When someone is overworked and stressed over a long period of time, they might experience something called burnout. This is actually incredibly common in the UK, with almost half of employees feeling as though they are close to burnout.
What Are The Symptoms Of Burnout?
There are many mental and physical symptoms that can appear as a result of burnout. People usually experience the following symptoms:
· Exhaustion and tiredness that doesn’t go away.
· Feelings of hopelessness.
· Loss of motivation.
· Difficulty concentrating or staying on task.
· Headaches, stomach aches and digestive issues.
· Feeling isolated or overwhelmed.
· Abuse of substances such as alcohol or drugs to cope.
What Causes Burnout?
A poor work life balance is a big contributor. If you find yourself spending too much time at work or thinking about work, you’re more likely to experience the symptoms of burnout. This condition can creep up over time, and it’s not always expected. One minute you could feel like you’re an overachieving, happy employee. The next, you could be feeling overworked, overwhelmed and drained.
Will Burnout Go Away On Its Own?
The symptoms of burnout usually appear because your work life balance need to change. Therefore, it won’t go away on its own. If you don’t take a step back and make some changes, you’ll find that the symptoms will worsen. Burnout can harm both your mental and physical health, so it’s important that you take it seriously.
To combat burnout, you need to take a look at your lifestyle and make meaningful changes. You don’t have to go through this alone. Speak to a manager or trusted co worker who can help you to evaluate your workload. There’s no shame in parting with some of your responsibilities if it results in an improvement in your wellbeing.
What Effect Did The Pandemic Have?
Working from home became the new normal in 2020. This was incredibly convenient for some, but it does introduce new risks. Working from home makes it more difficult to separate your work life from your personal life.
If you’re able to, having a specific space to work in could help. You could restrict all work matters to your home office, and shut the door when your hours are complete. Sticking to your end time is really important, as the temptation to work overtime could become a compulsion.
Working at home could cause feelings of isolation. Scheduling video and phone call catch ups with your coworkers could help to combat this. Everyone benefits from regular communication, and it helps to strengthen your work relationships. If other members of your household also work from home, taking 5 minutes away from your screen for a quick chat could make the world of difference. Nobody is expected to spend their full work day attached to their screen. A short break every so often can be beneficial to your wellbeing and productivity.
How To Fix Burnout
Despite it being such a complex issue, burnout can be fixed. If you’re able to take a step back and look at your work life balance rationally, you should be able to set clear goals to achieve a better balance. This can be hard for some people, so you can turn to a trusted friend or colleague for help. You can consider the following steps:
· Can you create a better boundary between your work life and personal life?
· Are you able to delegate any tasks to your colleagues?
· Are all of your tasks worth your time? Are there any that could be discarded?
· Do you find your work interesting? Could your work be adapted so it’s more exciting?
· Do you have enough time outside of work to lead an active, fulfilling lifestyle?
· Do you allow thoughts of work to impede on your personal life? Can you prevent this?
· Are you getting enough sleep?
Answering these questions should give you a better idea of what changes can be made to improve your work life balance. Once you’ve made a plan, you can take the first steps towards combating burnout.