April is National Stress Awareness Month, with stress being a factor in workplace burnout.
Experts from health and nutrition information site”¯Life Hacker Guy”¯offer these tips for either avoiding burnout altogether or at least dealing with it in the healthiest way possible to take care of both your mental and physical health:
Get enough sleep — Eight hours per night should be a must for many reasons, from boosting your immune system to lowering the risks of serious health problems, such as diabetes or heart diseases, and, of course, improving your mood and reducing stress.”¯
But even though the body needs sleep, sometimes it can be hard to get our mind to cooperate. In these cases, it”™s essential to create the right conditions and adopt habits to help you relax when sleep time is near. This can be achieved by keeping your room dark with blackout curtains or a sleep mask, reducing noises by wearing earplugs and keeping your phone either on mute or in another room entirely, keeping room temperatures cool and avoiding TV or work where you”™re supposed to sleep.
- Exercise multiple times a week ”“ Exercising can be as easy and accessible as a walk or a run around the block. If you want to start a journey of light exercise to keep yourself refreshed, healthy and distracted from work, try a 15-minute stroll outside the office.
- Program a balanced diet ”“ Loss of appetite is indeed one of the red flags that can signal burnout. To avoid it, it”™s important to try and eat regularly. One way not to lose sight of this is to program your meals and, when possible, even meal prep for the whole week. This can be done on a Sunday as a part of a fun “weekly reset” routine, choosing simple but balanced and healthy recipes that can be prepared quickly.”¯
- Keep a journal — Visualizing your anxiety or stress can be a great way to cope with it, and keeping a daily or weekly journal can help you do just that. Most often one of the biggest problems is not being able to talk about what is going on in our heads. Writing down our thoughts and feelings can help and, by doing this, it can be easier to let go of them. In case you don”™t know where to start, try using specific journals that offer daily tips, questions to answer, motivational quotes and so on.
Treat yourself — It is essential to remember that we do not live to work but rather work to live. Treating yourself to a nice dinner once in a while, or that pair of shoes you”™ve had your eyes on, can be a great way to feel important again and to remember that your life does not revolve around work. Burnout can often occur because we lose sight of the why, and these treats will allow you to get in touch with that reality again.
Learn to ask for help — Admitting that you”™re not in the best shape, or that you simply cannot undertake a task on your own and that you might need some help, is one of the healthiest approaches you could take not only to fight burnout but to improve your work life as a whole.
You”™re not invincible and you”™re not supposed to be, so always remember to recognize your limits and not push yourself too far. This applies not only to work life but to every aspect of life, as it”™s possible to feel drained and overwhelmed with any type of social interaction and everyday task, from meeting family and friends to maintaining a healthy relationship as well as having a balanced lifestyle.
Recognize the signs of burnout and act on them ”“ If you get to a point at which you are not able to avoid burnout, try your best not to ignore that feeling, no matter how bad it is.
Symptoms such as procrastination, loss of appetite, constant tiredness, feeling overwhelmed and having self-doubt can be recognizable, and while sometimes it can be hard to admit that you”™ve gotten to a certain point, acting on those symptoms quickly enough can prevent a period of enhanced pain, stress and anxiety.”¯
