We’re just so tired. We have all said it before, but sometimes neither rest nor a lazy day will solve it. With the continuous demands on our energy and attention, regular fatigue can subtly slip into burnout.
While burnout is not a weakness, neither is it just having a rough week. Burnout is a feeling of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion resulting from prolonged stress. The following describes the symptoms and gives tips to get you back on track.
These are usually accompanied by physical symptoms like feeling as tired after you wake up as when you first lay down, having constant muscle tightness, or getting recurrent tension headaches.
Not only that, but being in a state of burnout will seriously affect your cognitive capacity, resulting in reduced productivity and an abundance of self-doubt. When even the smallest, most trivial decision feels like an impossible feat, your mind is telling you loud and clear that it doesn’t have enough processing power to cope with your responsibilities anymore.
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To break free from this cycle, recovery needs to start with deliberate boundary setting in relation to one’s time and energy rather than waiting for the right opportunity to take some much-needed time off. Real recovery begins with protecting one’s time and energy through the process of saying no to any non-essential commitments that keep draining whatever is left of one’s resources.
Another way to recover is by using quick sensory breaks during the day to calm down an overactive nervous system. Spending just five minutes away from all kinds of technology, closing one’s eyes, and focusing on the here and now such as the sounds of breathing and the sensations of standing still signals to the brain that one is safe.
Climbing out of burnout takes time, effort, and patience. Just as you would be compassionate and patient with a friend who was recovering from an injury, you need to take good care of yourself when you are trying to recover from burnout. Taking little steps on a daily basis will help you build up your energy again.
If the concept “clear your mind” gives you a reason to roll your eyes, then you certainly wouldn’t be alone in the process. To some, meditation may simply mean spending some quiet time seated cross-legged in a room while focusing on not thinking; however, all that really results from such a process for many is creating another grocery list and a sense of frustration.
The fallacy in the whole concept is that it’s perceived that in order to meditate and become mindful one must remain completely stationary and have no thought processes whatsoever. The real essence of being mindful is merely training oneself to be fully present at that very moment.
Being mindful means grounding yourself to an action. For example, taking a mindful walk without listening to music means that you are completely focused on feeling the contact of your feet on the ground, the temperature of the surrounding air, and the sounds of the environment around you.
Another example is washing dishes mindfully, where you pay complete attention to the sensation of warm water and the smell of the soap. Even when your mind starts to drift away, you can guide it back to the task without being harsh or critical. This way, you give your active and busy mind something to focus on by giving it a physical task.