How to Avoid and Prevent Burnout
Making yourself and your needs a priority is the only way to avoid and prevent burnout.
A balanced flow of work play and rest.
There’s no secret recipe, breathing technique or time machine that will solve this problem. The subtle negotiations that we make with ourselves throughout the day are the steps that we need to make.
Crafting self-care and pauses into our days, weeks, and lives will save us from becoming a machine and a ghost of ourselves.
Remember, self-care is simple.
• Maybe you cook dinner twice a week instead of having take-out again.
• Taking a 10-15-minute walk in the fresh air or sunshine.
• Calling a friend to check-in (5-35 min)
• Taking a bath with Epsom salt, baking soda, and essential oils
• Not looking at your phone during a scheduled 20 min break
• Asking for help
• Talking to a professional about how things are going for you
• Watching one of your favorite tv shows
• Listening to an album you love
• Journaling
• Leisure reading
It’s the little things…
How to Overcome Burnout
When you’re under the throes of burnout, getting out of it or dealing with it becomes another thing to do under the mountain of impossibility.
The trick is to start small, build confidence from the small wins, and gain the encouragement to stretch a little farther. Maybe you’ve been talking to a good friend every week, and you’ve really found the calls helpful, and you get excited thinking about the call. Maybe next, you could schedule a coffee date; that way, you can see each other in person. And maybe after that, you realize that it’s time to take a step forward and reach out to a professional therapist, to go deeper into your internal landscape.
Also delegating tasks to others, not taking on any more responsibilities, and taking a look at your priorities and your commitments, and see where they align and where they don’t. See if you can resign from some of the activities that you feel are no longer aligned with you; feel how that would be for you.
Making sure that you’re doing the things you know you need to be doing, in order to be sustainable and healthy. Such as getting 7-9 hours of sleep, meal prepping and planning, and fun ways to move your body.
Creativity has also proved to be a powerful antidote to burnout.
Mindfulness, meditation, and focusing on your breath are cheap, easy, and effectible ways to overcome burnout.
The key is to pay attention. Pay attention to our body, our heart, and our breath. What does it look and feel like when you’re trying to push yourself? How can you cultivate a practice and life where you validate and attend to these messages that are trying to signal you?
If you feel like you are experiencing burn out and are not able to see improvement using these or other self-care techniques, you might consider reaching out to a mental health professional for an evaluation. Burnout can be elusive, as there are no specific diagnostic criteria. Despite the growing recognition and discourse around burnout, the psychological/medical field has not come to a consensus on what encompasses burnout. Also, how it differs from anxiety, depression, exhaustion, and work – related stress. However, if feelings of hopelessness, crippling anxiety, depersonalization, and/or suicide persist, please consider reaching out to a mental health professional for an intro call or evaluation.
Remember and repeat after me:
I am enough.
I am worthy.
I am success.
