306: Fatigue vs Burnout

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Courtney Townley 0:00
Welcome to the Grace and Grit Podcast made for women who want their healthiest years to be ahead of them. Not behind them. Join your host Courtney Townley right now. As she breaks down the fairy tale health story, you have been chasing all of your life, indispensable action steps and lasting change.

Courtney Townley 0:28
Hello, my friends, and welcome to the Grace & Grit Podcast. This is your host, Courtney Townley. As always, I’m very happy that you’re here. And we have entered the throes of the holiday season. So of course, I want to start this Podcast by just asking how are you holding up? I asked that question because this can be a very complicated and exhausting time of year for an awful lot of people. Because think about it during the holiday season, we are rumbling in a very big way in a much bigger way, with things that we’re rumbling with all year long. For example, there’s more sugar in our presence, there’s more alcohol in our presence, there’s more opportunity for social engagement, which means there’s also more opportunity for relationship challenges, and adding more to an already full plate and recognizing that you may not have boundaries in place that you might need, and so much more. So having worked in the women’s wellness space for a couple of decades now, I have seen a very clear pattern for a lot of women when it comes to this time of year. And this is the pattern.

Courtney Townley 1:37
A lot of women roll into the season, already very low on resources like time and energy and mental bandwidth. So a lot of women are tired, a lot of women are also burnt out. And we are going to talk about the difference between those two things a little bit later today. But then, after that, so they’re rolling into the season low on resources, and then to accommodate the demands of the holiday season. The first thing they remove from their to do list, I’m making air quotes here is their own self care. And they convinced themselves that come January 1, they’ll figure it out, they will get back on track, they will regroup. And we all know how that plays out. Right?

Courtney Townley 2:29
January 1 comes. And many people are often too sick and tired to start the new year in the way that they intended. So let’s just make a pact here and now that this year through the holiday season, we are not going to throw our self-care to the wind, it is possible to do both, it is possible to have a very fun and varied holiday season and still take care of yourself. And one of the places I really encourage my clients to focus in terms of not negotiating their self care is focusing or fiercely protecting their anchors. Because let’s be honest, your self care in December may not look like your self care in October, or February. Because there’s a different climate of stress that you’re contending with right now. And so it would make sense that you make concessions for that stress by not expecting so much output from yourself. That being said, there are certain elements of self care that will cost you dearly, if you consistently negotiate them through the season. And one of those things, which I’ve talked a lot about on this Podcast is the need for sleep.

Courtney Townley 4:00
Sleep is an anchor for everyone. Meaning it is something that helps us to re fuel our mental bandwidth and our energy and our resilience and our immunity. So sleep is beneficial to everyone. And think about this when sleep is not happening. Or you’re significantly diminishing the amount of sleep that you’re getting. There’s a big trade off for that you become a lot more reactive. Meaning you will engage in a lot of behaviors that honestly probably pull you out of integrity with yourself. And a lot of us get very dramatic when we’re tired. And I always think of toddlers because whether you have children or not.

Courtney Townley 4:54
We’ve probably all had the experience of being in the presence of a tire child. Build, and how do they behave? Well, they’re downright irrational. Right? So they’re everything seems like a big deal. I in fact, I think I just saw an Instagram video of so funny. It was a little boy sitting at the counter with his sister, who is just having the biggest tantrum ever. And she was probably three, he was maybe six. And he looked at her and he said, Have you had a nap today? And through her tears, she said, No, I haven’t had a nap today. And, you know, the message, of course, was mystery solved, that we tend to make mountains out of molehills when we are exhausted. And there’s already so many stressors coming with the holiday season, that you being destabilized emotionally, because you’re not honoring your need for sleep is not going to be useful to you.

Courtney Townley 5:55
But here’s the truth. And this is really what I want to talk about today. Sometimes, sleep isn’t enough, I have clients who get plenty of sleep. It’s not the norm, I will tell you that. But I do have clients that are really good about getting their eight to nine to 10, or seven hours of sleep a night. It’s different for everybody. But I do have clients that are really consistent about that. I also have clients who buffer with sleep. So they literally use sleep, to just shut down from their life, because they don’t want to have to deal with the reality of their life. So they just put themselves to bed. And they keep doing that. So it’s not helpful. They’re literally using sleep and an unhelpful way. But when I when I mentioned these clients that are getting enough sleep, and this isn’t all of them, of course, but I have clients who are getting plenty of sleep that are not buffering with sleep, who are also feeling very flat and unenthusiastic about their life.

Courtney Townley 7:06
And this brings up the conversation around burnout. Because fatigue and burnout are both very real challenges all year round. But I would say even more so this time of year, because it’s the end of the year. And the season brings a lot more opportunity to add a lot more to your already full schedule. Now, the solution to fatigue and burnout is not the same thing. They can be similar, there can certainly be crossover in the solutions. But they often require a different approach to self-care. So if you’re physically tired, sleep and rest, of course, are going to be a pretty big part of that solution, not the entire solution. And you’ll understand more about that here in just a second. But if you are mentally and emotionally burnt out feeling flat, feeling uninspired, consistently feeling unmotivated, it could be that sleep and rest is a much smaller piece of the solution. And you might actually need much more to remedy the real issue. So that’s what I want to talk about today. What is the difference between fatigue and burnout. So fatigue, I like to think of it as really a physical sensation in the body, we get tired, being tired is not an emotion, it’s a physical sensation. I want to go to sleep, I want to get rest. It’s a technical disruption. So if I, of course, I always look up words, right? I always look up words to make sure that I’m thinking about them in a way that, you know, we’re that I guess the rest of the world defines it.

Courtney Townley 8:58
The definition of fatigue is extreme tiredness resulting from mental or physical exertion or illness. But I love the second definition of fatigue as well, which is a weakness in materials, especially metal, okay, so they’re using metal as the example caused by repeated variations of stress. But let’s think about this for a second. Because I think that second definition, a weakness in materials applies to cellular health. When we are not taking care of our metabolic function, when we are not taking care of ourselves on a cellular level, which that’s really what I mean when I say metabolic function. Metabolism is all the jobs that your cells do in a day, right, the building the detoxing the transporting. There’s so many things your cells are responsible for And when we are not taking care of basic chemical needs our basic biological needs, of course, there’s a weakness in the materials that help our body and brain to function well.

Courtney Townley 10:17
So the science of fatigue, and this is a very summarized version. But really fatigue is the suppression of nerve cell activity. And that suppression of nerve cell activity is what causes feelings of drowsiness. But I really want to lean in here to this idea that a lot of fatigue is caused by metabolic dysfunction. So yes, lack of sleep absolutely can contribute to our cells not working as efficiently as they could. And remember, one of the big jobs of your cells is to produce energy. So if we are not giving our body, the materials and the care that it needs to produce energy, of course, we’re going to feel the effects of that. So quality and quantity of sleep, of course, impacts fatigue, illness, impacts fatigue. And I gotta tell you, this past week, I my body was battling something my my very loving, 13 year old son brought home, and it sort of resembled a chest cold, but it never moved into my head. And I didn’t really feel terrible, that man was I tired. And it just reminded me that when your immune system is doing its job, it requires a lot of resources, which can make you very tired.

Courtney Townley 11:50
I tell you that to hopefully help you extend yourself compassion, the next time you’re feeling a little off, because the reality is, you may not feel terrible, but your immune system might be in hyperdrive. And that could be contributing to your feelings of fatigue. But other things that contribute to our feelings of fatigue, outside of illness outside of sleep, and rest, are, of course, things like nutritional deficiencies. Even just being dehydrated, can make us really tired. Excuse me, it can impact the way that our cells function, it can limit the way our cells function. Your body has a very big demand for water, every biological process requires water. So when we’re short on it, we’re going to feel tired, because our cells can’t function as well as they would in the presence of adequate hydration. But also, nutritional deficiencies, of course, come in the form of food, when we aren’t eating foods that our body recognizes, or that our body can’t break down to utilize in the way that it might be able to utilize other foods, that can create a lot of metabolic dysfunction, which of course, again, is going to make us feel really tired. Lack of movement can cause fatigue. Right Movement is a big part of cellular health.

Courtney Townley 13:21
It’s tricky, isn’t it, because when we don’t move, we feel tired. And when we feel tired, we don’t want to move. So we stay in this crazy cycle for months, years or an entire lifetime. So sometimes it is worth pushing through the fatigue, in order to reap coop, the energy on the other side. Managing your brain can help with fatigue, because stress, which we’re going to talk about pretty intensely here in just a second, of course, creates fatigue. Because stress jacks up our nervous system, it puts us in sympathetic mode, which is that fight or flight mode where we’re kind of on alert, ready to run, ready to fight. And that’s awesome if you’re truly under threat, but so much of the way we think and so much of what’s happening in our life is not a true threat. And so if we aren’t managing our brain, we create massive amounts of stress. And that stress of course can deplete our metabolic function. Because again, your nervous system is really the root of our entire system. And when the nervous system is disrupted, everything gets disrupted.

Courtney Townley 14:41
Some symptoms of fatigue I’m sure you’re very familiar with symptoms of fatigue are things like feeling tired, feeling drowsy, feeling like you want to sleep, being reactive, not making decisions right poor decision making So having the intention of not eating much sugar, but then every time you turn around, you’re putting sugar in your mouth. That might be because you’re tired, and you’re in reaction mode. And your body’s really smart. Sugar is an amazing way to admit energy very quickly. Now it has consequences, and it’s not long lasting. But your body doesn’t care about that when it’s in need and desperation of energy. So if you’re really tired, and you also happen to be eating a lot of sugar, I just want to offer there’s a connection there, your body’s trying to look out for you, and it’s trying to get you energy, which is why it’s gravitating towards sugar. And also, of course, one of the symptoms of chronic fatigue or just being tired is that we can start experiencing symptoms of physiological breakdown.

Courtney Townley 15:57
If we let fatigue become a constant thing in our life, we start noticing our weight going up and our muscle mass starting to diminish, and our joints hurting more and all kinds of on fun things. So let’s talk about burnout for a second. So burnout, absolutely can be partly physiological right in terms of a physical sensation, like you can have some of the same physical sensations that you would have with fatigue. But what separates burnout from fatigue, is that there’s a flatness to our emotions and a flatness to our mental capacity. So I want to offer that burnout can be I think, more easily identified when we really start checking in with our emotional landscape and our mental health. Because just listening to physiological cues may not really help you to differentiate between fatigue and burnout.

Courtney Townley 17:08
The definition of burnout This is Merriam Webster is exhaustion of physical or emotional or motivational strength. Usually, as a result of prolonged stress, and or frustration. I read this really interesting article, it was on a website called Science of the people. And the article was talking about all of these discoveries that neuroscientists have made about how burnout has affected the brain. And this is some of what was pointed out in that article. Number one burnout. So chronically being in a state of fatigue, emotional distress, mental exhaustion, enlarges your amygdala. And remember, your amygdala is the part of your brain that is, number one, very reactive, but it also controls emotions. So it can increase moodiness. And it can also cause you to have a stronger stress response when you’re startled. And this is so interesting, because I notice sometimes when I am tired, and also mentally stressed, and probably borderline burnt out.

Courtney Townley 18:33
If someone walks into a room and I don’t hear them, I get startled very easily. I mean, I get startled at the grocery store. You know, obviously there are people in the grocery store with me. But if someone is standing too close to me, I will sort of jump because I just am not as aware. And I know that this is a nervous system response to right my system is in that fight or flight mode looking for danger. So I think it’s fascinating that burnout enlarges our amygdala. It also causes the prefrontal cortex, remember, which is your executive center. It’s the part of your brain that allows you to parent the amygdala. So you can kind of tuck the amygdala down from being so reactive. It allows you to plan make decisions. It’s really responsible for so much cognitive function. And burnout causes this part of your brain to start to thin, which apparently and I didn’t know this is also a response to the aging process. But they’re finding a correlation between this thinning of the prefrontal cortex, not just in the aging process, but with being in a state of prolonged stress. This thinning occurs much more rapidly. So interesting to know which means We’re not such awesome decision makers.

Courtney Townley 20:04
Another point that they highlighted in this article was that burnout definitely impacts parts of the brain that control memory and attention span. So it makes it much more difficult for us to focus be productive, and to learn. And it makes sense, right? Because a dysregulated nervous system is going to cause all of those things. The brains of people who are chronically burnt out, show similar damage as people who experience trauma, which again, makes a lot of sense to me when you start having kind of a basic understanding of how impactful the nervous system is, to your overall health. And lots of things disrupt the nervous system, not just trauma, or I should say, trauma, but macro and micro trauma. And micro traumas are kind of the the daily traumas, just having too much to do all the time, not having crucial conversations that need to be had not setting boundaries, always being in a space of thinking about worst case scenario. All of those things can create micro trauma in the body, especially when compounded together, right. And then burnout also reduces the connectivity between different parts of the brain, which can decrease creativity, your working memory, and your problem solving skills. So what causes burnout?

Courtney Townley 21:38
Well, fatigue can definitely be a player. So when we are not getting adequate sleep, we are not in a great position to manage stress well. And when we aren’t managing stress well, on a pretty consistent basis. Of course, this can lead to burnout. So fatigue can be a true contributor for sure. But I’m going to just say chronic fatigue, like consistently not getting enough sleep, ignoring stressors, because they just seem too monumental to deal with. So we numb them with things like food and alcohol, we ignore them, we suppress the stressors. And of course, none of that makes the stressors go away. It just makes them fester in our body. Not setting boundaries. And constantly being the yes person. Even though you really deeply want to say no can lead to burnout. Always adding and never subtracting can lead to burnout. And I see this a lot. I work with a lot of very, you know, ambitious women high achieving women go getting women. And they tend to. And I would put myself in that camp by the way. We tend to constantly add to the pool of responsibilities without eliminating things from the pool of responsibilities. And so of course, that is going to lead to a lot of burnout. Because our system only has so many resources to give.

Courtney Townley 23:22
Symptoms of burnout definitely can be physical exhaustion. That could be one system, or sorry, one symptom, but it’s not usually the only symptom. We usually when we’re burnt out, we start to feel indifferent, we start to feel emotionally flat. It’s kind of like the screw it attitude. We just stop caring. We feel uncreative. We can’t focus, we feel uninspired. We have a lack of purpose, sometimes a lack of drive. In fact, I would say largely a lack of drive. And burnout can also lead to bigger hormonal imbalances. digestive issues, sleep disruption. So you can see how fatigue and burnout while difference are so intertwined. Because think about it when you have high levels of stress for long periods of time that you are not coping with and you start feeling burnt out, you start feeling the effects of burnout. Part of that might be that your sleep patterns are disrupted.

Courtney Townley 24:45
Then you’re not sleeping well, which is creating more fatigue. And when we’re fatigued, we aren’t making great choices. We’re not managing our stressors we feed we feed more burnout, and on and on the cycle goes on So there’s a psychologist who by the name of Christina Maslach, from the University of Berkeley, who’s done a lot of research on burnout. And she really boils it into sort of three components. And I thought these were really great to highlight, she talks about the exhaustion piece. And she talks about exhaustion on a physical, cognitive and emotional level. So we, when we’re burnout, we start feeling fatigued on all of these levels, physically, cognitively, and emotionally. And that undermines our ability to work effectively, to be productive, and to feel good about what we’re doing. And man, can I relate to this? Because so many times in the course of being a business owner, when I have been in the throes of burnout, I feel like it’s all for nothing. I’ve made no contribution, my work doesn’t matter. It’s all terrible. It’s just amazing where my brain goes. And this leads to her second point, which is cynicism.

Courtney Townley 26:07
It’s also called some people call it depersonalization. But this kind of just highlights the erosion of engagement, when we’re burnt out, we start to withdrawal we start we can really get very pessimistic and cynical about the world. And it’s a way of distancing ourselves, psychologically, from the work that we’re being called to do. So I think definitely, I think a really simple way of saying this is our attitude is hugely impacted. And I know that my husband can vouch for this, that that is absolutely true. When I’m in a state of burnout, he will recognize it often before I do, because of the way I’m behaving. And he’ll say, hey, it’s time for you to take a couple days off, like you need to go away somewhere, regroup, get some sleep, do whatever you need to do. Because you’re not yourself. And I feel so fortunate to be partnered with someone like that, because he says it to me in a very compassionate way. It’s not in a judgy mean way, he it’s very kind and loving. And I love that he knows me so well to see that.

Courtney Townley 27:23
The third component of burnout that Maslow Locke talks about is inefficiency. So this can reference feelings of incompetence, a lack of achievements and productivity. People with burnout feel that their skills are slipping, and worried that they won’t be able to succeed in certain situations or accomplish certain tasks. And I think this is really interesting, because a lot of times when we’re in burnout, we aren’t doing our best thinking. And we are starting to feel like we’re falling behind. And we’re not as good as other people or we don’t have the skills we need to be successful, which then drives this need to keep pushing, which only further burns us out.

Courtney Townley 28:08
To recap, those three components, exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficiency. So burnout, just again, to to rephrase this and remind you of this is really the result of unmanaged chronic stress over long periods of time. And it’s really dangerous, because it massively disrupts our nervous system. And the nervous system is connected to every system in the human body. So let’s get to this this piece about different levels of self care, because I think this is really kind of the tangible takeaway. How do we start honoring the different needs of fatigue and burnout? And first, I would say how do we even recognize the difference between fatigue and burnout? And I kind of addressed that a little bit already. But I think probably one of the easiest things to recognize or to to acknowledge is, number one, do a resource check, especially this time of year, anyone who’s listening to this Podcast today, like what is the amount of resources you have on board, really, and I always use a scale of one to 10 to determine this. So 10 Being You have tons of resources, one being you have absolutely none. How many resources do you really have on board right now? For the holiday season? I asked this question to my Rumble & Rise community recently and I rated myself a five. I feel like I have some resources but not a whole lot. And acknowledging that is going to be a huge gift in that,

Courtney Townley 30:01
if I stay awake to that fact, it will impact the choices that I make it will impact what I say yes to this season. So what are the resources you truly have on board right now? And then, of course, I would start always, with honoring your need for rest and metabolic healing. So address chemistry first, because you probably won’t really know if you’re burnt out if you aren’t honoring your chemistry, right? Because sometimes we can mistaken chemical disruption for burnout. And they’re not necessarily one in the same. So are you getting enough sleep? Are you feeding yourself frequently? And food that your body recognizes as food? Are you hydrating? Are you managing your stressors to the degree that you have the capacity to. And if you can check those boxes, you feel like you’re doing relatively well with those things, but you’re still feeling flat, then I think it’s definitely worth considering, what more do I need.

Courtney Townley 31:13
To back up for a second, if it is fatigue, definitely, those basic elements of self care are really important. But you may also need something like a sleep study, because there’s lots of reasons that your sleep might be disrupted, that you aren’t aware of that no level of chemical, self care is going to heal. So if you have sleep apnea, you could be eating really well and moving your body throughout the day and hydrating, but still not sleeping well. If you have a lot of hormonal disruption, ladies, for so many reasons, right? Maybe Maybe you’re in the throes of perimenopause, maybe you’re on the other side of menopause. Maybe you just had a baby. I mean, there’s so many reasons our hormones can be disrupted. But again, you could be doing all the things. And your chemistry could still be unbalanced. Specifically your hormones. And so getting a hormone panel done, getting some outside help to look at those numbers, I think can go a really long way and helping you to get more quality and quantity sleep.

Courtney Townley 32:26
Once you’ve taken care of that basic need of sleep. And you are still feeling like ah, gosh, you know, I’m just still not myself. I definitely think it is worth and this is, it’s always worth looking at these things. By the way, it’s not just when you’re burnout, because I would hope that you organize your life in a way to prevent burnout. And these things will help you to prevent burnout. Because all of these things I’m about to mention, are huge stress managers. And they help you to manage stress in a way that actually contributes to your well being rather than costing you your well being. So when I think of solutions to burnout, I think of stress management. And I think of decompression things that helped me to decompress. So that could be something as simple as taking a break, whether it’s taking breaks during the day, which I strongly encourage you to do. I know a lot of you listening, eat through your lunch break, right? You’re you’re never really taking a break during the day. You’re never really taking breaks during the week, you’re not really taking weekends off. And so ultimately, you save up all of this need for restoration for a holiday. And then isn’t it interesting that a holiday comes and a lot of people get sick and you don’t spend your holiday sick.

Courtney Townley 33:50
So how can you bake in more stress management and decompression into your daily life. Don’t just save it up for the weekends. Don’t just save it up for the holidays. It has to be an everyday thing because remember, your nervous system is meant to oscillate. It’s meant to go into you know kind of hyperdrive and then really have deep moments of decompression. But if you’re never giving it that decompression, you’re setting yourself up for a lot of dis ease. So taking breaks going on an adventure. I mean, that could be something as simple as driving home from work or to work in a different route, going to a new restaurant for lunch, taking a new hiking trail, going to a different gym. It doesn’t have to be like going to Malaysia for six weeks. Now you might want to do that. And that’s lovely if you can do that. But we’re looking at adventures you can pollinate into your day.

Courtney Townley 34:46
Just to see new things and have a different perspective. And look see more life like literally we’re talking about ways of infusing more life into your life and adventure helps you to do that. By incorporating more fun and play, what are you doing for fun? How do you play? Often when I ask this question, I just get like blank stares like deer in the headlight look like? Are you kidding? Who’s got time for that? But play is so good for us. It’s so wonderful in terms of stress management, animals play children play. As adults, we still have a need for play. We’re just ignoring it. So what do you do for play? For me, that looks like going dancing. Dancing is very playful to me. And I always feel a huge stress relief when after I’ve gone dancing.

Courtney Townley 35:48
So what does that look like for you? Creativity, spending a Saturday afternoon working on an art project. Renovating the like doing maybe painting the bathroom, right, you keep wanting to change the way your bathroom looks. planting some flowers. sitting down to write. Creativity, again, looks very different for everybody. But it can really help us to soothe our nervous system. And get ourselves out of that constant stress mode. being out in nature, getting outside breathing, fresh air, really observing nature, listening to nature, getting your feet in the grass, which is a joke right now me in northwest Montana, there’s like three feet of snow already. But getting outside and even just feeling the cold on your skin. All very soothing to the nervous system.

Courtney Townley 36:52
Creating pockets in the day of non doing. I always call this white space. My community is very well versed on this term. And it’s it’s a really simple concept. White space is literally space in your calendar that nothing gets scheduled 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there. Maybe it’s a couple hours on a weekend. But you get you just get to decide when that time shows up. What do you feel compelled to do? Do you want to take a nap? Do you want to just sit and stare out the window? Do you want to do a creative pursuit? It’s not a to do. It’s an invitation to be in the moment. So where is whitespace falling in your calendar.

Courtney Townley 37:50
And then of course connection. Connection helps ignite so much great chemistry in our body. Oxytocin, I’ve talked about it a lot on the Podcast. Again, it’s a very soothing chemical for the body. It helps to bring us out of a state of stress and into a space of decompression. So obviously, these are just some ideas. But this list that I just read you these are often the things that we put on the backburner. When we’re in the throes of living life, who’s got time for this who’s got time for adventure and fun and nature and creativity and whitespace. It all sounds like a luxury. But because we think of it as a luxury that we can afford. We aren’t making time for these things. And it costs us a lot. Burnout costs us a lot.

Courtney Townley 38:47
So just to quickly recap, do a resource check. You owe it to yourself, especially this season to do a resource check. Be honest with yourself on a scale of one to 10 How many resources do you really have on board to dedicate to doing more this holiday season? How are you honoring your chemistry right now? Are you getting enough sleep? That’s like 101 I always start with sleep. If sleep is going well but you’re still feeling tired? Are you eating? Are you eating food that your body recognizes as food? Are you hydrated? Are you moving? I’m not talking about preparing for a marathon. I’m talking about getting up and moving your body throughout the day to help generate energy nothing doesn’t have to be anything epic. And if you can check all those boxes and you’re still feeling flat. Where can you infuse more life into your life? So a couple questions that might help you so sleep and rest aside. What do you know helps you to infuse more life into your life Is it connecting with loved ones?

Courtney Townley 40:02
Is it getting out in nature? Is it having a new adventure? Is it doing your artwork? Is it doing your sport? What is it make more time for that. And really think about you’re going into a season ripe with opportunity for more stress, less sleep. It’s a recipe for a lot of fatigue, and ultimately a lot of burnout. And that’s not how you want to start 2023.

Courtney Townley 40:33
Above all else, I hope this Podcast today just inspires you to consider how you might be able to infuse more of the things that help you to stay out of exhaustion and out of burnout during the holiday season, not after it because that’s what a lot of you are, that’s the game a lot of you are gonna play. I’ll deal with this after the holiday season. After the holiday season, if you have put your self-care on the back burner, you are not all of a sudden on January 1 going to feel super fired up at least not for very long. To combat fatigue and burnout you’re gonna be so in the throes of fatigue and burnout, you’re not going to be able to show up for yourself in a powerful way. So let’s not do that this year.

Courtney Townley 41:23
All right, my friends. That’s all I have for you today. I hope it was helpful. I hope there was something in there that you could take away and run with. And I will see you again next week. Take care.

Courtney Townley 41:39
Thank you for listening to the grace and grit Podcast. It is time to mend the fabric of the female health story. And it starts with you taking radical responsibility for your own self care. You are worth the effort and with a little grace and grit anything is possible.