Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith - Physician, Author, Speaker, Mom

Jason Frazell sits down with Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, a physician, author, and CEO of Restorist, to explore the concept of rest in a way you've never heard before. Learn about the seven types of rest, when Dr. Saundra knew she was at her breaking point and so much more!

"Rest is not just the absence of activity; it's about restoring the energy in the areas of your life that have been depleted."

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith is a Board-Certified internal medicine physician, speaker, and award-winning author. She is an international well-being thought-leader featured in numerous media outlets including Prevention, MSNBC, Women’s Day, FOX, Fast Company, Psychology Today, INC, CNN Health, and TED.com. She is the author of numerous books including her bestseller Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity, including insight on the seven types of rest needed to optimize your productivity, increase your overall happiness, overcome burnout, and live your best life. Over 250,000 people have discovered their personal rest deficits using her free assessment at RestQuiz.com. Learn more about Dr. Saundra at DrDaltonSmith.com.

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Transcript

Jason Frazell: 0:11

Hey, everybody. I am very excited about this one. And I have a little story to share. My guest today is Dr. Sondra Dalton Smith. We got, Dr. Sondra, we got connected through a mutual friend, our friend, Mike Kim. And, and then two weeks ago, I got connected with you again, virtually without you knowing about it. And it was so cool. I was on a call with some dear friends of mine and we get together once a month and we just support each other in our business and in our life. And my friend Marie says, she goes, Oh, I've been working with a rest coach and you have to take this quiz. It's so powerful. It's by this amazing woman. Her name is Sondra Dalton Smith. I said, I said, what? And then I say, seriously, she goes, yeah, I'd like to, you know, where I go, I'm like, well, I'm interviewing on my podcast next week. And this literally happened last week. I was just telling Dr. Sondra, I've taken your rest quiz. So first I want to give it, it's a great, it's a great snapshot of where you might be doing well in your, Seven areas of rest and where you might have some things to work on, which we're going to talk about today. So I was introduced to your work, not just looking at your website, but then from somebody who also knows your work. And it's just such an honor to be here. And it was just like such a cool moment for me. So Dr. Sandra, welcome. So Dr. Sandra is, she is a doctor. She is a physician. She's a CEO of Restorist, which we're going to talk about what that is, and she is an author of Sacred Dress. Good morning and welcome to you.

Dr. Saundra: 1:32

Hi, Jason. Great to be here with you.

Jason Frazell: 1:34

Thank you so much. I'm really excited about this one. So, you know, a lot of, a lot of the things we talk about in the show are related to mindset and performance. And one of the things we haven't yet talked about on the show is the concept of rest as a way to increase performance. And this is a thing that intellectually, I think most of us know, understand, and we of course feel. And then how many people do you know that say, Boy, I'm feeling really rested or I'm feeling mentally and emotionally and physically rested. And that's one of the things I'll just give a shout out again to the quiz. It gives you some other, it's like creative rest. That's an interesting thing that most people don't think about. So today, Dr. Sandra and I, we're going to talk about her work around. The concept of rest, why it matters, how it is something that we likely don't, most of us don't do enough of and why it actually matters to get the most that you want out of life. We're not just talking about sleep here. Although sleep is obviously a big part of it. But Dr. Sondra, before we get into the topic of rest, I'd love to hear a little bit about your journey. So you're obviously a physician and you're also the CEO of a wellness company. Let's talk a little bit about your background and what led you to that entrepreneurial journey.

Dr. Saundra: 2:45

Yeah. So 20 years in clinical practice. That was where I burned out is about 10 years into it and actually it was right around the time I had kids. So so it was in clinical practice, everything's going well, 50, 60 hours, no problem. And then my husband and I decided that we wanted to start a family and we had two children back to back, very close, 21 months apart. And I had no clue how much work kids were. So it was like taking on Two other full time jobs. And during that time that I burned out, I still wanted to stay in the profession at that point. So the research, all the work around rest was really a self preservation opportunity for me. It was just trying to figure out how do I stay in this very high pressure high hours. Career and feel good and actually have energy for my family and my husband And so that's where the research and all of that began my backgrounds in biochemistry. So when there's a problem you research it out Absolutely. And so that's where it started and as I put out the information as the book sacred rest gap Published and people started hearing about the seven types of rest. Honestly, it started to take a life of its own. I got to this place where I was getting invites from these corporations to come and train people. And I'm still in my practice full time when this was happening. And it got to a position where it kind of came to a boiling point. And a decision had to be made whether or not to stay full time within clinical practice or to branch out into the unknown with entrepreneurship. And so that's where Restore Assist was birthed. It's a workplace well being consulting agency. Doing that now for five years, still do some clinical practice, weaved in there more on a part time basis cause I still love that part of it, but I just get to affect so many more people. I mean, when you're working with huge companies, you get to affect so many more lives. Thanks.

Jason Frazell: 4:33

Yeah. Also, a couple other benefits that I would guess is you don't have to deal with the American medical system and insurance companies. And yes, corporations can be challenging to deal with, but you get to go in and bring in your expertise without a lot of the extra administrative things.

Dr. Saundra: 4:47

So true.

Jason Frazell: 4:47

Yeah.

Dr. Saundra: 4:50

Yeah. You're, you're absolutely right. So true. Because even with when, when you're sharing something that is not a pill, there's not really a lot of time within a normal physician 15 minute visit to actually share preventative type strategies. So you're absolutely right. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Frazell: 5:06

I want to ask you about burnout. I've had a few guests on, including my friend, Ken Murawski was on late last year. And this is one of the things that he talks a lot about as well. I always like to ask folks and they say, and I was burnt out. And this relates to the work you do now. How did you know you were burnt out? Because I hear that in America, and you may know about this more than I do in America, that term gets thrown around quite a bit. And I have a friend who's German and she tells me in Germany, that is a diagnosis like you at, like, if you, like, you just don't go out and say, Oh, I'm, I'm burnt out in America, like, Oh, I'm so burnt out, but people aren't. So how did you know you were burnt out? Or what was that experience like for you?

Dr. Saundra: 5:44

Yeah, well, that's the thing. The World Health Organization actually does have a classification and some specific checkpoints that you must meet to be able to say that you're clinically burned out. And they, three things include, number one is being tired all the time. And so for a lot of people, that's all that they need. They use that one criteria and they say the right out number two is that you no longer have joy for the work that you're doing. It's not just that you're overwhelmed is that you actually no longer enjoy something that you were passionate about. And number three is that the work that you produce is of a lesser quality of what you know you're capable of. And so as a physician, I knew what I was capable of as the type and the quality of healthcare that I provided. And when I saw myself kind of taking shortcuts and I see myself, you know, Oh, I don't need to check the labs twice a day on this patient in the hospital. I can check it once a day because that's good enough, right? Well, it's not my standard, so it's not good. It's not the best I can do. And so when you start seeing yourself checking off those three areas, you're moving into burnout. And I knew for myself that I was going into burnout when I have, I'm a very compassionate, emphatic type person. When I got to the point where even seeing and treating sick people was ticking me off. That's a wet flap. I see so many of my physician friends and they're complaining about the patients and complaining about the nurses and everything, you know, is horrible. And I get it. Health care is hard. You know, a lot of professions are hard, but when you don't even like the people you're serving, that's an issue.

Jason Frazell: 7:16

Yeah. That's so interesting to think of it. I've never heard it described quite that way with those three different things. And I, I think in culture, we see this sometimes with musicians and athletes and people that on the outside would be like, well, it would be so cool to play football, but they say, Hey, I'm just burnt out. I'm not enjoying the sport anymore. I'm not enjoying playing. I'm not enjoying playing music or I'm not enjoying acting. And then they go away. And that's so interesting how that can happen to any of us, even from the outside, looking in some of those things would be like, well, that would be my dream job, but it wouldn't be, but it doesn't feel that way to them. So interesting. So then you got present to that. And at the time in your, in your clinical practice, you weren't really doing anything around Russ specifically. You were just practicing physician and you hit the wall. And you said, Hey, there's got to be more to understand about this is what I'm hearing. And the next thing, what's the next thing you did then?

Dr. Saundra: 8:09

Yeah. So that's, that's exactly right. I hit the wall and, you know, as I'm an internal medicine physician, which means I work in the, I have a practice, right. And then I work in the hospital, the ER, the ICU. And so. Okay. Cool. Bye. The way I approached it was I'm tired, so I must need more sleep. I mean, that's what I'm trained. That's how the world trained. I'm tired. I need more sleep. And so that's where I started. I was like, okay, I got these kids now and that's what's keeping me from sleeping. I'm going to figure it out and get eight hours of sleep every single night. And I did that. You know, I found a way to get eight hours of sleep most days of the week. And I was still waking up exhausted.

Jason Frazell: 8:50

Yeah.

Dr. Saundra: 8:50

And that's when the red flags went off. Cause it was like, okay, there's something else going on here. I'm getting more than I've never got eight hours of sleep since, since before college. So, so I was getting way more sleep than I'd ever gotten in my entire life. And I was still exhausted. So I started checking all the blood work. That's the benefit of being a physician. I don't have to, I'm in a position on practice. I can check what I want. Cause it's my bill, right? Yeah. I checked all the tests that even a sleep study, all the things, and I am perfectly healthy, nothing's wrong with me. My thyroid, my adrenals, my cortisol levels, my, I checked everything. And that's a very desperate situation when you have checked all the things that clinically are supposed to help you get a diagnosis and then there's no diagnosis. I knew this wasn't in my head, you know, it wasn't my hormones. It was not in my head. So at that point, it's like, there's something out there that is not being defined and I can't, I can't. But take a pill for it because I can't even figure out what it is. And so that was my mission from that point on, figure out what this is. And it started with just evaluating. Okay. If I'm so tired, I started asking myself, what kind of tired am I? And that's when the game changed because it was like, I know I'm tired, but what is this?

Jason Frazell: 10:07

And Dr. Sunder, that is an amazing question. How many people have ever asked themselves, What kind of tired am I? You never hear anybody go, I mean, every now and again people go, I'm mentally tired. But most people go, I'm tired. And, I can say for myself, for myself sometimes, I've had the experience to where I try to get good physical rest, but, you know, there's, there's times when I'm like, I don't feel like I've gotten a good night's sleep in a year. Because it's not just the sleep. It's the other things. Man, I love that question. My challenge for everybody listening is really think to yourself how, like, what kind of tired are you? And that's going to lead us into talking now, Dr. Sondra, about what you define as the seven different types of rest. So let's go through the seven, and then I've got, I've got some questions about each of those, and we'll just kind of dig in a little bit on those and as we see fit. Your model, there's seven different types of rest. First of all, let's define them. What are they?

Dr. Saundra: 11:03

Yeah, and let me say this. When this started, there was probably like 50 types of the way the process began is I sat down and so when I asked myself that question, I sat down literally with a yellow legal pad and I was just writing like, like, okay, what I was basically going through my day. And every time I ask questions, it's all about questions. I was asking myself, what kind of energy am I using for this? What kind of energy am I using for that? Because my thought process was, if I'm using energy, then that can be depleted. If I'm not doing something to pour energy back into that same area that is being used. So I was just writing down all the different ways I was using energy. And, and what I saw was as I started to kind of group some of the ways together where things were sounding really similar, that's where it came to the seven. So that's where they came from. And so the seven types include physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, social, sensory, and creative. And so each of those, most of them are, are exactly like it sounds that some that people have lots of questions about are the mental and emotional, the fact that I divided those. I'll. Because, and we can go into depth with it, but because there are two different halves of your brain that are functioning and you use that energy in different ways and different situations from the, you know, the mental clarity, reasoning, concentration part of the brain versus the relational emotional aspect of the brain. So I separated them out because we use the word mental health. However, that's emotional rest in my book and the mental is more the clarity and the reasoning. Thank you.

Jason Frazell: 12:44

Yeah, man, there's, I have so many questions about these, so I think if, let's go through each of these and I was going to spark this here. So the physical, I think. I'm going to speak for myself, that's the physical feeling of being tired or being tired from exercise, like actually that your physical being has fatigue of some type.

Dr. Saundra: 13:04

Yeah. So so in sacred rest, the way I break it down is that the physical has two different components. It has the passive and the active and the passive component of physical rest includes things like sleeping and napping. And then the active component of physical rest includes all of those things that improve how your body feels like your circulation, your lymphatic drainage, your muscle flexibility. So, you know, walk leisure walks and yoga and stretching and foam rollers and body ergonomics as it relates to your office space, all of those things kind of fall into that physical rest.

Jason Frazell: 13:39

So yeah, the physical rest, which is the one that I think most people talk about when they say they're tired. It's usually either mental, maybe emotional, or physical. So now let's talk about Emotional fatigue, emotional tiredness, what is the, what's the, in your research or any other research that's out there, how do we deplete that? Because I, I relate to these as almost like the five love languages where you have a, you have a container, you have a container for each of these things and either, either filling them up or depleting them at all times. So the emotional, the emo, let's go to the emotional next. How do we deplete that one? And then of course I'm going to ask you, how might we fill that thing back up?

Dr. Saundra: 14:19

Yeah, so that's actually the one that I was deficient in, and so it was no wonder I was always tired because that was the one I was, I had no system in place for actually filling back up. And so I'll give an example for, for me, the emotional rest deficit that I developed was from something I call professional emotional labor. And it's easier if I describe this there. I'll give an example that probably everybody has experienced first and then a personal example. The first example would be if you're some, if you're like, we've all been on the plane where, you know, someone's had too many of the drinks and now they're like, Belligerent and the rude to the flight attendant and the flight attendant is all smiles. Great customer service. Yes, sir. No, sir. And you know, that's not how she actually is feeling. That's not the actual emotion. There's a level of professionalism that's requiring her to be inauthentic with her emotions in the moment to uphold a level of professionalism. Well, we've all experienced that, whether that's your customer service or whatever. Well, for myself. As a physician, like I said, with internal medicine, I'm oftentimes in critical care type situations, while I live in a small town. So when I see someone in the ICU, this isn't a stranger to me. I'm not a hospitalist, I'm a traditionalist, meaning I see them in the office and in the hospital. So this is someone who's a friend, oftentimes that's in that bed at the end of life. I'm also an empath. Which means that I feel things very deeply. And so when they're in that bed, that's my friend dying, but you will never see a teardrop from my eye. I will stay 100 percent professional because that is the role that I must remain in to serve that patient, their family, and my nursing staff. However, there is a professional weight attached to that. I am having to fight everything in me to not release those emotions. That is professional emotional labor. Emotional rest is having a place, a time, a person, where I can release and be very authentic, real, and raw about what I'm feeling. Not having to hide them, not having to cover them up, not having to make, you know, put makeup on them and make it easier for someone else to digest. And a lot of people don't have that. Sometimes they fear that if they share those things, that it'll be trauma dumping. But emotional rest and trauma dumping aren't the same things. Trauma dumping would be me going to my husband and saying, you know, Hey, this is what they were wearing. And this is the color of their gown. And this is what the cancer looked like. And, you know, and painting this like Netflix picture in his mind so that he got the running movie of the scene. That's bringing him into the trauma with me. None of us want to do that with people we care about. Emotional rest is me actually is way more raw and authentic and vulnerable than that is actually harder than that. It would be me saying You know something along the lines of I feel I felt helpless. There's nothing I can do

Jason Frazell: 17:15

Mm

Dr. Saundra: 17:15

hmm Years of training and I sat there and all I could do was hold her hand and I wanted to weep But I had to fight that back and just being real raw and vulnerable in the moment That's where we get the emotional rest

Jason Frazell: 17:28

and you get the emotional rest back fills fills that back up. I As you were talking about this, this reminds me of, I was watching, it was a, it's called Homicide. It's on Netflix. It's, and it was about different cases in New York City, like really like scary, like murder cases. And they were interviewing the detectives 20 years later, and they're talking about how you just have to block it out. You walk into these things that most of us never see and you just have to go, I need to put that up and how exhausting that is. And how if you don't have an outlet, like an outlet and there are, and to your point, Dr. Sandra, I think there's, there's some positive outlets and then there's a whole lot of negative outlets there. Drinking, addiction, All these other things that people use to blow, call it blow off steam that are actually probably make you more tired, but they feel good. They feel good for a minute versus what I hear is the healthy of not dumping the trauma, but just refilling yourself by connecting with somebody that's going to hold your emotions because you've done that for everybody else.

Dr. Saundra: 18:27

Exactly.

Jason Frazell: 18:29

Yeah. Well, I was going to ask about this one because I know you obviously do a lot of work with corporations. How does this go in the business world? Because people have tons of big emotions in the business world. And most companies I know it's really not that invited. So I'm really curious now about this emotional one. I think this leads into mental is the other one. People get very tired at work is how does this relate in the business world? And I want to speak specifically to people that are people leaders. Yeah. And maybe need to bring a little bit more of this to their, to their folks to, one, to drive performance, but also just be good humans to each other.

Dr. Saundra: 19:02

Absolutely. And this, this is, this is actually what we do within resources that's Mm-Hmm. the love, the love that I'm having right now is that bridge, because what we're finding is a lot, oftentimes when we're brought into an organization, we're bringing, brought in during a. Change status. So there's an acquisition, there's a merger, there's a change in leadership. And the problem is everybody in the company has emotions around it. And unless leaders understand how to engage emotion in a safe Space so that people don't feel like their jobs at jeopardy. It's very difficult for the company to have any movement. Everybody's kind of on edge. And when people are on edge, there's a mass exodus usually in most companies when that happens, because nobody likes the pressure of consistent, emotional, professional labor. And so we have to help primarily what we end up having to do is to help the leaders understand how to introduce the conversation so that you can begin to create those safe spaces. And a part of that is by owning up to what the emotion is. And so saying, rather than trying to act like nobody's stressed, saying, I get, I get this is, I get this is a little stressful and that there's change that's happening. What are some ways that we can approach this change and then start helping people by building up some of the soft skills that nobody is trained on in college, so college teaches us all of the details and nobody trains anyone on the soft skills of adaptability, communication. Self awareness. These are things that people, leaders have to know and to have a healthy team, they have to know these things as well. And so it's, that's a big part of the process, walking people through that, building out wellness initiatives. And I know when I say wellness initiative, people think, Oh, you mean like my Days off and PTO, those things are fantastic. So yeah, enjoy all of that. But I'm talking about actually the interpersonal wellness initiative so that you actually build a healthy team and healthy leaders.

Jason Frazell: 21:04

Yeah. Thanks Dr. Sandra. How I'm the audience can't see this, but I'm smiling because I heard a story from a client of mine where they, she works at a large corporation and they had an E, an EAP speaker come in, like an inner site employee for those who don't know what that is. employee assistance program and it was an external speaker and they were talking about mindset and dealing with change. The advice that this speaker gave was, Oh, when you're feeling negative thoughts or thoughts that stress you out, just change your mindset. And I said, that is one of the worst pieces of advice I've ever heard because it was that easy. We wouldn't what we just do this all the time that completely discounts past based trauma. Your feelings about things and also your and what I'm hearing in all of this is if you're emotionally tired That's hard to do. It's that's an easier changing your mindset. I'll speak just for myself here It's much easier for me to shift into a different gear That's more I think more productive if I'm not feeling tired mostly because that is a heavy lift for me. That's a big And for most people, I'd say that is a big emotional drain that then can source me back up. But I just thought that was so funny that like there's so much bad advice about they're out there about change and change management and addressing these sort of things that is so basic and just, and I'm sure you're, I'm sure you've heard these things too, from, there's a reason people bring your, you and your company in, cause they're like, this stuff doesn't work. Especially when you tell me, Hey, change your mindset. You go, Oh, really? Thanks so much. That's really, really helpful. Thank you.

Dr. Saundra: 22:28

You know, but it's really interesting though, cause there's some companies that are killing it. They are, they are 100 percent on board. They understand the process, but one of the, the probably the biggest battles I find are companies who. who basically want a quick fix for something that is take, it's no different than me telling a diabetic, you're going to have to change your diet. I can't say that one time and then it's done. I have to give the, the kind of the 10, 000 foot view of why we're doing something. And then we have to actually put it into practice. If it was medicine with a diabetic, I then got to show them some recipes that You know, what can you have if you can't have that Snickers? I got to get some, some options on ways of satisfying a craving or whatever that is to replace it. It's no different in the office space. And so we're oftentimes having to, to do a little bit of, um. Kind of detective work with companies, cause they love to invite you in for like the one time went off town hall talk. We did it! Yeah, we checked it out. We supported our

Jason Frazell: 23:29

employees.

Dr. Saundra: 23:30

And I always have to let them know that this is the 10, 000 foot view. I think what would actually serve them is if I actually get on the ground level with them. And I would actually talk about what do you do when you are These things are happening, what are the actual strategies and tactics that can be done in the moment, in the middle of their day, to input restorative practices, because that's really, I mean, that's what the book Sacred Rest is about, every single type of rest I talk about, I give three different ways of actually implementing it, and there's hundreds of ways, but I, it's like, we picked the top three that I think people would actually begin to benefit from, and take them through the process, because unless you get on the ground level, it's all just theory, It actually isn't implemented yet.

Jason Frazell: 24:14

Yeah, I was, you know, I do, I do coaching work and I would say awareness is, is fun, but who cares? Oh, so now I'm aware I'm more tired and I'm, I have your rest quiz pulled up here because I'm looking at my results as we're talking through this right now. I was like, Oh, I realized that I'm a little more emotionally tired than I thought I was. So what? If I don't know what to do with that, then now I just, for me, I'm always like, Oh, like something I need to fix, but I don't know what to do with that. So we're going to talk about that in a little, we're going to talk about some of the specific ways to address some of these things, but I want to go, I want to go through the rest of these too, because they're all to me, they're all so fascinating and now we're going to get it. So we've talked about physical. We've talked about I think mental and emotional. You said there are two separate parts of the brain, but they're similar in that we, they come from our brain. Now we've got four other ones that. I had never heard, I had never thought about it, and I'm sure you get this all the time. You're like, oh, I've never really thought about that. So let's talk about spiritual rest score. So when you talk about spiritual rest score, let's define what that means. What the term spiritual in this context and then what you mean by that.

Dr. Saundra: 25:19

Yeah. So spiritual rest I, it's different for each person really just depending on what their belief systems are. So at the very core of spiritual rest is the need that we all have to feel as if our life has meaning, purpose, value, that we are giving back to the greater good. Our need for belonging and love and acceptance, all of that falls into spiritual rest. And so whether someone gets that in a faith based system and faith based type community, or they get that through causes or different things that they are affiliated with, it includes things like volunteerism, you know, the, the good feeling, so to speak, you get when you've done good to somebody else who can't really do something for you when you're a voice for the voiceless or you are, you know helping and serving in some type of way. That's what I'm referring to. It's that filling back up that comes. And, and the thing, I think that a lot of people have trouble with when we talk, when I talk about restorative practices and rest is because oftentimes we thought of rest as cessation, stopping, sitting still. And so our brain says rest, Oh, that's sleep. That's not doing anything. That's sitting around, you know, cessation, but really rest is about restorative practices. It is. What pours back into that bucket. And so oftentimes it's not just sitting still, it's actually doing something that fills you back up.

Jason Frazell: 26:40

Yeah. I mentioned earlier, my friend Kent Murawski, he was a pastor for 15 years. And you probably know this and perhaps have talked to people who do. church work, pastors are notorious for getting burnt out. And as I'm looking at this list, I'm like, oh yeah, that would make sense because they're constantly supporting other people's emotions, constantly giving, giving, giving. And Kent talks about this, he goes, but I wasn't sourcing myself. And so I reached an area of burnout for myself. And he, for him, The result of having what I would say, and in your quiz, a higher score, a higher score is like a higher blood pressure. You don't want it, you want, you want the lower, you want the lower score in this one.

Dr. Saundra: 27:20

You got it, that's right.

Jason Frazell: 27:21

You got, yeah, you want the lower score in this one, is that he said he ended up on the floor like sobbing after meeting with one of his people in his church, and he didn't know why. And I would assert that that's probably because many of his scores were like, if you're his doctor, you say these indicators are not good, my friend, we need to get you on some sort of treatment. So I think about that in whatever profession you're in, how some of these things are going to be probably more relevant than others. And that leads me to the next one, which is also fascinating. And I'll own, I'm a complete extrovert and I love people. And this one is social. So your social rest score and my social rest score, I spent a lot of time with a lot of people have two kids and a wife, and my social rest score was my second lowest score. So I'm curious about that one. So that one to me seems very dependent on personality, introversion, extroversion. You know, some people, I know people that are like, I think all people are punks and they don't like them. I'm like, I kind of think all people, most people are punks, but I love them anyway. So that one is so interesting to me. And I hear this from clients all the time. He said, I just need a break from the people on my team, or I just need a break from my boss, or I just need a break from the constant like people part of my work. So let's define social and where that one has the variability in it. Cause it seems that one seems very different depending on the person.

Dr. Saundra: 28:41

Yeah, it, it does have some, some differences, but social rest at the, at the core of it is the, is each of us need to have people in our life that are. Life giving that are actually pouring back into us. Majority of the people in our lives are negatively pulling from our social energy. They need things from us. Gimme, gimme, gimme. Who in your life does not need anything from you? You know, a lot of statistics show that adults have fewer adult friends now than ever. And I'm not talking about COVID. The statistics started before COVID. We are just, we're focused on family and work. So that's where we spend all of our time. And oftentimes those relationships can get very one sided, even within your own home. Oh, people can get into a situation where you're always giving and you never are receptive to being on the receiving end within your social relationship at home. So that's really the basis of that social rest, the need to be. Kind of have life giving people that are pouring back into you. And so people who are introverts and extroverts, they require different levels of this. Like introverts are really good with being by themselves and, but they still need people. All of us need to have those life giving people. Extroverts need more of those life giving people oftentimes because that's such a big part of how they get built up. And so it, there's differences there, but what I find the biggest difference between introverts and extroverts, introverts still need those social rest people, but they like fewer of them and they go deeper with them. Extroverts need those life giving people and they're, they like a lot of them and they tend to not go as deep with them and they're good with that. They just like, like the energy around those types of those people. Yeah.

Jason Frazell: 30:24

Yeah. That one, that one's interesting too. When I think of social, I think of there's a lot of psychological things there, like codependency, attachment personalities, where you're like, Oh, like, I really love being around this person, but do you love being around this person? Or are you codependent on, on them? Or are they codependent on you? Which, unfortunately, this isn't something that I experienced, but I, I know people that would say they're in a codependent relationship. Their social risk score is probably high. Because they're constantly giving and I'll say Dr. Sondra and I don't know how this has gone for you and your family But as my wife and I have gotten older with more responsibility in our life I would say my score has gone down here because we've just gotten rid of the people that just aren't life giving not getting rid of them But it's got to feel it's got to feel symbiotic for both my wife and I or it's just not worth it Because if it, and I wish I could have told myself in my twenties, I'm like, Hey, if that person who calls you up and they don't even ask you how you're doing, and all they want to do is get your advice or get your problem solving. That's when I get tired. That's when my social rest score will go like that. And, and as an extrovert, I like the, I like to feel like it's a give and take. And so. I'm curious if people are out there listening, they're like, and they take this and they go, Oh, I actually have a pretty high social risk score. What is something that a person, what's the first thing you'd have them look at in terms of maybe shifting that?

Dr. Saundra: 31:44

Yeah. If they are in a, in a relation intimate relationship with someone or if they have kids to start looking at weight, because that's probably where they're going to be spending most of their time to start looking at ways to start to flip those relationships. If they become unbalanced. If they've gotten to a situation where they're always giving and never receiving, I'll give a simple one that I talk about specifically since most of us have holidays that come up where we're giving people gifts, right? So whether it's Christmas or Father's Day, Mother's Day, whatever. So those holidays, we give people gifts that they probably don't want. They're going to re gift at some point anyway, because nobody needs another tie or, you know, necklace or something. So what I recommend is make it an opportunity for social rest. So rather than give them another gift, how about when you're sitting around at the dinner table, you take a moment to actually say to that person what it is you admire about them, or what it is you're proud of them about, or what it is, why they're important to you, because that's going to be pouring back into that part of themselves, filling that part of themselves back up. And with couples, particularly if you're in any kind of relationship as a couple, to think about, you know, one of the statistics talked about couples then when they get together, especially when after they're married, they have fewer time, lesser time that they have together where they're actually looking in each other's eyes. And when they look into each other's eyes, it's, you know, it's usually not for the right reasons. They're, it actually showed that they typically only are looking at each other eye to eye when they're arguing.

Jason Frazell: 33:19

That sounds about, I just hit my 15 year. That's that, that, that resonates.

Dr. Saundra: 33:24

I think, I mean, but we fall in love eye to eye and then we don't look at each other until we're fighting after we get together and so a social wrestling. Switch that can happen there is to actually begin to, to foster eye to eye contact with your spouse intentionally, you know, not being weird necessarily, but having moments where you actually look at each other and talk. And so I always challenge couples to somewhere in the middle of your day, ask the other person how they're doing. When you first do this, they're gonna just say, fine. And keep walking. Probably not even having looked at you. Yeah. Put your hand on their shoulder. Just the mirror. Act of the touch right after the question. It kind of, it's shocking almost to the system. They will turn and look at you.'cause they're thinking, why are you touching me Even if it's just, what do you need from me? Yeah. It's like, do you need from me right now? That's exactly right. It's like, why are you touching me? And they'll turn and look at you and eye to eye. Ask them the question again. A group of couples to do this. And it was so funny. I got a, I got an email from a gentleman and he, he was like, I've never read your book, my wife turned me onto your stuff. And you know, I, we were doing this challenge that you, you set up and we did this and he goes, I've never had more sex. More conversation with my wife in the past.

Jason Frazell: 34:43

Like, where have you been?

Dr. Saundra: 34:47

He was a fan and he'd never read a thing. He just spent moments eye to eye with his wife.

Jason Frazell: 34:52

Everybody pay attention to this resonates. Look your spouse in the eyes and just gently touch their shoulder and ask them how they're doing. This is not rocket science. My therapist right now would go, yes, I've been telling you this for years. Sounds good. Oh my gosh, Dr. Sutter, that's so good. That is great. So for those of you who, again, I hope everybody takes this quiz because it's awesome. And you have a high social rest score. This one, it sounds to me like there's some pretty tangible and actionable things you can get in this one. You can likely lower with the person you're closest to. That's the fastest path to the highest return is going to be. And sometimes it could be your boss, right? Your boss or an employee for those of us who are married or a child that knew that, that one, that one is so cool. And then we're going to move to another one that I never thought of before. And this one made me laugh because this one is called the sensory rest score, and I'm a sensory nut. Like, I am a musician, I love listening to music, I love going to concerts, I like a lot of stuff going on around me, I stare at screens all day, and I, and I live in a house with two young children, so there's just a lot, a lot of sensory things going on. And my sensory rest score wasn't bad, it's 21, which means there's rest. And you're in the, the scoring system, there's rest, but I could thrive with more. So I'm, I was so excited to talk to you about this. Cause I'm like, but I love a million things around me. So what does this one specifically mean?

Dr. Saundra: 36:25

Yes. You, you nailed it. It's basically looking at just your sensory inputs and the effect that they have on you. Because what we're finding is we, we all live in a sensory rich environment. Our world is just. Sensory rich. And so what we have to look at is what is the effect of all of that input having on you? A lot of people, when they become sensory overloaded, they respond with irritation, agitation, rage, or anger. It's the same thing that happens. Like you have small children, so you take your, you take your three year old to a birthday party. He's usually good when you first get there, like an hour and a half in after the balloons have popped and all the noise and all the party stuff. You know, it's nap time. Cause they're like, ah, it's. Everything goes berserk, sensory overload syndrome. The problem is when we're adults, we have the same response. We've just learned how not to throw a temper tantrum. Usually we just get mean. And so we're more agitated. We're more quick, you know, we're more snappy at people and, and that's the part of it that we then have to evaluate. It's the same reason that road rage is not a thing. Typically in the morning it's usually an afternoon because in the morning you woke up from bed, which actually sleep does help with sensory overload. Cause you have six, seven, eight hours of sensory reprieve. Whereas in the evening you've heard the phones ringing at your office, or you've heard the elevator going off, or you've been on zoom meetings or team meetings all day, or your notifications on your phones have been binging. All of this stuff compounds and then. Somebody, you know, cut you off and you're honking your horn because it's ticked you off at the last moment.

Jason Frazell: 37:59

Yeah. So what's, what's the science behind sensory overload? Like what, what, what does the science say about what's happening in our brain around that? Because absolutely anybody who's been around a young kid knows that that happens. Yeah,

Dr. Saundra: 38:12

you

Jason Frazell: 38:12

know, go ahead. No, that was it. I would say yes, of course.

Dr. Saundra: 38:17

Yeah. You know, that's the thing. It's, it's one of those situations where most of us believe that our brain is not processing it. The thing is with sensory overload, when we hear these noises, we usually are already concentrating on something else. I'll use an example. Let's, let's say. Let's say. Let's say. The example of you're sitting in a team, zoom, whatever it is, virtual meeting, and you got the 15 boxes and everybody's got different screens, right? Well, you're trying to concentrate on the person's face in the middle of chaos. And you've got all these, your brain is having to filter all of the other inputs to try to narrow down your attention. Now. All of this is done subconsciously. It's not like you're thinking, let me focus on this person's face, but it's having to filter out this other stuff. Same with, if you're in an office space or you're at your home office and the kids are playing, you know, that popcorn popping toy where there's like nonstop noise,

Jason Frazell: 39:13

the worst.

Dr. Saundra: 39:15

And so you're hearing that in the background, but you tune it out because you're trying to focus on your work. Well, your brain is actively working. And when that's nonstop, what happens is the brain gets exhausted because it's running like this background program to filter. All day long. Sure. And so sensory rest is basically, what are the things you do to give your brain a reprieve? You know, it could be as simple as having a set of noise cancellation earphones at your office space where you pop them on for 20 minutes, just to block out the noise. If you're a parent with kids, you can put the noise cancellations on and leave the door open. So you can make sure the kids aren't killing themselves out there and just block it out. And the thing is moments of sensory reprieve. Are often enough to reset and give that kind of that break that the brain needs to just reset a little bit. And then there's a lot of tactics. Like if you do do a lot of virtual meetings change the back screen, have your entire, if you're a leader of a team, this is a simple one. If you're a leader of a team, give your entire team a virtual background that is uniform. So that when you have your team meetings, you it's as if you're in an actual room together. If you were in a room together, there wouldn't be 15 different screens, you know, colors and things on the wall. So just unify it so that it has more of a calming effect.

Jason Frazell: 40:37

That's that's brilliant. I do a ton of trainings Virtual trainings where we're screens of up to 75 people. And as the person leading those trainings, I'm thinking about it is, it is interesting to see all the different backgrounds and I know I get curious about it and I think I'm probably curious about it subconsciously, even when I'm like, Nope, I'm, I'm busy. I'm busy focusing on leading this room. But my brain somewhere is filtering out. Well, that person's in a factory and that person's, that person's working from home. Oh, that's so fascinating. Had like make it. So we're all in a room, man. That, that's a, that's. See, that's a great example of something that we can all do. We can all do simple. We can all do leaders out there. You want to just try it. Yeah. Even like a black background or something that's simple. And, and you know, most of the bigger companies, they have one, they come up with a virtual background of their branding on it. So now we're going to move to the last one in the seven, in the seven part framework around rest scores, and that is your creative rest score. And I love this one too, because for 42 years of my life, I related to myself as not creative, limiting mindset. And then, about four or five years ago, I cracked that thing open and I relate to myself as wildly creative. And my creative rest score was pretty good. It's definitely in the rest, but could thrive more. What are we talking about when you say creative rest score?

Dr. Saundra: 42:05

Yeah, I, I love how you, you began that because I think this is the one most, a lot of people brush off as if, Oh, I don't need that one. And then when it comes back, the highest they're like, I get the email, what is this? What do

Jason Frazell: 42:18

I do with this?

Dr. Saundra: 42:21

So yeah, creative rest. Well, let me begin by, by just saying, by agreeing with you, because I feel like that's the thing. So many of us don't think of ourselves as creative because we think creativity is just. You're an artist, you're a musician, you're, you know, whatever, but really all of us use quite a bit of creative energy just because problem solving is a creative process. So anytime you're having to get schedules to mesh, that's a creative process, trying to figure out how, you know, if you're in graphics or marketing, all of these things, and so we use a lot of creative energy and what creative rest is, it's the rest or the feeling of restoration we experienced when we allow ourselves to appreciate beauty and we let. It birth and ignite creativity and innovation inside of us. And so this is the number one thing I, I now get invited into companies with when they feel like innovation has ceased. And it's like, our team says they're burned out. They can't think any great thoughts anymore. And we have to discuss what does it look like to actually ignite creativity inside of someone? So there's lots of literature that that is coming out because it's fairly new concept for a lot of people. But one of the things is that. Over about 70, 60 to 70 percent of people experience creative rest around bodies of water. So nature has a tendency to make people have this like awe and wonder experience. Some do it in the mountains, you know, everybody's different. That's the beauty of it with all of these types of rest. It's different for different people, but then if you don't get it from nature, then we have the people who get inspired through art and music and dance and theater and poetry and all these different things. And it's a matter of actually having people realize the value of that within their work. Entrepreneurs. Use an excessive amount of creative energy. And they're typically the ones who say, I don't have time for, for fun. Well, you're not going to get very far because you're not going to be able to think greater thoughts if you don't have something igniting them. And so I think it's really important to see that there's value in the things that actually spark and create creativity inside of you.

Jason Frazell: 44:30

So we've gone through the seven step framework here, and I'm sure there are people. thinking to themselves, this is brilliant and I'm tired. So first things first, read the book. That's pretty simple because as you talked about, Dr. Sandra, you give some things people can do with this. I'm also going to say, and I've said it a number of times, take the rest quiz. It's awesome. The link for that will be in the podcast notes. It's awesome. So Dr. Sandra, I think I want to wrap for now around, where do you see this field going and what's next for you around thinking around this? Because like you said, this is not a, this is not a topic that a lot of people talk about in the business world. Even the medical, I can never, I can't remember the last time I've ever gotten to my primary care physician. They're like, how was your rest? They might say, how's your sleep? But that like nobody, or they might say, how are you feeling? But there's never any like real digging in on what's actually going on. And, and to your point, a lot of times when you went through that for yourself, a lot of times, Hey, I'm tired. They go do blood tests or, Which obviously fatigue can be a sign of serious actual medical conditions, but it's not always. So where do you see this field going and what do you think is, what, what do you see as like the next thing, next thing that might be learning for you and for your company and then by, because we're getting to know you, that we all get to benefit from that as well.

Dr. Saundra: 45:53

Yeah, well, I did a TEDx talk a few years ago and at the end of the talk, I challenged the world to step over into a rest revolution. So that's really kind of my focus because we spent the past, what, 10 years talking about a sleep revolution and we're more burned out now than ever because what happened is we started thinking sleep and rest are the same thing and they're not. So we have people focusing all of their attention on the physical component of rest. And ignoring these other six. So that's a big part of what I'm doing. Trying to change the mindset around what rest is. Getting people to see it as restorative practices and not just cessation. And then on top of that, also helping people realize that if, if we want to have a better world, we want to, you know, have people enjoying their lives and, and have people actually producing at the highest level of their capacity. for having me. We can't just have a work ethic. We also must have a rest ethic because they work hand in hand together.

Jason Frazell: 46:52

Yeah. And I want to leave, leave with this for, it goes back to the question I had earlier. Now that we've kind of laid these out, I'm listening and I'm a leader of people. Might be a founder, might have a individual contributors or anything in between. And I know my people are tired. I worked in sales for 20 years. You get tired, especially at the end of the quarter when numbers are happening or You're listening right now and you are an administrative at a medical clinic and you know that your nurses and your physicians and the admin staff, they're tired because it's end of the year. What's something that as leaders that have an influence on this, how can we encourage people or inspire people and support people to do this for themselves? Because I, my experience, Dr. Sandra is that people are not reliable to do these sorts of things for themselves. Yeah. Because there's a million other things, choices we can make.

Dr. Saundra: 47:41

Yeah, I, I love that. I, and I would say if you're a leader, then lead, I think part of, part of it is you have to realize that because they don't know this, you're going to need to lead by example, so you can't say. You need to get more rest or be more self aware and then you're not doing it yourself. There's a level of personal leadership that has to take effect. And that begins with the leaders, the CEOs, the managers, the directors, all of that. Every time we work with a company, it tends to begin with an executive leadership meeting. Because if you, if the leaders are not on board, you can forget it. It's not going to go into a company culture. It starts with you and, and it starts with realizing that. This isn't something most of you are trained in. So leave the ego at the door. You know, it's not, it's not like you're doing anything wrong. You weren't trained in it. There's permission to learn. And so as you're learning it, then you can apply it to your team. And I think a part of that is just helping companies integrated so that the leaders learn first and step by step, as you go through these seven, you begin to layer it out into your company.

Jason Frazell: 48:51

That's beautiful. Dr. Sander, thank you so much for your time, for the brilliant work you're doing. It's been a really a pleasure to have you on and talk about this. I've done over 200 episodes in this podcast, and this is the very first time we've talked about rest. I think in any way other than like very basic. So I just want to like personally thank you for the work you're doing. It's so cool to see this. I'm confident that this makes a difference for companies. And I want, I'm going to leave here for those who heard her part about the guy. Look your spouse in the eye, touch their shoulder and ask them how they're doing without expecting anything in return. And you will be amazed. Ciders, I give nothing else from this. I can guarantee you, this is going to go better for you. So thank you so much for that. Congratulations, congratulations on everything you've been up to and you're going to be up to such a pleasure.

Dr. Saundra: 49:35

It's been a joy to be with you. Thank you.

Jason Frazell: 49:37

Thanks Dr. Sandra.