Have you ever found yourself doom scrolling into the late night, or snacking when you’re not even hungry? You’re not alone, and it’s more common than you think! In this episode, we’re diving deep into why we all numb out and, more importantly, how we can better cope with life’s stressors.
I’m sharing personal examples from my own life and from the many women I’ve coached. We’ll break down what triggers our numbing behaviors and how we can transform these habits into healthier ones. From understanding the science behind our tendencies to escape through low-energy activities, to learning actionable tips to bring more intention and self-care into our daily routines, there is something for everyone to learn about this subject!
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TRANSCRIPT
Monica Packer: Hi, I’m Monica Packer. And you’re listening to About Progress, where we are about progress made practical.
It’s a normal day with a million to dos. You wake up overwhelmed, stressed, and scattered. Despite hitting the ground running, you find yourself increasingly behind and increasingly frustrated until you don’t feel anything at all. Why? Because instead of continuing to tackle that to do list, you somehow end up sitting on the couch, phone in hand, doom scrolling your precious time away.
Has this ever been you? I know it’s been me, and I know it’s actually been all of us. How? Because numbing out is something I have coached literally hundreds of women through. I have yet to come across a single client who doesn’t want help with one numbing behavior or two or twelve. From scrolling the socials, to playing games on a phone, to online shopping, to snacking when not hungry, or even to organizing cupboards and answering unnecessary emails.
We all struggle with numbing out. Why? And what do we do about it? I’m answering both of these big questions coming up after a quick break for our sponsors.
Okay. Are you ready to learn about numbing behaviors? That’s another way to say the things we do when we are numbing out. Know this first, I am not going to shame you. Because the truth about numbing out is actually quite simple. You don’t numb out because you are weak, undisciplined, lazy, lazy, lazy. You numb out because you are human.
Numbing behaviors happen when we are ineffectively trying to escape our negative feelings through behaviors that require very little energy. Said another way, you are trying to escape your life without actually leaving it. And that’s not to excuse how we numb or even how often it’s happening. It’s to help us understand this very human tendency in each of us.
Before we ever try to fix things, we have to know why they are happening. Everyone struggles with numbing out tendencies, from your mom, to your favorite author, to the politician you love to hate. And most everybody shames the heck out of how they numb out, because they know in their hearts that they would much rather feel like they are making good use of their time.
Their lives, really. But shame only feeds this behavior loop, and willpower alone is ineffective. So let’s start making real and lasting change by getting more information. Information that will not only help us show up to numbing out with better tools, but with more compassion, too.
What leads to numbing out? Typically, numbing out begins with your brain and or body becoming dysregulated. This happens when your circumstances and or your thoughts create negative feelings and reactions again in your brain and in your body. Here’s some examples. Maybe you have a day with a lot of urgent to do’s with little time to do them.
Or you have a screaming toddler who is making one big mess after another and chewing you out as they go. Or you have an angry boss piling on the deadlines and the manipulation too. Or you have a health issue that makes you not feel like yourself quite often and even lead to you not getting enough sleep.
Any one of these scenarios, however typical they may seem, are recipes for numbing out. Why? Because these scenarios flood your brain and body with cortisol and other things which push you into a survival mode, or what you may put to feeling words like overwhelm, stress, anxiety, exhaustion.
And when this happens, your brain and body understandably wants and needs a release. Because it’s uncomfortable, it’s uncomfortable to feel overwhelmed, stress, anxiety, and exhaustion. And you’re going to naturally want that escape. And because those negative and dysregulated feelings require so much energy to work through and to even just deal with in the first place, the kind of release your brain and body looks for.
Numbing out is something that is typically low in energy requirement of you, in other words, easy, hence the most common numbing behavior, phone use. It is just so darn easy, but numbing out can take on a large variety of escape like activities, such as scrolling, of course, but also gaming, even organizing, binging food or alcohol, and so many other things, including activities that look It really is a pick your poison kind of situation.
So regardless of what kind of poison it is for you, this numbing out behavior is a reaction to what’s happening in your life. And it’s a reaction that becomes a pattern. A pattern that, over time, becomes almost automatic. Which is why you can Very easily, subconsciously, meaning unintentionally, engage in numbing out without wanting to, or even choosing to.
It all goes back to that statement we’ve heard a lot, neurons that fire together, wire together. Once this pattern has quote unquote worked, then it will work again, meaning, Your body and brain are going to say that escape helped. It felt like it did, so I’m going to do it again. And then we’re going to do it again and again.
And that pattern just becomes more entrenched in your brain, which is again, why you find yourself sitting on your couch scrolling instead of tackling those to do’s.
Does numbing out even work? The short answer to this is yes and no. Yes, numbing out technically works because in that moment, you are released from the survival mode and all the negative impacts that that survival mode brings. But this is temporary, and that’s why the answer is also no, it does not work.
Because not only are your life circumstances, negative feelings and all, there to greet you once you finally surface, they are often exacerbated by you delaying dealing with them. Nummy behaviors are also ineffective in another way. And I’m going to teach you about this by asking you a question.
First, think of your go to numbing out behavior, whether it’s scrolling or online shopping or being in your pantry, eating those chocolate chips. And these are all three that are mine. They are my go to numbing out behaviors. So think of yours. And once you have it, imagine yourself getting lost in this behavior and then suddenly coming to and realizing what you’re doing.
Now, here’s a question I want to ask you. How do you feel? The most common answers to this question include, I feel guilty. I feel frustrated. I feel annoyed. I feel disappointed. I feel ashamed. I feel stressed. I’ve asked this question to hundreds of women after walking them through that whole scenario. How do you feel when you numb out?
And guess what? Literally no woman ever has answered. I feel numb.
So numbing out works in the moment. in terms of giving us that escape, but it does not work long term. It only increases stress, stress that we were trying to escape from in the first place.
And it’s also why numbing out, however understandable of why we engage in it, why it’s ineffective and something that we should be striving to work on, especially if these patterns of numbing out are so entrenched in our minds and in our bodies that Numbing out is impacting our lives in consistent and even chronic ways.
I need to tell you, there is so much hope though, and practical ways to deal with our numbing behaviors. And that’s all coming up after a quick break for our sponsors.
It’s that time of year, our podcast anniversary, and a golden one at that. November 8th marks eight years of About Progress, which is honestly a milestone. I wasn’t sure we would meet for big chunks of this year, but we are. And I hope to mark many more anniversaries to come. I always like to celebrate the podcast with all of you, seeing as we are a community, not a fan club.
To do so, I’ll be doing an eight year Favorite Things Giveaway from mid October through mid November. I’m giving away eight of my very favorite things in two things bundles, with one grand prize winner getting all eight of those favorite things at the end of the giveaway, which is a 300 value, including things like my favorite tea kettle, Water tumbler, drink mix ins, glowy makeup, and so much more.
How do you qualify? It’s the simplest thing ever. Simply leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you are automatically entered. I am pulling from any new reviews left in 2024 and due to the rolling nature of the giveaway, the sooner you leave a review, the more likely you are to win.
Winners will be announced on Instagram and shared in the comments. in our weekly newsletter. So leave your review now and watch for a month of giveaways starting mid October. And you can see all the items I’m giving away and these same details on how to enter at aboutprogress. com slash eight years.
That’s the number eight, eight years. If you’re hearing this later, still leave a review as I do monthly drawings anyway, and it greatly impacts our podcast ability to keep going. Thank you so much for eight years of about progress.
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Welcome back! As we have covered, numbing out is your brain and body’s inept way of trying to help you deal with this thing called life. A life that is exhausting in more ways than one. So you find yourself in these behavior loops of activities that make you check out without using much energy, but carry a lot of negative consequences we would like to avoid altogether.
Now I’m going to share the practical ways on how to deal with numbing out, since we understand it better. And before I do that, I need to give you three pieces of compassion. The first is kind of a hard fact, but I have to say it, and it’s that we will never be numb out free. Nobody, nobody is free completely of numbing out behaviors, just like we’re not free of bad habits.
Everybody has them. We will never be free of numbing out. That’s not even the goal. The goal is awareness of numbing out when it happens and more of a choice and how we are going to engage with them. The second piece of compassion is that whatever numbing behavior you have, it’s not innately bad.
It’s neutral, even online shopping, scrolling, eating the chocolate chips in the pantry, organizing, going through the emails, gaming. None of those behaviors are innately bad. bad. What’s bad about them is the lack of intention, as well as the effects when numbing out goes too far for too long or too chronically.
So I want you to remove the shame from the behavior itself. And the third piece of compassion is when, not if, when you notice engaging in numbing behaviors, or you notice an uptick in them generally, instead of shaming yourself. Own this numbing out is a sign that you need extra care.
I have a friend who’s a parenting expert. Her name is Cheryl Cardall. She’s been on the podcast and she’s a phenomenal mom and also a parenting coach for parents who have kids who are struggling in more ways than one, whether they’re behaviorally or mentally trying to fit in with their lives, and dealing with massive amounts of stress.
And she has taught this many times to me, that all behavior is communication, even misbehavior. It’s the same with numbing out. Numbing out is trying to communicate with you that you need more care. I like to think of this as a well. When we have a well, just think of one of those old wells with all the stones going deep, deep into the earth.
And you know how they always say, like, you’ve got to fill your bucket first before you fill others. Well, let’s say you’re trying to do that, right? But you put the bucket down and not only is this well empty, it’s leaking. And because it’s leaking, whatever you’re throwing in there, It’s just leaking right out.
So you have nothing to give from. Numbing out to me is that desperate move to add, add, add to the well. We’re trying to give ourselves breaks and escapes from the stress of our lives. But because the well is leaking, things are just running right out. So whenever I find myself noticing that I’m scrolling my phone more often than I intend to, and for too long or more chronically, that’s just one of my numbing behaviors that I tend to gravitate to, then I.
Immediately stop by asking myself a few questions. And those questions can be like, what’s going on in my life right now? Just zoom out, get information and find out what is creating the additional stress I’m dealing with right now. Another question I may ask myself is what am I trying to escape from? So I can identify what the triggers are to my numbing behaviors so that I can also see an answer to the next question.
What do I need right now? It’s so easy for me to immediately go into the shame and blame method of just thinking, Oh, this is my fault. Like, why am I scrolling my phone again? I have clear parameters about what I want to be on my phone and when I don’t want to be in my phone, especially when I’m around my kids.
So here I am again, this is disgusting. I hate it. Something’s wrong with me. That doesn’t. So while that draw to self blame exists, instead getting more information is what’s going to help me change the patterns of my brain to be ones that actually help me, especially when I’m really clear that numbing out is a sign that I need extra care.
That last question in particular is very important. What do I need right now? The answers may surprise you and may be things like, I need to rest, or I need to have more fun, or I need a creative outlet, or I need
Answering that question in particular is going to lead to things that will give you practical ways forward. Maybe some quicker fixes. Um, maybe, you know, okay, I do need a break right now. So I’m, I’m actually going to go on a walk or I’m going to do that watercolor painting I keep thinking about, or I’m going to go lay down on my bed and take a 20 minute nap.
But those answers will also lead to some bigger behaviors and systems and supports that you need to set up that will take some work for sure, but that will also help the most over time. And this all goes back to a bigger goal that I have while I work with women. It’s to help them build a life they don’t need to escape from.
As I said earlier in the episode, numbing out is a form of escape, but it is an ineffective form. It does not work well. So instead of us always trying to escape, we need to design and build a life we don’t need to escape from. And that is where a lot of self care comes at play.
Of course, there are bigger picture things like us needing more support as women, having more validation, having more people to help us. And those all deserve to be validated and to be worked on. But we have to also start now and we have to start with what we are the most in control of, which is often how we are caring for ourselves. To me, that’s what self care is. It’s how. Am I caring for myself in ways that are habitual and things I can depend on?
And that’s where I’m going to bring things back to having steady self care habits in our lives, the consistent ways that we are adding in layers of support of being able to have time to ourselves, to make sure we are prioritizing our energy, movement, feeding ourselves, having times to rest and hobbies like habitual hobbies that help us in the other deep ways that we may need, so steady self care habits can be both preemptive to numbing out. When we are taking better care of ourselves, we have the strength we need to show up to our lives. So we don’t have as much reason to escape from it.
We’ll be in better control of our numbing out behaviors because we have more. Water in the well. In fact, self care habits to me are the things that fill up those cracks in the well. So as we. Fill in the cracks and we pour other things in there, whether it’s a girlfriend night and we go out to dinner with the friends, or it’s, we have a babysitter, so we have a little bit of time to ourselves, or we or able to go for a long walk that day, those things can actually begin to fill up the well, so we have more things to draw from, both for ourselves, especially in stressful moments
where we would typically get dysregulated and, or for others. This is why, again, steady self care habits are preemptive in helping us beat numbing out behaviors before they really begin, or to have more energy to deal with them better. Self care habits also can help us better process through the stressors we are facing instead of numbing out.
So I’m going to come back to that in a minute. They can be the things we insert in the moment. They aren’t just preemptive. They can also be in the moment care.
Speaking of in the moment, while it’s so good for us to have those behaviors and systems and supports in place in the big picture way, it takes work and we may be numbing out forever if we are just waiting for things to be in place in order to stop numbing out. So we actually have to do things in the moment, even now, before we have the bigger support systems, habits in place.
So in the moment, I’m going to give you the most practical tool set that you can use starting today. And I call these the ends of numbing out.
When I say ends, I mean the letter N and there are three of them. The first is notice. The second N is name, and the third N is next, as part of a phrase, what’s next? I’m going to break those each down for you. The first N of numbing out is we notice. In the moment when you are engaging in numbing behavior, let’s say you are on that Instagram loop and you just can’t seem to stop and you’re in that haze and suddenly you kind of surface a bit and you’re like, Oh no, I, how long have I been scrolling?
I must’ve been here forever. And you’re starting to feel that negative stress and blame coming up, which is honestly not going to help you stop the behavior. Instead of going down that spiral, I want you to simply notice it, call it out for what it is.
You can even say quite clearly, I am numbing out, or this is a numbing behavior. I think even that one has , less of an attachment to it. So that’s the first N, notice. Notice you are engaging in a numbing behavior. The second N is name. Once you’ve noticed a numbing behavior, I need you to name two things.
Name the feeling, name the need. When you name the feeling, this may be plural, may be feelings. Name what feeling or feelings you are avoiding or trying to escape from. This is a good way for you to check in with yourself to see what am I trying to numb out from? Am I feeling stressed? Am I feeling anxious?
Am I feeling lonely? What am I feeling? And then the next thing you need to name is what you need.
That goes back to the earlier question I asked, right? But this is how we can do it in the moment. And again, you might be surprised. Maybe you’re like, Hmm, I need to like read a book or I need to read a magazine or I need to call my friend. It could be that simple. Now, just so you know, knowing what you are avoiding and naming what you need doesn’t mean you then just go do that thing.
That’s going to come later on. I’m going to teach you more about that.
So now that you have named the feeling and you’ve named the need, The final N of numbing out is next, as part of the phrase, what’s next? This is when you insert a choice of what you will do next. And because you already have some information on what you need, you are able to move forward with what you need.
Now, here’s the thing. Here’s the thing that’s going to surprise you a lot. When I’m initially teaching this to women So if you are gaming and it’s gone out of hand and you notice it, you name the feeling, you name the need, and you know what you need is an app instead of gaming. Initially, as you are trying to train brain and even your body to work through these ends of numbing out. When I tell you what’s next, and you need to choose what’s next, you are going to initially choose to continue gaming, but you’re going to choose it in a way that it is intentional.
And therefore it will feel better because intention changes the effect. That’s the power of choice. Another reason why you do this is because you are just training your brain right now. You will never, uh, Be willing to start with the first N of numbing out, noticing that you are engaging in a numbing behavior when you know, that means you’re going to have to stop.
That’s just humanity. That’s just how our brains work. So you have to trick your brain into just being willing to first notice it. And after that, to gradually start naming things and. Even then, gradually getting to the point where you can choose what’s next and actually do something different. So, when you do the same behavior and it’s intentionally chosen, it will feel different, like we already talked about, but it will also, again, train your brain to be willing to pause, to move through the ends, and gradually, with time, have more of that strength to move on to a different coping behavior that will actually work, that will actually be effective.
So, the ends of numbing out, again, are to notice, call out the numbing behavior, name, name what you are feeling, name what you need, and ask what’s next. You may be wondering if the ends of numbing out actually work. Absolutely. This pattern This way of disrupting and also shifting gears and inserting choice.
It has worked for many, many, many women, every single client I’ve had that has worked with me on gradually getting all of those three ends. It has worked dramatically. But it’s taken time because this is a learned behavior. As we’ve talked about neurons that fire together, wire together, you are doing that in a different way.
And that’s going to be a little uncomfortable and it will take time to learn as a skillset. So I’m saying that directly to you so that you know, you’re not broken. If, if you’re trying to notice and it’s really hard or you’re ready to move on to the next step and it doesn’t come so easily, it’s okay, stick with it.
You are doing it right. And I want to encourage you by sharing about one of the kinds of things that I work. with who really had the need to work on her numbing out tendencies. A woman I was coaching was working an incredibly stressful job. Now I’ll save the private details here, but her job was incredibly stressful
and one of the patterns of coping with this incredibly difficult experience was that she found herself unintentionally numbing out with food just throughout the day. Now, before we even moved into the practical side to this, we did some deep work. We really got clarity on what the stressors were in her life and some of the bigger picture ways that we could help her insert more care and support in her life, including her own habits and behaviors and support systems.
We did a lot of that preemptive work, which is really the bigger work. And in the moment, we also taught her how to first notice the numbing out, because it was so subconscious, so unintentional that she would often be in the middle of it before she realized it was happening.
And that was okay. Just noticing even in the moment was the whole point. And then we gradually built up to her better naming the feelings that she was escaping from and what she needed. And then gradually with time worked on shifting what the final behavior was with what’s next. And over the time that I worked with her, this behavior of numbing out with food, which again is not innately and immorally bad, you can eat, but this unintentional numbing out with food gradually dissipated to the point where It was either not present or it was more controllable in the moment.
And she was able to redirect herself to other forms of self care or healthy coping skills that were far more effective. This is what can happen. Will happen for you. Not even can, this is what will happen for you with time, with effort, with a little bit of discomfort. Yes, you will have some discomfort, but as we said from the beginning, the goal is not to escape your life.
The goal is to help you build a life you don’t need to escape from. And that is what I am here to help you do overall. So how can we do that? How can we help you build that life you don’t need to escape from?
I hope this episode gave you the hug and kick in the pants you need to grow. I’ll now share the progress pointers. These are the notes I took, so you don’t have to, and those of my newsletter, get them in a graphic form each week.
You can sign up at aboutprogress. com slash newsletter. Number one, when our brain and our body get dysregulated, We can numb out numbing behaviors are the ineffective patterns of trying to escape our negative feelings via behaviors that require little energy number two, numbing behaviors, ultimately add more stress to the system.
Instead of helping it. They also become subconscious and inept coping patterns. Number three, to help start by inserting compassion, know that numbing out is a sign that you need more care. Put in some work to install some steady self care habits that both help prevent and better work through your numbing behaviors.
Number four, in the moment, follow the ends of numbing out. Notice, name, and what’s next. Notice the behavior, name the feelings you’re avoiding and what you need, and choose what’s next. And number five, we will never be numb out free, but with more awareness, self care and support, we will lessen this pattern in our lives.
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