Our culture today celebrates hard work. We believe that anyone can be successful if they just work hard enough and tend to believe that people who are struggling just aren’t doing enough. We praise people who burn the candle at both ends, working nights and weekends, and when everyone around us is doing that, we feel like we must do the same. Taking a week off to spend with family and regenerate our batteries can feel like a significant career risk!
Rather than resulting in more productive and successful people, this attitude has resulted in an epidemic of burnout. Recent research suggests that half of Americans have experienced burnout in the last 12 months.
Burnout is basically a state of high stress and exhaustion that cripples your mental processes. When you are burnt out, you will find it difficult to focus, struggle to make decisions, and generally just lack motivation and feel lethargic.
Burnout occurs when you push yourself hard and neglect self-care and recovery. After a certain amount of time, you just don’t have anything left in the tank, you are “burnt out”.
While burnout is usually associated with the workplace, it can happen in any aspect of your life. It can occur whenever you push yourself and focus too hard on one thing and don’t give yourself time and space to rest, recuperate, and recharge your batteries.
Avoid Burnout With These Self-Care Tips
You don’t have to quit your job, go part-time, or reduce your dedication to avoid burnout. What you do need to do is prioritize recuperation and self-care. Read on for top tips on exactly how to do that.
Set Boundaries
In order not to burn out at work, you need to give yourself time away from work doing things that you find rejuvenating and enjoyable. Many people miss out on this as they take work home on the weekends and check emails late into the night.
Set strict boundaries for yourself about switching off on the evenings and weekends. Set expectations for colleagues and clients by letting them know and putting on an out-of-office. Most people will respect you for your decision.
Delegate Tasks
If you feel like you just can’t get everything done during business hours, the chances are that you are taking on too much. This doesn’t mean that you need to step down on your ambition. The problem is probably not the new challenges that you are taking on, but older responsibilities that you haven’t let go of.
Delegate less important tasks to junior members of staff. When offered new responsibility, if you say yes, be clear on what you will need to let go of to make space for it. If you work for yourself, outsource things that you don’t enjoy or fall outside of your skill set, such as accounting or HR.
SEE ALSO: 3 Reasons to Make Self-Care A Habit
Meditate
While there is not really a shortcut when it comes to rest, meditation can help your mental faculties recover faster. Meditation trains your brain to regulate emotions, stay focussed, and overcome stress. As a result, a regular meditation practice can help you handle more stress and recover from it more quickly.
If you struggle with sedentary meditation, try yoga. Not only are the movements excellent for your posture and mobility, which is essential if you spend a lot of time sat in front of the computer, but the breathing techniques used in yoga can act as a form of meditation.
Focus on Diet and Exercise
For many people, when work and other responsibilities drain their time, exercise and cooking is one of the first things they let slip. But considering the connection between mind and body, neglecting one can cause the other to plummet towards burnout more quickly. Taking care of the body can also help you recover mentally.
Booking in regular exercise sessions and making meal planning and meal prep a part of your week can also provide you with some non-work-related structure in your life that allows you to focus on where you are and assess how you are feeling on a regular basis.
SEE ALSO: 10 Self Care Rituals To Reduce Stress And Anxiety
Get Enough Sleep
Sleep is our body’s natural recuperation process. Sleep is when muscle builds and grows, and our brain creates new connections to accommodate what we have learned during our waking hours. But again, sleep is often one of the first things that is sacrificed when we are stressed and pushed for time.
Prioritize getting 7-9 hours of sleep each night, allowing your body to regenerate itself in the way most natural to it. And don’t think that you can get four hours during the week and recover on the weekends. Studies suggest that it takes four days to fully recover from one hour of lost sleep.
Find A Hobby
The brain craves variation, but many of us expect it to focus on the same thing day in and day out in the office. Feed your brain’s creativity and agility by learning something new and doing something different. There are lots of ways to do this, such as travelling and meeting new people, but one of the easiest ways is to take up a hobby.
Take up a musical instrument, learn a new language, start doing a martial art, create something with your hands, do something artistic. Prioritize making time for something different that you enjoy.
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