How to prevent emotional burnout. How to prevent professional burnout
Under professional burnout refers to the state of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion, manifested in the professions of the social sphere.
Emotional burnout- the process is quite insidious, since a person prone to this syndrome is often poorly aware of its symptoms. He cannot see himself from the outside and understand what is happening. However, burnout syndrome can be prevented in a timely manner and treated very effectively.
Managers and HR managers should listen to employees' complaints about the deterioration of well-being and the state of physical or emotional health.
It is in this sequence, as a rule, that the symptoms of emotional burnout occur, which are divided into three groups:
First emotions are muffled, the sharpness of feelings disappears. Everything seems to be fine on the outside, but inside it feels empty and bored.
Then the people with whom you have to work begin to annoy, in the circle of his colleagues, a professional who has begun to burn out with disdain, or even with a mockery, talks about some of his clients or subordinates.
Further during communication, he begins to feel hostility towards them. At first, it is easy to contain it, but gradually it becomes more and more difficult to hide the irritation, and finally the anger just spills out. Its victim is an innocent person who is nearby - a client, colleague, relative.
At the last stage there is a sharp drop in self-esteem and professional motivation. A person out of habit can maintain respectability, but everything and everyone around him becomes indifferent to him. Communication with people causes discomfort.
At this severe stage, health problems, insomnia, alcohol abuse, smoking, drugs, psychotropic substances are possible.
It has been noticed that the symptoms of professional burnout can be “infectious” and manifest themselves not only for individual workers. Such a fate can befall not only one person, but the whole team. Often there is professional burnout of organizations, when the vast majority of employees have an internal physical or emotional state with the same symptoms, as well as the same forms of behavior.
In such cases, individual differences between workers are noticeably erased, they become unnaturally similar and identical, as if they look like one person. People become pessimists, they do not have faith in positive changes at work and the ability to change something by their own efforts. The quality of work is declining, there are employee dismissals unmotivated by rational reasons (high staff turnover), a decrease in loyalty, low performance, and a negative atmosphere in the team.
Stages of professional burnout
First stage- at the level of performance of functions, arbitrary behavior: forgetting some moments (for example, whether the necessary entry was made in the documentation, whether the planned question was asked, what answer was received), failures in the performance of any motor actions, etc. Usually these few people pay attention to the initial symptoms, jokingly calling it "girl's memory" or "sclerosis". Depending on the nature of the activity, the magnitude of the loads and the personal characteristics of the specialist, the first stage can take place within three to five years.
At the second stage there is a decrease in interest in work, the need for communication (including at home, with friends): “I don’t want to see” those with whom the specialist communicates by occupation (colleagues, clients, bosses), “on Thursday, it feels like it’s already Friday ”,“ the week lasts endlessly ”, an increase in apathy by the end of the week, the appearance of persistent somatic symptoms (no strength, energy, especially towards the end of the week, headaches in the evenings;“ dead sleep, no dreams ”, an increase in the number of colds); increased irritability. The duration of this stage is on average from five to fifteen years.
Third stage- personal burnout. Characterized by a complete loss of interest in work and life in general, emotional indifference, dullness, a feeling of constant lack of strength. Man seeks solitude. At this stage, it is much more pleasant for him to communicate with animals and nature than with people. The stage can last from ten to twenty years.
Phases of burnout syndrome
1. Phase "voltage". Nervous tension (anxiety) serves as a harbinger and a triggering mechanism in the formation of emotional burnout.
Symptom of "experiencing psychotraumatic circumstances". It is manifested by an increasing awareness of the psycho-traumatic factors of professional activity, which are difficult or completely unremovable. Their irritation gradually grows. The unsolvability of the situation leads to the development of other burnout phenomena.
Symptom of "dissatisfaction with oneself". As a result of failures or inability to influence psychotraumatic circumstances, a person usually feels dissatisfied with himself, his chosen profession, his position, and specific duties. The mechanism of emotional transfer operates - the energy is directed not only and not so much outside, but towards oneself. In the initial stages of burnout, they build up tension, and in the subsequent stages they provoke psychological defense.
Cage symptom. When psychotraumatic circumstances are very pressing and it is impossible to eliminate them, a feeling of hopelessness often comes to us. We try to change something, over and over again we think over the unsatisfactory aspects of our work. The concentration of psychic energy reaches impressive volumes. If it does not find a way out, then the person experiences a feeling of being “driven into a cage”. This is a state of intellectual-emotional congestion, a dead end.
2. Phase of "exhaustion". It is characterized by a pronounced drop in the overall energy tone and a weakening of the nervous system. Emotional protection in the form of burnout becomes an integral attribute of the personality.
Symptom of "emotional deficit". The feeling comes to the professional that emotionally he can no longer help the subjects of his activity. Unable to enter into their position, to participate and empathize, to respond to situations that should touch, induce to increase intellectual, volitional and moral impact. Sharpness, rudeness, irritability, resentment, whims complement the symptom of "emotional deficit".
Symptom of "emotional detachment". A person completely excludes emotions from the sphere of professional activity. Almost nothing worries him, almost nothing causes an emotional response - neither positive nor negative circumstances. He gradually learns to work like a robot, like a soulless automaton. In other spheres he lives full-blooded emotions. Reacting without feelings and emotions is the most striking symptom of burnout.
Symptom of "psychosomatic and psychovegetative disorders". It manifests itself at the level of physical and mental well-being. Much of what concerns professional activity provokes deviations in the somatic or mental states of a person. Sometimes even the thought of them or contact with them causes a bad mood, bad associations, insomnia, fear, discomfort in the heart, vascular reactions, exacerbations of chronic diseases. This indicates that emotional protection (burnout) can no longer cope with the load, and the energy of emotions is redistributed between other subsystems.
Prevention and cure
Burnout Syndrome can be prevented early and treated very effectively.
The first step to overcoming burnout- understand yourself: not only understand your goals and imagine the image of the future, but answer yourself the question, what is the meaning of what you are doing now, why are you doing it.
The most common way to deal with the situation- try to rise above it, change your angle of view, look at your position and work from a more global point of view.
Another way- leaving to an adjacent field, when previous knowledge, skills, skills find a new application. A person makes a so-called horizontal career.
Third way- without leaving the performance of duties, to make them a tool for achieving more global goals.
Fourth way lies in the fact that a person, remaining in the same situation, begins to focus not on what he already knows well, knows how, has mastered, but on what is a problem for him. This is how a new meaning is acquired in the old profession, and its transformation into a tool for self-development becomes the prevention of burnout.
Although there is no universal recipe for healing from professional burnout, this problem can be solved if it is dealt with purposefully. Every person needs to stop from time to time, look around, be alone with himself, think about where and where he is going, at what speed and with what fellow travelers, and most importantly - why, for what purpose.
Burnout Syndrome (BES) is a reaction of the body that occurs as a result of prolonged exposure to occupational stress. The WHO European Conference (2005) noted that these work-related conditions are an important problem for about one third of workers in the European Union. According to statistics, "burnout syndrome" at least once in a lifetime occurs in 25% of people. Moreover, today people of almost all professions are at risk.
There are a lot of definitions of EBS, but the most general one looks something like this: burnout syndrome is a state of emotional and physical exhaustion, a decrease in energy potential, accompanied by disorders of the emotional sphere.
Experts note that the risk of developing a burnout syndrome is to a very high degree due to the personal characteristics of a person. Therefore, SEV can develop under a certain set of circumstances in almost any person. But people most at risk of burnout those who are overwhelmed with responsibilities and day-to-day duties, those who work too hard for an extended period of time with too much intensity. Increase susceptibility to burnout hyperresponsibility, lack of other interests besides work, attitude towards oneself as the only person who is able to cope with the task set for the company.
Rector of the Northern State Medical University, Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Pavel Sidorov identifies five key groups of symptoms characteristic of SES:
1. Physical symptoms: fatigue, physical fatigue, exhaustion; weight change; insufficient sleep, insomnia; poor general health, incl. by feeling; shortness of breath, shortness of breath; nausea, dizziness, excessive sweating, trembling; increased blood pressure; ulcers and inflammatory diseases skin; diseases of the cardiovascular system.
2. Emotional symptoms: lack of emotions; pessimism, cynicism and callousness in work and personal life; indifference, fatigue; feeling of helplessness and hopelessness; aggressiveness, irritability; anxiety, increased irrational restlessness, inability to concentrate; depression, guilt; tantrums, mental suffering; loss of ideals, hopes or professional prospects; an increase in depersonalization of one's own or others - people become faceless, like mannequins; loneliness prevails.
3. Behavioral symptoms: working time takes more than 45 hours a week; during work, fatigue and a desire to rest appear; indifference to food; low physical activity; justifying the use of tobacco, alcohol, drugs; accidents - falls, injuries, accidents, etc.; impulsive emotional behavior.
4. Intellectual symptoms: a drop in interest in new theories and ideas in work, in alternative approaches to solving problems; boredom, longing, apathy, loss of taste and interest in life; greater preference for standard patterns, routine, rather than a creative approach; cynicism or indifference to innovations; low participation or refusal to participate in developmental experiments - trainings, education; formal work.
5. Social symptoms: low social activity; a drop in interest in leisure, hobbies; social contacts limited to work poor relationships at work and at home; feeling isolated, misunderstood by others and by others; feeling of lack of support from family, friends, colleagues.
Of course, all of the above symptoms manifest themselves in different ways on different stages CMEA. Emotional burnout syndrome includes three stages, each of which has four main symptoms:
- 1st stage - "Voltage":
- self dissatisfaction,
- "trapped in a cage"
- experience of traumatic situations,
- anxiety and depression.
- 2nd stage - "Resistance":
- inadequate, selective emotional response,
- emotional and moral disorientation,
- expansion of the sphere of economy of emotions,
- reduction of professional duties.
- 3rd stage - "Exhaustion":
- emotional deficit
- emotional withdrawal,
- personal withdrawal,
- psychosomatic and psychovegetative disorders.
The main reasons for the occurrence of SEV experts include the following::
Environment: noise, stuffy rooms, monotonous landscape, inability to hide from all-seeing eye bosses.
Rhythm of work: overload, constant rush, surprises a hundred times a day, or, conversely, dead monotony.
Relationships: conflicts with management or colleagues; an atmosphere of misunderstanding and struggle for a place under the sun.
Outlook: More precisely, their absence.
Burnout also contributes to a whole range of factors, each of which enhances the effect of the other.
A person is at risk if:
— lives in a metropolis and forced to contact with a lot of people - in traffic jams, shops, on the streets;
— works in a huge corporation, is involved in a daily career race, is afraid of losing his place;
— valid in extreme conditions , hurries, takes risks, shows increased attention to detail, makes responsible decisions, receives not a fixed salary, but a percentage of profits;
- on duty dealing with many colleagues, partners, clients, constantly communicates with them, is involved in solving their problems, faces their negative emotions and experiences.
already mentioned by us Academician Pavel Sidorov gives a number of recommendations, observing which it is possible not only to prevent the occurrence of EBS, but also to achieve a decrease in its severity:
— define and share short and long term goals;
— use"time-outs" that are necessary to ensure mental and physical well-being (rest from work);
— master skills and abilities of self-regulation (relaxation, ideomotor acts, goal setting and positive inner speech help reduce the level of stress leading to burnout);
— get busy professional development and self-improvement (one of the ways to protect against CMEA is the exchange of professional information with representatives of other services, which gives a sense of a wider world than the one that exists within a single team, there are various ways to do this - advanced training courses, conferences, etc. );
— go away from unnecessary competition (there are situations when it cannot be avoided, but an excessive desire to win gives rise to anxiety, makes a person aggressive, which contributes to the emergence of CM);
— get involved in emotional communication (when a person analyzes his feelings and shares them with others, the likelihood of burnout is significantly reduced or this process is not so pronounced);
— support good physical shape (do not forget that there is a close relationship between the state of the body and the mind: malnutrition, alcohol abuse, tobacco, weight loss or obesity exacerbate the manifestations of SES).
— try to count and deliberately distribute their loads;
— learn to switch from one activity to another;
— take it easier to conflicts at work;
— do not try be the best always and in everything.
And in conclusion, I would like to note: the danger of CMEA lies in the fact that it tends to progress day by day! It is extremely difficult to slow down this process. Against its background, various chronic diseases, develop new diseases and even change the composition of the blood. At this point, attempts to take care of yourself, as a rule, do not give the desired result. And even the professional help of a doctor does not bring quick relief. Therefore, the most reasonable thing is to prevent the appearance of this syndrome, "strangle it in the bud."
It often seems that you can only manage to do all the work things if you constantly stay late at work in the evening, take part of the work home, and then work a little more on the weekends, just to be sure. But in reality, this approach only harms productivity and can lead to professional burnout. Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness in the book "At the peak. How to Maintain Peak Efficiency Without Burnout provides many examples that prove that rest - from short breaks during the day and normal sleep to a long vacation after a big project - is extremely important for work. T&P publishes several excerpts from the book.
The secret to sustainable success
Think about what you need to do to make muscles - such as biceps - become stronger. If you try to lift too much weight for you, then you are unlikely to be able to do it more than once. And even if you succeed, you risk injuring yourself. However, by lifting too little weight, you will not achieve anything either: the biceps simply will not grow. So, you need to find the ideal solution - a weight that is difficult for you to lift, which by the end of the workout will bring you to extreme fatigue, but not to injury.
But finding the perfect weight is only half the problem. If you lift every day, several times a day, with little to no rest between workouts, you will almost certainly burn out. If you rarely go to the gym and almost never give your best, then you are also unlikely to become much stronger. The key to training your biceps - and, as we will learn, any muscle, be it physical, cognitive or emotional - is a balance between the right amount of load and the right amount of relaxation. Load + rest = growth. This equation holds true no matter what you're trying to pump.
periodization
In sports science, this cycle of stress, or workload, and rest is called periodization. Stress - we don't mean a fight with a husband or boss, but rather some kind of challenge to our abilities, like lifting weights - poses a challenge for the body. This process is usually accompanied by some breakdown: remember how weak our hands seem to us after a hard workout in the gym. But if you give your body time to rest and recover after a difficult period, it will adjust and become stronger, allowing you to achieve more next time. Over time, the cycle begins to look like this:
You isolate a muscle or ability that you want to develop.
You push her.
Rest and recover, allowing the body to adapt.
Repeat the procedure, this time tensing the muscle or ability a little more than last time.
World-class athletes have honed this skill. At the micro level, they alternate between hard workouts, during which they push themselves to the limit and complete collapse, and light workouts, during which, for example, they jog. They also place great emphasis on recovery, time spent on the couch and in bed, which is just as important to them as time spent on the treadmill or at the gym. On a macro level, great athletes follow a hard month of training with a week of light exercise. They schedule their season so that it includes only a few peak events, followed by periods of physical and psychological recovery. The days, weeks, months, years that make up a professional athlete's career are a constant ebb and flow of stress and relaxation. Those who can't balance either get injured or burn out (too much stress, not enough rest) or get stuck in one place and reach a plateau (not enough stress, too much rest). Those who can find the right balance are champions for life. […]
The brain is like a muscle
In the mid-1990s, Roy Baumeister, PhD, a social psychologist who was then teaching at Case Western Reserve University, revolutionized our understanding of the brain and its capabilities. Baumeister discovered the causes of such banal problems as, for example, why we feel exhausted after we diligently work out a difficult task. Or why, when dieting, we are more likely to break down at night, although we have carefully avoided junk food all day. In other words, Baumeister was trying to understand how and why our will and mind are suddenly rapidly weakening.
When Baumeister began working on this problem, he did not need modern technologies brain research. All he needed was some biscuits and radishes.
For their ingeniously designed experiment, Baumeister and colleagues gathered 67 adults in a room that smelled of chocolate chip cookies. After the participants took their seats, freshly prepared cookies were brought into the room. When everyone was salivating, the situation escalated. Half of the participants were allowed to eat cookies, and half were forbidden. Not only that: those who could not have cookies were given radishes and offered to have a bite to eat.
As you might have guessed, the cookie eaters had no problem with the first part of the experiment. Like most in this situation, they happily ate dessert. Those who got the radish, on the other hand, suffered: “They showed a keen interest in the liver, to the point of looking longingly at it, and some even took the cookie to sniff it,” writes Baumeister. It's not easy to resist cookies.
All this looks predictable. Who doesn't mind refusing a treat? However, the situation became even more interesting in the second part of the experiment, during which the suffering of the radish eaters continued. After both groups had finished their meal, all participants were asked to solve a seemingly simple but in fact unsolvable problem. (Yes, it was a brutal experiment, especially for those who got the radish.) The radish eaters lasted just over eight minutes and made 19 attempts to solve the problem. Those who ate the cookies lasted more than 20 minutes and tried to solve the problem 33 times. Where did such a difference come from? The fact is that the radish-bound exhausted their mental muscles by forgoing cookies, while the cookie-eaters had full tanks of psychological fuel and were able to put more effort into solving the problem.
Baumeister developed several more variations of this experiment and observed the same result each time. Participants who were forced to strain their brains—whether through abstinence, solving a difficult task, or making a difficult decision—performed worse on the subsequent task, which also required mental effort. Compared to them, the control group, who were given an easy task at the first stage, such as eating a delicious cookie, showed better results.
Refusing cookies is a dangerous game
It seems that we have some kind of reservoir of mental forces that are spent on all acts of consciousness and self-control, even those that are not related to each other. When people were asked to suppress their emotions during a test—for example, not to show sadness or frustration when watching a sad movie—they subsequently performed worse on a wide range of unrelated tasks, such as refusing tasty food or memory exercises. This phenomenon affects other areas as well. Even physical exercises(for example, squats) are performed worse if we strained our mental muscles before them. The study showed that even when the bodies of the participants did not get tired, the physical performance of those who were mentally exhausted fell. In other words, the line between mental and physical fatigue is not as clear cut as we think. […]
Inside a weary brain
Instead of experimenting with cookies and radishes, researchers are now studying mental muscles using sophisticated medical technology. What they found is very interesting. People with depleted mental muscles were put into MRI machines (a technology that allows you to observe brain activity). It turned out that the brain of a tired person works in a curious way. When presented with a compelling image, such as a delicious cheeseburger, activity in the part of the brain associated with emotional response (the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex) is increased - compared to the activity in the part of the brain responsible for thoughtful, rational thinking (the prefrontal cortex), when he is asked to solve a difficult problem. Other experiments have shown that after someone is forced to resort to self-control, activity in the prefrontal cortex decreases even more. It is no wonder that when we are mentally exhausted, we are not given difficult tasks and self-control and we choose cartoons and cookies.
Just as your arms get tired and unable to work properly when you lift a barbell to the point of exhaustion, a tired brain is not able to properly cope with its tasks - whether it is resisting temptation, making difficult decisions, or working through complex intellectual problems. Fatigue can cause you to forget your diet for a cookie, give up on a difficult intellectual task, or stop a difficult physical task prematurely. In the worst case, you may even cheat on your loved one.
The good news is that, just like your body, you can make your brain stronger by either exercising your brain or letting it rest. Scientists have found that the more often we resist temptation, overthink, or concentrate intensely, the better we get at it. A new wave of research refutes the assumption that willpower is not an endless resource, as scientists previously believed: by successfully completing small productive tasks, we can gain this strength in order to perform larger tasks in the future. In any case - whether it's willpower, ego depletion, or some other mechanism - we can't continuously strain the brain (at least effectively) without getting tired from time to time. And we can't take on bigger challenges before we gain strength by tackling smaller ones. All this brings us back to where we started: load + rest = growth.
Performance Practices
Remember that “load is stress”: fatigue caused by one task will spread to the next, even if they are completely unrelated.
Take on one thing at a time. Otherwise, you will literally lose energy.
Change the environment to achieve your goals. This is especially important when you know you are exhausted. The environment has an unusually strong influence on our behavior, especially when we are tired.
Have the courage to take a break
The advantages of rest are obvious, they are confirmed by extensive scientific data. And yet, few of us dare to rest. It's not that people want to be exhausted. The fact is, we live in a culture that celebrates exhausting and relentless work, even if the science says it's pointless. We praise the athlete who stays in gym to do a few more repetitions, and we sing of a businessman who sleeps in his office. This is not to say that hard work does not lead to growth. As we wrote in chapter 3, leads. But, hopefully, you now understand that hard work only turns into smart and sustainable work if it is compensated by rest. The irony is that hard work often requires more courage than hard work. Ask authors like Stephen King (“Not working is the real job for me”) or runners like Dina Kastor (“My workouts are the easiest part”). When we leave work, we sink into feelings of guilt and anxiety, especially if we feel threatened by competitors. Perhaps there is no place where this would be more noticeable than among the top managers of the consulting company Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
BCG regularly ranks at the top of the global consulting firms. The company's consultants help CEOs of billionaire companies solve the most delicate problems. And the sooner BCG consultants can find answers, the sooner the company will be rewarded for the next multi-million dollar project. In other words, BCG consultants work in a high-risk environment and under constant pressure from competitors.
Not surprisingly, when the researchers proposed a series of experiments to evaluate the effects of rest on BCG counselors, these counselors responded not only with surprise, but even with derision. Harvard Business Review reports: "The concept of vacation was so alien that BCG management had to practically force some consultants to take days off, especially if they coincided with peak periods of work intensity." Some consultants asked lawyers if they were risking their careers by taking part in the experiment.
In one experiment, consultants were asked to take one day off in the middle of the week. For those who usually work 12-plus hours a day, seven days a week, such a request seemed simply absurd. Even the company employee who promoted the study, because she believed regular rest could improve productivity, “was nervous about having to tell a client that every member of her team would take one day a week off.” So she convinced the client (and herself) that if the work began to suffer, the experiment would be terminated immediately.
The second experiment was somewhat less radical: the group of consultants participating in it was asked to take one free evening a week. This meant a complete shutdown from work after six in the evening. No matter what happened to the project - all emails, phone calls, messages, presentations and other work activities were banned. This idea was also met with staunch resistance. One of the managers asked: “What good is a free evening? Will I have to work more on weekends as a result?
In this group of career workaholics who were not shy about expressing negative attitudes towards the experiment, the idea of free evenings seemed to be doomed to failure. But as the months-long experiment unfolded, something unexpected happened. Both groups have completely changed their views. By the end of the experiment, all the consultants who participated in it wanted to have days off. And it was not only that they liked to take care of themselves, communicate with friends and family, but also that their work became much more productive.
Communications between consultants have become more effective, the quality of work with clients has improved. Participants noted that in addition to these close benefits, they also gained greater confidence in the long term of their work. According to the researchers, “After only five months, those consultants who experimented with time off were more optimistic about their work situation in all respects than their non-experimental counterparts.”
BCG consultants found that it was not only the number of hours spent on work that mattered, but also the quality of the work itself. They worked 20 percent less time, but achieved much more and felt better at the same time. If the BCG consultants - along with top athletes, thinkers and creatives - dare to take a break, so can you. It's not easy, the turn may seem quite sharp. But we guarantee that as soon as you start applying the strategies in this book, including rest in the plan for the day, week, year, your productivity and well-being will improve. […]
Give to return
Burnout usually hits us at the most inopportune moment. If you are an athlete, then you may have been approaching the peak of your form. If you are a businessman, then you may have just achieved a new promotion, for which you went out of your way. If you are an artist, you may have been nearing the completion of your masterpiece. And suddenly you realize that you just can't work anymore. You have lost drive, passion and interest. You are burnt out.
Burnout is closely related to the fight/flight stress response. After a long period of stress, the "flight" response kicks in, requiring us to run away from the source of the stress, whatever it may be. Burnout is very common among people who strive to get more out of themselves. This is because constant growth and progress requires that a person puts himself under increasing stress for days, weeks, months and years. As we wrote in the first section, preventing burnout is about switching between periods of stress and rest. But even if we don't neglect rest by getting too close to breaking point (remember that's the whole point), we run the risk of crossing a thin line. And when that happens, we feel burnt out.
Traditionally, burnout victims are advised to take extended vacations. Sometimes this can help, but often it's not a solution. A potential Olympic champion can hardly just stop training for six months before the qualifying round, and most of us cannot stop working for three months. Not to mention the fact that many, having abandoned the business that led to their burnout, risk losing touch with it and never returning to it.
"We live in a culture that celebrates exhausting and relentless work, even if the science says it's pointless"
But there is also good news. Behavioral science offers an alternative approach to burnout that doesn't require long vacations and even offers some chance to boost your drive and motivation. We will call this practice “Giving to get back.” It is based on a study by UCLA psychology professor Shelly Taylor and Wharton School psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania Adam Grant. The essence of the “Give to Return” idea is that during burnout, instead of quitting your job, you need to do it with even more energy, but in a different way.
“Differently” means to start “giving back” in your industry. This can be done in different ways, for example, it can be volunteer work or teaching. The main thing is that you should concentrate on helping others. Helping others activates the reward and pleasure centers in our brains. This will not only make you feel better, but it will also help reconnect work and positive emotions. That's why this practice often leads to a surge of energy and motivation. In his bestselling book Take or Give?* The New York Times, Adam Grant cites research in fields ranging from teaching to nursing to prove that self-sacrifice is a powerful antidote to burnout.
But isn't the job of a teacher or a nurse originally one of the helping professions? Theoretically yes. That is why they primarily attract people who are naturally inclined to care for others. But, as any teacher or nurse will tell you, it's easy to lose sight of the direct impact on students or patients under the weight of day-to-day concerns and feel like a small cog in an inefficient machine. That is why it turned out that if you give teachers and nurses the opportunity to directly help people and see the visible results of this help, their burnout is reduced. Grant writes that "confidence in immediate impact protects against stress by preventing exhaustion," so he advises those who are stressed at work to actively seek out opportunities to personally help people. […]
Performance Practices
Find opportunities to help others in the context of your work. This can be an intense activity, such as coaching and teaching, or a less intense activity, such as posting tips on online forums.
The rules of this “helping others” are simple: you are doing something related to your work, and you are “giving” without expecting to get anything in return.
While the practice of helping others is very effective in preventing and recovering from burnout, you should still avoid burnout by balancing the stress with adequate rest.
Ways to manage stress
If you are constantly stressed and feeling frustrated and exhausted, you are most likely on the path to professional burnout. In a state of burnout, problems seem insoluble, and everything that happens around does not cause any emotional response. Constant discontent and alienation pose a real threat to health, as well as professional and personal life. However, if you manage to recognize the first signs of burnout, you can prevent it. If you have already reached a critical point, there are many ways to restore balance, believe in yourself again and begin to enjoy life.
What is burnout?
Burnout is a state of emotional, mental and physical exhaustion caused by intense and prolonged stress. Burnout makes a person feel crushed, emotionally devastated, does not allow him to meet the usual requirements. With prolonged exposure to stress, a person loses the interest and motivation that once prompted him to take up work.
Burnout reduces work productivity, drains energy, increases the feeling of helplessness and hopelessness, provokes indifference and a cynical attitude towards life. In the end, it seems to a person that he is no good for anything.
Consequences of burnout
The negative effects of burnout extend to all areas of life, including work, relationships with family, friends and acquaintances. Burnout can cause long-term changes in the body, such as reducing the ability to resist colds and the flu. That is why it is important to start fighting burnout as early as possible.
How do you diagnose burnout?
You are on the path to professional burnout if:
- Every working day seems bad to you.
- You no longer care about what happens at home and at work.
- You feel that your strength is running out.
- You spend a lot of time on things that seem incredibly boring to you.
- You feel like no one cares about your work.
Signs and symptoms of burnout
Many of us have days when we feel helpless and worthless, and have a hard time getting out of bed and going to work. If you feel like these situations happen to you too often, you may be suffering from burnout.
Burnout is a gradual process. At first, the symptoms are almost imperceptible, but over time they worsen. Any, even the earliest symptoms should not be ignored. If you deal with them as early as possible, you can prevent a catastrophe. If you give up on them, burnout will come very quickly.
Physical signs and symptoms of burnout
- Constant fatigue and impotence
- Low immunity, constant cold
- Frequent headaches or muscle pain
- Changes in eating and sleeping habits
Emotional signs and symptoms of burnout
- Constant anticipation of failure and self-doubt
- Feeling of helplessness, hopelessness and uselessness
- Feeling lonely
- Loss of motivation
- Negative attitude towards the surrounding reality, which intensifies over time
- Lack of job satisfaction and sense of self-satisfaction
Behavioral signs and symptoms of burnout
- Dodging duties
- Reluctance to communicate with others
- Procrastination, exceeding deadlines for routine tasks
- The desire to "seize" problems, the use of alcohol or drugs to relieve psychological pressure
- The desire to unleash evil on others
- Being late, wanting to leave work early
The difference between stress and burnout
Burnout is a consequence of constant stress, but burnout and stress are not the same thing. Stress means too much pressure - both physical and psychological. People who are under stress often think that the situation will return to normal once they are brought under control.
Burnout, on the contrary, causes the belief that the situation will never return to normal. Burnout is complete emptiness, lack of motivation and desire to do anything. For people who experience burnout, life seems hopeless. Stressed people drown in their duties, people with burnout simply "dry out". People under stress are fully aware of their situation, while burnout often comes unnoticed.
Stress or burnout?
Causes of burnout
Burnout is closely related to professional activity. Everyone who works too hard and does not get the proper return from it is at risk of burnout - whether it be an office employee who has not taken a vacation for several years, or a housewife who is torn between children and elderly parents.
The rate of burnout also depends on the lifestyle and character of the person - in particular, on what he does in free time and how he sees the world.
Causes of burnout related to work
- Lack of control over the workflow
- Lack of recognition and rewards for good work
- Unclear or inflated expectations
- Monotony, lack of complex but interesting tasks
- Chaotic or overly stressful work environment
Causes of burnout associated with lifestyle
- Overtime, lack of time for rest and communication
- Lack of truly close people who can support
- The desire to take on as many responsibilities as possible, unwillingness to accept help from outside
- Lack of sleep
Personality Traits Affecting Burnout
- Perfectionism, the desire to do the best you can
- Pessimistic views of oneself and the world around
- Desire to control everything, distrust of others
- Ambition, workaholism
Sounds familiar?
If you feel like burnout is coming or has already happened, you need to stop immediately to prevent more physical and emotional damage. Take a break and think about how you can help yourself.
To cope with burnout, turn to other people
People who are faced with professional burnout feel helpless. However, stress can be controlled. There are several steps you can take to bring your life back into balance. One of them is communication.
Social interaction is a natural antidote to stress
Talk to someone who can listen. You will immediately feel your nervous system relax and reduce stress levels. The interlocutor should not solve your problems at all. It will be enough if he just listens to you, without being distracted and refraining from judgmental statements.
Pouring out your soul, you are unlikely to become a burden for someone. On the contrary, many friends and relatives will certainly be flattered by your trust, and your relationship will only improve.
Tips for Overcoming Burnout Through Positive Interactions
Spend as much time as possible with the people closest to you- spouse, children or friends Try to take your mind off the worries and make your time together as pleasant as possible.
Communicate more with colleagues. Good relationships with colleagues can prevent burnout. For example, during a break, put your smartphone away and try to chat with someone who is nearby, or make an appointment with them after work.
Try not to interact with people you don't like. Communication with negative-minded people who only do what they complain about life pretty spoils the mood. If you have to work with such a person, try to limit the time you spend together.
Join a community that seems important and interesting to you. Religious and social groups allow like-minded people to connect with each other, share ways to deal with stress, and make new friends. If there is a professional association in your industry, you can attend meetings and talk with those who are experiencing the same problems as you.
If you don't have acquaintances to hang out with, it's never too late to make new ones and thereby expand your network of contacts.
The power of donations
Helping others is gratifying, helps reduce stress levels, and expands your social circle.
Of course, if you are on the verge of burnout, you should not take on too much, but sometimes people do not require much. Most often, a kind word and a smile are enough for both sides.
If you are engaged in monotonous and uninteresting things or are constantly in a hurry somewhere, you may need to change jobs. Of course, for many of us, this is a very responsible and not very realistic step, because we need money to pay our bills, but in any case, something can be changed for the better.
Try to find meaning in what you are doing. Even the most boring tasks, as a rule, benefit other people, provide them the right products or services. Focus on what you enjoy, even if it's a conversation with colleagues over lunch. Change your attitude towards work, and you will feel how the feeling of control over the situation begins to return to you.
Find balance in life. If you hate your job, look for fulfillment in your family, friends, hobbies, or volunteering. Focus on the moments that bring you true joy.
Make friends at work. A close emotional connection with colleagues helps to overcome monotony and neutralize the effects of burnout. If there are people around you with whom you can exchange a few words, the level of stress from unloved or stressful work will be significantly reduced. Your work efficiency will increase, and the days will not seem so dull.
Take a vacation. If you think burnout is inevitable, take a break. Take paid or unpaid vacation or sick leave, in a word - find a way to temporarily not appear at the workplace. Use this time to restore your energy with these tips.
burnout- this is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong in your life. Think about your dreams and goals. Do you have to ignore them? Treat the current situation as an opportunity to analyze your life, relax, reflect and recover.
Set boundaries. Do not seek to embrace the immensity. Learn to let go of things that take up too much of your time. If this is difficult for you, remind yourself that each rejection frees up time for what is really important to you.
Have a tech-free vacation. Turn off your computer and phone for a while every day so that calls and letters do not bother you.
Feed your creativity. Creativity is another antidote to burnout. Try new things, participate in fun projects, make time for your hobby. Choose activities that have nothing to do with your work.
Plan your vacation. Relaxation techniques - yoga, meditation and deep breathing - relax the body, as opposed to stress, which causes tension.
Sleep as much as possible. Feeling tired from burnout can make you think irrationally. Keep your stress under control by getting yourself a good night's sleep.
Learn to focus on tasks
- Learn to reduce your stress levels in the moment.
- Manage anxious thoughts and feelings.
- Motivate yourself to take action to cope with burnout.
- Improve relationships at work and at home.
- Remind yourself of the feelings that make work and life meaningful.
- Improve your health and standard of living.
go in for sports
Even if it seems to you that sports are the last thing to think about in a state of burnout, you need to remember that sports are a powerful tool in the fight against stress. With it, you can improve your mood right now!
- Exercise for at least half an hour a day. If necessary, you can break this interval into shorter intervals. A ten-minute walk improves mood for two hours.
- Rhythmic swinging of arms and legs allows you to recharge your batteries, improve concentration and relax the body and mind. Try running, weightlifting, swimming, martial arts, or even dancing.
- Shift your focus from thoughts to physical sensations (for example, how the wind blows your face), focus on movements (for example, for example, how your feet step on the ground).
Don't forget to eat the right food
What you eat directly affects your mood and energy levels throughout the day.
Minimize your intake of sugar and simple carbohydrates. If you want familiar snacks like pasta or fried potatoes, remind yourself that high-carb foods lead to mood swings.
Minimize your intake of mood-altering foods.(particularly caffeine, trans fats, chemical preservatives and hormones).
Incorporate omega-3 fatty acids into your diet to boost your mood. The best sources of omega-3s are fish (salmon, herring, mackerel, anchovies, sardines), seaweed, flaxseed, and walnuts.
Avoid nicotine. Smoking helps some people calm down, but nicotine is a powerful stimulant that increases anxiety levels, not more.
Drink alcohol in limited quantities. Alcohol temporarily relieves anxiety, but if consumed in excess, you will feel even worse when the effects of intoxicating substances wear off.
helpguide.org, translation: Airapetova Olga
- Career and Self-development
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The state of a zombie is familiar to every person. It usually occurs at the end working week and it's even a natural process. However, if you burn yourself out at the end of each work day, or if it's been going on for weeks or even months, there are a few decisions that need to be made urgently.
And if this topic seems interesting to you, and you want to develop even more in it, we recommend that you learn real practical techniques for self-motivation, stress management and social adaptation in order to always control your emotional and mental state.
Emotional burnout is unlikely to go away just like that if you continue to do what you are doing. You must understand that you are doing something wrong. So here are four ideas to help you take control and prevent burnout. There are four of them, let's take a closer look at each of them.
sleep more
Of course, you already understand how important it is for the human nervous system. But you still sacrifice an extra hour of sleep for things that are not so important to your life. Emotional burnout is not a disease, but a symptom that can lead to very serious consequences. The more you rest and get enough sleep, the faster your nervous system comes to life. The benefits of even ten minutes daytime sleep just incredible, it allows a person to regain strength and take control of emotions. Almost everyone can find time for this.
If we talk about night sleep, there are also quite simple statistics here. The more you sleep, the more you get done. If you think that by sacrificing an hour of sleep you will have more time, you are deeply mistaken. Not only will you do less work, but it will also be of very low quality.
When a person sleeps little, his concentration and cognitive abilities fall. The immune system is subjected to a very serious test and the likelihood of disease increases significantly. In addition, a person becomes more irritable, is in constant stress and enters into. There is no need to talk about self-confidence and clarity of thought. Do not sacrifice sleep, find things that do not benefit you and give them up in favor of rest. When you rest or sleep properly, it is physically impossible to burn out emotionally.
Say no to many things
Analyze your past week and note in it the events that led you to stress and at the same time did not bring any benefit. Surely everyone has dozens of such situations. It is sad, but at such moments we do not even realize the absolute futility and, at the same time, the destructiveness of such situations, because we carry them out without thinking.
At the same time, you need to say “no” to many entertainments, because sometimes they can not only spoil our mood, but also take away the very time that can be spent on something more important. Entertainment should not take more than two hours on weekdays and more than five hours on weekends, because this leads to emotional instability. The more you have fun, the less you want to work. This means that when work time comes, you get a huge portion of stress. In addition, pleasures take time to sleep. And this completely discredits the value of such pleasures and this form of recreation. You should benefit from such events, not circles under the eyes and complete physical and emotional exhaustion.
We are also open to many stimuli. There will be a good couple of dozen of these per day, and at the same time, you may not even react to many of them, because they are not vital for you. Anxiety is a state to which you must also say no. Read Dale Carnegie's book and don't worry about things you can't change.
Schedule time for email and cell phone
These two things are very dangerous because they usually have to do with something negative, call us to actions we don't want to do, and cause unnecessary emotions. It's much more efficient to set aside time, say, twice a day, to look at email and answer emails or complete email-related tasks. You should not go into your email box twenty times a day, this leads to the fact that your unfinished task is superimposed on a new one and you get a strong one.
The same is true with a mobile phone. Determine the time (the same twice a day) when you will go to a social network, viber or other application and respond to people. Warn them ahead of time. If they urgently need to convey some information to you, let them call you directly. But put special emphasis on the fact that the call should be of exceptional value.
Despite the fact that social networks attract hundreds of millions of people, in fact, people experience strong negative emotions while being in them. There is a constant comparison of the picture of the life of another person with his own, an oppressed state is acquired. In addition, social networks form a distorted picture of the world. We know that a photograph is not capable of accurately conveying a person's life, but we are still deceived. Any message in social network is also an irritant. Even if it is positive, it usually refers to some action you should take, even if you don't want to.
Ask for help
Strange, but such an ordinary thing rarely comes to a person's head. Of course, you don’t need to be too imposing and often ask for it, but if you have friends, ask them for help. If they are true friends, they will definitely listen and help you.
There is no weakness in this, although most people believe that they should deal with their problems on their own. Yes, in many cases a person must solve their own problems, but when it comes to emotions, it is very important to recharge the energy of a person close to you.
For co-workers, ask them to do some of your work and promise to help back another day. This is a normal practice and if your employees are reasonable people, they will go for it. But again, when asking for help, you always need to know when to stop. Even if a person has never refused you, maybe he just doesn’t want to tell you directly that this situation does not suit him at all. Learn to give a person as much strength and energy as he gave you.
These four simple steps will help you take control of your emotions and feel alive and real.
If you know any other ways to avoid burnout, write to us in the comments.