Understanding and Managing Burnout: Signs, Causes, and Solutions for a Renewed Life
As the world seems to be spinning faster and faster, burnout feels ever more commonplace – if it feels downright impossible to get ahead, stay ahead, or even keep up, then why bother? The worst part: Burnout is more insidious than “regular” tiredness or depression.
While typically borne out of work-related stress, burnout can easily seep into all aspects of your life if you don’t take action.
And, sure, standard therapies can make a difference. But a renewed interest in psychedelic therapies is highlighting these drugs’ potential in managing and reversing burnout – especially when other options have failed. Here’s what you need to know.
What Is Burnout?
First, understand that burnout looks different for everyone; some people become listless and exhausted, while others withdraw or lash out. In the clinical realm, researchers characterize burnout as “one of the most important psychosocial occupational hazards in today’s society.”
Specifically, burnout is a state of exhaustion, fatigue, or frustration with a professional activity that fails to produce expected outcomes – a withering disconnect between what you envision for your life, and what’s actually happening.
The 3 Core Dimensions of Burnout
There are three primary dimensions to career burnout. Each contributes to the predicament in its own way, and you may experience them at different stages.
- Exhaustion: More than simple tiredness, you’re easily deflated by tasks that you once viewed as small or manageable.
- Cynicism: You tend to see the negative side of things first or struggle to maintain a positive outlook.
- Impotence: Your performance slips at work, and/or you start to fall behind on daily upkeep like house chores, hygiene, or exercise.
Recognizing Signs of Burnout
Burnout doesn’t occur spontaneously. Think of what we call it – for your flame to have burnt out, it must slowly starve and shrink until it is reduced to flickering embers, and then nothing at all. Chronic stress dampens that flame, accelerating you toward burnout.
If you’re diligent and proactive, you can spot burnout early and take action to avoid it. It’s a bit like tending to a campfire – if you see the flame beginning to get low, you throw another log on the pile. Here’s what to look out for:
Physical Manifestations
Burnout may be characterized as a psychological issue, but it can dampen you physically as well. Chronic mental fatigue dampens your initiative and saps your energy, making you more sedentary. You might skip the gym more often than usual, or find yourself intimidated by the energy demand of simple chores.
Emotional Changes
Cynicism and detachment are chief among the feelings most people grapple with during burnout. It’s difficult to maintain a positive outlook if you feel like your efforts won’t, or can’t, bear fruit. This can lead to feelings of dejection about your work.
Mental Inefficacy
If you’re feeling down in the dumps physically and demotivated by your work, you may develop some level of “mental inefficacy”. From neuroscience, we know that “use it or lose it” is a very real phenomenon. Burnout diminishes your ability to perform specialized work tasks or think critically, dulling your mental acumen in the process.
Unpacking the Causes of Burnout
So, how do we get to burnout in the first place? While lulls in mood and motivation at work are normal, burnout is a different beast entirely. It doesn’t occur entirely on its own and, no matter your specific situation, develops from multiple sources at once.
Systemic Issues
In today’s hyper-fast, productivity-obsessed culture, it’s all too easy to feel like you’re racing Formula One in a go-kart. People tend to associate a vicious, high-expectation work culture with the United States, but people all over the world succumb to systemic societal pressures around their careers.
Fast-moving work environments also tend to reduce your autonomy and agency. You feel like you don’t have control over the trajectory of your career, or like your merits don’t get you as far as others’ fortunes.
Personal Factors
Burnout can also occur when one is held to unrealistic standards or fails to establish and maintain effective boundaries in their professional life.
While one’s intentions may be good – wanting to go the extra mile at work to advance their career, or position themselves for a promotion – working to the bone by putting in extra hours can fast-track burnout, especially if a person isn’t rewarded for their efforts.
Steps for Managing Burnout
The best way to tackle burnout is to be proactive. Once an issue is recognized, steps can be taken to reset your trajectory before things go off the rails altogether.
Step 1: Immediate Action
If you’re starting to feel burnt out because you’re overworked, one of the best things you can do is reaffirm healthy boundaries between your work and personal lives. It’s common for people to begin letting the two seep into one another – taking calls after hours or on weekends, or compulsively checking your email, even when you’re on vacation.
This can lead to feeling suffocated by the demands of your job. Instead, remind yourself that work occupies one slice of your life as a whole. Don’t let it steal time from other things that matter just as much.
Step 2: Physical Reset
To combat the physical “symptoms” of burnout, you should take stock of your health and wellness as a whole. Your holistic hygiene matters all the more when stressed out by work. In fact, research shows that physical activity effectively mitigates burnout and depression.
That said, hitting the treadmill with your phone in your hand is vastly different from an outdoor walk with a friend or podcast. If you’re able, make your health habits into opportunities for a digital detox:
- Establish a firm lights-out deadline at night, and leave your phone outside of the bedroom. Use an alarm clock instead.
- Get out into nature at least twice per week, ideally while exercising.
- Whether you work remotely or not, take your lunch breaks seriously; don’t eat at your desk, staring at the screen. Take a moment to relax and savor your meal.
Step 3: Cognitive Shift
Burnout may manifest physically, but it starts in the mind. To reinvigorate your passion for life and the work you do, you need to shift your perspective. Challenging perfectionism and stifling self-criticism are essential here. Practices like journaling, meditation, or talk therapy can go a long way, but in some cases may not be potent enough to break through.
Alternative Solutions to Managing Burnout
Most people never bother to examine the “why” behind their feelings. Deep introspection, wherein you take the time to unpack your apathy and understand its origins, is crucial to making a U-turn if you’re on a trajectory toward burnout.
The problem is that many traditional methods for managing career stress don’t lend themselves to deep introspection. Most solutions are more like medical triage; superficial treatments that, while productive and worthwhile, don’t get at the root cause of the issue.
Think again of the flickering campfire – a low flame doesn’t need a big log thrown on top, it needs kindling at the embers.
The Power of Psychedelic Integration for Burnout
Psychedelic therapies are that kindling. Integration is the process of applying insights from a psychedelic experience to make lasting, positive changes in your outlook.
Dispelling Depression
Psychedelics may have roots in alternative medicine, but their benefits are hardly superstition or placebo. Clinical research increasingly shows that psychedelic therapies represent “a new paradigm” for treating work-related stress and depression, particularly as an avenue for those who haven’t had success with other interventions.
Expanding Perspectives
The psychedelic experience itself widens your scope of perspective and opens up new emotional insights. Research tells us that neuroplasticity, or the brain’s ability to generate new links and ideas, is heightened by certain psychedelics.
Proper integration capitalizes on neuroplasticity, literally helping you to rewrite the narrative behind burnout.
Making Sense of the Ineffable
If the psychedelic experience itself generates the “raw material,” guided integration practices provide structure and organization so the benefits congeal and remain long after your trip. After all, even those suffering from burnout have good days here and there, when the mind feels clear and there’s tangibility to one’s purpose.
Integration helps you lock in more good days, making your positive outlook easier to access and sustain.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I recover from burnout without changing my job?
Yes. Even though your job may be a significant stressor in your life, you can recover from burnout without starting from scratch. Mindfulness techniques and therapies which alter your big-picture perspective can act as a sieve, helping you to filter out the negative emotions that contribute to burnout while allowing you to remain at work.
How long does it take to fully recover from burnout?
Burnout doesn’t occur spontaneously, so you shouldn’t expect to bounce back overnight. Some data have shown that recovering from burnout can take more than a year, depending on the severity and duration of the core issue.
Can psychedelic-assisted retreat work help with deep-seated burnout?
Yes. Research is beginning to confirm the value of psychedelic therapies and psychedelic integration in mitigating burnout and other work-related life stressors.
What is the difference between stress and burnout?
Work stress is common, no matter your calling or career path. Intermittent, manageable periods of stress are generally not cause for concern. You may be at risk of burnout if you find yourself chronically stressed or demotivated, especially if those feelings aren’t remedied by traditional self-care practices.
How can I set better boundaries at work?
Setting boundaries at work is crucial for avoiding burnout. It can be helpful to keep the duties of your career front-of-mind; taking on extra or auxiliary tasks, especially those outside of your scope, because you feel obliged to do so, is a great way to overwhelm yourself.
It’s important to recognize your role in your work ecosystem, and not fall into the trap of thinking you’re the only thing keeping the wheels turning. When dealing with colleagues, be polite but clear about your capabilities and bandwidth.
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