Burnout : What Is It and How do I Fix It
Today we are going to talk about the dreaded burnout! We have all heard of it, every company is scared of it, but what is it and what can we do to bounce back from it.
First let’s be clear about what we are talking about. Burnout is a state of prolonged exhaustion where we feel emotionally physically and mentally depleted. Burnout is feeling like you do not have the energy for anything on a daily basis. Burnout is waking up exhausted, not caring about things that use to be important or not wanting to do things that you know you would like. It feels like you no longer have the energy to perceive emotions, to have personality or to care about what is happening in your environment. All you want to do is nothing because your body and mind don’t have the energy to do anything else. You drained the energy needed to engage in these behaviors and those parts of you are no longer functioning properly.
We get to this point by pushing ourselves further than our bodies can handle and still function. As human beings we have a unique ability to push ourselves past what is good for our health. For example, if I am driving down the street, and the car runs out of gas, the car can’t say, “just a little bit more we are almost to our destination”. Nope, once the car is out of gas it stops and now, I am on the side of the road wondering why I did not fill up sooner. Humans on the other hand can borrow fuel from other areas of themselves and apply it to keep moving us towards our goals. By borrowing energy, we do damage to our bodies both physically and mentally, the effect of this damage is called burnout.
To come back from burnout, we have to allow our bodies and minds to recoup the energy that we borrowed. Now I know what you’re thinking, “it can’t be an energy issue, I went to sleep last night”. That is like saying I ran the car till it completely ran out of gas, nothing in the fuel lines or nothing; but I put a cup of gas in it, so it should work again. We are in need of a recharge that is on par, with how much energy we used. I get it, we don’t all have the luxury of taking prolonged brakes from life and work, but being conscious of what you are putting your energy into and making efforts to slow your energy output as much as possible, is how we slowly recover from burnout. It takes time to give ourselves the energy back that we lost. It takes more than a cup of gas to balance a multi gallon deficit, and keeping a proper perspective helps us have more grace around taking care of ourselves.
If you think you might need some support around burnout or ways of taking better care of the self, feel free to reach out to Comfy Corner Counseling and let one of our therapists support you today.
