What is Mental burnout?
Feeling exhausted and losing self-hope due to excess workload, emotional distress, etc., is called mental burnout. Mental burnout is a kind of stress mostly caused due to your job.
When your self-confidence degenerates to self-doubt, your enthusiasm turns into procrastination, your active day becomes a lazy and sober day, then you are in mental burnout.
Mental burnout is an anguish feeling caused due to the job. You will feel mental burnout whenever things don’t go the way you want.
Mental burnout is different from mental illness. Mental illness is a kind of unrequested change in how a person perceives things. Mental illness affects mental health, leading to emotional instability and work pressure.
Prevention
Almost all working people experience mental burnout at some point in their work life. Overcoming it depends on how the person tackles the situation and prevents themselves from mental burnout. Here are a few tips to overcome mental burnout.
Turn to other people
Never stop yourself from seeking help from your family and colleagues. Seeking help when needed is not a regretting thing to do. Accept that you are not aware of everything and you are yet to learn new things in the process of improvement.
Restrict yourself from spending much time with the people who complain more and do nothing in their life to rectify their faults. Such behaviour may impact your way of thinking and your positive perspective on life.
When you feel like you have none to turn to, it is not at all late to make new friends in your working area. Be confident in yourself and form new friends.
Re-frame the way you look at work
Working with peace of mind is essential to lead a stress-free life. Don’t delay to change your workplace if you find your workplace stressful.
Learn to be friends with others in your company and make peace with everyone in your working area to be comfortable with your colleagues.
Take a little break from your work during weekends and spend some time with your family and friends. If you are interested in social work or a non-government organisation (NGO), step forward and do what your heart says.
Make exercise a priority
Schedule your daily tasks and make time for regular exercise. Exercising every day will help you to tackle depression, boost your energy throughout the day, strengthens your muscles and bones. You will become healthier when you do regular exercise.
All fitness freaks’ slogan is “Pain is Pleasure”. No benefit is acquired without pain. Exercising causes pain in your muscles in the initial stage. But when you continue to exercise regularly, you will experience a physical and mental change in your body.
Support your mood and energy levels with a healthy diet
Mental burnout can be caused due to unhealthy diets like processed food and sugar. Consumption of such unhealthy food makes you feel dull.
As NCBI’s comparative study states, people consuming unhealthy food like processed food items, added sugar, alcohol etc., will feel depression, sadness and loss of hope.
People consuming a healthy diet, like low-fat dairy products, vegetables, fruits, proteins, etc., will feel energetic, happy and at peace of mind.
Try a relaxing activity
Physical activities will relax your mind and calm you down. Overloading responsibilities will cause one to undergo mental burnout. Responsibilities and work are the inescapable tasks, so one must try to overcome them rather than plan to escape from them.
Mindfulness meditation is a relaxing activity where you will learn to calm down your mind and makes you aware of your feelings, thoughts and actions. This activity teaches you to let go of your negative thoughts.
Get some sleep
Adequate sleep is necessary to lead a happy life. Disruption in sleep leads to
- Mood changes,
- Trouble with concentration,
- Memory issues,
- Weight gain,
- Rise and fall in blood pressure
All the above symptoms lead to mental burnout, depression, paranoia and suicidal thoughts in most people. To get adequate sleep, people are asked to reduce the screen time, exercise regularly, eat a healthy diet and have self-love.
Mindfulness
Be open to accepting the defects and mistakes you have committed in your work by practising mindfulness. Mindfulness is an activity that helps you,
- To focus on your breath,
- To eliminate your negative thoughts,
- Regulates your thinking process,
- Calms down your mind, and
- Makes you aware of your senses.
As every person can be benefited from this activity, people are asked to take up this as a new habit.
Make friends with your co-workers
Making friends in a workplace will create a comfortable atmosphere in your job. Once you make friends with your colleagues, you will enjoy your job and never procrastinate your work.
Understand your colleagues and make friends with them so you can earn more acquaintances and help when you are in need.
Taking breaks
Balance your personal and professional life by taking a small break from work and spending time with your family and friends. By doing so, you will tend to strengthen your bond with them. Small breaks will refresh your mind so that you can work with a peaceful mind.
Setting limits
Being too close to anyone will make situations difficult for you. You can’t say no to them as it may affect their expectations. So, setting a limit is good for both parties to accept the denial in some situations.
Manage your time and learn to update yourself to do a better job. Setting limits will aid you in focusing on your work. So set boundaries and learn more!
Use your vacation
Use your vacation in a memorable way. Spend enough time with your family. Don’t stress yourself at work during vacation. Going for a vacation is to relax your mind and body to take up the work with a fresh mind.
Work in alignment with your values
Work in a team and achieve success with them. Working with your teammates will reduce your work burden, procrastination and stress. Teamwork is achieved when you have good conduct with your team.
Seek joy
Happiness and joy will never come until you make yourself happy. Accept yourself and learn to do things that make you happy. According to NCBI, people with a positive attitude, job satisfaction, and being happy with their colleagues show good performance at work.
Avoid over-achievement
Over-achievement is due to depersonalisation; saying yes to every work, spending more time in the workplace, taking no leave even when you are sick, etc., will push you into mental burnout.
To be stress-free, you must spend time with your friends and family. Avoid over-achievement and help others to achieve so that everyone can lead a peaceful life in the workplace.
Draw strong boundaries
Be strong in your schedule and strictly follow it to not undergo mental burnout. Drawing strong boundaries will give you ample time to spend for yourself.
Conclusion
In short, mental burnout is self-destructing stress. Avoiding it in the initial stage is appreciable rather than getting treatment after it becomes severe. Accepting reality will give you peace of mind. So let go of things that are not in your control and cherish the moment you live.
FAQ
What are five strategies to avoid burnout and reduce stress?
l Job analysis is recommended, and elimination of distracting work
l Help your team at least in a small way
l Take control of your work with whole-heart
l Regular exercise for an energetic beginning
These are five strategies to avoid burnout and reduce stress.
How do you treat burnout?
l develop a habit of journalism,
l learn to manage your time,
l accept what you can and what you can’t,
l learn to say ‘No’ to distractions when you are busy with your work
By doing so, you can control your burnout.
How do you prevent mental burnout?
l Make a timetable and follow it without procrastination
l Learn to work with a purpose
l Focus on your work
l Rectify your mistakes and be sure not to commit them again
l Don’t give promises in your work when you are not sure about it
In this way, you prevent mental burnout.
