Very interesting break down of stress & burnout & how to manage it. Some take away’s I have are:
How to recognize causes of burnout & stress:
The 3 areas of this are:
- Emotional
- Mental
- Physical
Causes are work related or person / life related.
Some work related causes can be:
- Lack of control
- Pressure ( work load)
- Lack of resources
- Poor leadership
- Lack of support
Some person related causes can be:
- Being a perfectionist
- Having unrealistic standards
- Being a type “A” personality
Life related causes can be:
- Lack of social support
- Lack of leisure time
- Spreading ones self too thin
- Lack of healthy habits
Identifying the signs of being close to burnout are key in realizing it is there, & is the starting point in restoring from stress & burnout. Signs of burnout can be: negative mood most of the time, physically tired, feeling disconnected, feel that ones efforts do not make a difference, hopelessness.
Strategies to prevent burnout & stress:
There are many activities / mindsets that can help prevent burnout.
- Bring energy to your work, this brings happiness & you are more productive.
- Identify the level of enjoyment you get from areas & focus on those.
- Spend time to recharge between times. 90 min. intervals, are what our bodies recognize, on the by & large.
- Sleep is huge, less than 6 hrs per day is bad.
- Nutrition, exercise, & meditation are equally as important.
- Perspective is a huge part of managing stress & burnout. Pessimism & the 3 P’s are huge in causing stress, & the 3 “C”’s are huge in helping. Feel CHALLANGED, be COMMITED, & always feel in CONTROL.
- The A/B/C’s of managing stress…… ADVIRSITY, is just the belief of a situation. BELIEF is that you really can change your thought of a situation, & it is not as bad as one thinks. CONSIQUENCE, how you handle stress is how others perceive you. Think before acting in a stress situation.
How to restore ones self from burnout & stress: ( recharging & renewing)
A few activities that are key in helping one recharge are:
- Each lunch away from your desk.
- Don’t look at emails all of the time.
- Schedule a time to do nothing.
- Learn to relax & breath.
- Take a walk.
- Read a book.
- Get outside.
From the course, they challenged us to do a 21 day activity to promote positivity, & recharge from feeling the signs of stress & burnout. I identified 5 of these, & will be doing one of them for 21 days & beyond at home. This will be my way of staying positive & avoiding burnout in life. It is writing down 3 things I am grateful for each day. This will be my personal journey in this.
I recognize I work way too many hours and don't take time for myself. I need more sleep, better nutrtiion and more time to hit the gym.
Something I have learned through this lesson is that the same things that cause stress and burnout are the same things that cause unhappiness in your life and you deal with it in the same way. I have already started breathing exercises and will try getting more sleep and eating healthier.
I always feel like when the summer comes I finnally get a chance to focus on ME. I start eating better, exercising regularly, making to-do lists that are enjoyable and not stressful. I would really like to focus hard on carrying these good habits into the school year as much as possible and not feel like my wellness is so seasonal
I guess I have to revise my list of negative words, and add "should" and "could" to it. I never psychologized them that much in the past.
This course offers a myraid of exercises that are beneficial to reducing stress that can lead to stress and/or burnout.
I have really enjoyed the topics discussed.
When comparing this lesson to my daily life, I have learned to schedule a better sleep time at night, eat better, and make a habit of some sort of excercise will help relieve stress in a major way.
I think we all need a reminder from time to time that our attitude isone of the biggest indicators of how we handle stress. It's easy to have a bad attitude when facing burnout but knowing my negativity is making it worse gives me incentive to change my attitude.
I have already been working on changing my diet and now plan to add some daily meditation time.
I really enjoyed the information on perspective, evaluating our beliefs about adversity, and focusing on having an internal locus of cotrol. In regards to taking control of one's own health to reduce stress, the simple changes that could be implemented in each of the 4 areas, nutrition, sleep, exercise, and meditation, might best be tackled one, 21-day challenge at a time, so that you don't feel like you have to improve or change everything all at once. I've really been focusing on this over the past several months since the Covid-19 pandemic created so much added stress to all of our lives, and especially those like myself who work in healthcare. I started just by simply trying to go for a walk for 15 to 20 minutes each day for 21 days. The next month, I continued with walking and tried to reduce the amount of sugar in my diet for 21 days, and so on and so forth, until I found that I was able to develop healthy habits in many areas over a period of time. When we try to tackle all areas at once, it becomes overwhelming, and then we are much more likely to give up before we can sufficiently develop the habit.
I have honestly learned more about myself and have been personally reflecting throughout the course so far. I feel as if I am on the verge of burnout. That's not something I would like for myself. I am going to really work on recharging and renewing myself. I need to work on fixing my sleep, exercising more, and just taking better care of myself. I didn't realize that I was on the verge until I started this course. I realize how much I just ignore and what I can already do in order to do better for myself.
I like the idea that the energy people bring to their work in their lives is far more important in terms of the value of their work than the number of hours they work by managing energy more skillfully.
I learned that different factors plays a part in your stress levels, but you have to identify them and take measures to reduce them.
I plan to continue building healthy relationships inside and outside of work and learn meditation techniques.
Diaphragatic breathing
Meditation
Sleep
90 minutes break
All the above can help to reduce burnout
Self-care is important. Knowing limit and boundaries are important as well. As a leader, it is important to recognize this in my employees and ensure they feel supported and not overwhelmed.
I already know about my burnout, I'm a HVAC contractor in the day and a HVAC instructor at night, no breaks. I like to have PTO from my instructor job, but we do not have the facalty, So I burn throught the burnouts and go forth.
It is essential to maintain balance between work, liesure, health and mental aspects. Health can be affected by an imbalance of those factors.
Working in community nursing was deeply rewarding while simoltaneously inflicting a load of vicarious trauma
I will defninitely try to focus more on positive things in my life that I can control instead of tending to get stuck thinking about negative things that I cannot control. I am willing to try a few of the 21 day exercises for stress relief and renewal.
