Mind your job. What are the correct ways to help a person with occupational burnout? | Blog Spoko

Work is a major part of every adult’s life. It’s the way to make money, socialize with other people, and a great reinforcement for our skills and abilities. But it might happen that a stressful period or project is a bit too much to handle, leaving your off-work life overboard.

This is the point to ask yourself an important question – is it a regular tiredness or maybe a burnout?

The term “burnout syndrome” has come into our everyday lives quite recently. It means a set of complex psychological and physiological disorders that are caused by an excessive concentration on job-related activities. A person stops eating, sleeping, and thinking about anything non-work related. It seems like an obsession when the rest of the words makes neither sense nor value. The only thing that matters is this particular task, goal, project.

However, since our body is not a machine, there will be a breaking point for such a scenario. Burnout syndrome is usually followed by heart and stomach diseases, depression, anxiety, and a long line of people, who definitely know what needs to be done. Today we will talk about the most popular ways of dealing with burnout syndrome (spoiler alert – they don’t work!).

1) Do yoga and have zen.

Yoga, meditation, and various spiritual practices are really good to keep in shape more or less healthy souls and bodies. Although if you are currently unable to concentrate your thoughts on a fly sitting on a window, meditation will be impossible to endure.

Even despite the external lightness, any activity of such kind requires a ton of internal strength and energy. And how would a person struggle to get out of bed in the morning get those?

2) Get yourself a new hobby.

A person, who is burning out at work, basically wants just one thing – to stop the nightmare around from happening. Do you really think crocheting or stamp collecting can help here?

The efforts to switch from one activity to the other sometimes lead to the fact, that you set the bar too high, and eventually stress out not only because of work but also because a new hobby doesn’t bring the expected relief.

3) Eat healthy and sleep well.

It’s great all-purpose advice, that absolutely will not work in this case. Imagine a patient, who is suffering from an eating disorder. How much use can he make out of your “eat more” suggestion? – None, we guess.

It is the same with those who experience occupational burnout. They don’t care about anything that is not about the job. And they physically can’t switch to anything else – that is the problem.

4) Ask “those who know”.

A seeker will eventually become an owner. After getting through the first couple of google search pages, you will most likely find a bunch of online marathons on “how to overcome the burnout syndrome in 15 minutes straight from the couch”.

In addition to you being “treated” (with no luck, obviously) by a random influencer with an Instagram diploma, this service will most likely cost a ton of money.

5) See your friends more often.

People with burnout syndrome try to limit their social contacts to the max. First of all, as we’ve established earlier, for them any power-hungry activities are even worse than work. And secondly, some are just scared and ashamed of telling the closest about their problems.

And now let’s talk about stuff that works. There’re just 2 effective ways to battle the burnout syndrome – mental and physical therapy (that implies seeing real doctors: therapist, physician, endocrinologist, nutritionist).

Since the issue often has a complex background, resolving it needs a system approach – fix the internal physiological issues, compensate for any vitamins and energy deficiencies, get a round of mental help and support. And only then the abovementioned advice might actually work and be useful.