“Burnout occurs when your body and mind can no longer keep up with the tasks you demand of them. Don’t try to force yourself to do the impossible.” – Del Suggs
Everyone deals with a little stress now and then. Some people deal with more stress than others or deal with periods of prolonged stress. When your body is subjected to long periods of stress, it can cause something called a ‘burnout’.
When you experience burnout, your whole thought process changes. Burnout can persist even after the immediate stress is resolved. You may still feel hopeless and like nothing will ever get easier. Being able to recognize the signs of burnout will make them easier to avoid, and get you back on the track to a healthier state of mind.
Here Are 7 Signs You’Re Experiencing A Burnout
1. Nothing Sounds Possible For You
When you’re experiencing burnout, you may start to feel like a real pessimist. You have trouble seeing the brighter side of a situation, or even believing that there may be a silver lining. When this happens, you may even start to say and do things that you wouldn’t normally do. You’re emotionally exhausted and even the things that you once loved aren’t bringing you any positivity.
2. You Feel Like Running Away
When burnout gets to be too much, it can be tempting to drop everything in your life and disappear to a cabin in the woods where no one will be able to find you. When you experiencing prolonged stress and burnout is imminent, your fight-or-flight instincts are bound to kick in, and you’ll feel tempted to just disappear from whatever is causing you a significant and prolonged amount of stress.
3. You Can’t Seem To Get Anything Right
Burnout can cause your motivation and performance to drop. The quality of your work may seem sloppy, and it can feel like you just don’t care about getting it right. Your motivation is completely depleted, and you’re having a hard time remembering deadlines or plans that you’ve made with friends and family. Your entire cognitive functioning isn’t working the way it’s supposed to.
4. You’Re Exhausted
Even if you’ve slept the recommended 8 to 10 hours, you can’t help but just want to crawl back into bed. No amount of sleep will ever be enough. You feel exhausted from the moment you wake up, to the moment you go back to sleep. Even taking a midday nap doesn’t seem to do the trick. It feels like you’re never getting enough sleep, and you may have forgotten what it feels like to be well-rested.
5. You’Re Getting Sick More Often
It’s no secret that stress can give the immune system a bit of a shakeup. When you’re in the middle of burnout, your body’s immune system has been suppressed by the amount of stress that you’re feeling. This means that you’re more likely to catch a cold, have headaches, and even have digestive problems.
6. You Have No Confidence
Things that you once excelled at feel harder than usual, and you don’t trust your own skills. Burnout can make it hard to trust your own perceptions, and when that happens, your confidence starts to slip. All of the negativity that’s been building up in your head will start to play tricks on you, and you may even hear a little voice in your head telling you that you’re not good enough.
7. You’Re Just Trying To Get By
The major sign of burnout is when you’re no longer actively enjoying life. You start to feel like you’re just trying to make it from one moment to the next. You’re no longer actively engaged with your job, and you can’t stop fantasizing about quitting – maybe so you can just stay in bed all day with how exhausted you’re always feeling.
If you’re experiencing burnout, it can feel a little hopeless. Fortunately, not all is lost. While burnout can feel endless and like nothing will ever get better, that’s just the stress and negativity talking. While it may feel hard to bounce back from burnout, it can be done, even when your motivation to do so feels low.
Being able to get your mind and body to work together to heal you from the stress you’ve been experiencing can be incredibly daunting, but you can do it. There are several ways a burnout can be stopped right in its tracks.
Here Are 4 Ways To Successfully Fix Burnout
1. Connect With Your Support System
Friends and family are always going to be there for you in your time of need. Taking the time out to simply connect with them and relax can reduce your stress levels tremendously. When you’re able to just let go about the deadlines and stress at work, even if it’s only for a few hours, your brain will have time to rest and get ready to take on the tasks at hand.
2. Do Something You Enjoy
All work and no play means that you’re going to be burnt out sooner than you realize. Taking the time to stop and just do something that you love can make dealing with stress and work easier. Whether you like reading, listening to music, or even going for a jog, whatever you do to destress will make your life ten times easier. Treating yourself right makes it harder for a burnout to occur.
3. Treat Yourself
Run a warm bath and get your favorite bath bomb out, or even go to a spa and get a massage. Stress can cause your physical body to experience pain, so make sure you’re taking care of your mind and your body during stressful times. Burnout can be easily reversed when you take the time to just enjoy an hour to yourself and let your whole body relax.
4. Go Offline
With new smartphone technology, you’re almost always connected into the things that stress you out. Turning off your phone and laptop for a few hours can give you enough time to just relax and stop thinking about work and stress. Make a schedule on when you’ll answer calls or emails, so that you don’t let the stress of work overwhelm every single part of your day.
Even though burnout can seem overwhelming, there are simple things that can be done to make sure that your mind and body have a chance to catch up. When you’re not giving yourself time to relax, it means that your brain doesn’t have time to handle the stress that you’re experiencing, especially if it’s a long-term type of stress.
Burnout can feel endless, but it doesn’t have to be! Recognizing it in yourself and taking the steps to counterbalance the feeling will make sure that your mind and body stay healthy, happy and performing at your best.
