Rengganis Rizka Prasanti Getting to Know Burnout
Burnout is one of the most common outcomes of a highly stressful environment and a predecessor to many physical and psychological conditions that can lead to dire consequences.
While WHO specifically categorizes burnout as a condition related to workplace stress, another definition by APA Dictionary identifies it as physical, emotional, or mental exhaustion accompanied by decreased motivation, lowered performance, and negative attitudes toward oneself and others, regardless of the context and environment that caused it to happen.
According to the Maslach Burnout Inventory Manual (2016), there are three signs to look out for when it comes to burnout:
1. Prolonged exhaustion or fatigue which does not go away after resting or taking time off,
2. A sense of detachment and cynicism regarding their source of stress, be it work, family, or school, and
3. Feeling ineffective and needing more accomplishment, regardless of the effort we exert in our work.
What Causes Burnout?
While many studies about burnout focus on workplace burnout, there are more causes of burnout than just job exhaustion. Here are the most commonly known types of burnout and their causes.
Workplace Burnout
Workplace burnout is a type of burnout that results from prolonged stress at work, which manifests in many ways including diminished motivation about work, feeling helpless and detached about your job, and feeling unaccomplished despite putting in more effort.
Read More: What Are The Most Common Sources of Stress?
A constant heavy workload, an unstructured work environment, a lack of leadership at work, and emotional labor can cause workplace burnout.
Academic Burnout
Another known type of burnout is academic burnout, or burnout that is related to academic stress. Signs include feeling overwhelmed with academic tasks, constantly feeling exhausted and out of energy, and anxiety about academic-related tasks such as taking classes and finishing assignments.
Academic burnout can be caused by overload. An overly packed schedule, too many classes to take and assignments to finish in one time, and tight deadlines to meet can lead to burnout if not managed properly.
Academic burnout can also be caused by factors outside of your academic life, such as financial or accommodation worries, and difficulty gaining social support.
Parental Burnout
Lastly, parental burnout is a type of burnout that in general has received less spotlight compared to the other two. It is characterized by intense exhaustion related to parenting, emotional distancing from one’s children, and a loss of parental fulfillment.
Parental burnout differs from parental stress, in which parental burnout is chronic and overruns the parent’s ability to cope. There are multiple risk factors for parental burnout, including the lack of general social support, difficulty managing stress, having kids with special needs, and working part-time or being a stay-at-home parent (Mikolajczak & Roskam, 2020).
The Impact of Burnout on Your Health
Without ways to cope, burnout can cause various health issues, stirring up problems for both our physical and mental health.
1. Physical Health
Burnout can affect your physical health negatively in various ways. As burnout constantly wears down your body, it also causes your body’s cortisol levels to go haywire.
Cortisol is a hormone produced by your body to regulate its reaction to stress. It affects many bodily functions, including your immune system, digestive system, sleep/wake cycle, blood pressure and blood sugar levels, and many others.
Studies have shown that people who are burned out have significantly lower cortisol levels than their non-burned-out peers (Bailey, 2006). Cortisol imbalance leads to a disturbance in related bodily functions, which includes higher vulnerability to infections and higher blood pressure and blood sugar.
This imbalance may end up causing causes chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer.
2. Mental Health
While burnout is not classified as a mental health disorder, it is a huge risk factor and is often the cause of bigger mental health issues to come.
Insomnia is one of the outcomes of burnout that impacts our mental health (Jodas Salvagioni et al., 2017). Related to its influence on cortisol levels, burnout can disrupt your sleep/wake cycle, causing sleep difficulties.
People who are burned out are also more likely to have depressive symptoms, more prone to be dependent on psychotropics and antidepressant medications, and are at a bigger risk of being hospitalized for mental disorders.
Dealing with Burnout
Burnout, if left untreated, may lead to bigger negative consequences on our physical and mental health. Thankfully, most of it is preventable, and a lot of the solutions are within our reach.
According to the American Psychology Association (APA), here are some proven ways to deal with burnout:
1. Rest and exercise regularly
Studies have shown that cardio exercise is a proven way to regulate your stress level (Bretland & Thorsteinsson, 2015).
This study shows that cardio exercise can help improve your well-being and decrease psychological distress, perceived stress, and emotional exhaustion.
Aside from keeping your body in its best condition, physical activity also helps you sleep better at night.
2. Reorganize your work
Reorganizing your work is so much more than just sorting your priority list and managing your time better. It also means finding a bigger purpose and meaning in what you do.
To rediscover your passion at work, you can reflect and list down some of these points:
- What satisfying experience have you had at work lately?
- What makes this experience fulfilling for you?
- What are your strengths and weaknesses at work?
- In what ways do you hope to develop professionally?
3. Seek help from others
Recovering from burnout is not an easy task, but it’s a harder journey to go through it alone.
Seeking help can mean something more work-specific, such as delegating your tasks or sharing these stressors with your colleagues or teammates.
It can also simply mean having a shoulder to lean on. Finding social support at work or outside of work, like family, friends, or through HelloReyo, helps you figure out the resources you have to manage your stressors and prevent burnout from happening.
References
Bailey, S. (2006). Burnout harms workers’ physical health through many pathways. Monitor on Psychology, 37(6), 11.
Bretland, R. J., & Thorsteinsson, E. B. (2015). Reducing workplace burnout: The relative benefits of cardiovascular and resistance exercise. PeerJ, 3, e891.
Jodas Salvagioni, D. A., Melanda, F. N., Mesas, A. E., González, A. D., & Gabani, F. L. (2017). Physical, psychological and occupational consequences of job burnout: A systematic review of prospective studies. PLoS ONE, 12(10). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185781
Maslach, C., Jackson, S. E., & Leiter, M. P. (2016). Maslach burnout inventory. Scarecrow Education.
Mikolajczak, M., & Roskam, I. (2020). Parental burnout: Moving the focus from children to parents. New directions for child and adolescent development, 2020(174), 7-13.
