Everyone has stressful days at work where they feel overwhelmed and exhausted by their tasks. But when this feeling becomes chronic or unavoidable no matter what you do, you may be experiencing job burnout. Burnout can cause people to feel constantly stressed, exhausted, and unable to cope with the demands of a job and life.
\r\nBecause much of the country is currently under quarantine, thousands of workers have made the shift to remote work. This is adding significant stress in many ways: Employees have had to figure out how to make their jobs work remotely, balance working with round-the-clock child care, and deal with the general stresses of a crisis, such as whether their job will survive the economic downturn and if their loved ones will be healthy throughout the pandemic. All of these added stresses can contribute heavily to employee burnout.
\r\nHere's how to spot burnout and what you can do to avoid it.
\r\nBurnout is a state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion typically caused by excessive and prolonged stress. Job burnout, in particular, can involve a reduced sense of accomplishment and loss of personal identity or task ownership. Burnout may also present itself with physical symptoms, such as headaches or stomachaches as a result of stress.
\r\nBurnout is not an official medical diagnosis and can sometimes be linked to or exacerbated by other mental health conditions, such as depression.
\r\nAlthough stress and burnout have similar symptoms, they are two entirely different conditions. For instance, according to HelpGuide, while burnout is characterized by disengagement, stress is characterized by over-engagement. When you are stressed out, your emotions are overactive, while burnout causes emotions to become muted. Stress causes a lack of energy, while burnout causes a loss of motivation and hope. Stress is more likely to cause physical illness, while burnout causes mainly emotional damage.
\r\nAccording to Prevention.com, although burnout overlaps with depression, they are not the same condition. While burnout is essentially emotional exhaustion triggered by being overworked at your place of employment, depression is a mental health disorder that can be caused by any number of things. Given that burnout is typically triggered at work, working less or finding a new job may relieve burnout symptoms. However, depression is a mental health disorder that causes you to feel hopeless in all areas of your life, and it is often not relieved (no matter what life changes are made) until the disorder has been properly addressed.
\r\nAccording to Moodpath, these are the core differences between depression and burnout:
\r\nDepression:
\r\nBurnout:
\r\nBurnout has three main dimensions: exhaustion, cynicism (or less identification with your job functions) and feelings of reduced professional ability. Put more simply, if you feel drained, are starting to hate your job, and feel like you can't do your job well, you are showing signs of workplace burnout.
\r\nThese are some other common signs of burnout:
\r\nBurnout manifests differently in each individual, so the signs and symptoms may vary. However, these are the five most commonly observed stages:
\r\nWorking from home, when done correctly, can be a great way to balance the demands of work and your personal life, but it takes careful consideration and implementation of boundaries. Because the coronavirus pushed many people who don't normally work from home into doing so, you likely came into this situation without those boundaries in place, which may make you feel isolated or as though you need to be available at all times.
\r\n\"The isolation and ability to work anytime and anywhere can definitely lead to burnout if you're not careful,\" said Angela Mastrogiacomo, owner of Muddy Paw PR. \"Because remote workers don't have that community support and energy to draw off of, and because their home has now become their office, it can become easy to tell yourself you'll just work a little bit more, and before you know it, you've been working 14 hours straight.\"
\r\nWorking from home, especially during quarantine, can also mean trying to get work done while caring for children or other family members as well as dealing with external stressors, which can leave you burning the candle at both ends and blur – or completely erase – the line between work and home.
\r\n\"Oftentimes, workers' workspaces are in their living rooms, which makes it difficult to take breaks and separate from your workspace,\" said Drew Cheneler, founder of SimpleMoneyLyfe. \"Add on the distractions of family and watching the kids, and it's hard to stay focused and enjoy a true work-life balance.\"
\r\nIn addition to working from home, according to Mayo Clinic, these are some other potential causes of burnout:
\r\nThere are steps you can take early on to avoid occupational burnout and keep it from affecting your personal or professional life. The best thing to do is to be proactive and build up your mental resilience.
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