Needing burnout recovery in modern times is more paramount than ever before.
Why Society Seems so Burnout
A study found that burnout is embedded in the rapid societal change over the last 25 years. Mainly resulting from the swift change from an industrial society to a service economy. The transformation has put enormous pressure on society as a whole and the individual to cope with the increasing demands placed upon the individual.
Be it excelling in academics, your workplace, giving your family the best possible life, or even working on hobbies – there is pressure to do everything well. Mostly because globalization and social media have made it easier than ever to see people who seem more successful, talented, attractive, or (insert any other desirable trait here). Almost everyone needs burnout recovery.
It is okay to be intimidated and stressed about all these expectations society and we place on ourselves.
It helps to remember that humans began in hunter-gatherer societies. Historians have found that our ancient ancestors lived in groups of 30-40 people. Physically speaking, we are still operating on the same bodies that our ancestors used. Our brains are used to working in small societies while trying to learn specialized skills to stand-out in the crowd. Now the crowd is 23 million times larger than what it used to be.
With the pressure to be everything and stand-out, people tend to push themselves too hard.
How many of us are burned out?
The Washington Post found in a survey that 95% of human resource leaders say burnout is sabotaging workplace retention because of overly heavy workloads. Not only is burnout prevalent in the workplace, but terms like “Mommy Burnout” are also increasing in search frequency. There is a sense of increased responsibility on couples, particularly women, to be both a financial breadwinner and an outstanding parent.
Further studies have found that at any given time, severe burnout was detected in nearly 3% of employees. That is crazy, if you work in a team of over 100 people, any given 3 of your colleges are barely chugging along every day.
Detriments of Burnout
Burnout recovery is hard enough on its own. However, when paired with the symptoms of chronic burnout, it can almost seem impossible to recover.
Some of the most common symptoms of burnout are:
- Emotional exhaustion
- Increased levels of depersonalization & cynicism
- Lower levels of personal accomplishment
- Overall lack of mental engagement
- Decreased day to day life satisfaction
- Deuteriation of personal relationships
Slowing Down – Limiting Burnout Recovery
Stopping burnout and learning to take a little more balanced approach is something I believe is important in this blog. If you’d like a little more insight on how to balance life, check out these two guides:
Burnout Takes Different Forms
As you can see from the symptoms, there are different causes of burnout. Understanding your symptom can show you what type of burnout you have.
Different types of burnout manifest in different ways. By understanding which type of burnout you have, you can better take a shot at burnout recovery.
How to See which Burnout you Have
See your life in water buckets. You have a mental energy bucket, an emotional bucket, a people bucket, and a physical bucket. As you devote energy to any of these areas, you deplete that bucket, and the less water you have.
Recovering in those areas replenishes your bucket. However, burnout happens when you give away all your water. Then you keep giving instead of refilling your bucket.
By continually trying to give water (energy) you don’t have, you only end up hurting yourself, and even sometimes others.
To help you do burnout recovery, check which bucket you have been giving away too much and see how you can better help yourself.
The 8 Types of Burnout
1. Mental Burnout
“My mind cannot process anymore. My brain is fried.”
Cause
Mental burnout manifests when you have taken on too much new mental stimulation at once. Maybe you started a new job, started a new side hustle, or are pushing yourself to accomplish novel tasks for hours in a row each day.
A study analyzing 46 scientific papers found that those who worked over 8 hours a day, in general, suffer more severe cases of insomnia, anxiety, and chronic health issues. If you try to cram too much into one day repeatedly, you will cause all your work to come to a halt with burnout.
Fixes
Prioritize your Work Assignments: Perhaps you are spending too much time trying to do too much at once. Imagine if you only had 6 hours to work in the day. What should you do to maximize the work accomplished?
To help set priorities, check out our guide on the 1 question you should ask yourself each morning.
Build-in Breaks: Humans aren’t designed to work 12 hours straight in a row. We work best when we take many mini-breaks throughout the day to provide mental relief and relaxation during challenging tasks.
Check out this guide on how to work more effectively for some tips that you can incorporate into your daily routine.
2. Emotional Burnout
“These strong and negative emotions are exhausting me.”
Cause
Perhaps a lot is going on in your life. You could be stressed, anxious, depressed, angry, or any other negative feeling. Feeling these powerful feelings day after day can be draining and tough for our mental resources.
Even having negative feelings for 3 days can make people work less effectively and become drained earlier and earlier in the day.
If you are suffering from chronic depression, or any other negative feelings – please seek professional help. Some beneficial resources are at SAMHSA.
Fixes
Learn to Let Go: Why are you feeling these negative emotions? If you feel safe to, or with the guidance of a licensed professional, explore the root of this negative feeling. What is bothering you? The emotion is just a signal that something is wrong. Use it as a helpful guide to see what is eating at you.
For smaller things, we have a guide here where we explore how to let go of the negative feeling.
See the Positive: Learning to be positive can be tough. However, those who are consistently positive demonstrate higher life satisfaction, better health, have more wealth, and overall enjoy each day more. Positivity is like any skill – it can be learned with enough time and dedication.
3. Compassion Burnout
“I cannot hold any more love for anyone else; I am tapped.”
Cause
Compassion burnout often happens because someone else is going through a tough time and you are doing your best to help them out. Helping others is a great thing. However, if you have troubles in your personal life, and their problems continue to persist, you can run out of compassion to give to others and yourself.
What is worse, is when you feel like a jerk for not helping them out further because they are in a tough spot. Perhaps a loved one is in the hospital or someone needs financial help. These are taxing situations as it is, and on top of that, then you feel guilty for not “doing more” or “giving more.”
The desire to constantly give, give, give to others in need is great. However, when it is done out of proportion, it can cause us to start to feel a lack of compassion and cynicism for those we are helping.
Fixes
Take time for yourself: Taking time for yourself isn’t being selfish. You need to put on your oxygen mask before you can help others. Apply that same logic here. Even if it is just an afternoon to decompress, make yourself a priority for a little, and take care of yourself how you need to be taken care of.
Practicing self-compassion can be tough at first. Check-out our guide here to learn to do it in a way that works for you.
Lean on Others: Who else can you, or the other party ask for help? Tap into your network. See who is willing to also help. If possible, that could also mean hiring professional help to take part in handling the situation. People like to help, see who is willing to come to your aid as well.
4. Relational Burnout
“I’ve been over-giving to others, my organization, my community, or my family and I am over it.”
Cause
Similar to compassion burnout, relational burnout happens when you give too much to others. Be it in your energy, time, mental or emotional bandwidth. You can only give so much. When you give to others everything you have and leave nothing for yourself, you can become jaded. Everyone needs time for themselves too.
Fixes
Take time for yourself: Some of the same advice for compassion burnout applies here as well. Everyone’s energy needs and time needs are different. You know yourself. Prioritize time where you can focus on yourself to help fill the bucket back up.
Set boundaries: When setting boundaries, sometimes that means saying no. Saying no and prioritizing where your time and energy go is something you have to decide for yourself. Sometimes that means having hard conversations, but in the end, you will be better at living the life you want. The other parties will have a better understanding of how they can best support you.
5. Survival Burnout
“I am exhausted from trying to make ends meet and stay afloat.”
Cause
Sometimes, all we can operate in survival mode. Be it trying to make ends meet, getting an intense project accomplished at work, or helping the family.
Survival stress can even appear in parents taking care of a 0–3-year-old. These parents are usually sleep-deprived, strapped for resources, and also have a professional career.
When you are continually in stressful situations, it causes you to go into survival mode. Too much of this, and you get burned out.
Fixes
Improve the Current Situation: Even just by .01%. What little action could you do to make the days better? Maybe it is taking 5 minutes to meditate in the morning, or by asking a friend to help you on Thursdays with whatever is stressing you. The answer could even be letting yourself become better rested by sleeping longer.
Realize that you do have some self-efficacy and try to make the situation slightly better.
Look to the Future: Recognize the situation. Is this a temporary survivorship, like raising a new-born, or is it something more permeant like being a single-parent? There is nothing wrong with having a tough situation, and we all find ourselves there. Ask yourself what the biggest lack of resources is currently. Is it money, time, energy, or something else? We can also work towards a brighter future. Maybe that means taking Sunday evenings to learn new skills so you can apply for higher-paying jobs, or maybe that means coming up with a personal finances plan. Or learning to cook two nights a week to make healthier food.
Tough situations are hard on people mentally, physically, and emotionally. Handle the current situation the best you can. While actively trying to work towards a better future.
6. Atlas Burnout
“I am feeling the weight of taking on too much; I can’t hold it all anymore.”
Cause
21% of all burnout cases are related to feeling “overloaded” with responsibility and work.
The sense of having too much to do extends to also taking care of the family, adult responsibilities, schooling, side hustling, and any other work you assign yourself.
When people take on everything and try to hold the world up, eventually something is going to give.
Fixes
Pick your Priorities: If you could only get one big thing done today, and two minor things – what would they be? Force yourself to choose these activities.
A useful template for keeping a priority checklist can be found here. It is about forcing yourself to choose the activities that add the most value to yours and others life.
Celebrate Little Victories: When feeling like Atlas, the to-do list can seem never-ending. Like said above, limiting your to-do list is a good start. Also, start celebrating the little wins. When you feel like you are just checking item after item off the to-do list, it can feel like there isn’t any significant accomplishment to your action. By celebrating the little victories, you will get to enjoy the fruits of all your hard-work – which boosts positive feelings, and senses of accomplishment.
Check-out this guide on how to celebrate the little wins!
7. Passion Burnout
“I love what I do, but I have given too much and pushed too hard.”
Cause
No matter how great the project is, too much of a good thing isn’t much of a good thing at all. Over an extended weekend, I worked on the blog for 12+ hours for three days in a row. I love this blog and providing new content. However, after 3 long days of doing nothing but improving the site and writing – I didn’t even want to look at it until a week later.
It was like binge eating a box of cookies, feels good in the moment, but after it is feelings of nausea and never wanting to eat a cookie ever again.
Fixes
Use Positive Self-Talk: Too much of anything is never a good thing. Even Olympians struggle with keeping their focus on their sport of choice. In a fascinating study of the Mental Skills of a Taekwondo athlete, researchers found that she posed strong mental self-talk that encouraged her when times got tough. A practice she learned from her mentors. Without it, she says she might not have been an Olympian. What also helped her on her journey, taking breaks each day.
Try something New: Humans love new stimuli. If your passion is primarily something on the computer, pick up something tactile. Swap the keyboard for the painter’s set. If you usually like to sit quietly indoors working on your hobby, go for a run.
You aren’t married to your hobby or this new activity – you can break up your time with something new. Who knows, you might even find inspiration when you dive back into your original passion!
8. Physical Burnout
“My body is revolting; I have depleted my life force.”
Cause
Exhaustion is a sign of burnout, but they are not the same feeling. Researchers found that those who were burned out experience more physical ailments (aches, pains, muscle flair-ups, trouble sleeping) than those who felt merely exhausted at the end of a long day.
Fixes
Eat Light: Meat takes the most energy for your body to digest and process. The sluggish feeling you get after meat-heavy meals like the steak of BBQ is because it takes a lot of effort for your body to digest that protein. By eating more vegetarian or light on meat food – you can get the energy you need to get your work done without overloading your body.
Taste of Home has 90 Vegetarian recipes you can make in 30 minutes!
Exercise Properly: If you are experiencing backache, don’t go heavy weightlifting for your back. Even though high school me would disagree – it only makes the problem worse. Instead, do exercises that alleviate the pain, such as yoga or other stretch heavy exercises. You get to work-out and alleviate the muscle tension!
Taking care of your body properly avoids burnout and aids in burnout recovery.
Main Take-Away
- Prevent burnout through living a balanced life is the best way to stop burnout before it becomes prevalent.
- When burnout does arise, it helps to take the time to understand which burnout you have. From that informed place, you can make a better decision when it comes to what you need to do for burnout recovery.
- Burnout happens to everyone and it is very draining. Practice the fixes discussed in the article to also stave off future burnout in each area of your life.
Action Item
What feeling of burnout do you have, or which do you think is developing? Make time for the next 5 days to practice relieving the burnout through the recommended strategies. It isn’t always easy making time for ourselves, but helping ourselves is the first step to getting better. Especially when it comes to burnout recovery.
