Tips for Overcoming Burnout

Lets talk about Burnout-especially the one that comes with trying to hold it all together, whether it's parenting, caretaking or professional life. Or a combination of it all.

 What exactly is burnout?

Well clinically speaking, it's a state of emotional and physical exhaustion. It makes what used to be even the smallest or simple tasks, completing overwhelming and undoable.

How do I know if I am experiencing burnout?

• Constant fatigue, even after rest/sleep
• Irritability
• Numbness
• Difficulty concentrating
• Indecisiveness
• Loss of motivation
• Decrease sense of purpose or direction
• Headaches, stomach issues
• Difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep or waking up
• Withdrawing from people or activities you once enjoyed

What does burnout look like in day-to-day life? 

• Waking up tired even after getting 8 hours of sleep 
• Snapping at loved ones over something tiny
• Feeling emotionally numb (blah)
• Difficulties making decisions
• Resentfulness
• Procrastinating
• Having low energy  and motivation
• Not wanting to engage with people or events you used to love

Overall, burnout can be summarized as cognitive overload, emotional fatigue and decision making fatigue.

Burnout is common. Most of us will experience burnout at some point in their life. Whether you are a caretaker, employee or a parent, you may relate to some of that. Maybe, you're holding a full-time job or multiple part-time jobs, trying to maintain the household and trying to provide the best care to your loved ones.

So how do we cope with the burnout?  What do we do about it?

Coping with burnout may look different to different people, but here are a few strategies to help manage burnout.

•  First and foremost, normalize the experience without minimizing it. 
• Don't gasoline like yourself and say other people have it worse. 
• Your experience and struggle is valid. 
• Give yourself permission to seek help and accept help.
• Seek support.
• Decrease the load & delegate when possible.
• Manage expectations.

Burn out thrives in isolation. So if you have a loved one, friend or therapist you can open up to about your experiences, I would encourage you to do that.

Managing our expectations and letting go of perfectionistic tendencies can also be helpful in managing burnout. I would encourage you to try to let go of the desire to be perfect and to never drop the ball.  Reframe your expectations and recognize that sometimes being average is okay, or good is good enough. I promise you you can lower the bar and still be an incredible parent, a wonderful partner and a committed worker.

How can we help prevent burnout?

Give your central nervous system an opportunity for regulation. It doesn't have to be a full-on meditation practice, although it'd be great if you can squeeze that in, but it can also look like :

• Taking you a walk back without your phone
• Giving yourself 5 minutes in between meetings
• Slow Breathing
• Allowing yourself to notice your breath and what it feels like to let go of the tension in your body.

I hope that some of these strategies can be helpful for you and if this has allowed you to find some space, I invite you to connect and discuss more ways that we can help you manage stress and burn out.

In summary, Burnout is real but you don't have to deal with it alone. There are steps we can take to help proactively prevent burnout and manage it. If you have difficulty implementing the above, or are in need of more support and still feeling drained, exhausted or struggling to navigate the demands of day to day life, let's connect. I can support you through this process and we can make meaningful changes together.

I'm here to help and currently accepting new referrals for low cost therapy sessions.  

Let's conquer burnout together,

Sofiya Hrendus