Burnout Treatment
It is common to have a period or two where you feel unhappy at work or simply tired. But, when your job consistently leaves you feeling emotionally exhausted to the point where you cannot operate normally in daily life, that should be a cause for concern and may even be a sign that you are experiencing occupational burnout.
Burnout can affect anyone in any job; however, people with high-stress jobs (e.g., financiers, lawyers, business owners, health professionals, and so on) are the most susceptible to burnout. Burnout is typically a work-related issue, but it can occur in other domains of life, such as school for children, teens, and college students or even with personal responsibilities for adults.
Am I experiencing occupational burnout?
Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion. The trigger of burnout of any kind is excessive and prolonged stress. If you are burnt out, it is likely that you feel unable to meet the demands in your life, are overwhelmed, and/or emotionally drained. When your stress persists, you may find yourself losing interest in things you once enjoyed and lose all motivation.
Burnout takes up all of the energy you have remaining, resulting in lowered productivity. You may feel hopeless, cynical, and resentful as a result. After some more time, you will feel like you have nothing left to give, and that is because you do not. At this point, you have exhausted all of your options and mentally reached a breaking point.
If you are experiencing work burnout, it does not just contain itself to your occupation. It will impact all aspects of your life, including your work, home, and social life. Burnout can also cause physical symptoms or reactions, such as making you more susceptible to certain illnesses, like the cold and flu.
With burnout, it is better to tackle it head-on before letting it affect your life seriously. Recognizing the signs and symptoms of burnout is important so you can take action before it grows in severity.
If you are burnt out, you may experience the following symptoms:
Physical symptoms of burnout
Lowered immunity resulting in frequent illnesses
Eating too much or eating too little
Sleeping too much or sleeping too little
Frequent headaches
Frequent muscle pain
Feeling drained most of the time
Emotional symptoms of burnout
Decreased satisfaction
Feeling like you have not accomplished anything
Sense of failure
Self-doubt
Detachment (e.g., feeling like you are all by yourself even with a close community of family and friends)
Loss of motivation
Having a negative outlook on work and life generally speaking
Feeling helpless or defeated
Behavioral symptoms of burnout
Isolating from other people
Taking your frustrations out on loved ones
Withdrawing from your duties
Procrastinating
Skipping work, or coming in late/leaving work early
Using alcohol, drugs, or other substances to cope
If you are not quite resonating with some or all of the burnout signs and symptoms but fear you may be on the path to burnout, there are certain steps you can take to assess your situation.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to analyze if you are en route to work burnout:
How often do I feel physically exhausted?
Have my eating or sleeping patterns changed a lot recently?
Do I feel overwhelmed by my workload?
Am I feeling down, anxious, or irritable most of the time?
Have I been procrastinating more than usual?
Am I withdrawing from social activities and responsibilities?
Have I noticed a decline in my performance or productivity at work?
Am I having trouble concentrating or staying focused on tasks?
Do I have clear boundaries between my work and personal life?
Do I feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction from my work?
Have I sought professional help or support if I am feeling overwhelmed?
What changes can I make to my current situation to improve my welfare and job satisfaction?
Burnout may be confused for stress or depression, but they are all very different conditions or emotional states. Burnout is the result of ongoing stress which is different from having too much on your plate at one point in time. Stress itself is having too much going on. However, someone who is dealing with stress alone knows that, once they employ some stress management techniques, they can get their situation under control.
On the other hand, burnout is feeling emotionally exhausted and empty inside. You may feel like you do not have the mental capacity to care for other people, leading you to feel like you have zero sense of motivation. For someone struggling with burnout, it is hard for them to see a positive future ahead. It may feel like they are drowning in responsibilities and there is no raft available to save them. You may be aware that you are under stress, but you may not know that burnout is actually happening.
At times, it may be hard to tell burnout apart from depression because symptoms of the two conditions may overlap. For example, with both burnout and depression, you may experience a hard time focusing on your tasks at hand. Burnout can actually be a risk factor for depression.
With that being said, there are many distinctions between burnout and depression. For one, burnout is not a diagnosable condition like depression is. Generally, burnout is caused by external stressors whereas depression can be a combination of factors, such as genetic, physiological, and environmental. For some guidance, take our Depression Quiz.
Should you push through burnout?
Generally, pushing through burnout is not something that is recommended since it can worsen mental, emotional, and physical health problems. It is important to get to the root cause of your burnout concerns so you can learn how to recover properly.
Pushing through burnout can actually worsen your symptoms, such as emotional exhaustion and chronic fatigue. This can also continue your stress and burnout which leads to worse productivity.
Chronic burnout can lead to long-term disengagement from work and other life responsibilities. It can also increase your health risks. Persistent burnout can lead to serious health issues, such as depression, anxiety disorders, and even heart disease.
There are typically five stages of burnout that occur. It is important to know what stage of burnout you are in to inform how you should move forward with your life.
The five stages of burnout are as follows:
Stage One - The Honeymoon Phase of Burnout
You feel very committed to your job, class, position, promotion, or new responsibilities. You are excited for this new endeavor, and cannot wait to prove yourself and impress everyone! During this first stage, you may feel inventive, fruitful, and full of energy.
2. Stage Two - The Stress Onset Phase of Burnout
Stress of new responsibilities can begin to take its toll on you. As you take on more responsibilities, you begin to neglect your own needs, forgoing self-care a little bit or altogether. You may find yourself having a difficult time sleeping. You may start to feel anxious, irritable, fatigued, and/or start experiencing headaches.
It may be hard to focus on the tasks at hand and you may even experience decision fatigue, making it difficult to be productive.
3. Stage Three - The Chronic Stress Phase of Burnout
You feel tired and pessimistic most of the time. This is also the time where social issues may begin to present themselves. You may start to feel resentful towards loved ones and begin to withdraw from your friends and coworkers. In an attempt to feel better, you may turn to not-so-healthy coping mechanisms, such as self-medicating with drugs and alcohol.
4. Stage Four - The Burnout Phase
During the fourth stage, burnout has officially kicked in. You cannot imagine a positive future given how things are at the moment. Any problem that pops up demands your full attention and feels detrimental. Your personal health is not a priority and you may start to experience physical problems, such as gastrointestinal issues, and headaches and/or migraines. Every day may be a battle with self-doubt and negative self-talk. You are looking to socially isolate yourself so you can attempt to energize yourself once again.
5. Stage Five - The Habitual Burnout Phase
At this point, you have been living with burnout for some time. Your well-being has now reached an all-time low. Physically, your body feels tired. Mentally, you always feel sad. This is the point of burnout where depression may occur.
What therapy is best for burnout?
At their current job, it is estimated that nearly 77% of workers have experienced burnout according to a Deloitte study. If you are struggling with burnout, you are not alone. With that being said, what therapy is the ‘best’ for burnout depends on your individual needs and unique situation.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
tends to be one of the most widely used forms of therapy for burnout. In CBT for burnout, you will identify and actively work to change negative thought patterns and behaviors that are adding to your work stress. CBT can help you build healthy coping mechanisms and even improve your problem-solving skills.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
encourages you to accept your thoughts and feelings instead of trying to fight them off. This form of therapy will help you align your thoughts and feelings with your actions to make sure you are always being intentional. This can help prevent burnout by making you more psychologically flexible.
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT)
is a goal-oriented form of counseling where you will focus on crafting solutions to your present-day problems. In this form of burnout therapy, you will not be diving deep into past trauma or occurrences. It is all about now. In SFBT for burnout, you can expect to create realistic goals and create an action plan to achieve them.
Psychodynamic therapy
is another form of mental health counseling used to address burnout. You can expect to explore your unconscious thoughts and any unresolved conflicts that are worsening your burnout. You can gain insight into your behavior and craft some healthy coping skills.
Group therapy
can be a very powerful tool for those experiencing burnout. It can provide you with a supportive setting where you share your experiences with other people and learn from others who are facing similar obstacles. This can make you feel less isolated in your experience.
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)
combines mindfulness with CBT to help you become more aware of your thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and bodily sensations in an open, non-judgmental manner. This not only reduces stress, but it also improves the ability to self-regulate your emotions.
How can a burnout therapist help me?
At Anchor Therapy, our burnout therapists will give you the support and guidance you need and deserve to overcome burnout. You will even learn strategies to help prevent burnout in the future.
The first step to burnout treatment is working towards understanding why you are experiencing burnout in the first place. You and your burnout counselor may work to differentiate burnout from anxiety or depression. The severity of your burnout will also be assessed.
There may be several factors contributing to your burnout. Maybe on top of an intense workload, you are also dealing with a toxic work environment and stressful life transitions.
You will learn effective stress management strategies, such as mindfulness practices and relaxation exercises. You may even find new things to work on in therapy, like time management. Having better time management and organizational skills can help you handle the tasks at hand more efficiently. You can also engage in assertiveness training in burnout treatment where you fine tune your communication skills to address work-related challenges.
With burnout, it is common to experience negative thought patterns relating to work. Therefore, your licensed stress therapist will engage you in cognitive restructuring where you replace negative thoughts with more positive, realistic ones. This will inevitably create behavioral changes where your stress levels will be reduced.
Before attending burnout counseling, you may feel:
Anxiety of what therapy will involve
Nervousness around discussing personal issues
Relief that a professional stress therapist can help you
Skepticism around if burnout therapy will be able to help you or not
Embarrassment about admitting that you are burnt out
Feeling apprehensive about the time commitment of therapy
After attending burnout counseling, you may feel:
Sense of relief after discussing life and work stressors
Calmness after creating a plan to manage your stressors
Feeling emotionally and/or physically tired after an intense therapy session
Clarity on the causes to burnout and possible solutions
Feeling motivation to implement the strategies discussed with your burnout counselor
Continued anxiety about the next stages of your career (especially in the beginning portion of burnout therapy sessions)
Burnout therapy is a safe space where you can express your feelings and experiences. With the help of a burnout therapist, you will feel supported and understood. Eventually, you will come to create a better work-life balance to maintain clear boundaries between your personal and professional life.
How Can I Start burnout treatment at Anchor Therapy?
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Fill out the contact form below.
You can expect a quick response from one of our intake coordinators with more information on our burnout treatment services.
Feel good as you are taking control of your burnout before it worsens!
