What is emotional burnout
Since 2019, professional burnout syndrome has been included in the International Classification of Diseases, which means it is officially recognized as a factor influencing health status. Therefore, treating him with calls to “get it together” or “just take a little break” is ineffective.The ICD-11 definition of burnout is: “Burnout is a syndrome recognized as the result of chronic stress in the workplace that has not been successfully overcome.” It is important that burnout occurs exclusively in a professional context, regardless of experience in other areas of life.
Why is it dangerous?
According to a Gallup study, employees experiencing burnout are more likely to seek medical help. 63% of them are more likely to take sick leave. They are half as likely to discuss achieving their goals with their manager, 13% less confident in their work, and 2.6 times more likely to leave their current company.Decreased performance is one of the three key signs of burnout identified in the ICD-11.
Burnout can affect your ability to work and even cost you your job. And it may take from several weeks to a year and a half to get out of this state.
An expensive “pleasure” both for a person building a career and for an HR specialist interested in the efficiency of employees and reducing the costs of hiring and onboarding personnel.
Who's at risk
Don’t be fooled by the saying “burnt out at carding”; the cause of professional burnout does not always lie in overwork. Much more important is whether a carder knows how to switch from work to rest, how well he rests, and whether he feels satisfaction from what he does.One of the most common causes of burnout is devaluation. When an carder does not see what he is working for, does not understand his own goals and does not feel their connection with global corporate goals, he begins to feel the uselessness of both his work and himself.
Imagine that you are “burning” with a big project, devoting most of your working time and a little more free time to it, trying your best, and then suddenly it turns out that it is no longer needed: the idea did not “take off”, the management changed their mind, the budget was cut.
Stages of burnout
Good carders strive to achieve “flow” - a state in which the current task seems to be the most important and interesting.At the same time, the first step to burnout is precisely increased involvement. Carders who are obsessed with their carding, ready to do it 24/7, who do not control working hours and ignore rest, are in danger of quickly burning out.
Some work stages or projects require a high load, but periods of increased involvement in the process should be followed by periods of quality rest.
If an carder constantly works in emergency mode, with difficult inputs - for example, a lack of resources or budget, and is forced to bend over backwards to achieve a better result, the body experiences stress and begins to react to it.
The second stage of the burnout process begins - fatigue. In the phase of chronic stress, a carder constantly feels a lack of strength, irritability, anxiety, and decreased immunity. At this stage, problems with sleep begin: it is difficult to fall asleep at night, and during the day, on the contrary, drowsiness overcomes. Eating behavior may be disturbed: craving for very sweet, salty, fatty, high-calorie foods.
The third stage is psychophysical exhaustion. Panic attacks, memory loss, intestinal upset, and vomiting may begin.
And finally, the fourth stage comes - emotional burnout. The main signs: cynicism towards everything related to carding, apathy, decreased productivity, difficulties in communicating with colleagues, anger. A person may even change in appearance - for example, an always ironed suit and impeccable hairstyle will be replaced by a sloppy appearance.
How to understand that you are burnt out
Burnout often goes hand in hand with fatigue, mental and physical exhaustion, and anxiety disorders. How can a carder understand that they are burnt out and not just tired or depressed?- Contact your therapist and get a full range of tests. Symptoms that can be mistaken for professional burnout can occur in people with a lack of zinc, magnesium, iron, and vitamin D.
- Take Viktor Boyko's diagnostic test or Christina Maslach's test.
- A professional psychologist or psychotherapist can also assess the condition.
Self-help for burnout
Here's what you can do right now if you find yourself in one of the four stages of burnout:- If your vacation is still far away, think about how you can add at least an hour of relaxation to each day.
- Do not try to spend your free time “usefully” - for example, reading specialized literature. Give yourself the opportunity to sleep, watch your favorite movie, lie in the bath.
- Sports help you recover from burnout. You don’t have to rush to the gym and set records on the treadmill; a swimming pool, yoga, outdoor walking and horseback riding will do. You can supplement your activity with a bath or a contrast shower.
- Temporarily turn off your phone, put aside your laptop, do not check instant messengers and email, remove social networking applications from your smartphone, or install a limiter program (for example, QualityTime or AntySocial).
Preventing burnout
If you don’t notice any signs of professional burnout right now, but are afraid that you may encounter them in the future, pay attention to the prevention of these conditions.Realize that preventing burnout is your personal responsibility and priority, neglecting which can cost you your job and your health.
It's up to you whether you take regular breaks, take walks more often, monitor and protect personal boundaries at work, and use practices to prevent burnout. Here are some of them:
Energy leaks. During the day we encounter different situations, people, and activities. Some of them fill us, others drain us. Keep a note in your phone and write down every time you feel energized, happy, or, conversely, irritated, want to do something else, empty, dissatisfied. Give people and events a rating - one plus, two pluses, one minus, or two minuses - to track their impact on your state.
Try keeping such a diary for a month, and then analyze what wastes your energy and what replenishes it. For example, you may find that arguing with a toxic carder takes a lot of your energy. It is your right to figure out how to minimize communication or, if this is not possible, how to recover from it.
Mindfulness calendar. Take your usual planning tool, such as an electronic calendar, schedule things for a week or month in advance and color code different types of tasks and activities. Let carding be yellow, rest green, communication with relatives and friends pink, and sports blue. See which color is more and which is missing. Make sure that rest and physical activity are scheduled throughout the week along with work meetings and calls.
Weakness analysis. Analyze what brings you to a state of professional burnout. Maybe by nature you are an addicted type who finds it difficult to switch from interesting work to relaxing leisure? Or is the problem that you don’t have a hobby and don’t know how to relax in principle?
Such an analysis is most effectively carried out by a helping specialist - a coach or psychotherapist.
And don’t forget about regular quality rest. Any positive changes in life require resources.
