6 Ways to Reduce the Risk of Burnout at Work
Burnout is a state of emotional, physical and mental exhaustion, often brought about because of excessive or prolonged stress. It can happen when a person is feeling overwhelmed, emotionally drained and unable to meet the constant demands of their job or life in general. If the stress is allowed to continue, you’ll lose interest and motivation. Your productivity is reduced, and your energy is sapped, leaving you feeling helpless, hopeless, resentful, and cynical. It can affect all areas of your life, including work, relationships and social life.
Thankfully, burnout can be prevented. Here are six ways you can reduce the likelihood of it happening to you.
Believe in Yourself
Believing in yourself is called self-efficacy. It’s a belief in your own ability to accomplish your own meaningful goals and tasks. People with higher levels of self-efficacy tend to be less stressed in challenging situations. If a person believes they can cope in a certain situation it becomes less stressful for them.
Take Care of Yourself
You might think there’s always something that needs doing, but this isn’t a sustainable pace to be working at. If you force yourself to take a break, everything will still be the same when you return. Your body isn’t a machine. It needs to stop and walk away at regular intervals during the day. Eating your lunch sat hunched over your desk is counterproductive, even though you might kid yourself you’re getting more done.
Socialize
Spend time with people outside of the work environment because it will give you some much needed emotional fulfilment. If you only socialise at work, you’re making work your whole life which is bound to lead to burnout and feeling emotionally detached from friends and family. Schedule regular social activities. It might be Sunday lunch, dinner, and a movie or why not buy tickets for a sporting event from ticketsales.com.
Learn to Say No
Saying yes to everything that gets asked of you is easy. Learning to say no is much harder but you have to do it if you want to say engaged, excited and energetic about your work. Only choose to do what’s most important to you and stick to your decision.
Get Enough Sleep
If you’re not sleeping properly, your brain isn’t functioning at its best. A lack of sleep can have other serious consequences, such as a lack of judgment, development of chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, depression, and hypertension. There’s also an increased risk of accidents. In order to function at your best, you need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep every night.
Exercise
Exercise is important for your mental and physical health. If you exercise regularly, it reduces stress, improves self-confidence, increases productivity, improves memory and prevents cognitive decline. You’ll experience a remarked improvement in your energy levels and feel satisfied that you’re taking good care of yourself.
Burnout can be very harmful and will have a big impact on your work and personal life. It doesn’t have to get to that point as long as you pay attention to the way you’re feeling emotionally. Keep checking up on yourself and make sure you’re looking after yourself in all the right ways.
