You’ve probably heard about burnout. It’s the exhaustion and stress that can occur when you have too much on your plate. Burnout usually occurs at work and is rampant in corporate America, but it can happen to those who are family caregivers too.
Burnout is pretty common. It happens to all of us at some point. A recent survey of more than 10,000 workers in the United Kingdom and the United States found that 40 percent of them feel burned out. Gen Z, millennials, and women have the highest rates of burnout.
Burnout isn’t a psychiatric or medical diagnosis, but it can be so disruptive to daily life. It can affect your relationships, work and home life. Burnout can also impact your mental health and make you feel hopeless and depleted emotionally. Long-term burnout can lead to many negative impacts, including a weakened immune system.
What Is Burnout?
Burnout is a state of mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion that is caused by prolonged, excessive stress. Burnout occurs when a person has inadequate resources to cope with the stress or overwhelm.
Burnout leaves a person feeling uninspired and empty. If you feel like you don’t have any motivation, it could be burnout.
Here are some of the other signs of burnout.
1. You Can’t Sleep
Not only is exhaustion a common sign of burnout, but insomnia is too. Restless sleep and insomnia are both linked with burnout. Anxiety or worry about your workload or responsibilities can make it hard to fall and stay asleep. The poor sleep can lead to a vicious cycle where you feel even worse since you are not sleeping well.
2. You’re Drinking More
It’s not uncommon for a person dealing with emotional exhaustion and stress to unwind with a stiff martini or cold beer. A study published in the journal Academic Medicine found that students who were experiencing burnout were more likely to abuse alcohol.
Increased alcohol use often causes increased negative thinking, which can heighten burnout. Also, relying on alcohol when you are burned out or stressed can lead to alcohol dependence. In the long term, this can cause even more problems, including liver damage.
3. You’re Often Irritable
One of the signs of burnout is feeling irritable or on edge. You may have a negative outlook on life and have a very short fuse. If you find yourself feeling irritable towards people who normally don’t bother you, like your spouse or best friend, burnout could be to blame.
Irritability is a sign of depression. Clinical depression can be triggered by burnout. So, if you are experiencing other symptoms of depression like a loss of pleasure in normal activities, changes in eating patterns, and thoughts of self-harm, it’s important to talk to your doctor or a mental health professional.
4. You Have Frequent Unexplained Stomachaches or Headaches
Do you have frequent illnesses that have no identifiable cause? Chronic exhaustion and stress can cause physical symptoms like nausea, headaches, and irritable bowel syndrome IBS symptoms. These symptoms can be quite distressing. These could also be signs of a medical condition, so get them checked out by a doctor, as well.
How to Recover From Burnout
There are many strategies that can help you cope with burnout and prevent it from taking over your life.
Find Ways to Relax
Are you seriously in need of some stress relief? If stress is making you feel tense, it’s important to make relaxation a priority. Find things to do that bring you peace and joy. Here are some ideas:
- Meditate
- Try knitting
- Listen to music
- Get a massage
- Bake something
- Sit on your porch
- Play around in your garden
- Put on some calming music and take a warm bath
Connect With Others
Social support can be incredibly helpful if you are feeling burned out. Just make sure you are spending time with positive people who uplift you. There are many ways you can connect. You might have coffee or lunch with a close friend or go to a karaoke event with friends.
Focus on Your Sleep
Poor sleep hygiene can contribute to burnout. You can deal with burnout by getting more and better quality sleep. One way to do that is to improve your sleep hygiene. Here are a few science-backed sleep tips:
- Embrace the darkness - Make sure your sleep environment is pitch-black and cool.
- Make sure you get enough sleep - According to experts, if you are burned out, you need eight to ten hours of sleep a night, along with three 15-minute periods of stillness or relaxation during the day. Use Pillow to track your sleep.
- Try not to rely on sleep aids - Using certain types of sleep aids too often can lead to dependence. These also carry the risk of side effects, which can make it hard to drive and work the next day.
- If you don’t fall asleep, get out of bed after 30 minutes - Don’t just continue to toss and turn. Get up and do a quiet, relaxing activity like journaling until you feel tired.
- Mask noises - Noise can make it hard to sleep. So, use blackout curtains to dampen noise outside your room. You can also use a white noise machine to help drown out sound.
Exercise
Working out has been shown to reduce stress and boost mood. Research suggests that getting active can have a positive effect on mental exhaustion. Just one single session of aerobic exercise can really help burnout, according to the study. Exercise fires up the production of endorphins, which are your brain's “feel-good” neurotransmitters. This is likely how it helps reduce stress and burnout. If the gym is not your thing, try taking a nature walk or go for a swim.
Take a Break
You don’t have to book a trip to the Caribbean. Simply taking weekend trips in your home state can help reduce burnout. Just make sure you leave your work laptop at the office and resist the urge to check emails.
When To Get Help
If you have tried all of the above ideas and nothing seems to be helping, it’s time to talk to your doctor or consider seeing a mental health professional. Sometimes the symptoms of burnout can be related to other health issues.
