
As an individual and couples therapist, I hear the word burnout on a weekly basis. This makes sense given the increasing rates of burnout, particularly in our busy western societies.
Burnout can be the impact of prolonged and excessive stress… sound familiar?
So, what is burnout?
According to Herbert Freudemberger, burnout has 3 main components:
Emotional exhaustion - feeling drained or depleted, as though you have nothing left to give.
Depersonalization - feeling disconnected from others, feeling unable to feel or show care or compassion towards others. Sometimes this can present as feeling irritable and/or having difficulty managing your emotions and experiencing stress and strain in your relationship(s).
Reduced sense of accomplishment - the sense of no matter how much time or energy you put towards something, you feel unable to accomplish what you want to.
Do any of the above components resonate with you?
If you want to read more about the “tell-tale signs of burnout”, click here:
The truth is, for many people, it isn’t until we are deep in burnout and have been feeling it for quite some time that we are really forced to pay attention.
What can I do about burnout?
The good news is there are some initial questions that you can use to reflect on your experience with burnout. This can help you learn about your personal battle with burnout and generate some initial ideas to start to help yourself.
1. What are the factors that might be contributing to YOUR sense of burnout? This is going to be unique to each person, but some common things that contribute to burnout include:
conflict between our values and our work
lack of reward (e.g., not feeling like we are compensated fairly, not being given acknowledgement, etc.)
having a extremely high workload
having unrealistic expectations of ourselves (e.g., perfectionism)
lack of down time (on a daily or weekly basis) to help take care of yourself
lack of influence felt in our work, personal lives, etc.
Idea: Something I like to do is create a real or imagined pie chart and consider how much space “each” of my factors or activities is taking up |
2. Consider how long have you been feeling this way and see if this gives you any insight into the factors that may have contributed to your burnout.
3. Consider what have you tried so far to manage your sense of burnout.
Now, consider how successful has your strategy been? This is important to evaluate!
For some people, the things they have tried to cope with burnout often leads to relief in the short term but unfortunately, it’s not long before they are facing signs of burnout again.
4. Consider what is one thing you can do to take care of yourself today. It does not have to be big; it can be something that takes 5 or less minutes. Pay attention to your body and mind - what is that voice inside of you saying you should try to do? Often times we have the intuition to know what we really need but something gets in the way. Here are some ideas:
5-minute breathing meditation (for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8emmFOuhxE)
Doing a quick stretch/workout
Put your phone away for a few minutes
Go for a mindful walk (put any distractions aside and try to use your 5 senses to really take in the environment around you - (e.g., notice how your feet feel on the ground, notice the smells and sounds around you)
Find a way to spend time in nature
The truth is that recovery from burnout can take more time than people expect because of the long-term effects burnout can have on our body.
Although our body is designed to cope with stress, when this is on repeat, our stress response goes on overdrive.
During this, stress hormones including adrenaline and cortisol continue to be released and our body stays in persistent fight/fight/freeze mode.
Having our stress response stay “on” for prolonged periods of time is linked to various physical and mental health issues including anxiety, depression, tensional headache, heart disease, weight gain, difficulties with sleep, issues with concentration and/or memory, etc.
If you are finding yourself experiencing burnout and think you might benefit from support, reach out today to learn more about how working with a therapist may help you with recovery from burnout.
Credits:
Picture source: Freepik
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