Many who go through their life pushing past their limits may experience a state of chronic exhaustion called burnout. It is characterized by extreme mental, emotional, and physical fatigue. Burnout could be a reaction to your work, school, personal life, or other miscellaneous factors.
Symptoms of burnout may include:
- Feeling tired.
- Feeling exhausted.
- Sense of self-doubt and failure.
- Loss of motivation.
- Low immunity.
- Detachment.
- Feeling negativity towards your work, school, or other aspects of life
How To Avoid Burnout
Burnout isn’t always self-evident, which results in many individuals suffering from its effects without knowing what’s going on. Suppose you’re working 6 days a week at work without adequate rest or the occasional day off.
If this is the case, you are likely to accumulate stress and fatigue, causing burnout, which usually comes about slowly and gradually until you are smack dab in the middle of it. There are specific symptoms of burnout that you should look out for, especially if you’re going hard in a particular direction without taking any days off.
You cannot cure burnout by leaving it alone, so you must start employing methods to avoid it if you’ve noticed any symptoms or patterns in your daily life. You can prevent burnout by taking rest days or days off where you distance yourself from the major stressor causing your burnout, for instance, your job.
Incorporating these strategic days and outsourcing your work may be a good solution to avoid burnout. You may be using work to distract yourself from certain life situations and taking things to the extreme to compensate for areas you might lack.
This highly unhealthy coping mechanism is bound to bring its consequences. Your best bet is to identify the direction in which you’re going, realize you might be setting yourself up for complete exhaustion, and take preventive measures to avoid taking things too far.
How To Overcome Burnout
You can overcome burnout by changing your lifestyle and micro habits, such as getting adequate sleep each night, eating healthy meals daily, exercising often, and reaching out to a professional for help. It is important to note that rather than making drastic changes, it’s about being consistent with minor changes, which eventually lead to permanent results.
Getting eight hours of sleep each night is a good start, which allows your body to recover from the symptoms of burnout. Another good way to overcome burnout is to start eating healthier meals, which contain many nutrients essential for the body’s growth.
Exercising is a great way to relieve stress, and many use it to channel their anger and frustration more productively. When all else fails, you might want to seek a medical professional who can gently guide you back to the path of recovery so that you realize you are not alone in dealing with the cruxes of burnout. This can also be a chance to take it one day at a time and give yourself a very deserving break.
