Greetings and welcome. Welcome, welcome back to the sweet spot, sweet builder. You're doing it, you're making it. It is finished strong Friday. And I'm proud of you because you got to Friday. We are here. We are here in the sweet spot. Just getting through a wonderful series we've been doing called Breaking the Barrier. Oh my goodness, have we not broken through some barriers this week? And it's been wonderful. And if you haven't heard some of the breakthroughs we had in the other days, I invite you to go back. Today, today, sweet builder, it is Finish Strong Friday. And we're gonna tackle a barrier every high performer knows all too well. The barrier of fatigue. I'm Dr. Derek Sweet, I'm a board certified psychiatrist. I work in high performance, but more than that, I'm your teammate in the game of life. So today, Finish Strong Friday, we're gonna tackle a barrier that everyone faces. It doesn't matter whether you're a high performer, what if you don't perform on a stage or in a field or on the ice or on the pitch? It doesn't matter. Every one of us faces fatigue. Not just being a little tired, but a kind of a drag, a heaviness. That voice that comes up every now and then that tells you, hey, you know what? We've kind of had enough. Let's just coast. Have you ever been there where you just want to coast? You just want it to just be easy? Well, that's what I want to help us discuss today. I want to help you understand what fatigue really is and give you some simple tools so you don't have to just limp to the finish line. I want you to finish strong, my fellow teammate, because when we finish strong, we're ready. We're ready for the next challenge that comes, and not only that, we get the blessing of being a strong finisher. So, what is fatigue, really? Most of us only have one word for it. I'm tired. But you know, that's not bad because it sort of captures it. But under the hood, under the hood of this phrase, I'm tired, there are at least three layers of fatigue that I want to discuss with you. There's body fatigue, there's brain fatigue, and there's mind fatigue. All three. So body fatigue is like having a battery, and your battery is low. Muscles have been working, but the fuel is low and the tank is getting empty. That's the body fatigue. What's brain fatigue? Brain fatigue is like the signal is weak. Your brain isn't sending the same strong drive to your muscles or your body like it used to, and the effort feels heavier than it should. So the body is the battery, is low, the muscles are they, you know, they're just the there's not enough fuel for the body, and it the tank is empty. So the body is feeling it. The brain is like it's not getting the signal, the signal is not going out, and then there's the mind. The mind is like your operating system that's lagging. You've been making decisions, you've been dealing with pressure, you've been managing emotions, and now your focus, your motivation, and your patience are just shot, they're tired. So you have body fatigue, a low battery, you have brain fatigue, a signal that's weak, and then you have this mind fatigue where your operating system just feels like it's lagging. So by Friday, a lot of people aren't just physically tired, their battery is low, their signal is glitching, and and their operating system is just lagging. And if you don't understand that, you'll mislabel yourself as I'm lazy. You mislabel yourself as like maybe I'm not motivated, I don't want it enough. When in reality, what's really happening is that your system is actually overloaded. So now that you have this tear in your mind of body fatigue, brain fatigue, and mind fatigue, ask yourself, which is it? Is my battery low? Is my signal weak, or is my operating system spazzing? Yeah, and I'm gonna give you three simple tools to support your battery, your signal, and your operating system. How's that? Would that be fun? Of course it would, because it's finished strong Friday, and we have fun on Finish Strong Friday. Absolutely. So, yeah, if you get these three simple tools, and I'm gonna tell you, and you use them, you're gonna finish like a closer. You're not gonna be a casualty, you're gonna be a closer this finished strong Friday. Let's start with the tool for the body. How do we respect your battery? First, let's talk body fatigue, right? Let's talk battery fatigue. So, when your muscles work really hard all week, they burn through fuel. You've been to practice a lot, you've been really grinding a lot, and your body is burning the fuel. And if you don't refuel and don't recover, like you don't listen to self-care Saturday on the sweet spot, and you're not recovering, your muscles literally can't produce the same power. That's why by Friday afternoon, the same task that felt pretty easy on Monday now feels like you're climbing a wall, a hill with a weighted vest on and and a sack a sack of rocks on your back by by Friday. Yeah. Yeah. So this is what you can do. Here are some easy things that you can do. One of the things is that we don't drink enough water. So one thing to do is the body needs water. The body is composed of a lot of water, right? So hydrate with intention to really refuel your body. Most of us are running around dehydrated, even mild dehydration can make everything feel harder. Trust me on that. Take in water steadily throughout the day, not just one big gulp at night, not just one big set of water to just sort of make up for the fact that it's not drinking water. Right here, right now, you can make a commitment to hydrate your body, perfuse your kidneys with this water that you're going to be drinking throughout the day steadily. So that's one thing. The other thing to help the battery is to get steady fuel, not sugar spikes, right? So you want to choose foods that give you a slow, steady release of energy, fruits, whole grains, lean protein, instead of the quick things that just give you a big sugar rush and then a crash 30 minutes later. So we talked about hydration, we talked about not spiking your sugar so you don't have that crash. And the other thing is don't sprint, don't do everything so fast. If you try to run at max intensity from Monday to Thursday, there'll be nothing left in the tank by Friday. You know, you gotta build some lighter blocks in the week, pace yourself, go for short walks, take micro breaks, right? Do um a little lighter lifting in the day. Don't um just grind, grind, grind, work hard, hard, hard. If you're an athlete, you know this. You've got to put the recovery in all week long. If you are grinding on work, you know you have to take breaks because Friday, this way, your battery will still have some juice. Your body is not your enemy, it's your teammate. Okay, so when you respect your battery, your body will show up for you when it matters. Think of your cell phone, it has a battery, just like you. So those are the things that you want to do. Now that was easy, right? That was the body thing, the body battery thing. So, what about the mind? I mean, the brain. Let's let's do the brain next. The tool for the brain. How do we reset the signal? That's the second layer is brain fatigue. Remember, the first layer was body fatigue. Now we're talking about brain fatigue, and that's your signal. This is when your brain has been pushing, focusing, grinding, and it starts dialing down the volume it sends to your body because things just begin to feel heavy and you begin to feel like you're moving through sand, and it's not who you are. You don't care. It's not that you don't you don't care. You you say that, but what it really is is that your signal is weak. Yeah, and you can't bully your brain into just feeling better, it doesn't work. You have to reset it, you have to reset your brain, especially when it feels fatigue. You have to reset so you can get a better signal. And here's a simple reset you can do before that last push of the day. You can sit tall or you can stand tall. Just practice it, just sort of sit tall. I'm doing it right now. I'm just gonna sit tall. Okay, I'm gonna stand. You can stand tall. Okay, that's one thing. Another thing is that you can inhale, oh, we do this all the time on the sweet spot, right? You can inhale slowly through your nose for a count of four. One, two, three, four as you inhale. Hold for a count of four, one, two, three, four, and exhale slowly for a count of eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Slow inhale. I mean, yeah, a slow inhale, but a slower exhale. That's the key that the exhale is longer than the inhale, and you repeat that for two to three minutes, you will be surprised how this will reset your brain and help you with brain fatigue. This is 444 breathing, but I just want you to concentrate on uh a slowish kind of an inhale, but a long exhale, and that's going to help you. This kind of breathing calms the stress response in the body. Remember the HPA axis and what we talked about last time? This breathing calms that response, it steadies your nervous system and it gives your brain a mini reboot, and you need that. That's why we focus on breathing here on the sweet spot. And after that, after you've given yourself a couple of minutes of deep breathing with slow exhales, you can just pick one task and commit to giving it 10 minutes, yeah, and see what happens. Just pick one thing, no multitasking, no multi-no-task switching, and that's how you respect your signal, that's how you reset your your focus for the brain. Yeah, and now we get to the third thing, right? Remember, we talked about the body and the battery and the brain and the signal, and then there's the mind. We can't leave the mind out. What's the tool for the mind, Dr. Sweet? Tell me. Well, the third layer of mental fatigue is this operating system. This is your whole operating system. Your mind is where the operating system exists. All week long, sweet spotter, you've been making decisions, you have been solving problems, and you've been absorbing stress every single day. That constant cognitive load drains your focus and it really takes like reserves out of your emotional bank. By Friday, even small things begin to feel like big things, everything begins to look at and feel like a bit of a hassle. Yeah. I speak to myself. Alright. So here's how you clear some of that mental fog for this third layer of fatigue called mental fatigue for the mind, right? You reduce decisions, you take a short mental walk and and you come back and you do one thing at a time. That's how you do it. You reduce your decisions. You see, before you start your final push, ask, what is one thing I need to finish today to call this week a win? Just one thing. What is the one thing that you gotta do? Write it down. I love writing things down because when you make that decision up front and you write it down, it becomes real. And your brain says, ah, this is what we have to do. So that's one tactic you can always do. Just narrow it down to one decision, reduce the decisions. Not everything has to be done today. Then another thing you can do is take a short mental walk. Just step away from your screen for three to five minutes. Look at something that's alive. Try to find something that's alive and look at. It could be the tree, it could be the sky. Okay, the sky is not technically alive, but it's alive with potentially clouds. Do some people watching, don't be weird about that, but do some people watching and let your eyes and your mind just wander onto something else. You know, when you're looking at your phone all day and you're looking at the computer screen all day, you can go a little nuts with that. That's not always good. And you need to take when I say a mental walk, I don't mean you have to physically get up and walk, I mean let your brain and your mind walk away from the thing that you've been looking at all day. Just that will let your eyes and mind rest. And then you can come back and refocus. Because when your mind is fried, your body cannot fire. The mind-body connection is real, and that's why I want you to clear the mental clutter and then move. So I just gave you three things: one for the body, one for the brain, and one for the mind. Those are the three levels of fatigue. Review them, think about them, think about where you might be experiencing fatigue, especially on a Friday, and you can address them. I also want to bring in some of the ancient wisdom because you know, here on the sweet spot, we talk about science, we talk about soul, and we talk about success. So it wouldn't be me if I didn't bring in some ancient wisdom. I don't really know if you remember, but maybe a month ago, we talked about the prophet Elijah. How he was like the badass of the uh of the Bible. Maybe not the best term, Dr. Sweet. Let's try that again. So we talked about the prophet Elijah, who was a wonderful prophet, he was extremely powerful, right? And that's if you don't see me anymore, I've been crucified by the classic Christians. Okay, come get me. Um, yeah, Elijah, he was very popular and he was very powerful, and he had a huge victory on Mount Caramel. Fire fell from heaven, the people of God saw how real it was, and he was the ultimate. He he really showed God's power. But when he was done with that demonstration, he was exhausted and discouraged. He, it says in the ancient wisdom, ran into the wilderness and sat under the tree and he said, Lord, I've had enough. This was in 1 Kings 19. That's fatigue. When somebody's like, Lord, I've had God, I'm done, I'm tired. That's that was that was Elijah. And he had that in in everywhere, like the muscles, the brain, right, and the mind. Not just in the muscles, but in the soul. That was the kind of tired Elijah was in the ancient wisdom. And here is the interesting thing what God does. God doesn't start with a lecture, he doesn't say, Hey man, you're a slacker. Get up, start moving. No, God starts with rest. The angel touches Elijah and tells him, Get up and eat. Elijah eats, he drinks, he lies down again, he rests, and only after that does he receive fresh direction and strength for the journey he has ahead. I thought that was powerful, that there wasn't all this biblical, religious stuff, it was just like self-care, restoration, recovery, and that's a principle for the mind, for the brain, and for the body. All of it is so powerful and already there, modeled for us in the ancient wisdom. And while we're on the subject, you know, as uh in Genesis, like or wherever, God rests on the seventh day, or the Sabbath is a day of rest. It's not that God needed rest, He was modeling that for us, right? So think about how rest is built into the ancient wisdom. You know, there's a line, those who wait on God shall renew their strength and they'll mount upon wings like eagles, and they'll run and not be wary, they shall walk and not faint. Like one of one of my favorite verses got me through medical school. Because Lord knows my strength was low, and I needed wings like eagles, and I had to run and not be wary, right? And walk and not faint. These words they they're beautiful because they they galvanize you. You know what you're doing there when you say those things? If this is what you believe and you go by, it touches your prefrontal cortex. You have a way of letting your brain see you, tell you don't let the race throw you to the side. Don't let the obstacle get in your way. Don't let it. Yeah, there's such a thing as renewed strength, beloved. The weariness is real, but it's not the final word. I get to say what the final word is. Resting in God, in the most high, in the divine, in your higher purpose, if that's better for you. Resting in that, waiting, trusting, pausing becomes a spiritual reset for your entire system. The body, the mind, the spirit, the soul, the brain. So if you're listening to this and you're beyond physically tired, you're exhausted right now, you're emotionally and spiritually spent. There's no shame in that game of resting, getting nourished, taking care of yourself. You are needed, you're important. We need you. So you gotta take care of you, and that's why I did this today. Breaking through the barrier of fatigue. Yeah. So that's what it's about. So, yeah, you gotta name your win. You gotta ask yourself what's one thing I can finish today on Finish Strong Friday that'll make this week a win for me. Write it down. That's the first thing. Reset your body and your brain, drink that glass of water, do the two to three minutes of slow structured breathing, long exhale after the inhale, set aside the time to do it. You won't regret it. And then, you know, set that little timer where you take a break from the cell phone, you do the little mental walk away, and then work only on one task at a time. Don't have four things going. Give your brain a chance to rest. Absolutely, absolutely. So if you're a person of faith, you might end with a simple prayer. God, thank you for bringing me this far. Help me to finish. But if that's not what if that's not your thing, do your breathing. If that's not your thing, just practice letting go. That's what this is about. I don't want you to feel like you must be spiritual. You don't have to be spiritual. You you just have to remember that there are barriers, and that this barrier can be visible and sometimes invisible. And regions like in your brain, if you want to go uh scientific with me, I can flow that because you know, sweet spots is science, is soul, and it's success. So, your door for my scientists out there, regions in your brain, like your dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex track, that's important because it tells you how hard you've been working and thinking, and as the mental load builds, the activity in this dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex can go up, and your sense of effort can rise, and then other parts of your brain, like we talked about here on the sweet spot, the anterior insula and parts of the anterior cinglicortex. You remember these, remember the ACC and the insula? They can make you feel fatigue at a higher level, and they could really weigh out whether you've you're feeling rewarded or not, and when you are worn down, these protective areas in your brain will help you choose easier options and conserve energy, and sometimes they're not the best decisions. So, by Friday, when you're tired and when you're feeling fatigued, it's not just that, it's your brain having these safety officers, right? The ACC, the uh insula, the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex, the PFC, they're all trying to help. You do they're trying to help you real talk, so your brain is not being negative, it's acting out of safety when it's trying to when you can't focus anymore, when you you don't care anymore, it's it's shutting down because it's asking to be reset. So you've been pushing hard, let's slow it down. All right, let's reset with the things I told you today. I hope it matters for you. Alright, so your body is the battery, right? The body, the battery. Muscles getting low on fuel, waste products building up, they can't produce the same power, so you've got to reset the body. Brain is the signal, nervous system dialing down, the intensity of your drive to your muscles. Everything's gonna feel heavier. You're not gonna perform well if you're on the court or on the field or on the ice or on the pitch or wherever it is in the kitchen. Okay. Um, and then the mind, right? We did the body, the brain, the mind, the operating system. That's where your decision making, your focus, and the emotional load pile up. So you're gonna feel mentally trained. You want to finish strong, you hit this body, brain, mind continuum that I talked about, and you make a difference for you. This is the sweet spot. You are listening to Dr. Derek Sweet. This is the sweet spot, and you are listening to Dr. Derek Sweet. I said it twice because I want you to know how much you matter. I want to be sure you're paying attention because this fatigue thing is not something to take lightly, beloved, it is serious. Take care of you, and fatigue is the sneaky thing that builds into other things that become physiological and much harder to deal with. Amen and amen. So join me tomorrow. Join me tomorrow because I set you up. This is a setup, actually. This is a setup for self-care Saturday. Oh man, I shouldn't have done it, but I had to. I wanted that, I want you to come back to self-care Saturday so you can really take care of you, so you can take care of this battery, your body, and you could take care of the signal in your brain, and you could take care of the operating system. I'm gonna show you how tomorrow. All right, sweet spotters, sweet builders, sweet dreamers. I will see you tomorrow. Please share this if it made sense. Oh, uh, for you. Uh, share it with somebody else and subscribe. Subscribing is easy, it is an easy thing to do, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. For science, for soul, and for success. This is the sweet spot.