Do you feel exhausted, anxious, overstressed, and disoriented? Are you losing all of your mental and physical strength and your sanity? If that’s the case, then you’re dealing with burnout. In our guide, we teach you how to recognize burnout and develop your burnout recovery plan with easy-to-follow burnout recovery steps.
What is burnout?
Burnout is a state of extreme mental and physical exhaustion caused by the constant and prolonged excessive effort. Burnout is mostly related to work. You are likely to experience burnout if your work is highly demanding, intense and stressful, with tight deadlines, dehumanized, with the high expectations and zero tolerance for errors.
What are the symptoms of burnout?
The list of burnout symptoms is really large. Burnout has some serious mental, emotional, and physical characteristics. Some of the common burnout symptoms are:
- Feeling drained
- Insomnia
- Headaches
- Muscle pain and tension
- Feeling helpless
- Self-doubt
- Loss of productivity and motivation
- Overall life dissatisfaction
- Isolation
- Procrastination
- Inability to cope with negative emotions
- You turn to alcohol or medication
In case you’ve already experienced some of the symptoms listed above, the probability that you suffer from burnout is pretty high. Unfortunately, it is a vicious cycle as well. Once you get into that condition the consequences are only getting worse. Eventually, the condition is taking over your life and you feel defeated and see no way out. Unfortunately, many people fail to combat it due to the lack of a proper burnout recovery plan.
Burnout – A Rising Phenomenon
You need to know that you’re not alone in this! People all around the world suffer from burnout. You’re not the only one to experience the burnout! Unfortunately, burnout is a modern disease very common among people with successful careers and a higher level of education.
Also, you need to know that you can take control over your life and beat burnout one step at the time. You only need to identify your symptoms and develop a clever recovery plan, taking into consideration your needs and condition.
Burnout Recovery Steps – Phases
A burnout recovery plan comes with certain phases you need to follow. First, you need to identify your symptoms. Then, you define an action plan to combat the symptoms. And, finally, to track your progress.
Identify burnout symptoms
By putting an emphasis on identifying your symptoms, you basically recognize the problem. The best approach you can implement here is to put all of your symptoms on paper. Define how you feel, and what are your physical, mental, and emotional symptoms you want to overcome.
What are your most conspicuous symptoms? Is burnout for you the synonym for excessive anxiety, or you feel depressive? Do you feel accumulated anger or you’re passive and demotivated?
Defining your burnout symptoms makes it easier to combat them.
You need to know how your body and mind react when put into situations that require extreme mental/physical effort. Identify how burnout manifests and you’ll identify the weakest points you’ll need to work on. For example, if you react with stress, anxiety, and anger, then you need to learn how to relax and develop effective relaxation techniques.
Otherwise, if you react with a loss of motivation and energy, you need to recharge your energy a lot and frequently. Find natural and effective means to boost your energy and alleviate the burnout symptoms.
In case you develop a general life dissatisfaction, you need to reassess your priorities and goals in life. Maybe your happiness and life satisfaction is elsewhere?
Define an action plan to beat burnout
A good burnout recovery plan requires a planned set of actions and careful implementation. Different life situations require different coping strategies and action plans. What’s common for all of them is that you need to act and bring some positive change into your life. Things won’t get any better if you continue your life the same old way.
Beating burnout requires carefully selected actions, planned in advance.
Here are some general recommendations that you can implement:
- Consider changing the business environment in case you believe there’s nothing to be improved in a long term. If the job is draining you constantly and you think there is no way out, you need to make your health a priority. Leaving a job is not the worst case scenario after all, but losing your health is.
- Take a long vacation & reassess your priorities – in case you need some time to contemplate your decision, this is the best strategy. The best decisions are made when you distance yourself from the stress source.
- Talk! Talking with others can really bring you a bit of relief. It won’t bring you a lasting solution, but it can make it easier for you for a while. Talking can even help you understand the thing from a different point of view and sometimes this is what you need.
- Reorganize your day – what activity can make your terrible everyday reality a bit better? Start implementing it, for at least 5-10 minutes. Monitor the effects and increase the intensity gradually.
Track your progress
Once you define your set of actions, you need to move further and implement them. An effective burnout recovery plan includes tracking the progress as well. For this purpose, start writing a diary or filling out the suitable worksheets.
Monitor your thoughts, moods, energy levels, body conditions and try to establish a clear connection between your actions and your conditions. Eliminate the actions you consider ineffective and implement new ones.
Some general advice
Here are some this that won’t do you any harm. Include them in your daily routine.
- healthy meals (at least here and there) are mandatory
- meditation and relaxation before sleeping
- reduce stress with physical activity
- take advice from professionals
- find new hobbies to occupy your attention
- write diary
Know your limits
What is really important and most of us neglect is – know your limits. Try to understand your limits at work and the maximum effort you can make. In case you feel you’re exceeding your natural capacity and that it affects you badly – stop immediately!
Make yourself a priority
You are the priority. You need a healthy body and mental sanity. In case you ruin your health, what will you have?
Find relaxing activities
The list of the activities you can use to relax is really large. Some people like movies, the others reading, walking, yoga, boxing, music… Use your creativity to find the best relaxing activity for you!
Burnout Recovery Plan – Summary
We agree that burnout is a terrible condition that can destroy you mentally and physically. You need to move from a passive condition and bring in some positive changes to your life. Hopefully, you gathered useful info about burnout recovery steps. We hope that our review is a good place to start your battle against burnout.
I'm a blogger and idealist. I've been exploring mindfulness, mental health, and other psychology and personal growth topics for years. I strive for harmony, self-improvement, inner peace and perfection. I am a narcissist abuse victims advocate and an empath.
Contact: sonja@upbeatimpulse.com
