How to Deal with Burnout

What is Burnout?

I have experienced many burnouts throughout my younger years. Burnout from school, burnout from both school and working at the same time, and just from the demands from everyday life.

And when I experienced burnouts, I didn't even recognized until it was too late and couldn't find any resources/help to guide me through it.

So I've done some research and hopefully it will help the ones who is already experiencing burnout and even offer my coaching services to help you navigate through moving forward.

Burnout can be described as "physical, emotional, or mental exhaustion that comes with decreased motivation, lowered performance and negative attitudes toward oneself and others. This happens when you perform under high stress and tension levels from long periods of mental exertion or overburdening workload.

Symptoms

Burnout are common in high stress jobs, or individuals that make it harder to balance work and life in a healthy way. Jobs can include nurses, emergency responders, social workers, teachers, lawyers and so on.

Burnouts comes with multiple levels of exhaustion: physical exhaustion, mental exhaustion and creative exhaustion.

• Physical exhaustion: this pertains to a individual with a job or a role that demands constant physical activity.

• Mental Exhaustion: this can involve working where it is high volume of detailed or complex conditions for long periods of time.

• Emotional Exhaustion: happens when people have to consistently give of themselves and consists of providing high amounts of compassion or empathy. exhaustion can increase into a more serious condition of compassion fatigue. You must monitor this once you experience compassion fatigue.

• Creative exhaustion: this can happen to someone who has to complete too many projects or too much creative energy demanded of them within a time frame.

There are four different stages of burnout, below as described:

1) High workload, high level of job stress, high job expectations

• Job demands exceed job resources

• The job does not fulfill one's expectations

2) Physical/Emotional Exhaustion

• Chronic exhaustion, even higher energy investment in order to execute all job tasks, sleep disturbances, susceptibility to headaches and other physical pain.

3) Depersonalization/Cynicism/Indifference

• Apathy, depression, boredom

• Negative attitude toward the job, the colleagues and clients/service recipients/patients

• withdrawal from the job, the problems, reduced work effect

Stage 4: Despair/Helplessness/Aversion

• Aversion to oneself, to other people, to everything

• Feelings of guilt and insufficiency

As you can probably can already see, burnout is the result of a heavy workload or high stress taking its toll on the body. Even though burnout can be experienced mentally, it can also affect us physically. These can result in insomnia, fatigue, changes in eating habits, headache, and stomachaches.

Burnout is draining for all of us. We can often find we are cynical or hopeless, which can lead to their unhealthy coping mechanisms. May also withdraw socially due to a lack of energy to engage with friends, family and hobbies and activities they used to enjoy. May turn to using alcohol, substances, or food in an effort to try and relax or attempt to numb themselves.

Burnout can be crushing. People experiencing burnout may get overwhelmed when they face a new day or a new week at work. So they might lose motivation to do their job and even have a temptation to avoid responsibilities. In addition, people can lose confidence in their skills or abilities in the workplace and may feel like a failure or not good enough.

How to Cope with Burnout

So we talked about what is burnout and the causes, so let's look at how to cope with a Burnout.

First, we must evaluate your options. The causes are often situational so if your job is constantly overwhelming and causes distress, you may want to consider other options. Are you able to speak to your manager or supervisor about adjusting your workload? Are there tools/strategies you could use to make your work more manageable? Is there another job function, or position, into which you could move that would decrease the pressure you feel? If your job is making you miserable you'll likely need to make some adjustments to get relief.

Secondly, you can work on prioritizing activities you enjoy. It can be helpful to fill your life with activities that are relaxing or bring you joy in some way. This can help remind you that there's life outside of work. Depending on the activity, may help you relieve stress, improve physical health, help you form new social connections, or offer other benefits.

While you are experiencing burnout, consider seeking support. Burnout causes mental and physical tension as well as difficult feelings like frustration, being overwhelmed, or fear. To help you recover, it can be helpful to find someone with whom you can express and work through, these emotions. Trusted family and friends may provide a listening ear and compassionate advice, or perhaps a life coach.

Pay attention to your needs. Making a change to your physical and mental health is key to burnout recovery. Practice good self-care can make recharging easier while you try to other strategies to rest.

• make enough time for restful sleep

• spend time with loved ones, but don't overdo it-alone time is important, too

• try to get some physical activity in each day.

• eat nutritious meals and stay hydrated

Remember what makes you happy. Burnouts can drain you and make it difficult to remember what you used to enjoy. You may have lost your passion for a career you once loved and feel angry/resentful when you get to work each day. You might feel irritated and snap at your partner or family without meaning to. To address these feelings, create a list of the things that bring you joy. It might include things like:

• long walks with your best friend

• taking your child to the park

• reading a book in the bathtub

To help defeat burnout, the first step is to recognize the signs. Signs include:

• forgetfulness and difficulty concentrating

• diminished pride in your work

• Losing sight of yourself and your goals

• difficulty maintaining relationships and being present with loved ones

• Frustration and irritability with co-workers

• Unexplained muscle tension, pain, fatigue, and insomnia

The second step is to find the source.

• Having a rigorous academic schedule

• Dealing with relationship problems, especially ones that seem to circle with no resolution.

• Caring for a loved one with a serious or chronic health condition.

Resetting yourself after burnout can be a time consuming process-but when you decide too address it, you already taken the hardest step.

If you are struggling with burnout and want to learn ways to work through it, book a coaching session with me!