essortment.com

Mental Health Tips: How to prevent burnout

Burnout is a serious problem both in the workplace and for students. It usually happens after a prolonged time of stress is put on a person, and the person loses sight of the end of the pressure.


There are several symptoms of burnout. If you have at least 3 of these, you are experiencing burnout.


1. You work day after day, always longing for the weekend, but when the weekend arrives you still have to complete reports or use the whole weekend to plan out how to work the next weekend.


2. You procrastinate a lot, knowing you should be doing work, but just not being able to motivate yourself to do it. You waste more time then you should, feel guilty, work until late at night and have a lack of sleep.


3. You don't want to get out of bed in the morning because you feel so tired and were so worried that you had much trouble trying to sleep last night. At night you are so troubled that you can't stop thinking about problems and keep trying to think about solutions instead of going to sleep and getting rest.


4. You feel like no one else could do the job you are doing. This is a common sign of burnout. You take on many projects because you think that no one has enough expertise to do the job correctly. Make sure you trust other people to do the job just as well, and you will discover the work can get done even if you don't do every part of it.


5. You are not spending enough time with your spouse, parents, or friends, feel yourself getting distant, and you feel alone in the world. This is a serious problem since they could provide you with support if only you told them how you felt.


6. You feel like nothing could solve your problems, you feel helpless and don't have hope to complete your tasks on time. You also feel like there is no way out and no hope in the future.



If you have burnout, these are several tips on how to recover from your stress.


1. Take some time off. If you don't do this, your work quality will keep decreasing, making you even more stressed out since you want to perform better, and placing you in a deadly cycle.


2. Reduce your workload. Re-evaluate everything you are doing, and see whether you can strike out an activity. Do you have to make dinner, do laundry and take out the dog right when you get home? Try to get someone to do those chores for you. You don't have to do everything by yourself, and maybe a teenager next door would love to earn a few dollars doing odd jobs for you. If you are getting no-where with a problem or project, take some time off from it, do something different and come back to it. You'd be surprised how much easier the problem becomes after you distance yourself from it for a while and come back to it.


3. Regulate your schedule. Often we waste a lot of time trying to procrastinate. Then when you have to do the work you are out of time and you end up feeling stressed and guilty for wasting your time. If you make a realistic schedule and stick to it, you will find it much easier to manage your time. Try to leave the weekend to rest and refuel for the next week. If you keep putting things off for the weekend you will be working all week and on the weekend never getting any rest. But if you don't plan to do anything on the weekend, you will work harder during the week, and plan your time more efficiently.


4. Renew your vision. Make sure you set yourself a good, attainable goal, so you will be motivated out of inspiration instead of desperation. You will become revitalized and look forward to finishing your tasks to accomplish that future goal.


5. Reward yourself. If you feel very stressed out and don't even know why you keep bothering to try and work very hard, remember who and what you are doing this for. Make sure you let yourself enjoy the fruits of your labor, go out for a night on the town, take your wife out for a racy date, or invite your friends over to try out a new toy you all like such as a Play-station or some other electrical gismo.


6. Nurture and elevate your spirit. Whether it is music, massage, prayer, painting, hiking, spending time in the nature, do this so you will become revitalized to maintain proper balance and perspective in life.


7. Talk to someone. If you feel very frustrated and stressed out, make sure you don't just bottle up all your emotions since that will just make you feel more frustrated. If you talk to someone, they might even be able to help you with some problems, and to take some of the load off. It might help just to talk to you girlfriend or wife, and they might be able to renew your spirit, and make you set your priorities straight again.


8. Learn how to say "no" sometimes. Often people want to please their boss, or take too many courses at school because they can't say no to people or their request. If you are busy enough with four courses, don't take five! If you are working hard already and don't have any spare time, don't take on extra projects!


9. If you have a problem that might be causing your burnout such as marriage problems, depression, have suicidal thoughts, or feel constantly tired, you should maybe seek professional help. Go see a marriage counselor, a psychiatrist or pastor, and go for help. If you don't do that you will just get worse then you are right now.


Overall, burnout can be cured. It isn't too large a problem to be overcome, and with some time off, a friend to talk to, and the setting of a new vision should really revitalize you and renew your spirit, getting you ready for many more challenges in you life.