ARE YOU BURNED OUT AT WORK?: How to Recognize and Recover from Burnout
Do you hate your job? Or, at worst, just thinking about going into the office fills you with angst. Or worse still, you couldn’t care less about your job anymore. If any of this sounds familiar, then you might be burned out—a type of fatigue, both physical and mental, related to work that can spill into other areas of life.
Burnout is a critical state of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion stemming from continual stress. Common sense—and actually, the literature—would put it that there is indeed some relationship between burnout and work. Technically speaking, though, burnout has the ability to appear in any circumstances with the existence of stress caused by caregiving or relationships, parenting, or financial problems.
What Does Burnout Look Like?
Burnout is a condition of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion whereby a person feels empty and is unable to cope with the demands or stressors in life. It leads to severe impairment of functioning if unrecognized. In this chapter, we will consider the physical and psychological signs and symptoms of the syndrome, factors which may put you at risk, and how to recover.
Signs and Symptoms of Burnout
Recognizing burnout signs lets one know if the stress being experienced negatively affects health. Common signs include:
- Digestive problems
- Blood pressure
- Lowered immune system; illnesses are very frequent
- Chronic headache
- Difficulty sleeping and sleep problems
- Difficulty concentrating
- Depressive mood
- Feelings of worthlessness
- Loss of interest or pleasure in activities
- Thoughts of suicide
- Persistent fatigue
Definition of Burnout
Burnout is a reaction to long‐term work‐related stress and was characterized by three key dimensions: emotional exhaustion, cynicism or reduced identification with one’s work, and reduced professional efficiency. You always feel tired, resentful from the beginning of your work, or feel less efficient at work; obvious symptoms that you are suffering from burnout.
Etymology
The term “burnout” was first coined by Herbert Freudenberger in his 1974 book “Burnout: The High Cost of High Achievement.” According to Freudenberger, burnout refers to the “extinction of motivation or incentive, especially where one’s devotion to a cause or relationship fails to produce the expected results.”
Physical Burn-Out Symptoms
Physical forms of burnout range from digestive disorders to hypertension.
Lowered immunological resistance
Constant headaches
- Sleep disturbances
Chronic stress leads to burnout, which is defined by the increased frequency of aches and pains, emotional exhaustion or low energy, and change in appetite. When the stress ignored is persistent, complete states of burn out will be reached.
Burnout on Health Risks
Elements of health connected or caused by continuous stress include heart diseases and changes in weight, depression, blood pressure, irritable bowl syndrome, and the list goes on and on. Other research even points out that the risk of mortality as a result of disorders associated with stress more than doubles.
Mental Symptoms of Burnout
Burnout can have huge mental and emotional ramifications. It can, therefore, manifest itself in such common mental symptoms as:
- Concentration problems
- Depressed mood
- Worthlessness sentiment
- Anhedonia
- Suicidal thoughts
If you have suicidal thoughts, please go now to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 988 so that you may be facilitated with a trained counselor for intervention. Or you can call 911 or your local emergency number if you’re in immediate danger.
Burnout vs. Depression
In making a distinction, though, it is important to mention that the process of burnout does manifest with some overlapping symptoms of depression, mainly those relating to loss of interest in activities, hopelessness, and death or suicide. The key aspects that usually set the two apart are in the overall symptomatology. As a rule, the major difference can further establish itself on the very premise that while burnout is related to work, depression is related to life in its totality. If, then, you have negative thoughts and feelings pervading your entire life, that could be one of the signals of depression: one indicating that professional help should be looked for.
Factors that Increase the Likelihood of Burnout
There are some professions that add an additional risk to developing burnout, especially the highly stressful ones. On the other hand, having a highly stressful job doesn’t mean that a person will automatically develop burnout, especially if they cope with job-related stress effectively and have appropriate support.
A 2019 report on physicians said 44 percent suffer from burnout. It is, however, not solely factors of any one profession—on the contrary, it may come to workers in all levels and in every industry. A quite interesting report by Gallup in 2018 on this very respect underlined five job factors that cause people to burn out:
- Unrealistic time pressure: If workers feel that there is too much to do within available time, they are much more likely to burn out. For example, workers having enough time to do their work are 70% less likely to burn out.
- Lack of management communication and support: Managerial support can be a psychological buffer against stress.
- Role clarity: Only 60 per cent of workers understand what is expected of them; ongoing efforts to work out roles increase exhaustion.
- Unmanageable workload: Feeling overwhelmed by tasks can rapidly make a person suffer from burnout.
- Unfair treatment: Employees who felt they were treated fairly were 2.3 times more likely to experience burnout.
Other areas of life are also a potential source of stress, which builds up to create burnout. Other personality characteristics and ways of thinking also have the ability to raise the level of stress that one goes through. Examples include perfectionism, neuroticism, and pessimism.
Other Possible Inducers of Burnout
Other possible inducers of burnout may be the following:
- Bad communication on the employer’s side
- Tasks/roles not well defined
- Time pressure, deadlines
•Job or life control poor
•Treatment by bosses or co-workers abysmal
•Workload too heavy
•Working hours very long without allowing time and space to recover
-Monotonous or highly pressurizing
-Little sleep
-Lack of social support
-Little appreciation for efforts
-Poor work-life balance
Consequences in Case Burnout Remains Unaddressed
In the case of non-addressed burnout, it gets critical and results in serious outcomes.
- Alienation from work: The counts of burnout factors are endless and create excessive stress and frustration with the job for an individual. Cynicism evolves about the work atmosphere and the people working within that. Emotionally, you may start to distance yourself and feel numb about the job.
- Emotional exhaustion: If not treated properly, it can drain a person of his emotional energies for a prolonged period of time so that he would not be able to cope with the common problems of life. allergies this can extend to the home environment too, when a person would be too exhausted to do anything outside work.
- Low performance: The burnout lowers one’s performance both at work and home in daily duties. It is highly associated with the development of pessimistic attitude towards responsibilities, poor concentration, and lack of creativeness. This may sabotage general performance.
Burnout: Development and Strategies for Coping
Contrary to its denomination, the burnout does not correspond to a permanent state, and it can be reversed. Here are techniques that help in the management and recovery from the burnout:
Address Work Problems
If your company is serious about helping you have a healthier work environment, you can discuss your problems with the HR department or immediate supervisor, and help really does come your way. You can also search for less stressful positions or tasks for which you are better suited within this company.
Take Regular Breaks
Get some rest. Take regular breaks during the day that will help you refocus and become more able to produce good work.
Practice Self-Care
The techniques of self-care form an integral element in this tip. They might be named as:
- Whitely balanced diet
- Regular exercise
- Balanced sleep schedule
- Mindfulness or meditation
- Taking vacations shall ease the situation for a while temporarily.
#### Get Support
This can be such a valuable thing. Support from coworkers, friends, family, or mental health professionals; if getting the support is tough, you need to seek a support group wherein the talking of sharing your experiences and getting motivated by others who understand what you are going through aids you.
Professional Help
It is important to seek professional help if one feels he cannot cope at the level by which he is stressed or continues becoming burnt out, or even that he might have depression. A professional working within mental health is best placed to offer a person tools for understanding and knowing how best to handle such factors as stressors affecting well-being.
Conclusion”
The challenge of burnout to welfare, both physical and mental, may be huge but not invincible. Watching out for the first signs, making suitable changes, and reaching out for support are the keys to dealing with burnout. In that sense, you will have balance again and satisfy life. Be reminded that this is not only a question of health but also a way to follow up on your productivity and further enjoy private and professional life.