Stress and burnout at work is a topic which is not new to us. Even with better technology and a greater number of people at the workforce, the workload on each individual has significantly increased. This contributes to the people getting much more stressed and becoming emotionally and physically sick. This is one of the most discussed topics yet the number of people struggling with stress and burnout is increasing. In this post I will provide you an introductory guide to the meaning of stress and burnout, their signs and symptoms; and some ways to deal with stress and avoid burnout.
What is stress?
Stress is a of response of our bodies when we are faced with difficult and dangerous situations in life. Whenever we are under stress, our body release a mocktail of hormones. These hormones increase our heart rate and blood pressure to provide more oxygen to the body which would help the person in fight or flight in that situation.
These hormones when not used for this function can become harmful to the body and manifest itself in many diseases. Like the drop in stomach one feels when they are told to meet the director urgently, or the headache one feels when he or she must submit an “urgent” report by tomorrow on top of the million tasks they already had. What used to be a good survival strategy in ancient times is now taking a toll on people’s health.
When stress is good:
In early human days, the dangerous and difficult situations were for a short term period and they were usually not happening every other day. For example, fighting with a lion or getting hurt due devastating weather. Events like these were not common and whenever they did happen these stress hormones would act as an army of soldiers and help people fight back or run away from the danger as soon as possible.
Stress in modern times:
But in modern world, the definition and frequency of a stressful situation has changed. These days what our bodies recognize as stressful situation is things like dealing with the fear of unemployment, inflation, increased workload, dealing with a toxic coworker, dealing with a disrespectful customer etc. All these situations are long term and cannot be solved by fighting or running. Thus, our body starts to build up stress hormones in our body and we start to feel like we are in state of misery all the time.
This increased levels of stress in our body results in disbalance of emotional and physical well-being of a person.
What is burnout?
When our body is under stress for prolonged periods of time, it starts to get physically and emotionally drained. The stage where we feel drained of all our emotional and physical energy, unable to do even mundane things and feel like there is no purpose of doing our work anymore, is what we call “burnout”.
Burnout in people is a serious issue which needs to be addressed. So many people are dealing with being burned out everyday and they are not even aware of it. It is not commonly understood by people how burnout can even lead to physical diseases. People usually think that it is just “tension”, it is a part of life, it will get rectified by itself. But that is not true at all. With every episode of stressful situation, our physical bodies also get weaker.
Dealing with constant stressful situations at work eventually make our immune system weaker and susceptible to more diseases. Many common diseases like migraine, herpes zoster, cardio-vascular diseases etc. have their roots in stress.
Thus, it should be our priority to be stress-free as much as we can. We should be aware of which situations in our life are really a danger and which situations are not actually life threatening but just illusions.
How to deal with stress and avoid burnout?
Here I have listed some of the ways in which one can deal with stress at work and avoid burnout.
1. Breathing:
As cliche as it sounds, breathing is a quick and effective way to calm your nerves and relieve your stress. If you are feeling like you are under a lot of pressure, I advise you to do breathing exercises and see the difference. Do mindful breathing and let out difficult emotions from your system.
2. Respecting your boundaries and time:
It is your responsibility first to respect your boundaries and time. If it is decided that you will stop working at 5:00pm. Respect that and do not continue to work for another 15 minutes. Also, remember that no work is urgent enough to cost you your health.
3. Learning to Saying No:
Sometimes, it becomes hard for people pleasers to say no to the things they do not want to do. In such cases saying no for the first few times may be hard but eventually you will learn to say it with much more confidence.
4. Having hobbies away from work:
Having some hobbies outside of your work can greatly help you with coping with stress at work and rejuvenate your soul.
5. Spending time with the loved ones:
By spending quality time with your loved ones and family, you can create a support system for yourself where you not only feel loved and cared for but also have something other than work to think and care about. When we make work our identity, we are bound to feel stressed because of so many reasons. But making our family our first priority, we can find solace at home.
