March Madness Sportsball: For When The Murder Shows Stop Working

March Madness Sportsball: For When The Murder Shows Stop Working

From Different, Not Broken by Lauren "L2" Howard

April 22, 2026 · 23 min · Episode 52

About this episode

In this episode, L2 discusses the mental health benefits of distraction through sports during tough times and addresses workplace burnout.

The news broke me. The murder shows stopped working. So I watched a month of college basketball I do not care about, and it was the only thing keeping my nervous system upright. In this episode I'm unpacking three things: → Why "distraction" is an actual mental health strategy, and why sportsball was the weirdly perfect antidote to doomscrolling. → A very clear message for anyone whose job is chewing them up: You are an asset, not a liability. Burnout culture is not only cruel, it's bad business. The math on replacing good employees is brutal, and your workplace being too short-sighted to see that has nothing to do with your value. → Small Talk Frank from Scranton wants to know why he can't relax into stability. If you needed to hear "this isn't you, it's them" today — hi, it's them. Chapters 00:00 Cold open: You are an asset, not a liability 00:38 Hi, I'm L2 — welcome back to Different, Not Broken 01:05 Why I always have something on in the background (blame childhood chaos) 02:04 When the murder shows stopped working 03:00 The news broke me 03:43 Basketball as my zero-stakes sanity reset 04:48 Accidentally Pavlov'd by March Madness 05:54 The women's games are better, argue with…

Topics covered

  • mental health
  • distraction
  • burnout culture
  • sports
  • March Madness

Keywords

  • college basketball
  • doomscrolling
  • asset not a liability
  • stability

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Different, Not Broken

Places: Scranton

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