Are you experiencing high amounts of stress in your lifestyle? Ut’s important to maintain an awareness that burnout could potentially be looming in the future if you don’t take steps to avoid it.
An important first step is to know what you’re dealing with. While the term “burnout” is often thrown around in discussions of stress, do you really know what it means and how it’s caused?
Burnout is a reaction to prolonged or chronic job stress and is characterized by three main dimensions: exhaustion, cynicism (less identification with the job), and feelings of reduced professional ability. Simply put, if you feel exhausted, start to hate your job, and begin to feel less capable at work, you are showing signs of burnout.
The stress that contributes to burnout can come mainly from your job, but stress from your overall lifestyle can add to this stress, and personality traits and thought patterns, such as perfectionism and pessimism, can contribute as well.
The term “burnout” is a relatively new term, first coined in 1974 by Herbert Freudenberger, in his book, Burnout: The High Cost of High Achievement. He originally defined burnout as, “the extinction of motivation or incentive, especially where one’s devotion to a cause or relationship fails to produce the desired results.”
While burnout isn’t a recognized clinical psychiatric or psychological disorder, there are some similar features between burnout and diagnosable conditions, such as depression, anxiety disorders, or mood disorders. However, burnout is much more common.
This may be the major reason burnout is on the rise. “We’re surrounded by devices designed to grab our attention and make everything feel urgent,” says Friedman. “Before the Blackberry and iPhone, leaving your work at the office was the default. Today we’re all carrying our office around in our pocket.” Indeed, in a recent survey of HR execs by the companies Kronos and Future Workplace, 32% cited “too much overtime/after-hours work” as a primary contributor to employee burnout.
People want to feel valued. If that isn’t happening in your workplace, be the change you desire. Say hello in the morning. Don’t be dismissive of support staff, and cut back on your own snark. Civility is contagious. If a colleague keeps acting like an idiot, try respectfully and honestly explaining how his or her behaviour is affecting you.
Are you having the sense that you’re incapable of accomplishing anything? A way to experience this is to get stuck in a job that gives you no control. If you don’t control your schedule, you can’t optimize your workload and things can pile up – another big contributor to burnout. And if somebody else is setting unrealistic goals and expectations for you without your input, that also makes it easy to feel helpless.
Most of us have days when we feel helpless, overloaded, or unappreciated—when dragging ourselves out of bed requires total determination. If you feel like this most of the time, however, you may be burned out.
Burnout is a gradual process. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it can creep up on you. The signs and symptoms are subtle at first, but become worse as time goes on. Think of the early symptoms as red flags that something is wrong that needs to be addressed. If you pay attention and actively reduce your stress, you can prevent a major breakdown. If you ignore them, you’ll eventually burn out.
Classic symptoms of burnout are:
Depleted Physical Energy
Prolonged stress can be physically draining, causing you to feel tired much of the time, or no longer have the energy you once did. Getting out of bed to face another day of the same gets more difficult. If this is severe, it can also be a sign of depression or physical illness, so consider talking to your doctor if you feel there is something more serious happening. But if you find a general sense of avoidance developing, this could be a sign of burnout.
Emotional Exhaustion
This is when you feel impatient, moody, inexplicably sad, or just get frustrated more easily than you normally would. You feel like you can’t deal with life as easily than you once could. Again, if moodiness becomes severe enough to affect your relationships or ability to do your job, it may be a good idea to talk to someone.
Lowered Immunity to Illness
When stress levels are high for a prolonged amount of time, your immune system does suffer. People who are suffering from burnout usually get the message from their body that something needs to change, and that message comes in the form of increased susceptibility to colds, the flu, and other minor illnesses.
Less Investment in Interpersonal Relationships
Withdrawing somewhat from interpersonal relationships is another possible sign of burnout. You may feel like you have less to give, or less interest in having fun, or just less patience with people. But for whatever reason, people experiencing burnout can usually see the effects in their relationships.
Increasingly Pessimistic Outlook
When experiencing burnout, it’s harder to get excited about life, harder to expect the best, harder to let things roll off your back, and harder to “look on the bright side” in general. You may also feel unmotivated or defeated in general, and less confident that you can make things better. Because optimism is a great buffer for stress, those suffering from burnout find it harder to pull out of their rut than they normally would.
Increased Absenteeism and Inefficiency at Work
When experiencing job burnout, it gets more difficult just to get out of bed and face more of what’s been overwhelming you in the first place. This may be an unconscious defense against burnout, but those experiencing it tend to be less effective overall and stay home from work more often. This is part of why it makes sense for workers to take some time off before they start feeling burned out, and why it makes sense for employers to refrain from running their workers into the ground; they might not get back up so quickly!
Evaluate your options.
Discuss specific concerns with your supervisor. Maybe you can work together to change expectations or reach compromises or solutions. Try to set goals for what must get done and what can wait.
Seek support.
Whether you reach out to co-workers, friends or loved ones, support and collaboration might help you cope.
If you have access to an employee assistance program, take advantage of relevant services.
Try a relaxing activity.
Explore programs that can help with stress such as yoga, meditation or tai chi. Get some exercise.
Regular physical activity can help you to better deal with stress. It can also take your mind off work.
Get some sleep.
Sleep restores well-being and helps protect your health.
Mindfulness.
Mindfulness is the act of focusing on your breath flow and being intensely aware of what you’re sensing and feeling at every moment, without interpretation or judgment. In a job setting, this practice involves facing situations with openness and patience, and without judgment.
* Document Sources:
Alarcon G; Eschleman KJ; Bowling NA. Relationships between personality variables and burnout: a meta-analysis. Work & Stress. 2009; 23(3): 244-263. 20p.
Maslach C, Schaufeli WB, Leiter MP. Job burnout. Annual Review of Psychology. 2001; 52:397–422.
The wellness treatments that are part of the Burnout Syndrome Recovery program are guaranteed to boost your wellbeing levels amidst their luxurious settings:
Discover the art of bathing! Roman Irish Bath that includes a combination of sauna, hammam, wet massage and use of a jet pool, is a treatment for regenerating your mind, body and soul. Our Roman Irish bath facilities include 4 waterfalls and 6 underwater massage jets that will give you all the relaxation you need.
Different massages programs that will soothe your body where it needs it. Allow our experienced masseurs to get ride of your body tension by targeted moves and maneuvers, pressure points and a plethora of healing techniques and beautifying touches. Try them all in a rotation and see not only feel the difference.
Detox treatments have the aim of cleansing your body from toxins. The correct way for a proper Detox is to work holistically, with every aspect of wellbeing. It is the right combination of healthy food, drinking plenty of mineral water per day and specifically before mealtime as well as incorporating special wellness treatments that will jump start your body’s old routine.
Weather permitting, the program offers different physical activities that will do wonders for participating guests’ emotional and physical stress such as:
Our Burnout Syndrome Recovery program also gives each participating guest one free excursion of historical Mariánské Lázně region, which will constitute an ideal short trip activity to do on one of their days.
As well as something that we hope you can continue after you have completed you Burnout Syndrome Recovery program with us: you will be encouraged to keep a stress diary. Each day, you will write down what causes you stress and record why the event stressed you. Similarly, you can record the activities or situations that made you feel good. Stress diaries can be very illuminating, as long as you are diligent in keeping them for a reasonable period of time.
Rubezahl-Marienbad Luxury Historical Castle Hotel & Golf