It’s that time of year again! The time when snow starts to fall, the temperature begins to drop, and darkness encroaches on both our morning and afternoon commutes. You may even feel compelled to stay inside, get bundled up, grab a steaming cup of coffee or tea, and… why is it so hard to relax?
It’s that time of year again to visit one of our pop-psychology heavy hitters: burnout! This term has been around since the 80s, but within the past decade it has become a household name. Just like other pop-psychological superstars (“self-care”, “boundaries”, etc.), it is important for us to understand what it actually means so we can recognize when we are experiencing it and work to address it as it arises.
What is Burnout?
Stress is a part of life. From the minute we wake up, we experience some level of stress from external triggers in our environment. The experience of stress is one way our bodies respond to everyday struggles. When we experience small doses of stress throughout our day, it can keep us alert, stay productive, and even protect us. While we may think of stress as negative, there exists positive stress (e.g. promotions, holidays, parties). One important piece of the puzzle to keep in mind is that stress is cumulative. When we experience too much stress, it can result in serious physical, emotional, and behavioral symptoms. The experience of being exposed to stress for an extended period of time can lead to chronic stress, where we are in a state of constant overwhelm. But there is only so long our bodies can maintain being in a stress response, before we cross the line into burnout. Burnout is a state of being which occurs after prolonged experience of chronic stress.
There are a variety of emotional, physical, and cognitive symptoms of burnout. Symptoms include fatigue, sleep disturbances, change in appetite, decrease in pleasure and overall life enjoyment, apathy, irritability, low motivation, procrastination, high levels of negative self-talk, isolation, and self-medication through substance use. Burnout is past our body’s typical stress response, it’s a feeling of being depleted.
Why is it happening to me now?
The end of the calendar year contains a plethora of additional stressors that we add on to the ones we experience on a daily basis. I invite you to reflect for a moment on changes to your quantity of stressors within the fall months. Consider stressors such as taking time off of work, financial stress, social obligations, feeling left out or lonely, meeting others’ expectations, meeting your own expectations, snow removal, decrease in daylight hours, and traveling. All of these and more tend to line up around the end of the year. If we are already experiencing high levels of stress from what is expected of us daily, and we consider the sheer amount of additional stressors we add, isn’t it feasible that we may tip the scale from “overwhelmed” to “depleted”?
When experiencing symptoms of burnout, it can be easy for us to devalue our own feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. We tend to diminish our own pain and rationalize how it “could be worse.” We compare ourselves to others and get caught up in thinking how we should be feeling or ways in which things could have been different, “if only I didn’t procrastinate.” Rather than tuning in to what our body and mind are trying to communicate to us, we turn our attention outwards in an effort to avoid feelings of guilt or shame that may arise. I invite you to practice allowing yourself to recognize symptoms of burnout you may be experiencing, and instead of turning away from these experiences, see how it would feel to offer some compassion for yourself, just as you would a friend or a beloved pet. Anyone can experience burnout, and the first step in growing from burnout is to acknowledge you are experiencing it.
How can I stop feeling this way?
There are many ways in which we can address burnout when we find ourselves experiencing it. From changes in the way we approach daily activities to making larger changes in our social groups and occupations, burnout is something we can recover from. One key part about recovering from burnout is we must ensure that we are still being effective in managing our responsibilities while concurrently offering the attention needed to take care of ourselves. If you are finding yourself experiencing chronic stress to the point it becomes burnout, feel free to test out the following for yourself and see how you feel.
Often when we “relax” we try to pack as much fun and enjoyment as we can. We watch our favorite show while eating our lunch and simultaneously scrolling on our phones. Even if we find some comfort from being overstimulated in our relaxation, I invite you to try being uncomfortable and bring intention to your relaxation. Feel free to identify one activity you find relaxing and brainstorm some ways in which you could engage more fully in that activity. If it helps, you can always use the “how” skills of mindfulness in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (“nonjudgment”, “one-mindful”, and “effective”) to bring more intention to engaging more fully in an activity. Try removing judgment or “shoulds” from your experience. See how it feels to only engage in one activity at a time and softly guiding yourself back to the experience when you begin to reach for your phone. And, above all, do what works. I always like to try to see if I can notice something new about my experience of the activity every time I engage in it. This may be uncomfortable at first, but I invite you to see how it feels after a few bouts of relaxation with intention.
Wouldn’t it be nice to take a few weeks off of work to “get away from it all”, flying off to the tropical destination of your choice, enjoying warm weather and fewer responsibilities? Unfortunately, when experiencing burnout, a vacation like the one you are picturing is most likely not in the cards (or it is just another added stressor). Allow me to let you in on a little secret: you don’t have to spend money to plan a relaxing vacation. In Dialectical Behavior Therapy, the concept of taking a “Vacation” is part of the Distress Tolerance skill of IMPROVE the moment. In taking a vacation, we are identifying ways in which we can take a break from the stressors we are experiencing, if only for a moment. Our goal is to identify and plan our own sort of mini-vacation. They can range in time. You can take a walk around the block, eat your lunch without doing any work, or plan an afternoon where you can go out for a hike. Keep in mind we are trying to stay effective in managing our responsibilities, so practice what works for you!
You deserve to not be stuck in burnout and, while life sometimes requires us to “grind it out” a little longer, you deserve to be supported along the way. It can be so easy to downplay the effect that burnout has on our lives, but at the end of the day it does make an impact. If you find yourself feeling consumed by burnout to the point where you are experiencing significant consequences, I encourage you to connect with a mental health provider to talk more about it.
OTHER COUNSELING SERVICES WE OFFER IN DENVER, CO
We offer a variety of additional services besides brain-spotting and EMDR therapy. WellMinded Counseling also offers the following therapy services: