Welcome to the Peak Revival Podcast.

My name is Vesna.

I'm your host.

And on this podcast, I'm going to

talk about how high performing women

can regain peak physical energy and

mental wellbeing today I thought

for the first episode, it would be

a really good idea to talk about

kind of getting to peak performance.

What is that?

How do we get away from this kind of

place of feeling burnt out, exhausted,

overstretched, overwhelmed, Especially

when you have a lot on and how do we

move into peak performance and peak

performance isn't Being athletic and

I think that's probably an assumption

even when I first heard the phrase

peak performance I went to that same

place I really do think it was about

being fit and athletic and athletes

are peak performers, but it really

peak performance is about being our

best and realizing our potential.

So peak performance looks like our

ability to handle day to day stresses,

but not just bounce back from stress,

but to really seek out challenges

because they help us to stretch and

grow and tap into more of our resources.

It's about mental focus,

mental concentration.

It's about being able to work on a

piece of work for a long time without

getting distracted or disrupted.

It's about handling our emotions.

And regulating our emotions and

understanding the emotions of others.

And it also looks like having healthy

and fulfilling relationships and

making deep connections with others.

So as you can see, peak mental

performance is a lot more about our

personal lives, our inner inner life,

and how that reflects on our outer life

than anything to do with just being fit.

if you.

I'm here today and you're feeling,

well, I feel pretty overstretched.

I feel pretty overwhelmed and exhausted,

but it is because I have a lot on, right?

And so one of the myths I want to

dispel is reason why we Um, and

that's a symptom as well, but we're

looking at other factors that start

to break down or cause imbalances

in our body, which aren't corrected.

And so life is.

We're always going to throw us

challenges, we can't avoid that,

but unless we have the proper

kind of recovery plan in place,

we eventually, our body will break

down systems and hormones and will

create deficiencies in the body.

It starts to break down.

And if we don't do anything to

correct it, then eventually we

hit to a place of burnout, right?

And so, often, you know, I

hear women say, Well, it's

because I'm a business owner.

It's because I'm juggling

family and business and work.

I have too many things on.

And definitely having a packed schedule

without any downtime is a problem.

But we're really looking at, we

can, shift ourselves into a higher

state of performance, really

operating from our best when we

can improve our internal wellbeing.

Okay.

So when we can correct those

imbalances that are controlling

our energy, our mood, our

memory, our concentration, right?

We can influence that through

diet lifestyle changes.

So what does it matter to, even want

to get to peak performance, right?

And for me, it's a very natural state.

I don't look at peak performance

as something that we have to

strive hard and work hard towards.

It is a very natural state when we remove

the barriers to peak performance, right?

So many years ago, a psychologist,

Abraham Maslow, he We talked

about this innate drive in every

person to become everything that

we're capable of becoming, right?

So there is an innate drive there.

So we want to be our best.

We want to do our best.

We want to make a difference in

the world because that brings

us meaning and fulfillment.

So this desire to reach our highest

potential is there for everybody.

And Abraham Maslow called it

self actualization, right?

That we have to pass through certain

milestones to get there, right?

And so physical health and well being

was absolutely one of those milestones.

burnout peak performance

lives on a scale, right?

So if we're looking at peak performance

on the continuum on the very lower end,

we have severe anxiety and depression.

normally people in this place

aren't able to keep up with work

and day to day responsibilities.

Fortunately, most people do not, live

in that place, but we tend to hover.

A lot of people tend to

hover in the middle zone.

So, Not in the, the severe anxiety and

depression, and not in peak performance

either, but in this middle zone of

over stress, anxiety and burnout.

And so while we're not suffering

the severe stuff, we're not reaching

our highest potential either.

If you're, you know, like I

said, it isn't innate driving

us to want to be our best.

If you're feeling now, Oh wow,

I don't feel like that at all.

Then there is things that you can do.

But the first step is to really

become aware of where you're

kind of sitting at the moment.

You know, do you wake up with energy?

Do you feel like you have energy all

day long that you can work pretty solid?

You can come home after work or

after, working your business and you

feel like you have a lot more energy

to do everything you need to do.

Or do you feel tired when you wake up?

Do you feel like at two, 3 p.

m you hit a wall and you're so tired and

you're going for the coffee or the sugar.

Do you find that at the end of the

day you completely spent, there's

nothing left in the tank for

your family, for your loved ones.

And you know, I see a lot of women who.

feel guilty from that place, right?

Because There's just not enough

reserves there to be able to do all the

things that they need to do in a day.

Another one is, do you

have energy to exercise?

Are you sleeping well?

Do you feel like you go to bed at night,

you fall asleep pretty, pretty easily.

You sleep right through and you wake

up in the morning, you feel refreshed.

Or, are you waking up

multiple times a night?

Are you finding it hard

to fall back to sleep?

Are you finding it hard to

fall asleep to begin with?

Are you going to bed later than 10pm?

How do you handle stress?

Do you catastrophize problems?

Do you find that something goes wrong

in your business or your family or your

work, or someone says something to you

in a meeting or in an email and instead

of being able to let it go you carry

it around with you for like 24 hours?

How are your moods?

Do you feel like your

motivation is quite low?

That your passion in what you're

doing is probably not as it was in the

beginning of your career or business.

So, these are all tell tale signs of

kind of where we're sitting, right?

So, at Peak Performance, we're

really able to regulate our emotions,

we're able to regulate our moods.

you know, able to handle stress.

In fact, we're looking for

more challenges We kind of have

energy on tap to do everything

that we need to do and more.

if you're in that middle zone, then

the first thing that you want to

look at is increasing capacity.

So I look at when I work with people,

I want to move them from this place of

where they don't feel like they can even

take another thing on in terms of not

even taking care of their health, right?

So for a lot of high performing

women, they do value their

health and their well being.

but they've pushed themselves so

much and ignored the warning signs

that they're getting to a place

now where it feels hard to add

anything more to the schedule.

There's no motivation, there's no

desire, there's no energy and any

little thing will kind of set you off.

And so I've been in burnout.

That's why I talk about burnout.

I understand that place, but

through making little changes

through your day to day routines.

You can increase your

capacity to take more on.

So what we want to do in that first

step is increase the capacity to not

have as much anxiety or not to get

so overwhelmed or overstretched or

overstressed so therefore you have

the capacity to do more in terms of

taking care of your personal wellbeing.

the way that we do that is

really initially is by reducing

stress hormones in the body.

Because again, I will see women that will

say, yeah, but my life is really busy.

My schedule is very hectic.

I've got this going on

that, blah, blah, et cetera.

Right.

And I understand, but what is also

important to see is that the more

vitality you have, the more you can do.

Okay, so energy creates energy.

So it's not as if we have a finite amount

of energy and then when we use it up on

the tasks that we do each day, we don't

have anything left at the end of the day.

That's not how it works, right?

Energy creates more energy

when we increase our vitality.

And that's the first part is really

increasing the wellbeing, reducing

stress hormones in the body, which

is causing a lot of this effect

to be really drained and really

tired and anxious and overwhelmed.

If we can reduce that.

It increases your capacity to do more,

okay, and feel a hell of a lot better.

Okay.

And so the way that we do that,

so small changes, making sure that

you're getting enough sleep, Now,

when we go to sleep at night, our

body goes into full recovery mode.

when I look at athletes, I

think, okay, these are people

who put extreme stress on them.

So it was physical stress.

mental and emotional stress.

Okay.

Yet they are champions, right?

And when you look at their schedule,

they really focus and prioritize

and master sleep because it's

such a powerful recovery tool.

When we go to sleep at night, you're

sleeping, you're completely unaware of

what's happening, but your body is really

active in all this repair work that needs

to happen while you're sleeping, right?

So when we're sleeping, our body's

fully relaxed and we go into

this rest and repair mode and

things are repaired overnight.

Our brain processes

our emotions overnight.

So when we wake up, we often wake up

feeling the problem that we went to

bed with at nighttime seems a little

bit clearer, Our brain detoxifies

at nighttime, our body detoxifies.

Our immune system is really active.

Our hormones start to repair.

So I often say that if I could

put sleep into a capsule, it would

be the most powerful remedy to

heal almost anything in the body.

Okay.

But what happens is if we don't

get enough deep sleep time, we are

going to miss that repair work.

We're going to miss the processing

of emotions and the detoxifying

of the brain and all the good

stuff that happens, right?

So to bed and you're going to bed

at like 12 PM, but you're waking up

at, you know, seven or 8 AM, that

is missing the deep sleep time.

So getting to bed.

By 10 p.

m.

winding down half an hour before in

order to create a good kind of rest

so you can fall asleep naturally and

easily and sleep through the night.

So number one, getting

to bed before 10 p.

m.

and making sure that you

have eight hours of sleep.

The second thing to increase your

capacity, so reducing the anxiety,

the overwhelm, the brain fog, the

exhaustion is to look at your diet.

When we're stressed, it's pretty

common to go for foods and beverages

and things that will give you a quick

So, sugar, caffeine, processed foods,

eating out, alcohol, all of these

things are a go to to self soothe when

we're stressed, okay, I will admit

it, me too, but there are some little

things that you can do that don't.

Again, help to reduce

the stress hormones.

If we can do that, if your stress

hormones can come down, even though your

life is busy, your body will start to

repair itself and you'll start to have

more energy, feel more clearer, feel

like you're more on top of things, sleep

better, make better choices with food.

And everything becomes easier

and you start working up to,

you know, this higher potential,

this kind of peak performance.

So the first thing would be I

always recommend is never have

caffeine on an empty stomach.

Don't wake up and go for

your coffee first thing.

Have your breakfast first.

Okay?

Because the caffeine is going to on

an empty stomach on a fasting Blood

glucose level, caffeine is going

to stimulate more stress hormones.

So everything that we want to

do here in the initial stages is

bring those stress hormones down.

and minimize sugar, sugary

and processed foods.

The best you can in the beginning, right?

So cut out the obvious sugars, which

do give you that initial kind of

pep me up, but they basically send

you on this rollercoaster all day.

So sugar sends you high, then

drops you down really low

because your glucose levels drop.

Then you go for something

else, then it goes back up and

then it drops you back down.

And so you're kind of on this

rollercoaster all day long, And we can

avoid that by making sure that one, you

don't have coffee on an empty stomach and

the best you can cut out of your sugars.

The third big thing.

Okay.

So we're looking at.

lifestyle.

We're looking at diet, but we're also

looking at what's going on up here

because this is actually one of the

biggest triggers for burnout and anxiety

and overwhelming and uh, you know,

brain fog, all of those symptoms that

we feel as we're heading into burnout.

And the tip that I'd give you

here is escape the thought traps.

Okay?

There are things that you will

find that you overthink, right?

So overthinking, we have too many

kind of thoughts in our head, right?

and it causes anxiety and

it causes overwhelm, but it

changes our hormonal balance.

It changes the chemistry in our brain.

And so once we have high levels of

cortisol from overthinking, right?

And it could be that you've

catastrophized the problem.

What ends up happening is that cortisol

in our brain causes us to just zone in.

It gives us tunnel vision.

So we zone in on a problem.

That's all we can focus on, right?

And we blow it up when we make it.

you know, 200 times worse than what

it is, or we just can't let things go.

And it means it's going to release

constant drip, drip, drip of cortisol

throughout the day and even night if

it's keeping you up at nighttime, right?

So those are my three tips.

to get started.

Because if you're feeling in

that kind of middle zone of this

exhaustion, overwhelm, anxiety,

burnout, constant stress, there

are things that you want to be, you

want to be better in your business.

Maybe you want to be a better mother.

Maybe you want to be able to

have that work life balance

a little bit more fine tuned.

You want to feel like

you're achieving in life.

Maybe you want to do other things, right?

And you really need to have that.

Energy on tap and the ability to handle

change and regulate your emotions.

And these are the three tips that will

start to increase capacity to their

next step is optimize your performance.

so guys, I hope this was a helpful

first episode into, you know, getting

out of this kind of burnout exhaustion

state into peak performance and how

it's a natural state for everybody,

we can all be in this state, right?

We just want to remove some of

these blocks to peak performance.

So let me know which tip

you are going to try first.