If you find it hard to get up to go to work or you feel totally worn out, you may be affected by this ailment “Burnout”.
The symptoms of burnout are deep burnout, lack of enthusiasm in what is being done and the feeling of being overwhelmed by responsibilities.
Do you find it hard to get up for work, even if you’ve had enough sleep? Do you feel deeply worn out with what you do? If the answer is yes, you may be burned out from your job. The sensations can be punctual. They occur when we face a situation that is out of the ordinary; when vacations are approaching; when we are involved in a very demanding project or when we have a complicated boss. In these cases there is no reason to worry. However, when the symptoms are intense and constant over time and there are no external factors to explain our feelings, we run the risk of falling into chronic stress or burnout syndrome.
The main trap for recognizing that we are burned out is that we really like our work or consider it our vocation. If we have dreamed all our lives of being a teacher, a consultant or a doctor, how is it possible that going to work feels like climbing Everest? It is believed that most people who suffer from burnout have a profession that helps others. If this is your case, pay attention to how you feel and accept that it can happen to you.
One of the ways to prevent burnout is to take time for yourself. Excessive working hours, even if it is a passion, and not having space to take care of oneself, is a major risk. The consequences are not immediate. They appear after five to eight years, according to experts. It can be avoided with a rigorous agenda, even if it implies a pause in what we like to do so much.
Second, being too demanding on yourself can lead to problems. Self-demand implies more and more hours of effort. This attitude in itself is not harmful, the problem arises when it is excessive, when the need for self-affirmation through successes does not allow us a truce or when our own demands push us to seek the constant approval of others. These situations generate added stress that can cause the syndrome to appear. The antidote is to train the trainee’s mind. Turn challenges into learning opportunities and do not act as judges of ourselves.. To achieve this, Professor Carol Dweck proposes developing a growth mindset. That is, to strive for deep acceptance of who we are without the need for the rest of the world to approve of what we do.
The third drawback appears when you reach middle age and have been working at an intense pace for several years. Burned-out worker syndrome takes years. The problem is the difficulty of detecting it in advance. First, as we have seen, because we like what we do. Secondly, because it is a stealthy and constant type of stress. When we enter this rhythm, the so-called boiled frog syndrome appears. That is: if a frog is in a pot of cold water that is slowly heating up, the frog will eventually scorch to death. He is not conscious of jumping, even if he could. This is how silent stress acts in our lives.
The antidote means learning to say no, working on spaces for relaxation and disconnection such as mindfulness or sports, and rethinking why we do what we do. If we work our asses off for others, no matter how much sense it makes, but do not take care of ourselves, we will live in a prison that will erode us. We all run the risk of burning out at work, either because we love what we do, or because we dedicate body and soul to what we do, losing the notion of taking care of ourselves and dedicating time to ourselves. If this happens, we may eventually develop burnout syndrome. Its symptoms are particularly detrimental to our health. It is in our hands to prevent it.
