Stress At Work: Signs of Burnout

Everyone experiences ebbs and flows in terms of their overall happiness at work. But if you are chronically late and frequently blow up on fellow employees, it may be time to start looking for another position or to take drastic action to reduce the stress you feel at work.

Do you think you never have or never will experience work burnout? Consider these statistics:

• The American worker has the least vacation time of any modern, developed society.
• In 2005, 33 percent of workers said they would be checking in with the office while on vacation.
• One-half of workers reported they feel a great deal of stress on the job.
• Forty-four percent of working moms admit to being preoccupied about work while at home and one-fourth say they bring home projects at least one day a week.
• Nineteen percent of working moms reported they often or always work weekends.
• Thirty-seven percent of all working dads said they would consider the option of taking a new job with less pay if it offered a better work/life balance.
• Thirty-six percent of working dads reported they bring work home at least one day a week and 30 percent say they often or always work weekends.

These statistics, taken from CareerBuilder.com surveys of American workers, demonstrate the pressures employees in the United States are under to be available to the office, despite responsibilities -- or plans -- away from work. All this, combined with longer work hours and many individuals handling the workloads of two, can easily lead to worker burnout.

If you think burnout on the job is just an excuse used by the weak to get out of responsibilities, think again. Stress and burnout can affect your immune system and have been linked to migraines, digestive disorders, skin diseases, high blood pressure and heart disease. It causes emotional distress as well.

"Job burnout is a response to work stress that leaves you feeling powerless, hopeless, fatigued, drained and frustrated," writes Dr. Audrey L. Canaff, a UC Foundation Assistant Professor in the Counseling Program at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in her article on WorkplaceBlues.com. "But since job burnout is not an overnight occurrence, it's important to recognize its early signs and to act before the problem becomes truly serious."

Consider these five warning signs of burnout:

Sign No. 1: Your co-workers are walking on eggshells around you.

If you find yourself becoming cranky and irritable with co-workers you used to get along with, it may be more than just typical interpersonal dynamics.

Sign No. 2: You come in late and want to leave earlier.

You used to wake up in the morning excited for another day, but now every day you dread heading into the office. Once lunch passes you start watching the clock, counting the minutes to the end of the day.

Sign No. 3: Apathy has replaced enthusiasm.

You feel no motivation, no sense of accomplishment and have no desire to be challenged. Those who have burnout lose their motivation to perform, as well as their feelings of pride for a job well done.

Sign No. 4: You've lost camaraderie with co-workers.

You're no longer interested in the company network. You used to go to lunch, go out for drinks and participate in other company functions but now have no interest in socializing in or out of the office.

Sign No. 5: You're feeling physically sick.

You always feel exhausted, have headaches, feel tension in all of your muscles and are having trouble sleeping. These physical signs are common indicators of job stress, and demonstrate that this can turn into a physical problem.

If you are experiencing these symptoms, it's time to make some changes. You can start by talking to your boss or someone in your human resources department about how you can confront the problem together by redefining deadlines, delegating or outsourcing a project or two. In her book "Stress Management for Busy People," Carol A. Turkington recommends taking these proactive steps:

• Learn to say no.
• Reevaluate your goals.
• Reduce your commitments at work and at home.
• Learn stress management skills.
• Get plenty of rest and eat a healthy diet.

Finally, give yourself a break. This means taking your vacation days, no matter how important you job is, and taking little breaks every day to re-group, re-energize and unwind. Remember, if you don't take care of yourself in the office, your work will suffer and your health may pay the price, too.

This next section shows you some of the practical steps that you can take if you are at high risk of burning out.

Understanding Where Pressure Comes From

Before you can take action to counter burnout, you need to understand why you are at danger of it.

Too much to do, too little time?

Where excessive workload is the problem, then three major groups of tools may help: First, consider whether you are being too accommodating. Should you let people know that you have too much work to do? Should you be politely turning down new work that people pass you? If this is the case, then improved assertiveness skills may help you to do this in a positive way. Remember that you will have to say "no" at some stage, otherwise your commitments will get bigger and bigger. You must learn to say no to commitments that you should not take on, otherwise you will be in severe danger of becoming intensely stressed and exhausted.

An obvious point is to check that you are using all of the resources available to you. Included within this, make sure that you are using your support network as fully as you can and that you are getting the help you need when you need it.

Finally, be aware that it is just not possible to do some jobs. Sometimes organizations commit themselves to projects that they do not have the capabilities, resources or skills to complete. These quickly become "projects from Hell". Beware of these projects - they can be traps from which it is difficult to escape, even if you are at severe risk of burning out.

Political and people problems

Where politics seems to be a problem, you need to check that you are allocating enough time to managing your stakeholders and that you are correctly managing your support network. It is very easy when under stress to stop communicating with people, and this can lead to political problems that compound with other issues to create a toxic cocktail of stress.

Alternatively, a major cause of burnout can happen when too many people lean too heavily upon you. While it is important to provide support to the people around you, some people will suck up as much support as you can give and demand still more. This can be both tiresome and intensely disappointing, as you never seem to be able to meet their needs.

While distancing yourself from people is a symptom of burnout, it is also a defense against it. You need to find the fine balance between being reasonably open and available to the people you live and work with, while at the same time distancing yourself from people who drain you of emotional energy. A way of doing this may be to involve other people in providing support.

Another area where you need to find a balance is with the different (and often conflicting) demands of different groups of people and organizations. An obvious conflict is between work and family: Both really want as much of your time and energy as possible. You need to find a way of reconciling both, while still leaving time for yourself. However, this is also true of almost all of the people or organizations you deal with. All have their own goals and values, and all have their own ideas of how you should behave. In many cases, these goals will conflict with those of other organizations and in many cases they will conflict with yours.

As the only person who is an expert in your own life, you need to find what seems like a reasonable balance and then defend this assertively.

Avoiding Exhaustion

I am sure you can understand how exhaustion can play such a major factor in burnout. Adequate sleep and rest cannot be over stated. Rest is what we do to let stress subside. Rest at the end of a day, and at the end of a week, helps us to calm down.

Doing fun things that we enjoy in our leisure time compensates us for the stress we experience at work, bringing some balance back into life. This is particularly important if we routinely experience unpleasant levels of stress.

A good way of getting rest and reducing long-term stress is to take up an enjoyable, non-rushed sport or hobby. If you spend all your working day competing, then can be very pleasant to be completely non-competitive for some of your free time. Slow physical activities such as sailing or walking are good for this, as are others where there is little or no pressure for performance. Reading novels, watching television or socializing can also be very restful.

Going on a good, long vacation is one of the best ways of avoiding burnout. Choose a vacation that does not expose you to the stresses you experience at home or which distracts you from them. Leave your laptop and mobile phone behind. Forget about work completely until your return. Rest, and enjoy life.

Similarly, make sure you get enough sleep and rest, and that you learn and frequently use relaxation techniques to calm down and relax.

Protecting the Meaning of Your Job

The other major cause of burnout is disillusionment with your job, particularly when you get a great deal of the meaning in your life from the work you do.

The emphasis here is on protecting the parts of your job that give you meaning and satisfaction. If you have trouble in justifying this to yourself, then think about the people you serve: if you burn out, then they will not get the benefit of the energy and enthusiasm you can provide: You owe it to them to enjoy your job!

It is possible also that the job itself is badly designed and that contradictions inherent within it are causing much of the stress you are experiencing.

Summary:

There is a lot that you can do if you are at risk of burnout. Perhaps the most important thing is to recognize that you are at risk, and take this seriously.

This article briefly shows you the sort of things you can do to avoid burnout. These mainly focus on managing workload, dealing with people problems, avoiding exhaustion and protecting the meaning of your work. If you can do these things, then you should be able to avoid burnout and continue to get satisfaction from the work you do.