What is burnout? It’s thrown around a lot in the working world, but it is often misunderstood. (Or at least it was for me!) helpguide.org defines it as:
“a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands.”
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/burnout-prevention-and-recovery.htm#:~:text=Burnout%20is%20a%20state%20of,unable%20to%20meet%20constant%20demands.
And I don’t know about you, reader, but I found that definition, while accurate, to be not super helpful. We all deal with stress in our lives, and sometimes prolonged stress. Sometimes it is enough to cause burnout, and sometimes it is not. So how do you know when you’re starting to feel burnout? Especially if you struggle with other mental health issues?
For me, I only really understood burnout when I went through it myself. I’ve seen the effects on loved ones, and they seemed…exhausted. Like they were emotionally drained, and sometimes on a shorter fuse. They often didn’t have the energy to do simple tasks. But when I experienced it myself, I realized it is more pervasive and deep. It’s a feeling of tiredness that you feel in your bones. And really the most significant difference between this and just normal tiredness is the recovery time. It can take months to recover from burnout. I won’t try and post statistics here because search results differ greatly. But what surprised me is that some people estimate that it can take as long as years to recover from burnout. Luckily, it didn’t take me as along to recover from burnout, but it still took a few months. So how can you avoid this?
This article by the Mayo Clinic lays out some really helpful advice for dealing with burnout before it becomes a problem.
- Evaluate your options. If you’re having issues at work, talk to your supervisor about specific concerns, and actions you can take to balance your work load better. For school, trying to optimize your schedule can help. What things do you need to spend more time on? What things can you spend less time on, or do more efficiently?
- Seek support. This one is quite important, and something I am the most guilty of not doing. Whether it is talking to someone who can actually help with your specific issues, or just someone who can provide a sympathetic ear, is is very important to seek support. I’ve found that friends often break you out of thought loops that prevent you from finding solutions.
- Try a relaxing activity. This one is a bit cliche, but really this one is very important in the respect that it causes you to set aside time that is specifically not work time. Having time where you absolutely can not think about work is surprisingly helpful and refreshing. It can be hard to justify setting time aside when you’re so busy, but it becomes increasingly important the more busy you are.
- Get some sleep. You know how you feel like garbage if you don’t get enough sleep? This one doesn’t need much explanation.
- Exercise. Exercise is always good. If you haven’t exercised in awhile, give it a shot for a week. You’ll be surprised at how much better you feel, physically and mentally. I often find myself in a much more positive mood with loads more energy when I exercise regularly. By investing some time of your busy schedule into exercise, you’ll often get a return on your investment in terms of how much you get done with that increased energy.
If you’re worried that you’re starting to become burnt out, please don’t wait. Take a few simple steps to make yourself feel better. Because it’s worth it, and you’re worth it.
