5 Body Clues To Prevent Burnout: It's Your Decision
Have you ever watched an action film sequence where the hero and the villain engage in a gripping fight? If yes, then you might know how the hero is overpowered at the end after receiving the ferocious blows from the villain. Being exhausted he makes vain attempts to retreat. Well, this experience isn’t limited to cinematic combat scenes, but they also reflect what burnout can feel like. Maslach and Leiter (2016) referred to burnout as a set of psychological symptoms developing over time as a reaction to ongoing interpersonal pressures at work. With the increase of hustle culture in the workforce and ever-growing competition, every individual is burdened with ‘proving’ their worth. However, such work patterns increase individuals’ susceptibility to feeling burnt out. So, today we will learn 5 such body clues to prevent burnout.
Understand Burnout: The Silent Killer of Productivity
“Anything in excess is a poison”
German-American economist and professor Theodore Levitt quoted this maxim that gives the essence of burnout. The presence of excess workload, stress, or certain personality traits can lead individuals to become highly susceptible to burnout. Burnout is a prolonged feeling of tiredness in terms of physical and mental state. Although burnout is relevant in personal areas of life, it is primarily viewed in the context of work being a result of workload, unhealthy work patterns, and professional environment.
Research suggests three main components of burnout – overburdening tiredness, cynicism or detachment, and a sense of incompetence or inefficiency. The first component of burnout is overburdening tiredness comprised of wearing out, losing energy, depletion, enfeeblement, and exhaustion. The second component cynicism includes negative or inappropriate behavior toward others, agitation, diminishing idealism, and retreat. The third component is a sense of incompetence that reflects lower personal achievement, low morale, incapacity to cope, and decreased productivity or competence. (Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (2016).[1]
Have you ever gone through such experiences? Well, it may be time to take a little break. Burnout is a widespread experience faced by individuals, especially people from specific demanding job sectors. Burnout can lead to lesser fruitfulness from action and work. To identify if you are experiencing burnout, it is important to understand how it affects you and subtly diminishes your productivity. The signs of burnout may not be noticeable at the beginning, but it can act as a silent killer of productivity.
Recognize the Early Warning Signs of Burnout
Whether a student, an employee, or a homemaker, anyone is susceptible to burnout. Generally, chronic stress from work and an overwhelming amount of tasks can result in burnout. Some early signs of burnout can go unnoticed and later pile up in the form of heavy burnout. Recognizing early warning signs can aid in the prevention of burnout as well as alleviate its symptoms. Darling Downs Health (2023, September 17) suggested that the emotional signs of burnout can manifest as skepticism, feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt, reduced contentment, a sense of isolation, lack of motivation, and feebleness.[2] On the other hand, the behavioral signs can take the shape of lower productivity, withdrawal, dilatoriness, outbursts, and negative coping, which include behaviors such as substance use.
Recognition of warning signs of burnout helps in understanding one’s experiences. Without the awareness of the signs of burnout you can fall into a state of confusion. Being uninformed about these telltale signs and at the same time going through them can have a damaging influence on self-worth and self-efficacy. So look for yourself and decide not to adopt unhealthy ways towards work.
5 Body Clues To Prevent Burnout
If you try to observe you can identify certain clues that can help you identify if you are going through burnout or currently susceptible to it. Our body is a powerful tool to aid in the identification of these clues. I have dwelled on five prominent body clues to help you identify burnout signs. With the help of these clues, you can make better decisions to prevent burnout and have a healthier work-life and well-being. So, why wait, let’s find the top 5 body clues and prevent every burnout scenario.
1. Reduced Performance: When Your Body Says “No More”
Can you recall a project or any activity you were initially excited about? But as you started working on it, gradually your efforts reduced, you started contributing less even after trying to, and you couldn’t give any of you anymore? Putting a foot forward felt like lifting dozens of logs tied to your legs while giving one more thought to that activity made you feel brainless…
Don’t worry! Reduced performance is a common clue that your body is attempting to tell you it will soon feel burned out. Burnout typically results from the depletion of physical and mental resources for coping. As a result, when you have exhausted your bodily assets, it results in poor performance. To prevent this it’s essential to take breaks from work time to time, practice some mindfulness techniques, and indulge in a different task for a change. Reducing performance is the first body clue among the five that helps prevent burnout if identified earlier.
The best antidote to burnout is not teaching people coping skills to handle stress. It's redesigning work to reduce stress.
The cure for exhaustion is removing overwhelming demands and the norm of self-sacrifice.
Healthy workplaces value well-being as much as performance.
— Adam Grant (@AdamMGrant) April 30, 2024
2. Fatigue and Insomnia: The Body’s Cry for Help
Research suggests that exhaustion plays a huge role in burnout alongside other contributing factors such as sleep disturbances and other mental health conditions.[3] As you have used up most of your physical and mental energy while having little left to give, it is natural to feel tired. Fatigue can include low motivation to work or do a task, muscle pain, weakness, lessened energy, lack of desire to work, etc.
Secondly, facing burnout can also cause difficulties in falling asleep. You might have the most comfortable bed to sleep in; however, burnout can hinder your sleep, and in the long run, symptoms of insomnia may emerge. Findings of a study revealed that either insomnia or burnout may be a risk factor for the other over time as they recurrently predict each other’s evolution and intensification over time.[4]
3. Physical Pain and Aches: The Body’s Warning Sign
The human body is a complex aggregation of a variety of cells, tissues, organs, and systems; and has its way of communicating about itself. When you are scared, your blood pressure and heart rate increase, you start sweating, and experience palpitations. Similarly, the body gives stress signals when it is beginning to fall prey to burnout. The physical symptoms may be discounted as trifle signs of situational factors, although these may be warning signs of burnout. They include headache, stomachache, gastrointestinal issues, changes in appetite, sleep disturbances, back pain, weakness, and increased proneness to several illnesses (Darling Downs Health. (2023, September 17).[5]
So, next time you detect any of these health indicators, become more aware of your work pattern and the amount of stress you’re going through. You can also seek some positive and healthy coping strategies or prevention techniques. As prevention is always better than cure, addressing these issues can protect you from burnout development and help you maintain a healthy work-life balance.
4. Loss of Appetite and Digestive Issues: The Body’s Cry for Help
Burnout isn’t limited to psychological and physical impacts because it alters one’s physiological responses. These prolonged experiences of tiredness can affect your appetite, leading to digestive and gastrointestinal complications. Occupational stress and burnout are closely linked and affect each other cyclically. Studies suggest that occupational stress can lead to various gastrointestinal tract issues like ulcers and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).[6] Additionally, the stress associated with burnout can lead to an imbalance in hormones, hindering one’s appetite and eating patterns. Identifying these issues related to burnout is challenging due to their limited discussion. Understanding how burnout and stress work can help you make healthier decisions regarding your work and health.
5. Mental Health Indicators: The Mind’s Warning Sign
Burnout itself is a psychological syndrome that can manifest in various mental maladaptive patterns. Mental health factors of burnout may exacerbate the physical burnout you feel. According to Smith, M., MA. (2024), the mental health indicators to help you detect burnout are self-doubt, a sense of failure, and feeling dejected, confined, and powerless. Furthermore, feeling isolated and detached from the world, having a lack of drive, escalated pessimistic and cynical viewpoint, reduced sense of achievement and contentment are major indicators that burnout is taking a toll on your mental health.
Other than this, considering the clinical picture, burnout can lead to symptoms of depression like worthlessness, guilt, prolonged sadness, and fluctuating appetite and sleep patterns. Moreover, the inefficiency caused by burnout and piling work can amount to feelings of anxiety that include irritability, lack of focus, muscle tension, worrying, restlessness, and ineffective decision-making. But you can handle even these mental health indicators of burnout effectively with several techniques and self-care strategies, once you become aware of them. Some of the researched and effective self-care strategies to manage the symptoms are social support, physical activity, relaxation techniques, professional boundaries, fatigue management, stress management, etc.
Taking Control: Strategies for Preventing Burnout
Once you have understood how burnout works for you, you can proceed further by taking the matter into your own hands. This hustle culture tends to disturb the work-life balance, but it depends on you to decide whether to let it consume you. Few scientifically backed strategies to prevent burnout include:
- Cognitive coping – Involves stress management and altering one’s thought patterns and stress responses to burnout.
- Peer Support Group – Here, social support from peers and participating in social activities with them can help minimize symptoms of burnout.
- Meditative Physical exercise – Includes an amalgamation of physical movement and meditative practices that heal the physical symptoms and clear your mind.
Conclusion: It’s your decision
To wrap up, today we explored the lanes of burnout in the city of work and hustle. We learned about our 5 body clues to prevent burnout situations. Firstly, to deal with any issue it is important to be aware and understand it. Don’t let the clues of your body go neglected. It’s a way for the body to communicate with you the stress signals and help you make decisions that align with the betterment of your well-being. Personal well-being is not an uncontrollable state but rather a decision you take. It is your choice to have a healthy work-life balance, manage stress, and prevent as well as reduce burnout. Although, your work settings may be demanding of you and you cannot change your environment, but to take care of your mental and physical well-being is your decision.
Take care of your personal well-being and make the right decisions!
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