Mar 12th 2020

How to recover from burnout and chronic work stress – according to a psychologist

 

It’s pretty likely you’ve heard of burnout – and you may have even experienced it. Caused by chronic work stress, it’s characterised by signs such as emotional exhaustion, lack of energy, and loss of satisfaction with work – and has been linked to a wide range of physical conditions such as cardiovascular diseases and musculoskeletal pain.

Work stress activates our hormonal, metabolic, immune and cardiovascular systems. If these bodily responses are triggered too frequently, or for too long, they fail to return to normal and may alter our body’s immune and inflammation responses. These changes may eventually cause other physical conditions – such as coronary heart disease.

Although an overhaul of work conditions and culture is needed to address the rise in people experiencing burnout, there are still many things we can do ourselves to deal with it now. The most significant way we can prevent burnout is recovery.

Burnout is a consequence of chronic work stress over extended periods of time. It has three components:

  1. Emotional exhaustion (feeling tired, drained, frustrated and fatigued);
  2. Cynicism or detachment (caring less about coworkers or clients);
  3. A loss of satisfaction in one’s work.

Dealing with burnout is about recovering well from work, rather than focusing on being more productive or better at the work itself. Research continues to show how important it is to recover from work on a daily basis.

Recovery means finding time or space for yourself where you don’t engage in things that are work-related or stressful. Recovery is about bringing physiological responses, such as cortisol (a key stress hormone), back down to baseline levels. Proper recovery helps you feel more energetic and enthusiastic to face another day at work. Recovery can take place both during the workday (internal recovery) and outside of work (external recovery).

Types of recovery

Internal recovery is about giving ourselves relief from stress by using short periods of time during work to reduce our body’s stress responses. This can include taking short breaks, doing breathing exercises, or switching tasks when you’re feeling mentally or physically exhausted. So, if you have a few minutes spare at work between tasks or meetings, you may be better off trying to relax rather than checking your emails and experiencing new stressors.

After work, we have the opportunity for external recovery. These are things we do outside of work to help relieve stress. Instead of keeping on top of work and emails, external recovery may include doing any activities you enjoy. These might include watching TV, reading, or socialising – as long as these activities don’t encourage you to think (and stress) more about work.

The key to good recovery is choosing activities based on how they make you feel. If social media creates negative feelings, don’t check it during your work breaks or after work. If socialising with certain people makes you feel drained, this isn’t going to help you recover.

Daily recovery is also important. Research shows the energy gained from the previous day’s after-work activities helps manage the day’s work stress. But it’s important to know that it’s not the amount of time spent on recovering, but the quality of these activities.

It’s important to do things that make you happy or content as you are doing them – and doing them for yourself. Research has found that picking recovery activities you find personally satisfying and meaningful is more likely to help you feel recovered by the next morning.

Daily recovery activities

Thinking about what you do after work to recover – and whether these activities really are helping you recover – is key. There are four types of recovery experience that explain how and why recovery activities work:

  1. Psychological detachment (not thinking about work),
  2. Relaxation (taking a walk in nature, listening to music, reading a book, doing nothing on the sofa)
  3. Mastery (such as seeking out opportunities to do things unrelated to work such as learning languages or pursuing sports and hobbies),
  4. Control (choosing how to spend your time and doing things the way you want to do them).

It’s important to note that psychological detachment is core to recovery – but it’s not as easy to achieve as it sounds. For example, smartphone use after work can interfere with recovery because it blurs boundaries between work and home, stopping psychological detachment from work taking place. Similarly, meeting friends and socialising to relax will not allow psychological detachment if the conversation focuses on complaining about work.

Some recovery experiences are more suited to different people. For example, sports and exercise have been shown to be more effective for workaholics than non-workaholics, possibly because they make psychological detachment from work easier.

If you don’t feel you have much control over your job, psychological detachment and mastery experiences have been shown to be the most effective for recovery. If you feel exhausted due to time pressures at work, relaxation is most protective. People can also personalise and pick the recovery activity that suits them and provides them with the best antidote to their particular form of work stress and burnout.

With burnout, emotional exhaustion typically happens before other stages. It’s the easiest to identify, and easier to change than the other stages. So if you feel emotionally exhausted after work every night – and don’t recover by the morning – your recovery is incomplete. If this is the case, it might be worth taking a closer look at the quality of the after-work activities you’re doing.

Even if you don’t have a lot of time, it’s still important to carve out a little time for yourself to do something you find satisfying. Taking time to recover is shown to help people feel more engaged at work, and protects against the longer-term consequences of work stress and risk of burnout.

 

Rajvinder Samra, Lecturer in Health, The Open University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Browse articles by author

More Essays

Oct 21st 2021
EXTRACT: "So much of Succession holds a mirror to real life, and the way that Logan Roy’s hand-picked board members allowed these abuses to continue by turning a blind eye to them is a good example. We have just published research that shows that public companies whose directors are chosen by their CEOs are statistically more likely to be involved in corporate misconduct, along with various other shortcomings. So why does this happen, and what should be done about it? "
Oct 10th 2021
EXTRACT: "Born in Zanzibar in 1948, Gurnah came to Britain in the 1960s as a refugee. Being of Arab origin, he was forced to flee his birthplace during the revolution of 1964 and only returned in 1984 in time to visit his dying father. Until his retirement, he was a full-time professor of English and postcolonial literatures at the University of Kent in Canterbury."
Oct 7th 2021
EXTRACT: "As the 25th James Bond film No Time to Die hits the cinemas, we are once again reminded of the way that disability is depicted negatively in Hollywood films. The new James Bond film features three villains, all of who have facial disfigurements (Blofeld, Safin and Primo). If you take a closer look at James Bond villains throughout history, the majority have facial disfigurements or physical impairments. This is in sharp contrast to the other characters, including James Bond, who are able-bodied and presented with no physical bodily differences. Indeed, many films still rely on outdated disability tropes, including Star Wars and various Disney classics. Rather than simply being part of a character’s identity, the physical difference is exploited and exaggerated to become a plot point and visual metaphor for villains" ----- "The British Film Institute (BFI) was the first organisation to sign up and has committed to stop funding films that feature negative representations depicted through scars or facial differences – a step in the right direction."
Oct 5th 2021
EXTRACT: "The trillions of microbes inside of our gut play many very important roles in our body. Not only does this “microbiome” regulate our metabolism and help us absorb nutrients from food into the body, it can also influence whether we are lean or obese."
Sep 16th 2021
EXTRACTS: "Hyperbaric oxygen therapy involves breathing pure oxygen in a pressurised chamber. In the chamber, the air pressure is increased two to three times higher than normal air pressure. It is commonly used to treat decompression sickness (a condition scuba divers can suffer from), carbon monoxide poisoning,......" ---- "Blood flow to the brain is reduced in people with Alzheimer’s. This study showed increased blood flow to the brain in the mice receiving oxygen therapy, which helps with the clearance of plaques from the brain, and reduces inflammation – a hallmark of Alzheimer’s." ----- "The researchers then used these findings to assess the effectiveness of oxygen therapy in six people over the age of 65 with cognitive decline. They found that 60 sessions of oxygen therapy, over 90 days, increased blood flow in certain areas of the brain and significantly improved the patients’ cognitive abilities – improved memory, attention and information processing speed."
Sep 14th 2021
EXTRACT: "Hollywood for years called on Charles Boyer to typify one French look –  bedroom eyes, sly maneuverings, the dismissive look. A face of another type, the massive mug and narrow eyes of Charles de Gaulle, provides the same disdain of the foreigner but also a superiority based on his belief in his own destiny."
Sep 12th 2021
EXTRACT: "The burden of loneliness for older people is intimately connected to what they are alone with. As we reach the end of our lives, we frequently carry heavy burdens that have accumulated along the way, such as feelings of regret, betrayal and rejection. And the wounds from past relationships can haunt people all their lives."
Sep 5th 2021
EXTRACT: "Gardens help restore the ability to concentrate on demanding tasks, providing the perfect space for a break when working from home in a pandemic. Natural things – such as trees, plants and water – are particularly easy on the eye and demand little mental effort to look at. Simply sitting in a garden is therefore relaxing and beneficial to mental wellbeing."
Aug 17th 2021
EXTRACT: "Whether or not a person achieves remission, reducing blood sugar levels is important in managing the negative effects of type 2 diabetes and reducing risk of complications. But when it comes to choosing a diet, the most important thing is to pick one that suits you – one that you’re likely to stick to long term."
Aug 10th 2021
EXTRACT: "In our latest study, we show that by taking the microbiome from young mice and transplanting them into old mice, many of the effects of ageing on learning and memory and immune impairments can be reversed. Using a maze, we showed that this faecal microbiota transplant from young to old mice led to the old mice finding a hidden platform faster."
Aug 3rd 2021
EXTRACT: "Fukuyama argued that political struggle causes history. This struggle tries to solve the problem of thymos – an ancient Greek term referring to our desire to have our worth recognised. This desire can involve wanting to be recognised as equal to others. But it can also involve wanting to be recognised as superior to others. A stable political system needs to accommodate both desires." .... "Counter-dominant spite can weaken liberal democracies. During the 2016 Brexit referendum, some people in the UK voted Leave to spite elites, knowing this could damage the country’s economy. Similarly, during the 2016 US presidential election some voters supported Donald Trump to spite Hillary Clinton, knowing his election could harm the US. "
Jul 31st 2021
EXTRACT: "If we want to live in a world that is good for pollinators, as well as the rest of us, big changes are needed in our environment, and our food system. This is why many beekeepers change their diet and their shopping, eating more locally grown vegetables that aren’t treated with pesticides. ...... Being willing to buy fruit and vegetables that may have the occasional insect living in it is better for us and for nature. To live more harmoniously with the natural world, we need to relax about larvae in the lettuce and slugs in the spinach."
Jul 22nd 2021
EXTRACT: "You’d think our brush with mortality through the pandemic would have brought some of this home to us. You’d think it would give us pause for thought about what really matters to us: the kind of world we want for our children; the kind of society we want to live in. And for many people it has. In a survey carried out during lockdown in the UK, 85% of respondents found something in their changed conditions they felt worth keeping and fewer than 10% wanted a complete return to normal."
Jul 20th 2021
EXTRACT: "English artist Damien Hirst’s latest project, “The Currency”, is an artwork in two forms. Its physical form is 10,000 unique hand-painted A4 sheets covered in colourful dots. In the same way as paper money, each sheet includes a holographic image of Hirst, a signature, a microdot and – in place of a serial number – a small individual message. The second part of the artwork is that each of these hand-painted sheets has a corresponding NFT (non-fungible token). NFTs are digital certificates of ownership which exist on the secure online ledgers that are known as blockchains. ---- The way that “The Currency” works is that collectors will not be buying the physical artwork immediately. Instead, they will pay US$2,000 (£1,458) for the NFT and then have a year to decide whether they want the digital or the physical version. Once the collector selects one, the other will be destroyed. ---- So what is going on here, and what does it tell us about art and money?"
Jul 20th 2021
EXTRACT: "Ellison was an abstract expressionist painter, who, having come to New York City from West Texas in 1962, was as he said “unable to find traction” as a painter. At the same time, he began collecting ceramic objects and educating himself about this field of art as he went along. In 2009 he bestowed on the Metropolitan Museum of Art over 300 extraordinary examples of American ceramics, spanning the years 1876 through 1956. Since then, Ellison has gifted to the Museum over 600 works – including a significant collection of European art pottery in 2013, and most recently over 125 modern and contemporary clay vessels and objects – making the Museum one of the most significant repositories of Art Pottery in the world. ---- The current exhibition presents nearly 80 pieces drawn from Ellison’s latest donation, and it is a thoroughly captivating show; even where (or perhaps especially where) the works are outlandish, bizarre, sometimes almost monstrous, but nonetheless enthralling."
Jul 11th 2021
EXTRACT: "Over the course of England’s journey to the Euro 2020 final, one of the most fascinating plays has been happening just off the pitch. Whenever the TV camera cuts to the team’s manager Gareth Southgate, he is occasionally seen standing alone on the edge of the field, urging his team on. ---- But most of the time he is deep in conversation with his assistant Steve Holland. ---- A recent study of English football culture points to a shift away from what the authors term “Beckhamisation”, after the former England captain and Manchester United star player David Beckham – a popular and instantly recognisable symbol of that period of football history (though, it is not suggested the culture was his creation). ---- During the 1990s, the study claims, this “Beckhamisation” saw high octane management practices imported from the corporate world into football. ---- In recent years, this has been replaced by “Southgatism”, a leadership style which that study describes as “modest, self-deprecating, down to earth, diverse and progressive”. "
Jun 30th 2021
EXTRACT: "New York’s Museum of Modern Art is currently presenting an exhibition devoted to an in-depth review of Paul Cézanne’s drawings. If there is any criticism to be made of this extraordinary show, it is that it is frankly overwhelming: with roughly 280 pencil, ink and gouache drawings and watercolors (and even a handful of oil paintings), there is so much to take in that two or three visits to the exhibition may be required to do it justice."
Jun 25th 2021
EXTRACT: "Cognitive flexibility provides us with the ability to see that what we are doing is not leading to success and to make the appropriate changes to achieve it." .... "Flexible thinking is key to creativity – in other words, the ability to think of new ideas, make novel connections between ideas, and make new inventions." .... "The good news is that it seems you can train cognitive flexibility."
Jun 17th 2021
EXTRACT: "Confronting our complex history and ultimately embracing a more equitable, balanced, and humble culture may be a tall order in these fractious times. But that makes it even more imperative that we fully reckon with who we are and who we are capable of becoming."
Jun 11th 2021
EXTARCT: "A further health benefit of hiking is that it’s classed as “green exercise”. This refers to the added health benefit that doing physical activity in nature has on us. Research shows that not only can green exercise decrease blood pressure, it also benefits mental wellbeing by improving mood and reducing depression to a greater extent than exercising indoors can."