“I’m just a little tired…” - Deadlines, working late, and balancing family life can be exhausting. Sometimes, taking a break to relax and recharge feels like luxury.
How do you know when it’s more than just tiredness? When do you need more than a few good nights of sleep? How can you tell if someone else is experiencing burnout around you?
Burnout is a state of chronic physical and emotional exhaustion, often resulting from chronic stress and pressure that accumulate over time. Burnout affects mental and physical health, often leading to serious physical and emotional exhaustion, and diminishing one’s ability to function effectively in work and/or daily life. It can also strain relationships with family, friends and colleagues. People experiencing burnout can feel a sense of general dissatisfaction and hopelessness, or a sense of not being enough.
The Warning Signs
Burnout is always a unique journey with a combination of signs that can and should concern us. Sometimes we detect these on ourselves, sometimes on colleagues, friends or family members. The signs might vary, but here are the most common ones:
Always feeling exhausted.
Sleeping much longer than before, or the opposite, having issues with falling asleep or waking up during the night too much and/or too long.
Feeling tired physically and/or mentally and/or emotionally.
Feeling low energy.
Losing interest over people or activities you would otherwise love.
Sitting at a desk, feeling paralyzed, not making progress with work or other things on our to-do list.
Chronic procrastinating.
Loss of appetite and/or eating disorders.
Continuously craving food or drink.
Developing new addictions.
Drifting into deeper and deeper depression.
Some people can still function to some extent while dealing with serious burnout: they get work done while feeling extremely exhausted and unmotivated to wake up in the morning, or they keep the family running while losing connection with themselves. They still find a way to getting things done, but they do this mostly on autopilot, feeling tired and exhausted, and being disconnected from life in general.
Preventing Burnout
The first step is awareness: knowing that our environment is high-pressure, and even if we enjoy it (many of us thrive under high pressure!), this might also have risks. We all know friends or colleagues (or ourselves!) who fell asleep at their desks or in the middle of a meeting, or maybe worse, passed out due to extreme exhaustion. We all think "yes but..." - and then validate why this could not happen to us. The bad news is that it can happen to me, to you, or to any of us. When we stop and realize this, we're already a step closer to prevention.
Following awareness, we need to understand how to break out of the burnout cycle. The key is not only working less; there are people who work a lot and never burn out. Others work comparatively few hours and yet still suffer burnout. Stay-at-home parents can burn out easily, due to family demands.
The key is to know how to recharge your batteries.
Saundra Dalton-Smith, the author of Sacred Rest, has developed the concept of the seven rests our body and mind need to combat chronic rest deficits: physical, mental, sensory, emotional, social, creative, spiritual, and also cellular/systemic. If we can keep a good balance there, if we prioritize rest and wellbeing in our lives, then we are mostly safe.
It's important to make it part of our daily routine: a one-time retreat or temporary rest period is likely to give temporary relief but is not enough. We need to seriously prioritize rest and relaxation every day. Once we do that, we not only experience long-time benefits, but we feel more productive and energized in the present, which is an immediate relief.
From my own personal experience, one of the biggest "problems" I see in the tech industry is that we tend to like our jobs too much. Being passionate is great, waking up excited about what the day might bring is awesome. However, too often we let other parts of our lives slip as we get absorbed in work. We don't spend enough time with family or friends, we don't exercise, we eat unhealthy food, we drink too much coffee and not enough water.
Maintaining a Healthy Work/Life Balance
Achieving a healthy work-life balance means balancing all of the above. Liking what we do, doing what we like, spending time with friends and family, and also spending time with ourselves. Long work hours might be needed, especially if you have a job spanning time zones, but this can be somewhat compensated for with a break during the day and at the end of the day as well.
The three R's say it all -- Rest, Relax, Recharge. Think about whether constant connectivity is really needed or whether you can "unplug" for a while. What would happen if you switched to airplane mode for a few hours? What would happen if you left your phone on your desk, or in your bag? What if you had regular no-meeting days?
Yes, we have a lot to do, we want to do a lot, and others expect us to do a lot. We feel we "should" do a lot. - And we hear and use the word "should" so often. Can you be mindful and self-aware enough and count how many times you hear or tell yourself this word every day? You'll be surprised.
I always recommend to be mindful. Stop every time you hear or tell yourself you "should" do something, and ask the question: How do I know I should? Who says that I should? Why should I? Take a few deep breaths.
"Should" always means an expectation: from others or from yourself. But do you really have to? Do you want to? What if you acknowledge the "should" but decide otherwise? Is this important? Can you delegate? What if you just drop this, because this "should" does not mean you want to, or have to.
Managing our time is something we hear a lot about. But managing our energy is at least as important: how energized throughout the day, during work, meetings, with your family, with friends, etc. Doing only energy-negative things cannot be sustainable. Rest, relax, recharge. And also, manage the expectations in your life to maintain balance. You don't have to do everything that someone says you "should".
Setting Boundaries and Saying No
Learning how to set boundaries and how to say "No" are crucial in preventing burnout, especially in today's fast-paced and demanding work environment. Boundaries help us manage workload and personal responsibilities, ensuring that we do not take on more than we can handle in a healthy and balanced way. By clearly defining what tasks and commitments are manageable, we can protect our time and energy, reducing the risk of becoming overwhelmed and eventually, burned out.
Often, we feel compelled to say "Yes" to every request, fearing that we might disappoint others, miss out on opportunities, or simply that we would disappoint ourselves later. However, this can lead to an unsustainable load and increased stress. By confidently saying "No" when necessary, we can focus on the most important tasks and responsibilities, avoiding the accumulation of excessive demands.
Just imagine you are a parent, and their school is asking for volunteers who can bake cookies for the Christmas party. You immediately raise your hand, feeling you should(!), and this makes you feel being a responsible parent. Then the evening before the party arrives, and you find yourself being committed to bake three different kinds of cookies - and realizing you haven’t even done the shopping yet. You run to the grocery store, rush home, make dough, bake cookies, and you’re still in the kitchen at 2am, feeling exhausted, question not only your decision, but maybe also hating the whole world at that time.
But what if this story could end differently? Imagine that before you raise your hand to volunteer to bake three different cookies, you take a deep breath and count to three first. Is it really a good idea? Can you really do that? How would you feel the evening and night before the party? Can you be confident and feeling good about this commitment? Maybe just one type of cookie would be enough? Or maybe, instead of baking, you can offer to buy a box of good quality cookies?
There are so many options, and it’s always you who is responsible to keep your own boundaries. If you learn to say “No”, that will let you focus more on the really important “Yes” things in your life, be it work, family, friends, or self-care.
If You Feel You Need Help
Burnout often comes with the feeling of being alone, disconnected, or left without any help or support. Often this is just a perception, and in reality, you have more people to support you than you would think. Being vulnerable might sound frightening, but once you open up, the benefits pour in.
I have a webinar dedicated to the topic of burnout. Click HERE if you want to register.
Or, if you need someone who listens and can help one-on-one, I am always here. Feel free to schedule a virtual coffee below, I would like to hear about you.
תגובות