We Play Full Out with Bart and Sunny

Burnout Isn't Just a Productivity Issue. It's a Biological One.

• Bart and Sunny Miller • Season 1 • Episode 75

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We’re living in a world that’s more connected than ever, and somehow, we’ve never felt more disconnected from ourselves. If you’re exhausted, anxious, emotionally flatlined, or pushing through each day with low-grade dread… you’re not alone. 

And more importantly...you’re not broken.

In this episode, Bart and Sunny dive into the real mental health crisis no one is talking about. Not just burnout from doing too much—but the biological toll of a lifestyle that disconnects us from what actually makes us human. You’ll hear why traditional fixes like sleep and self-care often don’t work, and what your nervous system is really craving instead.

From the neuroscience of nature, purpose, and creativity to simple ways to rewire your internal system for clarity and calm, this conversation is both a wake-up call and a roadmap. If your system is screaming for something deeper, this episode will help you finally hear what it’s been trying to say.

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Bart:

Welcome to. We Play Full Out with Bart and Sunny Miller. Take it away, Sunny.

Sunny:

Thanks, bart. Yeah, I have a crazy topic today.

Bart:

Let's get into craziness.

Sunny:

Let's do it. So there is a top neuroscientist, and I'm going to say her name wrong, but I think it's Dr Tali or Tali Swart.

Bart:

Okay.

Sunny:

She says that we are in the middle of a massive silent mental health crisis. Now her kind of whole theory is that when the pandemic happened, the masks came off, we all kind of went back to life as usual, but we aren't functioning the way we were before the pandemic.

Bart:

Okay, I believe it.

Sunny:

Yeah, before the pandemic. Okay, I believe it. Yeah, and I think when I first heard that statement like that is no small thing, no, that's a big deal, right, like we're not functioning the way that we were, but we all seem to think that we are right.

Sunny:

So our brains didn't bounce back when all of that happened and we went into isolation. We were in panic and crisis and all the things our nervous systems are still holding on to, like buzzing patterns of anxiety. We're told by overstimulation and we're disconnected from the very things that make us feel alive.

Bart:

Wow.

Sunny:

Have you seen any of this?

Bart:

Yeah, I mean, I think I've even noticed it in some of our, you know, in our kids. I've noticed it in some of our, you know, in our kids. I've noticed it sometimes even in myself since the pandemic. It's like all of a sudden I see something that's shocking or a fearful thing and I, you know, there's like I never bothered me and all of a sudden things bother me more than they have or you know, and it's a collective energy.

Sunny:

I really feel like well, do you feel like? Um, I mean, I don't know that this is true, it's just a thought.

Bart:

Yeah.

Sunny:

That we went more to screens and then we didn't step away from them as much, or do you feel like we were kind of already there?

Bart:

Well, I think obviously we went more because we were so entrenched, couldn't get out, couldn't do things. So I mean, if we didn't I would be very surprised. Yeah, and I think since we've left you know, it's not changed. I mean, once you start a habit, the funny thing is it's pretty difficult to get back out of one.

Sunny:

Yeah, so we're kind of normalizing, I think, with the mental health crisis and again, I'm not an expert, let's just clear that out right now but I see a lot of people who maybe experience anxiety because the world's a little chaotic, but they think that needs to be treated, you know, or like burnout from non-stop pressure is something that needs to be treated.

Bart:

Yeah, so something that really I want to think about right here is and this is probably off topic, but just something to think about yeah, because when COVID hit, what were they telling us all we needed to do?

Sunny:

Isolate.

Bart:

And biggest topic we've ever had.

Sunny:

Put the mask on.

Bart:

Get the shot.

Sunny:

Oh, get the shot yeah.

Bart:

Go to the doctor, get the shot. Get the shot, medicate, medicate, medicate, medicate. Everything was about being medicated. So when that gets planted in your brain so much and then all of a sudden you get out of the pandemic, you have more problems. What do you want to do?

Sunny:

Yeah.

Bart:

You've been told what to do. Yeah, Not to say we're all sheep, but you've been told to medicate. So it doesn't surprise me that people go to let's get medicated.

Sunny:

Yeah, and I think the thing that I'm kind of coming to the conclusion of a little bit is, if we're experiencing some anxiety because the world's chaotic, or we're experiencing some burnout because we have nonstop pressure, or whatever it might be, it's not a mental health problem that needs a prescribing, it's a we need a sensory. Get back to being human solution. Yeah, instead of maybe a prescription yeah, couldn't argue with that.

Bart:

I think that's pretty wise yeah and again.

Sunny:

There are times and places where medication is life-saving.

Bart:

Of course.

Sunny:

Don't want to discount that. But what if our nervous systems aren't actually broken? They're just responding to an unhealthy environment that we ourselves are creating?

Sunny:

That would make a lot of sense right, um, so I guess the bottom line is that as humans, we think that we can run like machines. Sometimes we should be able to just keep pushing, we should be able to experience things, maybe outside of ourselves and not go into kind of chaos in our minds or whatever it might be. But we're humans, yeah, and we forget that we're wired in ways that we need to be, I guess, rebalanced, regenerated. We need all of these things that are human to bring us back into balance.

Bart:

Yeah. So I'm just going to suggest that you might be a little more advanced than a lot of people in the fact that you've been studying this quite a bit. Where? Where in school? Where in the colleges? Unless you take courses on this, where do we learn about the human psyche or any of the body stuff? I mean, you really learn about health, right? You're supposed to, you're supposed to learn about where the bones are, where the muscles are, the skeletal system.

Sunny:

Yeah, I was going to say health from an outside.

Bart:

Yeah, but where are they covering this kind of stuff? Where do they cover mental health and what to do and all the things like that? You see what I'm saying.

Sunny:

Well, we certainly never had any. I don't know if they have any in the school system now, but not that I'm aware of.

Bart:

Right, so you know, yeah, people don't know.

Sunny:

Yeah. So we're going for input that actually nourishes us and we're going to start with how modern life is a little bit of a constant assault on the nervous system. We'll start with blue lights. Now, I know that you have mentioned to me that there's some conspiracy theories out there that say, like government and tech companies are trying to control us through the use of blue lights, which are all on our computers, our smartphones, our TV screens.

Bart:

Yeah Right, Yep, the FBI did a full study on this.

Sunny:

They did. Okay, I haven't seen that.

Bart:

Yeah.

Sunny:

But what they do is they make us more compliant. Well, they manipulate our sleep system, right yeah, that makes us more distractive. Passive induce anxiety or mental fog Is that kind of the stuff that you read? And it decreases our critical thinking and entrains habits around the use of screen time.

Bart:

Yeah, so the big theory is that blue lights will absolutely basically for no better term and this is probably wrong, so look it up for yourself. But just in my terms Bart Miller, the cowboy here, terms it's like being hypnotized. So they can actually use the blue light signals to hypnotize and manipulate you through those blue lights, and that's why they wanted them in all computers. There's other ways to run and function a computer, but blue light was chosen.

Sunny:

Interesting. I mean mean we could go down the manipulation rat hole about how late at night, when those prescription things pop on your screen and all of your defenses are down, it's going right into your, bypassing your ego and right into your system. Right, but we'll stay on the blue light thing, okay, okay. So even if you do or don't believe in the conspiracy theories, you go look them up. Blue lights do dramatically affect us.

Bart:

Yep.

Sunny:

So they do make us sleep worse because it messes with our sleep cycle. Yeah, that makes us anxious and less grounded and we're increasingly disconnected from the natural world and from each other. Right, so kind of the effect is eerily similar in the goal of being controlled.

Bart:

Yeah.

Sunny:

A lot of that blue light stuff really does kind of bring us into a control function of the screen, yep.

Bart:

Yeah, yeah, you know, it's just like. It's interesting when you start to study the human body, because I was always taught when we go outside, throw sunglasses on. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting when you start to study the human body, because I was always taught when we go outside, throw sunglasses on. Yeah, don't have the sun on your eyes, like that. When now right all the stuff says-. Go outside Go out, keep your eyes, don't put sunglasses on, don't do anything.

Bart:

At least the first five minutes of the day, or something like that, and your skin is obviously your largest organ, so it needs sun, it needs attention. You know all that kind of stuff. So it's very interesting, as we start talking about this, how much we don't know. What we don't know, you know because we were taught a certain thing at a young age. We believe it. Therefore, when I was younger, we had no clue the blue lights were affecting us, you know. So how many years have we looked at a computer screen and not even thought twice about it and wondered why these things start to happen to?

Sunny:

us. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy, Okay. And along with blue light you've got white noise, you've got crowded schedules, you've got dopamine loops. I mean, think about that. Blue light combined with dopamine loops double the power and pressure to be on 24-7. And we're just not designed for that. Humans aren't designed for that. So why do we keep trying to be designed for that right? The longer we try to override our biology, the more burnout, the more fatigue, the more sleepwalking, the more everything that's going to sit in. So here's some fixes that we're going to talk about.

Bart:

All right, let's go Get on a higher exciting note here.

Sunny:

Okay, this one is my absolute favorite. It's the most underrated prescription for mental health Nature. Now, interestingly enough, have you heard the same, the excuse me the term nature bath. Yeah, Did you know it term nature bath yeah. Did you know? It originated in Japan.

Bart:

No.

Sunny:

Yep, it comes from Japan and you're going to probably be able to correct me on how to say it Shinrin-yoku.

Bart:

Close enough.

Sunny:

Bart speaks Japanese for those of you who don't know, but it's literally translated as forest bathing. And so when Japan well, they've always been ahead of us tech wise there are always been just really hard workers pushing, grinding all the things Right. So the government, in order to kind of offset that, encouraged people to go out into the forests and spend time doing nothing in nature but just being present.

Sunny:

That's awesome, and what they found well, and it was also obviously to re-regulate your nervous system yeah, right science backed up the fact that nature, just being in nature low, lowers cortisol, so lowers your stress, improves your mood and it even boosts your immune function. It actually creates killer cells in your body to offset anything that can come into it. One study even found this wasn't in Japan, but one study found that a patient, maybe who's sick with something, if they just have a window with trees that they can look out on, would get better more than those who didn't. Wow, what I love this phrase is nature itself is medicine. It's not just the backdrop.

Bart:

Let's go.

Sunny:

Yeah, you know, our bodies were shaped by sunlight, by wind, by water, by earth, and if we go too long without those inputs, our system will start glitching.

Bart:

Yeah.

Sunny:

It's just normal. So I think we'll talk about it a little bit later too. But going outside, getting the sun on your face, going barefoot on the grass Yep, what a great way to reconnect, re -regulate yourself.

Bart:

Totally agree.

Sunny:

Yeah, Um, oh. And also another thing about walking in nature, like how many times you get in negative thought patterns that are just repetitive loops and they're either like attacking you or you start to like stress about maybe choices you've made or consequences or whatever. They just keep playing and playing and playing. Being out in nature is supposed to help slow that down and get rid of it.

Bart:

So do you have a story about that? That's happened in your life at all, that just like you go on your walk and you're in nature and things change for you?

Sunny:

Well, yes, I definitely feel more solid as a person if I can get outside and be in nature. I feel way more connected to myself and I also get like a lot of thoughts and downloads that I wouldn't normally get if I wasn't by myself. But I have also had negative thought patterns playing. You know, something stressful going on in our life or whatever, and even on my walk I found it really difficult because it just kept coming up and coming up and coming up, but I offset it with an affirmation. I can't remember what it is now, but every time that thought hit I would just offset it, offset it, offset it. And it did, it went away.

Bart:

That's awesome. It was so nice.

Sunny:

I don't know if you've ever been a victim of a negative thought loop pattern, but they're terrible.

Bart:

Yeah, they are.

Sunny:

They really just take over everything and then your whole system's reacting to it, right, Yep for sure. Have you ever hugged a tree. Yes. Oh cool, I am a tree hugger. I like to put my palms on them too. I just feel like grounded that's awesome, all right. How about you? Have you ever?

Bart:

hugged a tree. I have, you have Multiple times. Wow, they give great hugs. I've even talked to a tree.

Sunny:

Does it talk back?

Bart:

Not yet. I'm hoping it will, though.

Sunny:

I actually read a book. I don't know, I can't remember now, but a girl who claims she could hear trees talk.

Bart:

I saw a TikTok on it. There you go, oh TikTok. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, they're actually putting probes in trees, so you can talk to trees and they'll talk back.

Sunny:

I've heard they're just more observers. Yeah that'd be true. They don't really have much to say. There you go, Okay. The next one is an antidote for numbness, and that is having a purpose in your life. Now, if you have no purpose, you're just waking up, putting in the motions, going to bed. Doesn't that feel like Groundhog Day To me? That's just exhausting. What do you think?

Bart:

Absolutely. I mean, I think purpose is what drives us. You know, with all the blue light, with all the different things, stuff going on and no purpose, no drive, I mean what in the world?

Sunny:

What do you even need energy for?

Bart:

So your energy is just going to go right, yeah, yeah Well.

Sunny:

Carl Jung believed the psyche will find a way to grow, even if it has to do so through crisis, which means something's going to happen in your life to wake you up if you're not trying to wake up, right?

Sunny:

Yeah, when we ignore our purpose, it doesn't just disappear. It shows up as depression, anxiety, numbness, addiction or chronic dissatisfaction. And it's not because we're broken, it's because something's off with us, yeah, and a part of us knows that. And so it's trying because we're broken. It's because something's off with us, and a part of us knows that, and so it's trying to like wake. It's a wake up call.

Bart:

Yeah, I most definitely find when I get off, I try to find a way to numb it or figure out something else Like cause, I just don't want to face it and most of the time it's because I'm not aligned with something. You know, there could be business, it could be our relationship, it could be all two different things. But as soon as it hits, one of my things is run from it, right, or like do something else, Like I've got to figure out how to get rid of this thing. But reality is is that you know when you're, when you run into the fires, when you get the result.

Sunny:

It's true, you know, one of my favorite authors is James Hollis, and I think by the time he was in his 30s he had actually had quite a good life. I can't remember what area of his career he was in. All of a sudden, a depression came on him and he could not figure out what it was. Yeah, couldn't figure out what it was. And then he had some dream and he realized that this depression was simply to wake him up, to take him on a different career choice. So you know, sometimes it's not even what we're doing. Yeah, sometimes it's just like hey, time for something new. And this is your wake-up call for you to figure it out.

Sunny:

Yeah, you know, because it was his purpose too yeah, um, the greatest tragedy is not the darkness we face, it's the unlived life inside of us. Amen to that, right, okay. Next one creativity. As humans, we are born as creators. So if we're not intentionally doing something in our hopefully daily lives that's creative, we're not going to fill a hole.

Bart:

Yeah, I agree with that, and I think creativity shows up in so many ways and I think the funniest part about creating is as we create we forget that creation isn't always fun.

Bart:

No, sometimes it's work, it can be work right. But to learn to create and to learn through the mess of creation, like it's funny. Like when you watch somebody paint, I look at it. Sometimes I'm like that is the messiest thing I've ever seen in my life, but then all of a sudden this gorgeous beauty comes out of it, right, yeah. So sometimes it's in the mess that we find our message. But in our creativity and trying things and doing stuff, we learn so many things. It's crazy.

Sunny:

Yeah, and sometimes it's just fun to be creative. For the just to be creative, agreed Right, and I think it's all a matter of attitude, because I don't really like to cook, I don't really enjoy it, but if I step back and go, I'm creating something yeah it's more fulfilling. I'm like, oh, the food that wasn't there is now here, like something was created yeah it's actually kind of cool yeah, it's really cool you know.

Sunny:

But anyway, to plug into that, I know that there's actually some therapists that if their client is struggling with things like depression or anxiety or lack of life purpose, they absolutely insist they do something creative every day, like that's just, even if it's drawing, even if you can't draw, just draw something yeah, you can dance.

Bart:

You can work on a motor, you can design something. Yep, you can shoot a video and try to edit it. I mean, there's a million things to do with your creativity. Learn an instrument.

Sunny:

Yeah. So creativity reconnects the dots inside your brain and reactivates parts of you that have been shut down. Beautiful, it's awesome. Yeah, okay, this is really interesting. The most underrated form of safety. Say that, right. Okay, this is really interesting. The most underrated form of safety. Say that, right, okay.

Sunny:

So when it comes to safety, nobody talks about beauty.

Sunny:

If you think about it, if you slow down your pace, if you take time to read a book just for fun, if you light a candle, if you take time to, like, look outside and see, you know, a beautiful sunset, your brain's actually signaling to you that you're safe because you have time to stop and do that.

Sunny:

And you know a lot of things go back to, like, our wiring and our ancestry. And you know, back in the early days, when they had to struggle so hard for survival, there wasn't time to do any of that, like they wouldn't even cross their minds. And when you're in a crisis, you're not going to go to the window or walk outside and watch the sunset. You're going to be in crisis, right? So, nervous system wise, if you just take time, like, enjoy your food, light a candle, put on some music, put on something that makes you feel good, you know we're going to talk about dancing, but you know, those things that we take for granted actually help us, as humans feel like we're safe and that we can relax. So good yeah, do you do anything like that?

Bart:

Yeah, sometimes you know we'll go out and sit in the swing and just swing out there, which is awesome. You know, other times we go for walks at Rigby Lake. You know things like that. But I think you know it just brings to mind Susie Brown. That's who it brings to mind for me. Oh yeah, the sunset, sunset, every day. Never misses it. No matter what's going on in our life, everything stops at sunset, and I think that's a beautiful ritual.

Sunny:

Yeah, ritual, it's a beautiful word. I like that, okay. The last one that is also wildly underrated is music, for the sake of joy. Dance is still one of the oldest rituals on earth and it still works. And actually, when you dance without choreography, so you're shaking, you're swaying, you're stretching, you're spinning, you're letting loose, you're stretching, you're spinning, you're letting loose, you're releasing trapped energy from your nervous system. Awesome, not awesome.

Bart:

So, cool.

Sunny:

You're moving emotion into motion. Yeah, you're moving it through. And the same goes for laughter and for playing. They're not extras, like all of this stuff, like you could be like, oh, that's so extra, like we don't need to do that, but I'm telling you they're essential.

Bart:

Yeah.

Sunny:

They're really essential. Yeah, Laughter floods your system with dopamine and oxytocin as we know.

Bart:

Is that why you were laughing so hard last night? I was laughing at you, Nonetheless laughing. See what I did for her.

Sunny:

See how much energy I released. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Play activates neuroplasticity and breaks fear loops. Let's go.

Sunny:

So this is a story I heard and I thought it was so good and I need to incorporate more of this into my daily life. But in the 1960s a guy named Norman Cousins was diagnosed with a like a really painful disease, and it was also potentially fatal. It was like a connective tissue disease and his doctors gave him like little to no chance of recovery. So he decided to check himself out of the hospital, which he did, and he went off all all of his medications and he started taking vitamin C every day and then watching old comedy sketches Not like movies, but they were like Abbott and Costello, the Marx Brothers. He'd watch Candid Camera, so he'd take vitamin C and then he would laugh for most of the day and he began to get better. That's awesome. And what he found, too, was that 10 minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect on him. I don't know if I said that right. It would give him two hours of being pain-free. That's awesome.

Bart:

So like an anesthetic for him. Yeah, so cool.

Sunny:

So anyway, his condition improved so dramatically he returned to work full time and he actually wrote a book Anatomy of an Illness which actually helped spark the mind and body medicine movement.

Bart:

Wow, so cool. We just need to laugh more. Yeah, let's do it.

Sunny:

All right. So if you're exhausted, uninspired, depressed, anxious or just off your game, it could be because you are long overdue for reconnection. So challenges this week Step outside for at least 10 minutes 20 even better and let nature do what she does best.

Bart:

That's awesome.

Sunny:

To create something just for the joy of it.

Bart:

Yep.

Sunny:

No pressure and no productivity is allowed. Inject beauty into your space Music, a light, scent, softness, whatever it might be. Look around your space and see how you can add more beauty to it. Revisit your why. Ask yourself what gives this season in your life meaning that's good. Find that meaning and move your body. Dance, play, be ridiculous on purpose. Let's go. I want to see you do that. Awesome. Let's go. You've seen me do that. Laughter floods your system with healing chemistry and play rewires your brain.

Bart:

It's all good tips. So get out there, take your shoes off, ground yourself, you know, stay away from those blue lights.

Sunny:

Kick the can in the street.

Bart:

Yeah, go make fun of somebody so you can laugh. Watch some funny humor on cat videos, watch a goat video, watch some animal videos, something like that. Yeah, those are good ones, but the main thing is is just, you know, really think about you as a human and what you've gotten away from, because we are humans at the core. Yeah, and we really need to understand what drives humans as humans nothing else, just human beings and so I think it's great.

Sunny:

I mean when you think about fixing up a car like you know what to do. But for humans, for some reason, we don't look and go. This is the biology, this is what you know. I don't know if it's just because it feels so much more internal than external, but that is how we run Yep, and the science proves it too.

Bart:

We're not just saying it to say it All right, perfect Okay.

Sunny:

Life updates.

Bart:

Life updates X. It was absolutely awesome.

Sunny:

Way to go, Xander. He played a ripping high solo like a boss.

Bart:

We've got the event all architected out.

Sunny:

Yep.

Bart:

And ready to rock and roll with that. The speakers have all been ready to go and we're trying some new technology on the podcast and how we're recording it. Let's go with that. And what other life updates do we have?

Sunny:

Well, we played pickleball last week in a league. No, we already talked about that. Okay, we have a nephew's high school graduation coming up. Party More or night, yep, and that's about it.

Bart:

Awesome. All right, you guys. Well, hopefully, this podcast was awesome for you, and we've got a bunch of others. We hope you go listen to them. The only way that the podcast grows is if you subscribe to us, and we would love it if you'd pass it on. If there's something you wanna hear about or you want us to talk about, please let us know. I actually made a post on we're looking for couples to start interviewing with us because we think it's important to bring other perspectives, other thoughts, things like that, into what we're doing. So bring other perspectives, other thoughts, things like that into what we're doing. So we appreciate you listening more than you'll ever know. No-transcript.

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Bart Miller

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Sunny Miller

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