Human beings can only take so much stress and physical exertion. If you’re constantly pushing your body and mind to the limits, you’ll eventually burn out.
Nobody wants to reach this ‘burn-out’ stage – you’ll either get to a point where you don’t want to get up in the morning or you’ll have a nervous breakdown. You could even push yourself to the point of physical illness or self-harm if you’re not careful.
Below are five signs that you may be getting close to burning out (and what you can do to prevent this).
You feel physically and emotionally exhausted
Physical and emotional exhaustion are a clear sign that you’ve been pushing yourself too hard. This is likely from denying yourself free time, and possibly even sacrificing sleep to juggle responsibilities.
You constantly feel restless – even after accomplishing a task
People on the brink of burn-out often feel as if they have an ever-growing queue of tasks to complete. As a result, when one task is accomplished, you may not feel any sense of gratitude, because there are still so many tasks left to take on.
You no longer see the value of certain responsibilities
Certain responsibilities may have lost the value that they once held. In most cases, people stop caring about their job. The idea of meeting targets and impressing customers may all seem meaningless. Similarly, you may start to see no value in doing tasks such as housework or exercise.
You feel like the quality of everything you do is slipping
You may feel that you’re constantly making mistakes or cutting corners to get things done. While you may just about be staying on top of things, there could be a sense that nothing is being done as well as you’d like.
Any free time you get is spent recovering
Instead of doing anything productive with your free time, you could find that any free time you get is spent recovering – you may not want to do anything more than nap or watch the TV. Even this recovery time may not be enough, causing exhaustion to continue building up.
How to prevent burnout
Think that you may be on the brink of a burn-out? If you act now, you may be able to prevent things getting any worse. Here are just a few ways to prevent burn-out.
Allow others to take some of the strain
Consider the responsibilities that you are juggling and whether there is any way of getting support. If parenthood is getting on top of you, consider asking someone to babysit regularly to take some of the strain off. If caring for aging loved ones is taking up a lot of your energy, you could consider looking into hospice care. At work meanwhile, there may be tasks that you can delegate to colleagues or get help with.
Set clear boundaries
Try to keep clear boundaries between work and family life. Make sure that you’re finishing work at a certain time so that you can spend enough time with your family. Similarly, make sure that family life isn’t interfering with your work performance.
Avoid being a perfectionist
Perfectionists are often more prone to burn-out because they invest huge amounts of time ensuring that all the details are attended to. Not all these details may be necessary – it could be time to prioritize what is important.
Eliminate unhealthy sources of stress
Your stress could be due to an overly demanding employer or a toxic partner that expects too much of you. It could be time to quit your job or leave your partner to help eliminate the burden.
•Are you feeling burned out? What do you do to try to remedy that?
Thank you for reading!
