Burnout

Daily living is becoming a war of nerves and each one of us is called upon to work out strategies to cope with daily challenges of our existence. Gone are the laid back days when work was a pleasure that set the rhythm of life. We now live in an age of anxiety and competition and willy-nilly are caught in the ongoing rat race. Right from our first days in school to the last days of our career we are constantly reminded of competing or how to get ahead of the next guy or keep abreast of him/her.   Every one these days is complaining of stress—at home, in office, on the road, anywhere and everywhere. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown is a proverb that is in need of immediate modification. Now even the common man is seldom at ease and kings either have disappeared or no longer wear crowns. Life is full of stress for every one, young or old, and when constant stress has you suddenly down you feel physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. Well, you may be suffering from burnout!   When you are burned out, you find yourself in maize of insurmountable problems. It is blank and bleak and you cannot even think what has happened to you. Utter desolation surrounds you all the time. Energy? Where has it all gone? There is not whiff of it left and you do not know what will support and sustain you! Will you ever come out of this blackness or blankness or both mixed up together to get you sucked up into a darkening world!   Humans, however, are not without reserves and resilience. You will come back and feel the sanity returning; better prepared for the next time because the war of nerves continues. Next time, hopefully, you will know what is coming in time. You will understand the signs and symptoms of the impending burnout. It might not be all that difficult to prevent it then. Effective burnout-busting is within your grasp.  The strategy involves taking hold of yourself emotionally and physically and seek out others who might be of help when you need it most. Psychiatrists suggest that one must stay connected to others and this, in itself, is a reliable safeguard against burnouts.   Burnout happens gradually, though once in its middle you feel awful and unwilling to fight it. Therefore, one must be always on guard and must recognise the signs of burnout and meet it head on, and most likely, one would succeed in heading it off. Burnout is usually rooted in stress. And stress has a way of telling you when it is getting on and over you. So recognise the symptoms of stress and overcome them. If you are vigilant, you stand a good chance to avoid burnout even before it sets in.   We have been stressing the role of STRESS so far but mark that though extreme stress leads to burnout, burnout and stress are not the same thing. An overstressed person is quite capable of imagining that if she/he could just get organised, everything would be under control and okay. But burnout empties out all motivation. A burned-out person sees no positive change happening. Excessive stress is like floating in a sea of tasks and responsibilities; burnout is a total drowning.   While one is aware of being overstressed, one does not know anything once one is in the grip of burnout. The process of burnout is seldom sudden. Long periods of hopelessness, the cynicism, and the detachment from others bring about symptoms of burnout slowly and one loses one's capability of recognising the symptoms. It remains for others to notice that you are passing into burnout but will you listen to the other, your friend or colleague or any well-wisher?   Workplace is a natural setting for burnouts but one or more bad workdays cannot be called a job burnout. An effective way to head off job burnout is to just give up what one is doing and take up something else in its place. Going on a vacation can also do the trick—change of scene, as they say. Change of scene helps one recharge one's batteries and return to oneself with a new perspective.   Besides reading books, you can join a support group, know your limits, accept your feelings, confide in others and, most importantly, build or maintain a foundation of good physical health. Be sure to eat right, get enough sleep, and make workout part of your daily routine. Know your own needs and find ways to meet them. And because burnout is related to stress, many of the methods for countering stress can also help prevent burnout. Smile at life's little ironies and that will keep burnouts off limits!

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with warm regards

Harish Sati
Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU)
Maidan Garhi, New Delhi-110068

(M) + 91 - 9990646343 | (E-mail) Harish.sati@gmail.com

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