Photo courtesy of Scott Cunningham Photography
Don’t Get Burned
Avoiding burnout from the stressors in your life
It’s 2 p.m. and you managed to dilly-dally an hour after lunch before returning to your office. You look at your Fitbit and wonder how the heck you are going to last for another three hours and make it to quitting time.
Some days are like this. Or is it most?
You can’t seem to remember. You also can’t seem to remember what it is about this job that you loved in the first place.
Before quitting your job and heading to Cuba to open a cigar and coffee shop, it might be a good time to examine whether these are just symptoms of burnout and how to get yourself back on a track that doesn’t always involve a double shot of espresso.
At this juncture, give yourself an assessment. Here are some symptoms to look for to discover where you are on the burnout continuum.
Signs of Burnout include:
-Headache
-Sleep disturbance
-Difficulty concentrating
-Short temper
-Upset stomach
-Job dissatisfaction
-Low morale (morale indicators are laughter, tidy workspaces, courtesy language)
Where Are You on this Continuum?
Energized_____Lacking Enthusiasm______Cynical________Burned Out
A big part of burnout is simply chronic stress and inability to manage it appropriately. Some experts maintain, though this is a quickly dying model in social science, that stress is the “fight or flight” response. Even though we are the same humans we were 50,000 years ago, and the pressures facing contemporary man are symptomatically akin to the threat of being attacked by a tiger, this doesn’t help me when I’m confronted with a cat who is depressed and is leaving “signs” all over my new carpet. A better model is this one:
S=P>R
S is for Stress
P is for Pressures
R is for Resources
Basically, stress is when the pressures in your life are greater than the resources that you have available. Some stress in life is inevitable and actually good for you. You perform better, with greater efficiency, and this can lead to creative solutions.
But chronic stress is when we get ourselves into trouble. In the short run, we have sleep disturbances, irritability and withdrawal, and we adopt negative coping mechanisms: eating too much, drinking too much, shopping too much. In the long run, this leads to chronic illnesses such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, obesity and even depression, all of which may be prevented.
So here is how the model works.
Let’s say you are stressed out at your job. You have low morale and motivation, you get angry at your co-workers, you hate your boss, you deliver poor customer service due to apathy: all signs of burnout. According to the stress model above, you can either reduce the pressures that are causing this stress or increase your resources.
Let’s begin by attacking the pressures. You can simply eliminate the pressure of your job by quitting and heading directly to Cuba to open up that smoke and sip shop, of course, but not everyone has that luxury and it’s thoroughly unrealistic for most of us. You could change jobs, request a transfer to a new city, apply for a promotion – you get the idea.
Or you can change the way you think about your job. This is what we call a cognitive shift – an attitude of, “Hey, this is the nature of the beast. I can’t change it, so I will just have to roll with it.”
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.” –Mary Engelbreit
Next, let’s look at upping our resources. There are two kinds of resources: natural and artificial.
Natural resources are those we have already built in and/or need to access and cultivate: friends, family, our spiritual realm, etc. The spiritual realm can include your church, temple, mosque or ashram, or can be something simple such as long walks in nature, gardening, yoga, meditation or the newest craze: coloring in coloring books.
With regard to family and friends, many of us get caught up in time crunches to the point that we forget that spending time with these resources is not a time loss, but a major regenerator of ourselves and a fortification of bonds that we can access in major times of need. Blue zones – where people live consistently into their 100s – value these types of interactions more highly than work achievements.
Artificial resources are the ones we add on as needed, such as getting into a support group, joining a gym, seeing an analyst, accessing EAP (employee assistance provider) services, massage therapies, acupuncture and cooking classes. The possibilities are endless and don’t always involve major financial or time commitments.
Speaking of time, how we spend our time is, in contemporary culture, riddled with opportunities, not to mention the shoulds. Where do we draw the line? It is most important to first determine what our values are and then use our values to direct our time investments. Only then can we align our desires with our actions and find our happy place.
For more on how to create and carve out time to do the things we want and need, see sidebar for an exercise on developing time strategies.
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony.” –Mahatma Gandhi
Putting time in the front end into creating these remedies and satisfiers to address the causes of burnout will save you time on the back end of sick days, doctor visits, overspending, putting on unwanted pounds, arguments, low productivity and harming your reputation as a provider. Develop your personal action plan today. As Benjamin Franklin said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Stress Stats
Coffee Consumption The U.S. spends $40 billion on coffee every year. 68% of Americans have their first cup of coffee within an hour of waking up.
Energy Drink Consumption The number of emergency department visits involving urgent health complications due to energy drink consumption doubled between 2007 and 2011, from 10,068 visits to 20,783.
Adderall Consumption The demand for Adderall became so dramatic in 2012 that the federal government had to act to combat shortages. The DEA allows only a certain amount of amphetamine to be commercially manufactured each year, and Congress annually votes to increase that quota to meet the rising demand. In 1990, that number was 417 kg of amphetamine; in 2000, it was 9,007 kg; in 2012, 25,300 kg. The number is doubling every few years, and apparently, this supply is still not enough.
Blue Zones This concept identifies geographic areas of the world where people live measurably longer lives (Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Icaria, Greece; Nicoya, Costa Rica). The inhabitants of these areas possess these life qualities:
-Moderate, regular physical activity
-Life purpose
-Stress reduction
-Moderate caloric intake
-Plant-based diet
-Engagement in spirituality
-Engagement in family life
-Engagement in social life
Ria Greiff is a Master Trainer for a nationwide firm based out of NYC and has been providing wellness seminars for professionals of Fortune 500 companies for the past 15 years. She is also the clinical director of her own benefits consulting firm and has completed her doctorate studies in human services, as well as degrees in counseling and psychology from University of Dayton and The Ohio State University, respectively. She loves to help people and is always listening.
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