It’s easy to feel stress in our daily lives, whether it’s from work, school, or relationships. But when that stress becomes unrelenting, you might be suffering from burnout instead.
What is Burnout?
Burnout is the combination of emotional, physical and mental exhaustion, often caused by prolonged stress. It’s particularly common in the workplace when employees are overworked and don’t have time to relax. Burnout can reduce productivity and decrease energy, and create a complete lack of motivation. Signs of burnout include:
- Anxiety
- Fatigue
- Lack of commitment
- Low mood
- Headaches
- Difficulty concentrating
- Cynical outlook
Read Now: How to Regain Your Lost Motivation
Burnout or Stress?
Whilst there are some similarities, burnout is not the same as just being stressed. Stress comes when you are still trying to cope with all your responsibilities; burnout hits when you have given up. Burnout is a more gradual process, which makes it harder to control.
Stress often feels like a state of panic, when you feel you don’t have enough time to get everything done. By the time burnout hits, you might feel like giving up on your responsibilities, as they begin to feel unachievable.
Burnout can be caused by lots of different things, but it is usually a combination of factors, including:
- Taking on too many responsibilities
- Lack of recognition for hard work
- Overly demanding expectations
- Feeling like you have no control
- Not having time for socialising or relaxing
- Not getting enough sleep.
Read Now: 4 Effective Ways to Clear Your Mind of Stress
How to Avoid Burnout
The best way to tackle burnout is to notice the signs before it becomes overwhelming. If you can work to prevent burnout before it hits, it will be much easier to manage daily stress. There are lots of different things you can do to prevent reaching burnout.
Find the Source
The easiest way to prevent burnout is to figure out what specifically is causing it. It’s different for everyone, so take time to evaluate your stressors, and see what often leads you to becoming burnt out.
Once you know where the source is, it becomes a lot easier to create simple day-to-day changes. If you know where to look, you can prevent burnout and manage stress. This gives you space to set boundaries and identify areas in your life that can be improved.
Organise Your Priorities
If you don’t organise your priorities, you can easily end up spending too much time on less important tasks, and falling behind on the important things. Take time to assess where you should be putting your energy – you want to use it in the most efficient way possible.
Don’t be afraid to set boundaries either. If you know your workload is too much for you, delegate tasks to someone else or ask for extensions. Becoming overwhelmed by your priorities is an easy way to end up burnt out. Prioritising the important stuff doesn’t mean you are lazy; it means you have a stronger understanding of your abilities.
Read Now: 5 Essential Habits to Help You Stay Organised
Ask for Help
Tackling burnout alone can make your problems feel impossible to solve. Talking to others can help to ease the pressure you might be feeling, as it’s likely they’ve experienced something similar before. Co-workers can help you to pick up parts of your work that you don’t think you can complete, whilst friends and family can listen to and validate your concerns.
Like the team at Ceed, life coaches can help you find the best ways of managing your workload to avoid burnout in the future. Different techniques work for different people, so it’s important to find what is best for you.
Exercise Regularly
Exercising on a frequent basis can help to improve your mood and boost productivity. It helps you to get better sleep, which in turn sets you up to have more energy for the working day. This can decrease emotional exhaustion, psychological distress and perceived stress.
Even exercise like taking a short walk in your lunch break can help to relax your mind and get your blood flowing. Especially if you have a job where you are sitting in the same spot all day, it is easy to get overwhelmed and discouraged. Exercising can improve your wellbeing, and in turn, fights off burnout.
Read Now: How Exercise Improves Productivity at Work
To Sum Up…
Dealing with burnout can be difficult, especially when it sneaks up on you. The best way to deal with it is to prevent it. Following these simple ideas will make it easier to avoid reaching a state of burnout, and can help improve your day-to-day stresses.
If you want further help on how to tackle burnout, contact the team at Ceed today! We can provide lifestyle coaching experts to help you grow.