Stressed at work? Here are 5 tips on how to deal with burn out

Feb 1

And no, you don’t have to quit your job or take a vacation.

In 2019, World Health Organization FINALLY added workplace burnout as an "occupational phenomenon" to its International Classification of Diseases. Did you know that 76% of employees experience burnout sometimes on the job and that 28% say they are burnt out "very often" or "always" at work? Indeed conducted a study of the American workforce in March 2021, a year since the COVID-19 pandemic, showed that employee burnout has only worsened over the last year: 52% of employees are feeling burnt out vs. 43% from a pre-Covid survey. Even if you hadn't known these facts before, you are probably nodding your head along because you have felt workplace burnout before.

Burnout is on the rise, and I'm sure all of us have at least seen one post on LinkedIn shaming burnout culture. I know I have. Yet, I didn't have the know-how or resources to support myself when recognizing my burnout and healing. Therefore, I come to you with what I believe are the first five essential things to do when you're in the cold embrace of burnout.

Step One: Own your burnout

So, what is burnout? Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. In addition to chronic fatigue, some of the other signs I experienced were trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, having a fever every other weekend, chronic body pain, and forgetting to complete routine work/life tasks. All these made me worse at my job resulting in MORE stress and time to perform tasks. I also avoided social settings and snapped a lot at my poor family.

I was reading The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris on acceptance and commitment theory, and one of the most essential things to do is, you guessed it, acceptance. Many people don't want to accept they are experiencing burnout. Avoidance only prolongs and worsens the issue. So, if you have been feeling emotionally exhausted, constantly tired, cynical, angry at the world, and have lost meaning in life, then you are most likely dealing with burnout. Stop fighting yourself.

But don't let me label your current state of mind. Let the mental health experts guide you. You could ring the therapist and make an appointment, OR as the generation of BuzzFeed quizzes, let the experts at PositivePsychology help you identify your ailment via their multiple assessments.

Step Two: Debunk some myths

Let's take a moment to debunk the two oft-cited burnout "cures."

"You just need a break/vacation." Let me stop you right there. According to a 2018 survey by the American Psychological Association, 66% of respondents said that "when they return to work, the benefits either disappear immediately or last only a few days." Another study by the Journal of Applied Psychology found similar results with workers reporting feelings of pre-vacation burnout returning within just 4 weeks of taking time off. I am not sure about you, but I can't be taking a vacation every month.
Quit your job. I had to address this ludicrous advice. Burnout is a systematic issue prevalent across the globe. I would like to address that while this is important and possible for a few, it is not feasible for most of us to upend our lives and switch jobs every year.

There are also articles encouraging employees to have an open and honest conversation with their managers. And while those are also sound advice, we must accept that they fall primarily on the shoulders of an employer to provide such an environment and address these issues. However, if that is something you can do, please refer to this article on discussing burnout professionally with your manager.

Now that we've addressed the elephants in the room. Let's get down to what you can do.

Step 3: Get out of your way.

You can worsen and contribute to your burnout - yes, that's right. It's not all lousy management and long hours of work. I've seen a lot of posts on LinkedIn since the start of the pandemic discussing the need to stop glorifying burnout culture. And it can be hard to unlearn these thinking patterns when those around you constantly applaud individuals with praises such as "You're such a hard team player" or "I don't know how you do it all." These can make it difficult for a person to see how their work habits are adding or causing their burnout.

Burnout results from a prolonged time of stress, so how you process stress has a significant impact on how you're to burn out. If you believe in the burnout culture and glorify it, it just makes it that much harder for you to recover. To recover from burnout and make ourselves resilient to stress, we need to evaluate our core values and expectations of ourselves. These are some of the common unhelpful thinking patterns and rigid standards we are all guilty of holding ourselves to:

If I want something done right, I must do it myself.
I can't say no, or everyone will think I'm not a team player or lazy.
If I'm not busy, I'm not living up to my 100% potential and wasting my life.

Step 4: Take Action

An exciting research paper by Meijman and Mulder (1998) talks about how burnout is worsened by daily activities. To summarize the findings: work requires physical and mental energy, recuperating with regular breaks. So, when we go long periods without rest, the amount of rest needed increases while productivity decreases. Then it takes even longer to perform tasks resulting in even more hours worked. This is an endless cycle of exertion which drains us more.

This reiterates just how important it is to fight burnout daily. Here are some low-cost activities that you can build into your schedule every day to combat burnout or prevent burnout:

1. Do what brings you joy.

A simple way to reduce burnout is to recognize actions that add to your burnout and replace it with an activity that brings you joy. For me, it's been taking a daily walk when possible, reading books, doing yoga, and making time for spiritual awareness every morning and evening. According to Amelia Nagoski (Author of burnout: the secret to unlocking the stress cycle), there is no single answer to what's helpful for all, "…But when you start listening to your mind and body, it'll be obvious what it needs. Most likely, the first thing is going to be rest. But after that, it could be more vegetables, it could be more exercise, it could be more alone time. Everybody is different."

2. Do not read the news.

Ignorance may, after all, be bliss. News is essential, but we consume so much in this age of social media that it renders us helpless and stuck in an endless cycle of fearful emotions. A study by the Institute for Applied Positive Research found "when you're exposed to just three minutes of negative news first thing in the morning, you have a 27 percent higher likelihood of reporting that you had a bad day six to eight hours later." THIS IS KEY. Even though most of us want to be socially aware of the world around us and use our privileges to help others, we can only help when we're well ourselves. It may seem harsh to unfollow a news channel but listening to dire news first thing in the morning or during your lunch break will not help those suffering or yourself.

Step 5: Reach Out

When I was at the height of burnout, the last thing I wanted to do was attend the work social or meet up with a childhood friend. Every interaction is too overwhelming. Long periods of exhaustion will do that to you. All I wanted to do was crawl into a hole and hibernate. Little did I know that it was not helpful.

In a study performed by Oerlemans and Bakker (2014), researchers tracked diary entries of 247 people on the road to burnout recovery against three criteria: physical vigor, cognitive liveliness, and healing. For both high-risk and low-risk burnt-out individuals, all three activities alleviated burnout. For high-risk participants, only social activities improved physical vigor, cognitive liveliness, and recovery, with physical activities showing no improvement in any outcome variables. So, reach out to your loved ones. A twenty-minute chat or sharing funny YouTube videos is better than hibernation.

It takes time.

Now you might say that you've already tried these, but they have not worked. And the last thing you want to hear is that recovery takes a long time. According to a study of burnout recovery in a naturalistic setting, participants reported it took anywhere from one year to three years to recover from burnout. I felt the same when I had taken a two-month break, quit a toxic workplace, and joined a supportive one. I still felt exhausted and was not motivated by my career.

Other studies on this topic cite best result outcomes occur when individuals take daily steps to heal. Every little bit counts. And if you would like to have some fun while at it, here are some burnout tests to monitor your progress.

Fatema is a Canadian business professional who is inspired by the mundane. When Fatema is not pouring over financial statements, she can be found advocating work life balance, reading or continuing her quest to find the perfect dark roast. She is starting out in the world of freelance writing and bookstagramming.

Featured