For those unfamiliar with the term, burnout is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It’s a relatively new word, but is a hurdle many workers have probably dealt with for decades.

So, let’s delve into different ways we can go about preventing or mitigating some of the effects that come with it.

Learn and practice stress relief strategies

From minor challenges to major crises, stress is part of life. And while you can’t always control your circumstances, you can control how you respond to them. It presents itself differently in each person. The quicker a person can learn to recognize their body’s signals, the quicker they can act. These are some of the things you can work on:

• Stretching: For many people, stress manifests in the body as pain. Stress is often felt in the shoulders, neck, face and head, upper back and stomach (among other places). Stretching can be a great way to relief those parts of your body that tense up the most
• Eliminate distractions: Your working environment can have a huge impact on your wellbeing and performance. So, take a moment to analyse your workspace and eliminate all the unnecessary clutter. While you’re at it, go ahead and turn off as many notifications from your electronic devices as possible, as they can be major distractions and can break your workflow.
• Journaling: Start writing down what causes you stress, your goals, your feelings and anything else that comes up for you during the day. This free and easy to use stress buster can help you to process your emotions in a healthy way, as well as being able to look back and detect patterns in your behavior or feelings that could be impacting you in your life.

Establish a work-life balance 

Healthy work-life balance refers to maintaining a harmonious relationship between your work and personal life. Meeting your commitments on both sides whilst taking care of your mental health.

Some ways to establish a healthy work-life balance are:

• Set boundaries: Establishing clear boundaries between work and personal life by defining specific working hours and separating work-related tasks from personal activities.
• Expand your hobbies: It can be easy to get caught up in life with a routine, going from work to home and from home to work. So, it can be beneficial to partake in activities in third places where you can just focus and enjoy them separate from any distraction.

Get enough rest and take breaks

When working on a complex problem or when you feel that you have too much to do, it’s easy to convince yourself that you do not have the time to take breaks. Micro-breaks, lunchtime breaks and longer breaks, have all been shown to have a positive relationship with wellbeing and productivity. By taking regular breaks, you can boost your performance.

Sleep and quality job performance go hand in hand. When you get sufficient sleep, your health, well-being, and work improve. It promotes physical recovery in the body. As you sleep, your body tissues repair and strengthen. Your heart rests, and your blood pressure changes throughout the night to promote cardiovascular health.

Maintain a support network

A good support network is a vital tool in maintaining your mental health and wellbeing. As social creatures, our relationships and connections are a basic and core need.

Having different perspectives is an important reason for having a support network, as it allows you to see issues from different points of view. Therefore, it’s useful to have a mix of different people in your network, who can bring different life perspectives, giving you a more complete picture of the situation. To build your network, first recognize the supports that you already have and the strengths they may bring to various situations. Then you can begin to identify where the gaps might lie and look for new contacts.

Friends and family tend to be the closest people in your life; therefore, they know you the best and have lived shared experiences with you. Providing you with straightforward and personal input considering who you are.

Workmates can end up being a great source of inspiration and wisdom. Although they may not all work in the same department, they can still be of great use to problem-solve or to just let off some steam. If you work remotely, joining a coworking space can provide you with a brand-new bunch of diverse “teammates” that you can bounce ideas off and build relationships with.

All in all, burnout can be unavoidable sometimes, but we can mitigate some of its effects if we just take some time to reflect and understand its origin, and how our body reacts to it. It can be hard to not get caught up in this ever-changing fast-paced world we are living in but we owe it to ourselves to take the time necessary to grow and maintain our mental health.