In the early seventies of the twentieth century, scientists drew attention to the fact that many people, after several years of work, experience a state close to stress and seek psychological help. They feel constant fatigue, sometimes headaches, insomnia, general deterioration of health. Work ceases to bring them satisfaction, but on the contrary, it irritates and causes hostility. A person has a feeling of his own incompetence, helplessness, and indeed, specific professional achievements are reduced, as well as endurance and attention in general. However, the methods of psychotherapy here are ineffective.
This phenomenon has been aptly named "burnout". Unlike depression, burnout is not accompanied by feelings of guilt and depression, but on the contrary, it can be accompanied by excitement, aggression, and irritability. It turned out that professional burnout brings serious losses to society, both economic and psycho-emotional. In particular, very experienced pilots suddenly begin to experience fear of flying, uncertainty about the correctness of their actions (they say about such people “flyed”), which can lead to both personal drama and disaster. But those people who, on duty, must “give” people the energy and warmth of their souls are especially prone to burnout: teachers, managers, doctors, artists.
With prolonged exposure to burnout, real stress develops, with its characteristic symptoms (among them are cardiovascular disorders, neuroses, ulcers of the digestive tract, weakened immunity). Increasing indifference, "professional cynicism", negativism in relation to clients and their work. Sometimes there is an aversion to everything in the world, unmotivated resentment against others, fate, the government. Life seems empty and meaningless, and work is a boring and hated routine. Particular dislike is caused by people with whom you have to work - clients, students, visitors, colleagues. This type of burnout is even called "poisoning people." By the way, students are equally prone to “burnout”: schoolchildren, students.
WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF BURNOUT?
According to psychologist V.V. Boyko, emotional burnout is a psychological defense mechanism developed by a person in the form of a complete or partial exclusion of emotions in response to psycho-traumatic effects. Emotional burnout is a stereotype of emotional, most often professional conduct. "Burnout" is partly a functional stereotype, since it allows a person to dose and economically spend energy resources. At the same time, dysfunctional consequences can also arise when “burnout” negatively affects the performance of professional activities and relationships with partners (the term “partner” means the subject of professional activity, in pedagogical activity these are students).
Let's start with the fact that our nervous system has a certain "communication limit", that is, in a day a person can pay full attention to only a limited number of people. If their number is greater, exhaustion inevitably sets in, and eventually burnout. The same limit exists for other mental processes (perception, problem solving, attention). This limit is very flexible and depends on the tone of the nervous system, which reduces bad mood when the colors of the day fade, as well as unresolved problems, lack of sleep and many other reasons.
In addition, we are used to the fact that the process of communication with people is mutual, and every positive message is followed by a response: gratitude, increased attention, respect. However, clients and students are not always capable of such returns. It happens that efforts are "rewarded" only by indifferent silence, inattention, hostility, ingratitude, and even the desire to benefit to the detriment of the one who "gives himself away." And when the sum of such failures accumulates, a crisis of self-esteem and professional motivation develops.
Another reason is the lack of a full result. Working with people often lies in the fact that it is impossible to "touch", correctly evaluate. You can cheat or try, but the result is the same: children still come to school, get grades, return home. And it is difficult to prove that these specific efforts lead to higher results, and indifference to a decrease. After all, indicators of success in school life are usually temporary, fleeting, they change from a quarter to a quarter, and at the end of school they completely lose their intrinsic value.
There are many more reasons for the development of burnout. But even without them, it is clear that boring, albeit familiar work can wear out more than an emergency solution to a difficult and interesting task.
Individual characteristics play an important role in the development of burnout. There are people who find it easier to perform routine work for a long time (stayers). However, you cannot count on them if you need to mobilize forces and urgently make a big project. Another type (sprinters) at first act actively and enthusiastically, amaze with their working capacity, but quickly “run out of steam”. Usually they are very sensitive to evaluations of their actions. There are workers with low creativity, but good performance, who need direct instructions, guidance. Their opposite is creative workers who prefer freedom of choice for successful activities. Obviously, if the tasks assigned to a person do not correspond to the warehouse of his personality, burnout develops faster and deeper.
Now more and more people are involved in the sphere of social and semantic work, they have to work not with mechanisms and physical phenomena, but with people and information about them. Therefore, a whole “epidemic” of burnout is observed in society. Which of us has not had a chance to deal with "evil", "calous" leaders, officials, teachers, medical workers? Usually this "callingness" is not fully realized and does not bring pleasure and satisfaction. In essence, this is an automatic defensive reaction of the psyche.
Burnout can also be considered as a consequence of improperly organized work, irrational management, unpreparedness of personnel.
NEGATIVISM AS PROTECTION
Is there a way out? There are many ways to reduce the effect of burnout. There are whole technologies that are developed on the basis of industrial-organizational psychology. They allow you to increase productivity, increase income, improve the psychological climate and social indicators in the organization.
I must say that people without any science are trying to deal with burnout. But these methods are often "barbaric", negative. For example, professional cynicism (expressed even in special expressions, terms). Listen, how do you call students to yourself? This noisy gang, which - before you have time to take a breath after the next lesson - already runs into the office and strives to turn everything upside down?
Another negative method is physical and emotional alienation, the desire to keep children at a distance, not to allow touching, not to notice their physical shell, life problems, mental states. Professional cynicism is developed, which helps to avoid disappointment. Although this seems dishonest to many: is it possible to work with students without experiencing any emotional attachment to them?
Another way to avoid "wasting yourself" is ritualization. When communicating with clients or students, always adhere to the ritual, routine, demand unquestioning adherence to instructions. Then the work goes like on rails: they met, worked - and fled.
Energy “vampirism” also helps individual workers. There is no mysticism here, just a person uses the moment of someone else's embarrassment, suffering, humiliation, failure in order to rise, to assert himself. Then the suppression of others becomes a strong and productive motivation. Although not quite constructive and comfortable.
It happens that a person copes with burnout by emphasizing his own value, necessity, irreplaceability of his person and work. In many collectives there is such an employee, perhaps a supply manager, a storekeeper, a secretary or a person responsible for completing documents, without whose highest permission nothing can be done. He is absolutely irreplaceable. However, the day comes, it is replaced by another worker, and everything goes on as before, the organization does not crumble to dust.
A special way to deal with stress (and burnout in particular) is the use of psychoactive substances. In the West, all sorts of stimulants that psychopharmacology offers are in use. However, sometimes ordinary alcoholic drinks and cigarettes are used.
Teachers can be understood: their work is difficult in the psycho-emotional sense. It is not surprising that in pedagogical collectives there are often both people suffering from "burnout" and those who use "barbaric" methods of avoiding it.
CONSTRUCTIVE METHODS TO COMBAT BURNOUT
There are also positive methods that allow you to smooth out or avoid burnout altogether - without alienation and conflict.
First of all, you can use the rich arsenal of psychotherapy and all kinds of psycho-trainings, which are owned by professional psychologists and game technicians. At large enterprises, such events are regularly held, essentially “games for adults”, which sharpen attention, increase efficiency, and contribute to the rapprochement of employees (in our country, however, in order to rapprochement and raise corporate spirit, they often confine themselves to the tradition of a noisy feast). Role-playing games, business games, tolerance training (tolerance to irritating factors), situational training are most often used.
Training remains perhaps the most effective means of avoiding burnout. A person is stimulated and aimed at success in work not so much by acquiring new knowledge and mastering technologies, as by “overcoming oneself”. Therefore, it is very important to feel this transition to a new level, mastering the intermediate steps, especially if some symbol remains as a memory of “overcoming”: a certificate, a diploma, an award, a souvenir. Usually, participation in trainings, field seminars, advanced training courses becomes a strong incentive to overcome routine and burnout. In addition, these activities smooth out the so-called “professional deformation of the personality” (when a lawyer sees a potential offender in each interlocutor against his will, a psychiatrist sees a hidden psychopath, and a teacher a negligent student).
Another incentive is constructive evaluation. Adults, like children, need someone to appreciate their work. For this, enterprises use a whole technology of “assessment” of personnel. It takes into account personal potential, opportunities for a particular activity, attests the objective results of work and subjective feedback from colleagues, management, and most importantly - clients and students.
In educational institutions, it is not uncommon for management to ignore student feedback on the work of teachers. I observed this situation even in paid correspondence universities, where adults with great life experience study. They do not try to influence the choice of teachers, so that they present the program more intelligibly, engage in education and training, and not just certification. Despite the fact that students themselves pay for the work of these teachers, as well as the work of managers of the educational process.
In many educational institutions of the world, taking into account the opinion of students is in the order of things: this is an important component of the rating of teachers. Of course, it also takes into account the fact that a demanding teacher may gain less popularity. Therefore, in the rating, first of all, they note fairness, respect for students, creativity, the ability to interest the audience, the desire for cooperation, and not confrontation with students.
Everything is not so simple here. Personnel evaluation can be a means to improve the work and psychological state of people, but it can also turn into an end in itself, when a lot of effort is spent on beautiful reports and “window dressing”, as well as give rise to intrigue and personal grievances. The reward can stimulate a person not to improve his performance, but to “rest on his laurels”. And yet, feedback, evaluation of the results of work by clients and colleagues, is considered a necessary condition for fruitful and harmonious work.
Another way to avoid burnout is novelty. Changing activities, introducing technical innovations, updating the program, changing the place of residence and work can be a very productive tool. In large organizations, there is a tradition of "staff rotation" that is especially relevant for managers. They regularly move to manage other departments, often to branches in other cities. This avoids stagnation.
Combining learning, assessment and renewal is achieved at field events. And a short trip to a conference, the publication of a printed work can have a big effect in the fight against burnout.
The enrichment of work and the creation of a super task helps to reduce monotony. The parable of three builders, one of whom “dragged a cursed wheelbarrow”, the other “earned bread for the family”, and the third “built a beautiful temple”, well illustrates what a super task is.
High-quality management of the organization is impossible without the distribution of tasks, taking into account the individual inclinations of employees. Some need strict control, others require great freedom and do not tolerate supervision. Some people prefer a variety of jobs, others are intimidated by unusual tasks.
A serious blow to performance is caused by personal resentment, conflict, frustration (psychological suffering), mobing (collective "bullying"). Mobing can be carried out by colleagues, leaders and students. Usually this is done by some "initiative" group. It is enough to neutralize it - by persuasion, positive or negative reinforcement, sometimes simply by punitive measures, and sometimes by unexpected encouragement - and the conflict will dissolve.
In general, methods of conflict psychology are required to get out of such situations. Obviously, such situations are easier to prevent than to correct their consequences. Therefore, the observance of mental hygiene and psychological safety is of great importance for the prevention of burnout among teachers.
When communicating with Western experts, their deliberate benevolence, the desire to avoid conflicts, the formalization of results and assessments surprises. "Interesting job! The facts are selected, their analysis is made. Unfortunately, the validity of the conclusions is somewhat underdeveloped, and the deadlines for the delivery of the project have not been observed. We hope that the author will have undoubted success in his future activities. All the best!" - Such a “laudatory” review, oddly enough, can mean an irrevocable refusal, a “deuce”.
On the one hand, this is insincerity, on the other - mental hygiene. Even if you get a refusal, you don't feel hurt and don't want to protest. And here is a reverse example: “Surprisingly, the essay is written without errors and to the point. Wrote, probably. However, there are a lot of superfluous words, blots, some crumpled notebook. Yes, and you still do not pull on a good assessment! So I give three points.
It is useful to avoid scandals, conflicts, uncertain obligations (especially those that go beyond the scope of official duties), and unnecessary responsibility. An element of mental hygiene is a positive attitude, the ability to pay attention to 95% of the pluses, and not to 5% of the minuses, failures and mistakes. Unfortunately, the teacher develops just such a "professional deformation of the personality" - the desire to look for flaws, errors in the array of correct text. This harms both the soul of the teacher and the student. Let's take a household example: when we glue wallpaper, then from a small scratch or inconsistency in the pattern we grab our hearts. However, a month passes, and we can no longer remember where this defect was - no one notices it. Only the fact is visible: there is new wallpaper in the room. It also happens the same way, if you take a boy's thickly written notebook: he did a great job! But mistakes, blots, omissions accumulate, and in the end the result is a “troika”! A month later, the essence of specific mistakes is forgotten, but the feeling of chronic failure remains.
It is better to evaluate students not for the accuracy of performance, but for the amount of merit. A person can make a lot of mistakes, wander in the labyrinths of his forgetfulness and ignorance, but he did a great job - to the detriment of other things, overcame his busyness, therefore he “worked out” a positive assessment. If a student, without answering the question, receives a three, he will not acquire knowledge and confidence. It is better to give him a lot of questions, from simple to complex. So that he finds a "foothold", his level of competence, from which he can build on and grow. And evaluate it for the amount of correct answers. This method is especially good for solving the problems of general education, enlightenment, upbringing, and not teaching special skills.
Without observing professional hygiene and safety, it is impossible to create comfortable conditions for fruitful work. These conditions include both psychological parameters (including feeling of safety and comfort, visual and acoustic comfort) and physical parameters (air, comfortable equipment and clothes, healthy food). Bad health, fatigue can be caused by factors such as tight-fitting clothes and shoes that interfere with blood circulation, or stale office air saturated with toxins from heated plastic and tobacco smoke, flashing and buzzing fluorescent lights, as well as the usual office "snack" - tea with sweets. Many office workers in the West are ditching cakes and coffee in favor of fruits and vegetables, muesli and herbal teas.
For the teacher, respiratory hygiene and positive visual stimuli are of particular importance. In our country, few people think that the cause of asthmatic cough is often chalk and cellulose dust, where microscopic mites, fungal spores and other allergens accumulate. And that a dirty board, where chalk inscriptions are smeared with a semi-dry rag, reduces perception by ten percent. Therefore, many schools generally refuse chalk, using felt-tip pens.
Finally, in order to avoid the “burnout” effect, it is very important to dose your work and be able to complete it on time. Many of us, when starting a project in life, create a “mass of plans” and strive to make it endless. However, the normal “lifespan” of successful projects is about five years. We are upset if a magazine, musical or other creative group ceases to exist, without thinking that this is precisely a “project” - a temporary association of people. Those who work for a limited time, striving to get the result, properly formalize and evaluate it. And then - a new project, possibly continuing the idea of the old one, but with a different result.
Teaching is also a “temporary project” of its kind, both for the student and the teacher. Therefore, you need to know from the very beginning how to complete the activity, what the parting will be like.
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- Vodopyanova N. E. Research of "mental burnout" in managerial activity // Psychology; results and prospects. Abstracts of the scientific-practical conference October 28-31, 1996 / Ed. ed. A.A. Krylova. St. Petersburg, 1996. S. 111-112.
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Everyone has periods of fatigue, apathy, emotional exhaustion. A person becomes distracted, begins to value his personal space more, and people in the subway are more and more annoying. Sometimes there is no strength at all to get out from under the covers, and the motivation disappears even before you open your eyes in the morning. This is not yet a reason for panic, but an occasion to think about why this happened. Burnout syndrome can lead to severe depression. How to recognize and prevent emotional burnout, explained the clinical psychologist, director of the Center for Systemic Family Psychotherapy Inna Khamitova and life coach Timur Yadgarov. Their opinions sometimes contradict each other, you can choose a point of view that is closer to you.
What is emotional burnout
THEM.: The syndrome of emotional burnout manifests itself in three areas: intellectual - it is difficult to master new knowledge, problems with memory arise; physical - general fatigue, lethargy; emotional - a decrease in mood, when a person is no longer happy with anything. The source of this, as a rule, is the following: you put much more into work than you receive in return. And here we are talking about physical, and intellectual, and emotional resources.
T.Ya.: Our life is not focused on positive emotions, but rather on momentary goals, on what society requires. Because of this, we lose something very important that fills our life with meaning. The idea of balancing personal life and work is very complex, and it is difficult to find a person who combines them with ease. After all, the concentration of efforts requires full dedication, and the result is achieved either in one or in the other. If you strive to achieve high results and overcome the great resistance of the environment, tension naturally occurs, and here everything depends on how much a person is able to withstand this tension. Lack of freedom is also a common cause of burnout: dependence on bosses, organizations, other people, the feeling that a person cannot be responsible for himself.
Who is at risk
THEM.: As a rule, burnout syndrome affects people of intellectual and creative professions, and of any age. The first in the risk group are workaholics: those who actually live their work. Extremely sensitive, empathic, mentally subtle people also get there. The main condition is the return on work (both emotional and material): the smaller it is, the more likely it is to burn out. In addition to the lack of results from work, routine, monotonous activities, petty nitpicking and tyranny on the part of superiors, conflicts in the team, and lack of encouragement contribute to the burnout syndrome. That is, everything that complicates the situation at work, and the work process itself.
T.Ya.: First of all, emotionally irresponsible, passive and lack of initiative people are subject to burnout. This is also facilitated by a violation of the so-called emotional integrity: when people think and feel one thing, but say and do another. I would say that emotional burnout is a responsibility: you, as the owner of your body, must understand that you have emotions in your household that can be depleted and burned out. If a person has joy in life, love, recognition, respect, a sense of achievement, connection with other good people, the likelihood of burning out is much less. Every morning, waking up, we can run either driven by fears or driven by a dream. Question: Do you have a dream and do you follow it every day. A person who follows a dream, and not fears, will burn out less.
How to deal with emotional burnout
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Burnout syndrome creeps up unnoticed. Most likely, he will lie in wait for you after a couple of years of working on the same project. It would seem that you know your job inside and out and cope with it perfectly, and this is exactly what you dreamed of doing a few years ago. But why, then, are you so reluctant to get up on an alarm clock and come to work on weekdays? Perhaps you are too tired at work? Fatigue does not equal emotional exhaustion. You won't be able to rest and come back fresh in a week. If this is your case, try to make your life brighter and more fulfilling, increase the emphasis on time outside of work - and try to find new meaning and pleasure in what you do.
Why are you so tired at work
Do you meet Monday morning with a feeling of mortal fatigue and longing? At a meeting, fantasize about how a falling meteorite will rid you of your colleagues forever? Sounds like you've been the victim of emotional burnout. What is it and how to deal with it - we tell together with expert psychologists.
Emotional burnout (or burn-out) is by no means a whim of office bums, but a serious syndrome discovered 40 years ago by the American psychiatrist Herbert Freudenberg: this is how he designated the growing emotional exhaustion in the process of work. For a long time it was believed that the disease affects only those whose profession is associated with close communication - teachers, doctors, social workers. But lately, psychologists have sounded the alarm: burnout syndrome has become a real epidemic and has spread to almost all specialties. “Huge amounts of information, a fast pace of life, fierce competition and the cultivation of success in society - all these factors impose ever higher demands on our work and quality of life, which causes severe mental stress and, as a result, emotional burnout,” comments clinical psychologist Alisa Galati.
Do not confuse it with fatigue, stress or depression; burnout differs from them in some ways:
1. you feel emotional exhaustion (work no longer pleases, there is a feeling of a breakdown) and devastation (nothing brings pleasure), become more cynical (communication with colleagues and clients is annoying and makes you want to be sarcastic);
2. it begins to seem to you that your work does not make any sense, and the authorities will never appreciate all the efforts to improve it;
3. unlike fatigue, burnout syndrome cannot be cured by rest - returning after the weekend, the “burnt out” person will still be burdened by work, and the “tired” one will feel cheerfulness and a surge of strength;
4. Depression is always based on feelings of guilt or fear, while burnout is based on feelings of anger or irritability.
For all its external “harmlessness” (“Just think, you don’t want to go to work!”), This syndrome can lead to unpleasant consequences: depression, psychosomatic illnesses, reduced concentration, and memory impairment. And be sure: gradually dissatisfaction will “creep” from the office to your home and relationships - and who wants to see a whiner next to them?
Why is this happening?
Perhaps because you… love your job too much. “The more a person has a crush on work, the more distorted he perceives reality, and the easier it is for him to be disappointed and lose his distance,” explains another clinical psychologist Olga Krasnova.
Sometimes external conditions are to blame for your burnout: routine, limited personal responsibility, and lack of creativity. Krasnova adds: “In any job there must be a balance of financial rewards, emotional return and effort expended on work. And skewed to one side leads to burnout.
You can also “burn out” when you have lost your reference point in your professional activity. “If a person does not really see the point in what he is doing, then no high salary or social prestige of the work will save him from emotional burnout,” Galatz explains.
What to do?
So, if you feel that soon only ashes will remain from your professionalism, experts recommend urgently taking the following measures:
Learn to fully switch - from work to personal time. This is where visual techniques come in handy. “Imagine that the office door closes and all the problems that worried you during the day are behind it,” recommends Olga Krasnova.
Make your leisure time on weekdays as rich and enjoyable as possible. Go shopping after work, meet friends and family, play sports or hobbies - the anticipation of your favorite business will fuel your interest in work.
Set boundaries in everything - in duties, communication with colleagues. Separate the zone of your personal responsibility and uncontrollable external circumstances, what you can do and what you can delegate. Limit communication with colleagues if it is unpleasant or time-consuming for you.
Fight routine. It could be a new way of arranging papers on your desk, a regular five-minute warm-up, or driving to the office on an unfamiliar route. It is important to constantly keep the brain in good shape.
Surround yourself with bright things. Buy funny stickers for your desktop, bright pens, pencils, a notepad. Agree, when you sit at a meeting with a pen in your hand in the form of a big bear, it will be more difficult for you to get bored.
Allow yourself to be wrong. Perfectionists are prone to burnout, and therefore, allowing yourself to make mistakes in your work, you will notice that work will become much more comfortable.
Record your successes. Make a list of what you know and what you have achieved in the process. Replenish it regularly - say, write down your next achievement once a week.
Improve your skills or learn a foreign language. The learning process gives a surge of energy, creativity and a new look at familiar things.
Think more about motivation. Ask yourself: “Why am I doing this?”, “What does my job give me?”. It is important to formulate exactly the motivation that will be significant for you, and not for your parents or boss.
Set new goals. Think about what you earn money for? Turn just a “must” into something more tangible and enjoyable - buying new boots, relaxing in the Maldives, and more. Then every small step on the way to them will be filled with new meaning.
Learn to relax. Our nervous system has only two states - excitation and inhibition. If we stay in the first for too long, our resources are depleted. Therefore, it is so important to at least artificially transfer your brain to the second mode, the “tumbler” for it is meditation. Learn to slow down the flow of thoughts outside the office, over time it will become a natural way for you to relax emotionally.
Review your diet. Loss of energy and depressed mood can also occur with a lack of vitamins. Add foods rich in magnesium (prunes, seeds, seaweed), B vitamins (cereals, vegetables, nuts) and iron (liver, buckwheat) to your menu - these substances are responsible for good brain function and our energy.
And yet, despite the whole destructive mechanism of emotional burnout, experts are sure that we, like the Phoenix bird, can burn ourselves many times and be reborn again. And every time we overcome burnout, we grow both personally and professionally.
Scientists believe that burnout is not just a mental condition, but a disease that affects the entire body.
The term "burnout" was introduced in 1974 by the American psychiatrist Herbert Freidenberger. At the same time, he compared the state of a “burnt-out” person with a burned-out house. From the outside, the building may look unharmed, and only if you go inside, the degree of devastation becomes apparent.
Now psychologists distinguish three elements of emotional burnout:
- exhaustion;
- cynical attitude to work;
- feeling of inadequacy.
Exhaustion makes us easily upset, sleep poorly, get sick more often, and have difficulty concentrating.
Being cynical about what we do makes us feel disconnected from our peers and lack motivation.
And the feeling of inadequacy makes us doubt our own abilities and perform our duties worse.
Why does emotional burnout occur?
We tend to think that burnout is simply due to the fact that we work too hard. In fact, it is due to the fact that our work schedule, responsibilities, deadlines and other stressors outweigh job satisfaction.Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley identify six factors associated with employee burnout:
- work load;
- the control;
- remuneration;
- relationships in the team;
- justice;
- values.
We experience burnout when one of these aspects of the job (or more) doesn't meet our needs.
What is the risk of burnout?
Fatigue and lack of motivation are not the worst consequences of emotional burnout.- According to researchers, chronic stress, which occurs in people with burnout syndrome, negatively affects thinking and communication skills, and also overloads our neuroendocrine system. And over time, the consequences of burnout can lead to problems with memory, attention and emotions.
- One study found that those who experienced burnout experienced accelerated thinning of the prefrontal cortex of the brain, the region responsible for cognitive performance. Although the cortex thins naturally with aging, those who experienced burnout experienced a more pronounced effect.
- It's not just the brain that's at risk. According to another study, burnout significantly increases the likelihood of developing coronary insufficiency.
How to deal with burnout?
Psychologists advise looking for ways to reduce the workload at work: delegate some of the responsibilities, say “no” more often and write down what causes you stress. In addition, you need to learn to relax and enjoy life again.Don't forget to take care of yourself
It is easy to forget about yourself when there is no energy for anything. In the state, it seems to us that taking care of ourselves is the last thing we need to spend time on. However, according to psychologists, just her and should not be neglected.
When you feel like you're close to burnout, it's especially important to eat well, drink plenty of water, exercise, and get enough sleep.
Also remember what helps you relax and make time for it.
Do what you love
Burnout can occur if you do not have the opportunity to regularly devote time to what you love.
To prevent job dissatisfaction from turning into burnout, consider what is most important to you and include it in your schedule.
At least a little every day, do what you love, and once a week, devote more time to it. Then you will never have the feeling that you do not have time to do the most important thing.
try something new
Do something new, for example, which you have long dreamed of. It may seem counterintuitive, given that you're already busy all the time, but in fact, a new activity will help to avoid burnout.
The main thing is to choose something that will restore strength and energize.
If adding something new to your schedule is completely impossible, start by taking care of yourself. Focus on sleep and nutrition, and try to get at least a little exercise every day. This will help to avoid the consequences of burnout and return to duty.
The state when there is no strength, no feelings, no joy in life is the scourge of our time. Fortunately, this can be dealt with - says the famous Austrian psychotherapist, the founder of modern existential analysis Alfried Lenglet.
Emotional burnout is a symptom of our times. This is a state of exhaustion, which leads to paralysis of our strength, feelings and is accompanied by a loss of joy in relation to life. In our time, cases of burnout syndrome are becoming more frequent. This applies not only to social professions, for which the burnout syndrome was typical earlier, but also to other professions, as well as to a person’s personal life. The spread of the burnout syndrome is facilitated by our era - the time of achievements, consumption, new materialism, entertainment and enjoyment of life. This is the time when we exploit ourselves and allow ourselves to be exploited.
Easy burnout
I think that everyone has experienced the symptoms of burnout at some point. We find signs of exhaustion in ourselves if we have experienced a lot of stress, have accomplished something massive. For example, if we were studying for exams, working on a project, writing a dissertation, or raising two small children. It happens that at work it took a lot of effort, there were some crisis situations, or, for example, during a flu epidemic, doctors had to work very hard.
And then there are symptoms such as irritability, lack of desire, sleep disturbance (when a person cannot fall asleep, or, conversely, sleeps for a very long time), a decrease in motivation, a person feels mostly uncomfortable, depressive symptoms may appear. This is a simple version of burnout - burnout at the level of reaction, a physiological and psychological reaction to excessive stress. When the situation ends, the symptoms disappear on their own. In this case, free days off, time for yourself, sleep, vacation, sports can help. If we do not replenish energy through rest, the body goes into energy-saving mode.
In fact, both the body and the psyche are arranged in such a way that great tension is possible - after all, people sometimes have to work hard, achieve some big goals. For example, to get your family out of some kind of trouble. The problem is different: if the challenge does not end, that is, if people really cannot rest, they are constantly in a state of tension, if they constantly feel that some demands are made on them, they are always preoccupied with something, they experience fear. , constantly vigilant about something, expecting something, this leads to an overstrain of the nervous system, a person tenses muscles, and pain occurs. Some people start grinding their teeth in their sleep - this can be one of the symptoms of overexertion.
Chronic burnout
If tension becomes chronic, then burnout reaches the level of disorder.
In 1974, New York psychiatrist Freudenberger first published an article about volunteers who worked in the social field on behalf of the local church. In this article, he described their situation. These people had symptoms similar to depression. In their anamnesis, he always found the same thing: at first, these people were absolutely delighted with their activities. Then this enthusiasm gradually began to decrease. And eventually they burned out to the state of "a handful of ashes." All of them had similar symptoms: emotional exhaustion, constant fatigue. The mere thought of having to go to work tomorrow made them feel tired. They had various bodily complaints, they were often sick. It was one of the symptom groups.
As for their feelings, they no longer had power. What he called dehumanization happened. Their attitude towards the people they helped changed: at first it was a loving, attentive attitude, then it turned into a cynical, rejecting, negative one. Relations with colleagues also deteriorated, there was a feeling of guilt, a desire to get away from all this. They worked less and did everything according to a pattern, like robots. That is, these people were no longer able, as before, to enter into relationships and did not strive for this.
This behavior has a certain logic. If I no longer have the strength in my feelings, then I have no strength to love, to listen, and other people become a burden for me. It feels like I can no longer meet them, their demands are too much for me. Then automatic defensive reactions begin to operate. Psychologically, this is very reasonable.
As the third group of symptoms, the author of the article found a decrease in productivity. People were dissatisfied with their work and their achievements. They experienced themselves as powerless, did not feel that they were achieving any success. It was just too much for them. And they felt they weren't getting the recognition they deserved.
Through this study, Freudenberger found that burnout symptoms do not correlate with the number of hours worked. Yes, the more someone works, the more his emotional strength suffers from this. Emotional exhaustion increases in proportion to the number of working hours, but the other two groups of symptoms - productivity and dehumanization, dehumanization of relationships - are hardly affected. The person continues to be productive for a while. This indicates that burnout has its own dynamics. It's more than just exhaustion. On this we will stop.
Burnout stages
Freudenberger created a scale consisting of 12 burnout levels. The first step still looks very harmless:
- At first, burnout patients have an obsessive desire to assert themselves (“I can do something”), perhaps even in competition with others.
- Then begins a careless attitude to their own needs. A person no longer devotes free time to himself, goes in for sports less, he has less time left for people, for himself, he talks less with someone.
- At the next stage, a person does not have time to resolve conflicts - and therefore he represses them, and later even ceases to perceive them. He does not see that there are any problems at work, at home, with friends. He backs off. We see something like a flower, which fades more and more.
- In the future, feelings about themselves are lost. People don't feel like themselves anymore. They are just machines, machine tools and can no longer stop.
- After a while, they feel an inner emptiness and, if this continues, they often become depressive.
Once a patient came to me with emotional burnout. He came, sat down in a chair, exhaled and said: "I'm glad I'm here." He looked exhausted. It turned out that he could not even call me to arrange a meeting - his wife dialed the phone number. I asked him then on the phone how urgent it was. He replied that it was urgent. And then I agreed with him on the first meeting on Monday. On the day of the meeting, he admitted: “All two days off, I could not guarantee that I would not jump out of the window. My condition was so unbearable.”
He was a very successful businessman. His employees knew nothing about this - he managed to hide his condition from them. And for a very long time he hid it from his wife. In the eleventh stage, his wife noticed this. He still continued to deny his problem. And only when he could no longer live, already under pressure from outside, was he ready to do something. This is how far the burnout syndrome can go. Of course, this is an extreme example.
From enthusiasm to disgust
In order to describe in simpler terms how emotional burnout manifests itself, one can resort to the description of the German psychologist Matthias Burisch. He described four stages.
First stage looks completely harmless: it's really not quite burnout yet. This is the stage where you need to be careful. It is then that a person is driven by idealism, some ideas, some kind of enthusiasm. But the demands that he constantly makes on himself are excessive. He demands too much of himself for weeks and months.
Second phase - this is exhaustion: physical, emotional, bodily weakness.
At the third stagethe first defensive reactions usually begin to act. What does a person do if the demands are constantly excessive? He leaves the relationship, dehumanization occurs. This is a counter reaction as a defense so that the exhaustion does not get worse. Intuitively, a person feels that he needs peace, and to a lesser extent maintains social relationships. Those relationships that must be lived, because they cannot be dispensed with, are aggravated by rejection, repulsion.
That is, in principle, this is the correct reaction. But only the area where this reaction begins to act is not suitable for this. Rather, a person needs to be calmer about the demands that are made to him. But this is exactly what he fails to do - to get away from requests and claims.
Fourth stage is an amplification of what happens in the third stage, the terminal stage of burnout. Burish calls this "disgust syndrome." This is a concept that means that a person no longer carries any joy in himself. Everything is disgusted. For example, if I ate rotten fish, I vomited, and the next day I smell fish, I get disgusted. That is, this protective feeling after poisoning.
Causes of burnout
Speaking about the causes, in general, three areas are distinguished. This is an individual psychological area when a person has a strong desire to surrender to this stress. The second sphere - socio-psychological or public - is pressure from outside: various fashion trends, some social norms, requirements at work, the spirit of the times. For example, it is believed that every year you need to go on a trip, and if I cannot do this, then I do not correspond to the people living at this time, their way of life. This pressure may be exerted in a latent form and may result in burnout.
More dramatic demands are, for example, extended working hours. Today, a person overworks and does not get paid for it, and if he does not, he is fired. Constant overwork is a cost inherent in the capitalist era, within which Austria, Germany and, probably, Russia also live.
So, we have identified two groups of reasons. With the first one, we can work in the psychological aspect, within the framework of counseling, and in the second case, something needs to be changed at the political level, at the level of trade unions.
But there is also a third reason, which is related to the organization of systems. If the system gives the individual too little freedom, too little responsibility, if there is mobbing (bullying), then people are exposed to a lot of stress. And then, of course, the system needs to be restructured. It is necessary to develop the organization in a different way, to introduce coaching.
Meaning cannot be bought
We confine ourselves to considering a group of psychological causes. In existential analysis, we empirically established that the cause of emotional burnout is an existential vacuum. Emotional burnout can be understood as a special form of existential vacuum. Viktor Frankl described the existential vacuum as suffering from a sense of emptiness and meaninglessness.
A study conducted in Austria, during which 271 doctors were tested, showed the following results. They found that those doctors who led meaningful lives and did not suffer from an existential vacuum experienced almost no burnout, even if they worked for many hours. The same doctors who showed relatively high levels of existential vacuum in their work showed high rates of burnout even if they worked fewer hours.
From this we can conclude that meaning cannot be bought. Making money does nothing if I suffer from emptiness and lack of meaning in my work. We cannot compensate for this.
The burnout syndrome poses the question: Do I really experience meaning in what I do? Meaning depends on whether we feel personal value in what we do or not. If we follow the apparent meaning: career, social recognition, the love of others, then this is a false or apparent meaning. It costs us a lot of energy and causes stress. And as a result, we have a performance deficit. Then we experience devastation - even when we relax.
At the other extreme is a way of life where we experience fulfillment - even when we get tired. Fulfillment, despite fatigue, does not lead to burnout.
Summarizing, we can say the following: burnout is the final state that occurs as a result of the continued creation of something without experiencing in the aspect of fulfillment. That is, if what I am doing makes sense, if I feel that what I am doing is good, interesting and important, if I am happy about it and want to do it, then there is no burnout. But these feelings should not be confused with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is not necessarily related to performance - it is more hidden from others, more modest thing.
What do I give myself to
Another aspect that the topic of burnout brings us to is motivation. Why am I doing something? And to what extent am I drawn to it? If I can't give my heart to what I'm doing, if I'm not interested in it, I'm doing it for some other reason, then we're lying in a way.
It's like I'm listening to someone but thinking about something else. That is, then I am not present. But if I am not present at work, in my life, then I cannot receive remuneration for this there. It's not about money. Yes, of course, I can earn money, but I, personally, do not receive remuneration. If I am not present with my heart in some business, but use what I am doing as a means to achieve goals, then I am abusing the situation.
For example, I can start a project because it promises me a lot of money. And I almost can not refuse and somehow resist it. Thus, we may be tempted to make some choice that will lead us to burnout. If it only happens once, then maybe it's not so bad. But if this continues for many years, then I just pass by my life. What am I giving myself to?
And here, by the way, it can be extremely important that I have a burnout syndrome. Because, probably, I cannot stop the direction of my movement myself. I need that wall that I'm going to hit, some kind of push from the inside so that I just can't keep moving and rethink my actions.
The money example is probably the most superficial. Motives can be much deeper. For example, I may want recognition. I need praise from someone else. If these narcissistic needs are not met, then I become restless. From the outside, it is not visible at all - only people who are close to this person can feel it. But I probably won't even talk to them about it. Or I myself do not realize that I have such needs.
Or, for example, I definitely need confidence. I experienced poverty as a child, I had to wear old clothes. For this I was ridiculed, and I was ashamed. Maybe even my family was starving. I would never want to experience this again.
I have known people who have become very rich. Many of them have reached the burnout syndrome. Because for them it was the primary motive - in any case, to prevent a state of poverty, so as not to become poor again. From a human point of view, this is understandable. But this can lead to excessive demands that never end.
In order for people to be ready to follow such a seemingly false motivation for a long time, there must be a lack of something, a mentally felt deficit, some kind of trouble behind their behavior. This deficiency leads man to self-exploitation.
The value of life
This deficit can be not only a subjectively felt need, but also an attitude towards life, which, ultimately, can lead to burnout.
How do I understand my life? Based on this, I can develop my goals, according to which I live. These attitudes can be from parents, or a person develops them in himself. For example: I want to achieve something. Or: I want to have three children. Become a psychologist, doctor or politician. Thus, a person outlines for himself the goals that he wants to follow.
This is completely normal. Who among us doesn't have goals in life? But if goals become the content of life, if they become too great values, then they lead to rigid, rigid behavior. Then we put all our efforts to achieve our goal. And everything we do becomes a means to an end. And this does not carry its own value, but is only a useful value.
"It's good that I'll play the violin!" It is the living of one's own value. But if I want to be the first violin in a concert, then when I play a piece, I will constantly compare myself with others. I know that I still need to practice, play and play in order to achieve the goal. That is, I have a goal orientation at the expense of a value orientation. Thus, there is a lack of internal relation. I do something, but there is no inner life in what I do. And then my life loses its vital value. I myself destroy the inner contents in order to achieve goals.
And when a person thus neglects the intrinsic value of things, pays insufficient attention to it, there is an underestimation of the value of one's own life. That is, it turns out that I use the time of my life for the goal that I have set for myself. This leads to loss of relationships and to inconsistency with oneself. And with such an inattentive attitude to internal values and the value of one's own life, stress arises.
Everything we have just talked about can be summarized as follows. The stress that leads to burnout is due to the fact that we do something for too long without a sense of inner harmony, without a sense of the value of things and ourselves. Thus, we come to a state of pre-depression.
It also happens when we do too much just for the sake of it. For example, I cook dinner, only to have it ready as soon as possible. And then I'm glad when it's already behind, done. But if we rejoice in the fact that something has already passed, this is an indicator that we have not seen value in what we are doing. And if it has no value, then I cannot say that I like doing it, that it is important to me.
If we have too many of these elements in our lives, then we are essentially glad that life is passing us by. Thus we like death, annihilation. If I'm just doing something, it's not life, it's functioning. And we should not, we do not have the right to function too much - we must ensure that in everything we do, we live, feel life. So that she doesn't pass us by.
Burnout is such a mental account that we are given for a long alienated relationship with life. This is the life that is not truly mine.
Anyone who is more than half the time engaged in things that he does reluctantly, does not give his heart to this, does not experience joy at the same time, he should sooner or later expect to survive the burnout syndrome. Then I am in danger. Wherever I feel inner agreement in my heart about what I do and feel myself, there I am protected from burnout.
Burnout Prevention
How can you work with burnout syndrome and how can you prevent it? Much is solved by itself if a person understands what the burnout syndrome is connected with. If you understand this about yourself or about your friends, then you can begin to solve this problem, talk to yourself or your friends about it. Should I continue to live this way?
I felt the same way two years ago. I intended to write a book during the summer. With all the papers, I went to my dacha. He came, looked around, went for a walk, talked with the neighbors. The next day I did the same: I called my friends, we met. On the third day again. I thought that, generally speaking, I should already start. But I didn't feel any particular desire. I tried to remind what was needed, what the publishing house was waiting for - this was already pressure.
Then I remembered the burnout syndrome. And I said to myself: I probably need more time, and my desire will surely return. And I allowed myself to watch. After all, the desire came every year. But that year it did not come, and until the end of the summer I did not even open this folder. I didn't write a single line. Instead, I rested and did wonderful things. Then I began to hesitate, how should I relate to this - as bad or as good? It turns out that I could not, it was a failure. Then I said to myself that it was reasonable and good that I did this. The fact is that I was a little exhausted, because before the summer there were a lot of things to do, the whole academic year was very busy.
Here, of course, I had an internal struggle. I really thought and comprehended what is important in my life. As a result, I doubted that the written book was such an important thing in my life. It is much more important to live something, to be here, to live a valuable relationship - if possible, to experience joy and not constantly put it off for later. We don't know how much time we have left.
In general, work with burnout syndrome begins with unloading. You can reduce time pressure, delegate something, share responsibility, set realistic goals, critically consider the expectations that you have. This is a big topic for discussion. Here we really run into very deep structures of existence. Here we are talking about our position in relation to life, about our attitudes being authentic, corresponding to us.
If the burnout syndrome is already much more pronounced, you need to get a sick leave, physically relax, see a doctor, for milder disorders, treatment in a sanatorium is useful. Or just arrange a good time for yourself, live in a state of unloading.
But the problem is that many people who have burnout syndrome cannot resolve this for themselves. Or a person goes on sick leave, but continues to make excessive demands on himself - in this way he cannot get out of stress. People suffer from remorse. And in a state of illness, burnout increases.
Medications may help in the short term, but they are not the solution to the problem. Physical health is the foundation. But you also need to work on your own needs, on an internal deficit of something, on attitudes and expectations in relation to life. You need to think about how to reduce the pressure of society, how you can protect yourself. Sometimes even think about changing jobs. In the most severe case that I have seen in my practice, a person needed 4-5 months off work. And after going to work - a new style of work, otherwise after a couple of months people burn out again. Of course, if a person works for wear and tear for 30 years, then it is difficult for him to readjust, but it is necessary.
You can prevent burnout syndrome by asking yourself two simple questions.:
- Why am I doing this? Why am I studying at the institute, why am I writing a book? What's the point of this? Is it of value to me?
- Do I enjoy doing what I do? Do I love doing it? Do I feel it's good? So good that I do it willingly? Does what I do bring me joy? This may not always be the case, but the feeling of joy and satisfaction should prevail.
