How to Prevent Burnout at the Office – a Guide for a Healthy Life

Burnout.

You’ve heard of it. You’ve probably experienced it. Or you’re dreading it because you’ve seen what it can do to others.

Psychology Today defines burnout as a state of chronic stress that leads to: physical and emotional exhaustion, cynicism and detachment, feelings of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment.

A recent Gallup study revealed that companies are facing a burnout crisis. In the study, 7,500 employees were evaluated of which 23 percent reported feeling burned out weekly or always.

Over 44% of those employees admitted to burnout. Job burnout results in $125 to $190 billion in health care spending.

This amount is similar to the health care cost for diabetes, high cholesterol, and coronary heart disease.

Staggering, right?

Then why do we let this happen to us?

Well, we sometimes seem to forget that human beings are simply not wired like artificial intelligence.

At some point, we just need a break from it all.

How to Prevent Burnout at the Office – a Guide for a Healthy Life

Before you flee from the office to some white sandy beach in the Bahamas (not that we wouldn’t recommend that!), here are a few practices that can save you from burnout:

1. Ask For Help

Today’s work culture has us feeling like we should do everything on our own. To grow. To show that we can. To be better. To get promoted.

However, taking on all the possible workload yourself makes you susceptible to burnout. You will end up experiencing constant stress, fatigue, and insomnia.

Here’s what you can do instead.

Start by identifying the work that you can outsource to avoid the risk of burnout. For instance, if your content creation is becoming a nightmare, you can hire a content creator to work on your web content as you focus on other tasks.

If you are a solo-entrepreneur then you should also consider hiring a team to help you with some of the work. A virtual assistant, an advisor and an accountant can literally change your life (for the better, of course!)

It is, however, important to hire a talented group of people who share in your values and have the capacity to work with you for the achievement of your goals.

2. Adopt Agile Working Practices

Image credits: Studiovhf

The agile working approach involves the ability to prioritize performance in a bid to create trust-based relationships and use innovation to grow. If you are an employer, consider adopting agile working as a means to have a happier, less frustrated team.

This strategy can help you minimize the risk of burnout in the office as it incorporates the use of technology to gain flexibility in the workplace. Agile working brings freshness to the workplace. This is because it eliminates the need to micromanage people.

Rather than micromanage employees, managers become enablers or coaches. Also, this technique eliminates the use of partitioned cubicles that foster isolation.

Isolation leads to burnout due to emotional exhaustion. When employees are able to work remotely and in open spaces, they are less likely to experience burnout frequently.

3. The Work-Life Balance

Simply put, a work-life balance involves carving out the time to sleep (enough!), socialise, and rest. An eight hour sleep will help your body unwind after a hard day at the office.

However, getting enough sleep requires careful planning for many. Develop the habit of creating a realistic plan that allows you to complete tasks on time.

This includes activities like helping your child with their science project. If you plan out your day, then you are likely to find some time for a nap or get home early enough to enjoy an eight-hour sleep.

Meditation is another great practice that can help you to minimize the risk of burnout. Meditation helps with anxiety, depression, and stress.

With meditation, you will be able to calm your mind and tone down from the office pressure. There are thousands of apps that you can download and use at home or at work.

Don’t worry. You don’t need to be a guru to reap the benefits of meditation. You don’t even have to find a soundproof room for it.

A few minutes every day where you connect with yourself, wherever you are, can do wonders for your emotional health.

Final Thoughts

If I were to name one thing that can help prevent burnout, it would be balance.

When you work too much or not enough, you will start to exhibit burnout symptoms. If you don’t get enough sleep or exercise time, the same will happen.

Be kind to yourself.

Allow yourself time to wind down and to enjoy life. Some work projects can wait.