night.

In this podcast,?I share my everyday journey?with busyness addiction?and how I try and balance it out with different kinds of rest --?just 20 minutes a day, tops.

Have a restful Easter holiday period and enjoy whichever celebrations apply to you. Spend a moment contemplating your busyness addiction and decide what you are going to do to avoid adrenal overdrive and burnout. Stop. Breathe. Rest.