Four Simple Remedies to Prevent Burnout
After working on a demanding grant application for a charitable organization for several weeks, I was tired. When my boss asked me to do a simple task, all I could do was not get angry with her. And when my colleagues and friends asked how the new job was progressing, I cynically joked that it was a waste of time. I didn’t know it then, but I burned out.
This post was originally published on Fast Company .
According to Christine Maslach and Susan E. Jackson of the University of California, Berkeley, experts on the subject, burned-out workers are “dissatisfied with themselves and unhappy with their achievements at work.”
Burnout can happen to anyone, even those who love their jobs and their careers. But if you’re feeling tired, irritable, or cynical about your job, don’t worry. Here are four scientifically proven ways to avoid burnout and recharge.
1. Become more selfish and focus on work that you care about.
In 1943, American psychologist Abraham Maslow explained that a person can only be happy if he is able to express himself and realize his potential.
He called it self-actualization and warned that “the history of mankind is a story of men and women who underestimate themselves.”
If you spend your day responding to other people’s demands, or if you only work on projects just because you’re told, burnout is inevitable.
Leaders of successful companies recognize the importance of self-fulfillment, and therefore many of them give employees time to work on their favorite projects through hackathons and “20% of the time”, which allows employees to devote one day a week to work on side projects. …
If you work in an office, focus on your most important projects in the morning, before your day breaks. This way, you can promote your personal project in small chunks every day.
If you work in a profession where your role is to serve or help others, it is still important to find a way to express your values or work towards your professional goals.
2. “Tame the monkey” through meditation.
Meditation has been around for thousands of years, but if the weight of the story isn’t enough, a study in Denmark in 2009 concluded that prolonged meditation was associated with an increased density of gray matter in the brainstem.
Regular meditation for just ten minutes a day will gradually rebuild your brain, and you will naturally be able to better focus on the task at hand. The ability to focus should allow you to finish what you are working on, and then shut down and recharge when the work is done.
If you are struggling to include at least 10 minutes of meditation in your day, there is another trick you can use. The next time you find yourself doing a repetitive chore – like updating a choreographed spreadsheet – avoid doing or thinking about anything other than the current task.
As Henepola Gunaratana explains in Mindfulness In Plain English , this is difficult to do. “Your mind will constantly wander, rushing about like a bumblebee and rushing to the wild.” This is the ” monkey of the mind .”
However, Gunaratana explains that this phenomenon is well known and that any practitioner, no matter how inexperienced, can go through it and achieve mental focus and clarity. Developing this type of awareness will also help you recognize burnout symptoms more quickly and then solve the underlying problem.
3. Force yourself to exercise.
After an intense run or workout, you will naturally feel better about a project or colleague that is raising your blood pressure.
Anxiety is another key burnout symptom that can be overcome with exercise. A 2004 study by Joshua Broman-Fulkes of the University of Southern Mississippi found that students who play sports are less sensitive to anxiety. This is just one of many scientific studies showing the benefits of exercise.
If you haven’t exercised recently, you may not immediately experience these benefits. The benefits are cumulative and represent small wins that you can reap over time.
You can incorporate exercise into your day by making it a goal to swim or run before work, go for a strenuous walk during lunch, or bring some sports equipment so you can work out before heading home. The trick is to create a regular exercise regimen that requires less mental effort to exercise than to do nothing. This is the formation of good habits.
4. “Review the battlefield” with the diary.
According to Heather Stuckey and Jeremy Nobel of the Arts and Healing Foundation , the letter has “positive effects” and may even lead to “long-term improvements in mood and health.”
You can experience these benefits by keeping a professional journal. At the end of the week or during quiet times, take thirty minutes to assess your progress and the difficulties you have encountered over the past few days.
Write down your accomplishments, what you are working on, and what is holding you back. You should also write down any open loops (things you are unsure about) or questions about your current commitments.
This will help you identify patterns in your work and understand what you need to do next. You can even find solutions to potential problems before they arise.
This strategy is naturally suitable for those who like to express themselves, but it doesn’t matter if you are not a writer. You can record the answers to these questions in a bulleted list format or even using your phone’s memo function.
The point is to force yourself to step back from the trenches of your daily work and look at the battlefield of your working life as a whole.
This way, you will be able to determine what you need to do to achieve your goals and whether you are working towards achieving them. And you take action before you burn out.
If you are still experiencing burnout after a long period, consider if the professional path you are taking is the right one. Then ask yourself (or your mentor) what you can do to change direction and fulfill your professional potential.
Whatever your situation, you can write a different story.
4 Simple Science Backed Burnout Cures | Fast Company