Burnout affects everyone, from doctors to CEOs to full-time parents. The thing is, the more you toil at your job and the more determined you are to succeed, the easier it is to get in over your head.
These days, the predominance of burnout is rising as the line between work and home is further blurred by technology. In fact, according to the American Psychological Association and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, 31% of Americans are having a hard time managing their family and work responsibilities while 48% of employed adults report increased stress over the past 5 years. Furthermore, a poll held by the Society for Human Resource Management found that one of the top reasons why people quit was “burnout from my current job”.
Oftentimes, burnout is the result of a misalignment of input and output. In other words, you get burned out when you feel like you’re putting more into your work than your getting out of it. This usually happens when a job isn’t rewarding or fulfilling, but what most people don’t realize is that it’s also because they are not taking care of themselves better.
It is important to remember that before you can address and even avoid burnout from happening, you need to be familiar with the warning signs so you can take action. Read on to find out what they are.
5) Health problems.
Burnout has an enormous impact not only on your mental but physical health as well. Whether you’re experiencing headache, back pain, obesity, depression, heart problems or various sickness problems, you need to acknowledge the role of your job in all of this. If burnout is affecting your health, you need to make a decision whether your attitude towards work is worth the consequences.
4) Cognitive difficulties.
According to research, stress negatively affects the prefrontal cortex, that part of the brain that’s in charge of executive function. Executive function plays a major role in your decision-making ability, memory, focus and emotional control. If you catch yourself making poor decisions, forgetting important things, making silly mistakes and more emotional than usual, you’re likely burning out.
3) Difficulty with personal and work relationships.
Stress affects everything that you do, especially how you interact with the people around you. Even when you think you got stress under control at your job, it can manifest at home without you realizing it. Often, it’s your relationship with others that suffer. It’s stress that likely causes people to lose their cool and snap at others, often resulting to silly, unnecessary conflicts and fights.
2) Bringing your work home with you.
If you’re familiar with that awful, sinking feeling while you’re lying in bed and thinking about all the work that you still need to get done then you probably know what I’m talking about. If work is the only thing in your mind even when you’re at your home, it’s a strong sign that you’re burning out. To avoid entertaining work-related matters outside of the office, do not take work-related calls when you’re at home and abstain from checking your emails during weekends.
1) Fatigue.
As stress eventually takes its toll on our minds and bodies whether we like it or not, burnout will always lead to exhaustion. The sure signs of burnout fatigue include, waking up exhausted even after a good night’s sleep, caffeine dependency so you can get through the day, and/ having trouble staying alert/awake at your job.
