You may love your job, but even that does not stop you from dealing with work-related stress that could eventually lead to burnout.
Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion which can be caused by excessive and prolonged stress.
They usually occur when you feel overwhelmed and unable to meet constant demands, and as the stress continues you began to lose interest in the very things that you enjoyed earlier.
As more work-from-home and work-on-the-go options are prevalent, so are the chances of burnout. A poll found that burnout was one of the top reasons for people to quit jobs and move onto different roles.
The American Psychological Association and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago reported that 48 per cent of Americans experienced increased stress over the past 5 years, and 53 per cent say work leaves them “overtired and overwhelmed.”
Burnout could result when you feel like you are putting in a lot of hard work, but you are not getting the proportional results for it. This happens when a job is not very rewarding and also when you are not taking good care of yourself.
These are the main warning signs of burnout, knowing and recognizing these will help to deal with its prevention.
Health problems are the number one indicator of burnout. Burnout has a huge impact on both your physical as well as mental health. If you are experiencing body pains, heart disease, depression or if you feel that you are not as healthy as you would like to be and fall sick often, then you should evaluate the role of your work in your life. You should release that it is time to take a re-look at your career.
Cognitive Difficulties
Cognitive difficulties can also be a major indicator if you feel you are not able to concentrate, are making silly mistakes, forgetting things unnecessarily, or having difficulty making decisions or with the decisions, you are making, then you should consider that you are burning out.
Stress makes its way into everything in our life, it changes how we interact with people and deals with situations. If you feel that you are not able to keep your stress under control or that your work stress is now affecting your personal life that your relationships with your near and dear ones will ultimately face the brunt of the ugly stress monster. Different people deal with stress differently, some do so by alienating their loved others, others yell at them or find they unnecessarily argue. If you find this happening often in your relationships then it is time to take it seriously.
If you find yourself feeling exhausted a lot, it could be because of burnout. Stress takes a toll both on your body and mind, if you wake up in the morning feeling tired and feel you have no energy to get you through the day, you could be experiencing burnout. Fatigue is one of the main indicators of burnout and it is essential to know you are just tired after a long day’s work of this nagging feeling of tiredness just refuses to go away.
Decreased Levels of Satisfaction
Other signs of burnout are negativity and decreased levels of satisfaction, are you only looking at the negative aspect of things lately even though you have always been a positive person, chances are you could be experiencing burnout. A nagging sense of dissatisfaction and very low levels of excitement are also indicators. If you are not satisfied it makes work life very difficult as you feel you are work very hard and not getting any results or reward for the work you are putting in.
When you face a burnout, you will also likely lose your motivation, you may complete your work and even do them well, but you find that you don’t have any motivation to get them done. You often find that you are only doing work because you don’t want to miss deadlines or dead with the consequences of not doing it and not because you truly feel like working.
The funny thing is that people who burn out are usually the high achievers, and so you may also notice your performance not being as good as it was earlier. This could lead to self-doubt, it is essential to understand this sign as stress burnout.
Lack of Self-Control
Another indicator is that you find that your self-control is not what it used to be, you indulge in things that you previously would not have, you compromise your decision making and self-control due to the low levels of confidence you are feeling.
What To Do
If you feel you are experiencing many of these symptoms, then don’t lose hope. There are many ways to deal with burnout and fight it, here are a few. You need a break to discharge and then recharge yourself. Take some time in your daily life when you are disconnected from your work life. Stay away from the computer, the phone and your work emails. On weekends, if you feel that you can’t shut off your work completely allocate certain specific timings for it and stick to those timings for using your electronics. Put your phone away while eating. Find other interesting things to do over the weekend.
Paying attention to your health and fitness is also very important to prevent burnout, aches and pains can occur due to stress; train yourself to recognize the symptoms so that you can know when it is time to take a break from it all. Plan a relaxing activity for each day. It could be something simple like a long bath or reading a book but having something to look forward to will make your day a lot better. Another important thing is to stay from sedatives and to let your body sleep when it is ready to, don’t alter your body’s natural process.
Sometimes the stress does not come from having much too work to handle, but rather not being prepared and organized to deal with it all. When you take some time out to organize everything you will feel like you are actually working a lot less.
Don’t work till you can’t any more, take short breaks throughout the day and be ready to work with more productivity rather than spending a lot of time doing something when you know you are fatigued.
Ask for help, sometimes asking the people around you for help can be a great way to deal with burnout, understand that your health is a lot more important than your job.
