What Kind Were You Burned Out? (and Why Is It Important)
By now, many of us have burned out. In addition to the stresses of our health and safety, we had to worry about job loss, changes in working conditions, and family and work being combined with work that was even more tiring than usual. (And business as usual wasn’t all that good either.)
When you’re burned out, recovery can seem nearly impossible. Unfortunately, burnout is one of those conditions that can take much longer to recover than to develop, while burnout solutions are often unsuccessful. In order to recover, it is important to think about the source and type of your burnout, as it depends on what you need.
“Exhaustion on its own will never lead to burnout,” said Kira Shabram , an associate professor of burnout research at the University of Washington. Besides mental or physical exhaustion, burnout also consists of cynicism, which is often a feeling of alienation from others, as well as a diminished sense of efficiency, such as feelings of helplessness or incompetence. “Burnout is a combination of the three,” Shabram said.
Recovery will be different for everyone
This means that burnout will be slightly different for everyone, as will their recovery needs. If this sounds confusing, it is because it is. So burnout.
“We all understand burnout because we see it,” said Cheryl Ziegler , psychologist and author of Mommy ‘s Burnout . However, since the type of burnout varies from person to person, it is important to get a more detailed understanding of your burnout so that you can better understand what you need. “Understanding what causes you to burn out can help you make better decisions in the future, which can be both reflective and proactive,” Ziegler said.
To better understand how these three components – exhaustion, cynicism, and decreased performance – relate to your burnout, psychologists have developed a questionnaire called Maslach Burnout Inventory that can help identify patterns of burnout in patients. Depending on which of the symptoms showed up first and the strongest, it will tell you which one will work best.
Here are some of the strategies that have been shown to be effective against the following three components of burnout:
How to recover from burnout due to exhaustion
“The [classic] case of burnout is a pattern in which you experience exhaustion first and then two others follow,” Shabram said. Usually, when we think about burnout, we think about exhaustion. In fact, the best way to recover from this burnout is through rest. This could include taking a break, finding a way to reduce family responsibilities, or any other strategy that leads to more rest.
How to recover from cynicism burnout
Cynicism is the result of alienation from other people. It could be related to the work environment or your personal life, but when cynicism is the main cause of burnout, rest is not the main answer. Instead, it is important to find a way to communicate constructively with people. Examples might include mentoring others, volunteering somewhere, doing small acts of kindness, or interacting with others. Whatever method of communication is the most meaningful for a person, it will help him the most.
How to Recover from Burnout Due to Decreased Feelings of Efficiency
A decrease in a sense of efficiency is usually due to boredom or inefficiency. In the workplace, it can be a feeling that you are not being challenged, or a position that does not match your skills. “You just feel like you’re doing badly, or things that were easy for you before are now becoming difficult,” Shabram said.
If a decline in your sense of efficiency is a major contributor to your burnout, then the solution could be a role reversal in your company, a job change, starting a hobby, prioritizing workout times, or something else that can give you a sense of achievement.
Recovery is about doing more of the right things.
Some of these suggestions are counterintuitive. When you’re exhausted and burned out, the last thing you think about is adding something else. However, if your burnout is due to either cynicism or a diminished sense of efficiency, it is important to find some kind of action that will help counteract those feelings. “To reduce cynicism and inefficiency, you need to do more of the right things,” Shabram said.
Since there is no one-size-fits-all recovery solution, figuring out the source of the burn-in may give you an opportunity to determine the next steps. “When you understand [your] burnout, you see more opportunities, solutions and ideas,” adds Ziegler.
Be proactive
Both Ziegler and Shabram urge burnout people to be as active as possible, as this can affect other aspects of your life. “You start to lose interest in things, you start to feel cynical or depressed, and it becomes universal,” Ziegler said. “It seeps into other areas of [your] life.” Given their overlapping symptoms, burnout is often confused with or mistaken for depression.
In the early stages of burnout, “there is still creativity in your thinking,” Ziegler said. “But if you go too far on the cynical route, you won’t be able to access it.”