Ever have those moments when you look around and realize that the way you’re living and working…well, isn’t working? You soon realize that you’ve been missing some physical, emotional, interpersonal and or professional signs and that life, just isn’t right.
Burnout is a significant issue across most career fields, with dire consequences for individuals and businesses alike. Our crazy busy lives make it impossible for us to recognize the symptoms and signs of burnout before they reach a critical point and demand to be addressed.
1. Making careless mistakes
Careless mistakes that lead to minor irritations such as being locked out, leaving your laptop in the back of a cab, or getting the date wrong for an important family event. At work, you’re barely keeping your head above the water. At home, it’s all going to pot!
2. Losing your inner voice
When you’re not taking enough care of yourself your ideas all dry up. You have nothing to say or share. You are likely unusually quiet.
3. Feeling like you’re always failing
Everything you do seems wrong. You constantly feel like you are incapable. You lose Confidence. You lose all motivation to keep up with deadlines. You do the bare minimum just to get a pass for it. The worst part is that it affects other parts of your life and side projects as well. Your anxiety occupies most of your mind, stemming from the fact that you feel behind in your job, but then don’t care enough to get ahead. It is a never-ending spiral.
4. Taking everything personally
You begin to get really tearful and sensitive to conflict. You used to be okay with confrontation, but then all of a sudden you start to take things really personally and get upset by people’s comment
5. Chronic fatigue/insomnia
Despite sleeping 8 hours a night, you are experiencing many of the symptoms of chronic insomnia. More sleep doesn’t seem to make you less tired.
6. Re-upping a bad habit
You start smoking again at night to deal with stress from the work. You feel stuck and cannot stop eating sugar every day. You start drinking more than a little glass of wine each night.
7. Unexplained physical pain
You miss the subtle signs of tension that your body sends you. You work too long, too hard, and without healthy boundaries. The internal pressure builds, and mindbody pain results in a headache, leg pain, shoulder pain or neck pain.
8. Inability to concentrate/lack of focus
You lose the ability to concentrate. Your thoughts worked more like a Twitter feed of ideas with no follow through. You no longer have patience for reading a long book or watching a movie.
9. Being constantly bored
You’re incredibly bored despite having never-ending tasks on my list of to-dos. No matter how hard you try to muster up the motivation to complete work tasks,you put things off.
10. Anxiousness
Anxiety may be defined as worry, nervousness, or a feeling of dread or uncertainty and is another symptom of burnout. Although anxiety may be related to other mental health issues, it may serve as a signal for us that we need to slow down.
11. Depression
Not too surprising, depression and burnout are strongly related to each other. As reported by the Douglas Mental Health University Institute in Quebec, similar symptoms of burnout also relate to depression. From fatigue and muscle ache to lowered immune system and feelings of worthlessness, depression can manifest from burnout.
12. Anger
We don’t have to search too long on social media before hitting a few clips of angry people. Examples of road rage and other public displays of anger are everywhere. Interestingly, anger is a secondary emotion and serves as a signal to us that something else is wrong. Anger can result from feelings of sadness, fear, worry, and other overwhelming emotions.
As the holidays are approaching, it is critical to make sure you are more cognizant of these early signs of burnout. Kintsugi Physical Therapy can help you achieve better interoceptive awareness and preemptively combat these signs before it takes a toll on your body physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
