Recovering From Burnout

https://www.horizonplymouth.co.uk/

Burnout is what happens when constant stress causes you to become physically and mentally exhausted.

Often the only people who don’t recognise burnout are those who are experiencing all of the symptoms, because highly motivated, driven, high-functioning, ambitious people can have great difficulty believing they are unbreakable.

A favourite phrase when you are in the midst of this is to say ‘I don’t know how to relax!’ like it was some kind of badge of honour. 

EVERYONE needs to rest. Watching Netflix for a couple of hours on a Sunday is not a weakness. Going for a walk in the park is not a waste of time. Reading a book is not an indulgence.

The first step is to realise that you have burnt out or are running headlong towards it.

The way you are currently living your life, the way you think about yourself, the choices you make, the people you surround yourself with, can be causing you overwhelming stress and leading to your burnout.

Well for one, stop thinking that you are superhuman. You are not, and they don’t exist. 

You have a finite amount of energy and you need to use it wisely.

So, what are the 10 things that could help you recover from burnout?

1. Use your annual leave.
2. Calm your mind
3. Sleep, like you’ve never slept before
4. Get creative
5. Schedule your relaxation time.
6. Reduce caffeine intake.
7. Shut your phone up.
8. Admit that you are struggling

So, what now?

To be completely honest, I didn’t logically follow each step in a calm and steady manner.

What worked for me may not work for you. This isn’t an exhaustive list of hard and fast rules. Just try a couple and see what works out, and if it works for you then keep doing it.

Transcript

You are listening to The Therapy Guy, talking

about all things mental health, informing and supporting

you when you need it most.

Contact us for more information or with

any comments and please leave a review.

If you enjoy watching, you here.

Thanks for listening.

Hello.

Welcome to the therapy guy.

I bet you've missed me.

You've missed my lovely Janner tones, haven't you?

I know you have. Really?

So where have I been?

Well, today I'm going to talk to you about what's

been happening, what's going on for me, why I've been

away for a short while and now sort of

tell you how I've got back on track and you're

now listening to me once again, which I'm really pleased

about, and I hope you find this particular episode useful.

So today's episode is going to be around Burnout.

There's lots of it in the news, as you see.

Lots of different things going on about Burnout.

Most of us, let's be honest, ignore the

stuff we see until it's too late.

Exactly the same as myself.

I've been having some time off,

some time out to myself.

I love to say I've been relaxing on some sunny beach somewhere

and I have had the odd day on a beach in Cornwall.

But most of it has been spent just trying to manage

how I've been feeling and where I've got to over a

period of weeks, months and most of the years.

Burnout varies from person to person, really.

But it's really important, maybe for people like myself and

you, to start to notice when you're starting to get

that way, how the effect it has on you personally

and what you can actually do about it.

I always thought of myself as

sort of a little bit superhuman.

You just get on with it.

For the parents amongst us, we know that we have people

relying on us, so we have to sort of knuckle down.

We can't put our needs first sometimes. For people, that,

again, can people please or want others to be happy,

You lose focus on yourself.

So burnout can quite quickly catch up on you through

a series of small, little changes that are so small

and so insignificant sometimes. We sometimes miss them until it

hits us, until we get to that point where we

go, just can't do this anymore.

So what is burnout?

Burnout is what happens when you constantly stress

and you become physically and mentally exhausted.

Now, I speak to a lot of

people and they say I don't feel stressed.

And that's because over a period of time, they've

conditioned themselves to working long hours, keeping busy, doing

lots of things, and they don't recognise the effect

that has on themselves, on how they are and

how they interact with other people.

As I said, this creeps up on us.

Sometimes it can happen in a week or a month

and sometimes it can take years for us, but it

can also take a while for us to recover.

So how are you going to recognise

when you're starting to experience burning?

You might start to think that slowing down, not

being able to do anything, not being in control of

things, that's a sort of sign of weakness.

Or you may be saying things like I don't

know how to relax, I just haven't got time.

I haven't got time to just go and sit and read or

have a cup of tea, I've got too much to do.

It's almost like a big badge with us being

super busy and I'm not throwing stones or

anything here, I'm a perfect example of this.

What tends to happen when I get stressed?

I tend to work even harder, I tend to work longer.

There's always something for me to do but also everyone

needs to rest, everyone needs to take a little bit

of time for themselves, no matter what it is.

But what we end up doing is we end

up involving other people sometimes we end up going

out with other people and still being the entertainment

committee, still being the person who organises everything, we just

can't switch off in that button.

Going for a walk by yourself isn't a waste of time.

Having a cup of tea in silence or

listening to the raid you are watching something

on TV isn't a waste of time.

I speak to a lot of young guys and they relate

a lot to my boxing experience and things like that and

I always say that the most important part in time in

any sort of boxing match is the time you sit in

the corner, the time you sit down from being busy, from

having lots of things going through your mind.

It's the time that you can sit and

decide what you're going to do next.

And this is what we sometimes miss.

We're so busy rushing from one thing to another we

don't actually work out what is a priority and we

definitely don't consider ourselves to be a priority.

It almost seems like everyone

else, or everything else is.

So what are you going to do first?

I want you to just notice how the little things

seem to frustrate or seem to be more difficult.

Maybe how the little things just upset you more.

You seem to struggle, you seem to

struggle sleeping or interacting with your partner.

The conversation has slowed down with other people.

You want to be around other people, yet

you don't want to be around other people.

You want to talk but you just feel that you haven't

got the energy to talk or engage with just another person.

The children might bother us more.

The little things that they do

may seem out of proportion.

All these things are starting to show you that

maybe, just maybe, you need a little bit of

time off, you need a little bit of selfcare.

The way you;re currently living just isn't

working for you anymore at the moment.

We're not superhuman.

I'm not Superman.

I know some people think I

am, and of course that's okay.

But I do wear my underpants inside my trousers.

We don't have an infinite amount of energy.

We need to use it in a better way.

We need to look after ourselves in a better way.

So here's some things that you can do

if you're working, maybe take some time.

Take some time out.

Take an odd day.

Use some of your leave to attach it for a long weekend.

You don't necessarily need to take

a week off or whatever.

You can just sort of take several

weekends, several long weekends if possible.

I know going abroad, going on that hot fancy foreign

holiday at the moment is a bit difficult.

Take a staycation.

Try to take some time to go different places,

to go places that you want to go.

Just switch off.

Decide, if possible, leave your phone back in

hotel or caravan or wherever it is that

you are, even back in the house.

Just leave your phone there for a

while and concentrate on what you're doing

and those that are immediately around you.

So for myself, if I go out with my children

and grandchildren, I might turn my phone on silent.

I might avoid answering the phone for a while,

avoid looking at those emails, thinking about work.

If you are sort of like me and there's

a constant chatter going on in your brain that

you just can't seem to switch off, lots of

people recommend mindfulness and breathing techniques.

All those things can work, and

they work well for certain people.

But I have learned to accept that my mind is busy.

I like to be busy.

So while the mindfulness apps, the breathing, the

try and switch off, the yoga, they all

work perfectly for lots of people.

And I'm really pleased if they work for you.

For me, what I've got to do is

almost keep my mind busy, but on something

a bit more beneficial, a bit more positive.

So if I'm out and I might be walking around my

local city here in Plymouth, and I might be up on

the hill which is near the seafront for those of you

that don't know, I might be looking out for sea.

I might be people watching my mind shifted from there,

thinking about work to just watching the sort of world

go by, laughing to myself and enjoying the people that

are walking around and seeing what I'm seeing.

It's easy to get stuck with, this

doesn't work and that doesn't work.

You don't have to fit into these sections.

You don't have to fit into a mindfulness app if

you don't if your mind doesn't do that, we've got

to give you some different ways that you can.

Sleep is really important.

Sleep is one of the things that you might

notice at the moment if you're suffering or starting

to experience some burnout sleep can be difficult.

You can get fragmented sleep or night, wake up in

the morning and still feel really tired, still feel exhausted

and almost have to drag yourself out of bed.

Having lie ins at the weekend, all that sort

of thing works for again for some people.

But for me, I think having a

routine, having structure, helps my brain.

It gives me a sense of I've got to do something.

That's how my brain works and that's what I respond to.

So even for myself, I tend to get up and move on.

There's lots of things you can do around

getting creative for the children or for yourself.

There's these fantastic colouring books and also things, again,

as I said a couple of times already, they

work well for lots of people, I think.

Getting creative with my grandchildren, playing with them,

doing something like cooking, or just having a

little bit of fun, doing something again.

You see what I'm doing?

My brain is busy.

I can accept that my brain is

busy and I struggle to switch off.

So what I do is I engage it in doing something else.

It's just a distraction, but

it's an enjoyable distraction.

Trying to schedule in some of

that time is really important.

Notice what you're eating, what you're drinking.

Are you eating more quick

snacks, quick foods, sugary foods?

Are you drinking more caffeine?

All sorts of things can be tempting

just to reach for that chocolate drawer.

Can be tempting to have quick snacks and a

quick cup of coffee for that burst of energy.

This is your brain's way of saying to you,

you're running out of energy, you need sugar.

It can create a habit, it can create this routine.

That's what we do and that's

one of our coping strategies.

Just become mindful of it.

You don't have to stop

everything that you enjoy eating.

I'm not asking you to do that.

Like myself, I enjoy a cup of coffee, I

enjoy chocolate, I enjoy a takeaway now and again.

But if you notice that you're doing it more

and more regularly because you haven't got the energy

to cook, or you just need that extra boost,

then maybe times something has to change.

Your phone, our lovely phones.

There they are.

They're constantly with us, this constant

source of interaction, constant distraction, constantly

getting dragged into other people's lives.

Nothing else.

How much time?

I know on the iPhone, I'm not sure about the Androids,

but on the iPhones they can measure the screen time and

it can measure how long you spend on certain apps.

Maybe just notice for a week or so

what you're doing, how much time you're spending.

Just mindlessly aimlessly again.

It's a distraction technique that your brain does.

But we also get into this cycle of blaming ourselves

because we've been on Facebook for ten minutes, 20 minutes,

and we haven't done what we're supposed to be doing.

Maybe just try turning them

off, removing the notifications.

Some people have deleted the app all together for

a short period of time or made it a

bit harder, like you've got to log in each

time rather than just sign in automatically.

All these things can help us, but the biggest and most

important thing is for us to realise, for us to admit

that we are struggling, for us to actually own up and

take some responsibility, that we can't do it all.

At times, we all need some help and it's

a really big thing for us to admit. I know.

For myself, it's a really big thing for me to admit

that I can't do everything and I needed some support.

I needed to have what I felt were difficult conversations with

the people around me, the people that love and care for

me because they saw me as a strong one.

I always thought I was a strong person,

but over time those conversations get easier.

They are there to help you, they

want you to be happy too.

Really try to think about how you can

have those conversations, who you can ask for.

But admitting it to ourselves is one

of the most important things for me.

And I'll tell you what's been going on in my life.

I've been experienced quite a lot.

So I'm trying to support my family and I'm

trying to run a business, I'm trying to start

a new business, so there's a lot going on.

I find it really difficult taking on

everybody else's worries, everyone else's fears, alongside

my job and everything else.

Working long hours, it just became too much.

I noticed that I wasn't enjoying anything anymore.

Spending time with the people I loved didn't

really give me back what I wanted.

It was always my go to spot, it was always

the thing that rewarded me and got me through.

If I had a difficult week, I'd spend time with

the people I love and care for and that would

have gave me the energy to carry on.

But I noticed over a period of time that that

was getting less and less and I was struggling.

So it was a real big thing to ask for help

for, actually to admit that I have to step back a

bit from my work to get my colleagues to step up.

And they've been fantastic.

The people around me, my family,

my friends, they've all helped.

They've all encouraged me to take some time to myself.

They've all encouraged me to do different things.

I'm still not quite there yet.

I have reduced my hours, I've

reduced the amount that I work.

I make different choices now.

I say yes to the things that I want to, the things

that I think I would enjoy, I really want to do.

I spend more time taking breaks, scheduling those breaks

in if possible, but also snatching a break.

If I've got a meeting that gets cancelled.

I take some time away from the

office, I go and do something.

All these things will take time, but I

know in myself I feel less stressed.

I know it's in my body, the effect it has.

I feel better just in myself.

I don't feel it's drained.

I am sleeping better.

If you need any help, if

you need any support, just recheck.

Contact me.

If I can help or give you some advice

in any way, if you need to talk to

a therapist, please reach out to somebody.

There's lots of people out there

just realise that you're important.

If you go down, who's going to do what you do?

Who's going to look after everybody?

Who's going to care for that family of yours?

You're just as important to them

as what they are to you.

Thanks for today.

Thanks for listening.

I hope you find some use with

the burnout tips that I've given.

They were created also partly for myself

and partly with my colleague Mark.

I can thank for helping me to put this together today.

I hope you look after yourself.

Take some time to spend with the people that are

around you, the people that love and care for you.

For today, this is Therapy Guy just signing off.

Take care of each other.

Bye for now.

Counselling Near Me can help connect you with a

local therapist in your area, enabling you to find

the support you need for your mental health and

well being quickly, easily and right at your fingertips,

wherever you are and when you need it most.

Search for counsellingnearme.co.uk