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L i s te n to T h e A B M P Po d c a s t a t a b m p.co m /p o d c a s t s o r w h e reve r yo u a cce s s yo u r favo r i te p o d c a s t s 65 Burnout, on the other hand, denotes a particular kind of tired. "I can't go another step," complained my 8-year-old friend on a hike. Stop for a few minutes, and she's soon happily ranging on ahead again. Tired—no matter how tired—can be fixed with sleep or rest. Burnout, however, is still there in the morning, or comes on quickly as the day progresses. Burnout occurs when the requirements outstrip the resources over a sustained period of time, and the body switches to a defensive maintenance mode. These days, I feel the fierce urgency of more touch connection—just to sit down and laugh over a meal, for crying out loud—as an ongoing tension in my low belly and low back. This constant output into our muscles costs energy, and in turn stifles sensation, so opening up your clients to these neuromuscular patterns becomes the doorway out of burnout. Resilience—"things may be bad, but I can cope"— implies more fuel in the spiritual tank, even if it comes from reserves. True burnout—what used to be called a nervous breakdown—implies all the usual spark is gone. We're all aware that we're running faster than we are being restored, especially for anyone on the front lines: nurses, mothers, and check-out clerks. How do we restore resilience? When you feel resilient, you feel inside that you can muster the resources to stay centered, whether it is to keep yourself safe or keep moving toward a goal. Increase your resilience and you'll reduce your burnout. I will leave it to your own training and skill set as to how you tackle this in a session of your chosen modality. All modalities, practiced with awareness, can be helpful in this regard. A coordinated program of deep-touch sessions can definitely help such a "whole-person" event as burnout. Proceed with confidence and be patient—results usually do not appear until six sessions or so. The remainder of this piece discusses some global concerns in building a self-care component into your clients' daily activities. "HOMEWORK" FRAMEWORK No matter how good your work is, it will be more effective if the clients live into the new space and make it their own—we all know this. And the resources for generating a wide spectrum of self-care are legion, available all over the internet or indeed in recent issues of this magazine. (See Heath and Nicole Reed's Your Neuromyofascial "Set" of Posture in Action To feel how your neuromyofascial set works, lie on your back on a floor or a mat, legs out straight. Put your attention in your spine. Notice where it touches the floor, where it doesn't, and note any tension you feel there. Everything I want you to notice is going to happen in the first half-second—I am inviting you to look at what happens when you prepare to move. Now lift one heel off the floor. An inch will suffice—your spinal muscles, joints, and fascia "set" themselves to handle the weight just before and just as you make the movement. Do this a number of times, relaxing in between and watching what happens when you just start to think about beginning to lift your leg. The "set" of your spine and hips as you take the load is a combination—honed over many years—of neural messages to muscles, the muscles strengthening as they can, and the fascia providing the force transmission. Failure or deficit in either the muscles or the coordinated messages will result in gradual densification and stiffening of the fascia to make up for the loss in stability. For comparison, calm yourself and pay attention again as you lift the other leg an inch or so. Do that a few times. Can you feel a difference between how the two sides handle the added strain? Remember to take a little rest between changing sides, so you can perceive the differences clearly. If you are not feeling it, put a finger lightly on each anterior superior iliac spine on the front of your hip bone, and then do the test. It's dollars to doughnuts that one side of your pelvis twists more than the other, one finger moves up more than the other. Almost no one (but the most balanced athletes) have a bilaterally symmetrical response to load. Can you create one? Can you create a "set" that allows both sides to remain in place (which a dancer would appreciate) or at least move the same (which your low back will appreciate)?