Burnout can often be insidious, creeping up on you quietly whilst you are super busy keeping the juggle of daily life going. It is a state of mental, physical or emotional exhaustion.
Sometimes, you can be so occupied keeping all your various balls in the air that you haven’t noticed yourself beginning to feel anxious, overwhelmed, unhappy, frustrated or ineffective.
Usually, it follows a time of long term or chronic stress (whether recognised, or something you might not yet have realised). It eats away at your energy, your thinking and memory and your ability tope cope with life’s challenges. Left long enough, burnout can result in total breakdown, depression and loss of your sense of self.
However, stress alone is not the same as burnout.
Burnout is created by too much stress for too long. It sets in even though you’re successful, because you’re not giving yourself the time and care it takes to regenerate depleted reserves.
Burnout is rife among hard-driving, high-achieving professionals. High performers and high achievers often try to be the very best at everything, constantly comparing themself to others, always measuring their performance.
Keeping burnout at bay firstly involves acknowledging that you may actually be in the process of burning out, or that you have in fact burned out. Admitting to feeling burnt out can feel like confessing to some sort of terrible failure, or even some kind of character flaw. It most certainly isn’t!! Getting to a point where you’re experiencing burnout, you must have been giving 110% (or more) day in and day out, for some time.
Burnout symptoms can vary between people but usually involve a combination of a few common symptoms. To acknowledge and recover from burnout, it’s crucial to know what you are looking for in terms of being symptomatic.
So, what should you look out for so that you can pick up possible burnout, and make changes to rectify things?
What are the 8 most important signs of ‘burnout’ to look out for?
Increased anxiety is a sure tell tale sign of burnout
A lot of anxiety that happens during burnout is generalised. It doesn’t necessarily arise from any particular situation or circumstance. It can appear to manifest from nowhere. This can result in symptoms varying from a low level inability to switch off after work, to panic attacks.
Low motivation and enthusiasm, growth in apathy
Nothing really feels worth doing and you lack enthusiasm for any task, even the ones you used to really enjoy can feel like a chore. Apathy gets in the way of you trying to do anything to break through your burnout.
Exhaustion, generalised fatigue or chronic low energy
Stress depletes your physical resources. Your body uses more nutrients when under stress, yet ironically, you can often experience a downturn in appetite during unrelenting stress. You might also struggle with your sleep and although you may nap more, you don’t feel refreshed. You can start to feel that you might never sleep and wake up feeling refreshed again.
Cognitive difficulties
Prolonged stress and anxiety (even if underlying and unacknowledged) can impact substantially on your cognitive function. Concentration, focus, recall, memory and mental organisation can all decline substantially. The struggle this causes can result in fatigue, frustration, confusion and self-doubt.
Social Isolation
Everyone has different levels of interest in socialising. However, during a burnout phase, people will usually actively avoid as much social interaction as possible. Even if you are an extrovert, socialising can become uncomfortable and very draining.
Bleak outlook
Nothing seems worthwhile anymore. You dread work and returning to the office after the weekend feels like picking up a burden. Nothing you do seems to have any impact, and things you used to do happily hold no pleasure.
Not feeling good enough
No matter how hard you work, or how much you try, you might feel that whatever you do it isn’t good enough. Your inner self talk has become unkind towards yourself. You may even be feeling that you don’t ‘look good enough’, you ‘aren’t clever enough’, you ‘aren’t fit enough or funny enough’ or any number of negative feelings towards yourself that aren’t kind or healthy (or true for that matter!).
Increased illness and being run down could mean burnout
When you are experiencing burnout, you might suffer more aches and pains, and an inability to shake colds or minor infections. This comes from the effects of chronic stress on our immune system. On-going stress also results in the hormone cortisol being released in unusual abundance, which can result in irritated and inflamed joints.
If you are experiencing any of the above, and especially if you are suffering a few of these, then it is possible that you might be experiencing the warning signs of burnout. It is so important to listen to these.
Part two of this blog series discusses the things you can do to support yourself to avoid burnout and recover. There are some great, simple to implement tips to help you step back and ease up on yourself.
Guest Blogger Tara Barton, founder of Birch & Wilde the most dedicated company to helping people live happy, confident, healthy lives, our range of premium vitamins and wellbeing supplements are designed to offer the very best results. So, of course here at the burnout slayer we were more than happy to collaborate to share these important tips.
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