7 Early Signs of Burnout and 10 Simple & Practical Tools To Help - Dr Rangan Chatterjee
Understanding Burnout
Burnout is a state of chronic unmanaged stress that accumulates insidiously over days, weeks, months, and often years, rather than happening overnight.
It is a common complaint, with many individuals feeling "knackered" and struggling with daily life, often mistakenly attributing their fatigue to laziness or a lack of willpower or motivation.
While some stress is beneficial for performance (e.g., sharpening the brain, improving memory and focus), burnout occurs when there isn't sufficient time to recover and reset, causing the nervous system to change its "shape," much like an elastic band that loses its ability to return to its original form after being repeatedly pulled.
Burnout often steals one's autonomy, leading to a feeling of learned helplessness.
The Seven Signs of Burnout
Disconnection: A tendency to withdraw from friends, family, and colleagues, preferring solitude. Scientific research indicates that feelings of loneliness are as harmful to health as smoking 15 cigarettes per day, triggering a stress response in the body due to perceiving isolation as a threat.
Emotional Exhaustion: Small things becoming irritating or agitating (e.g., a simple request from a partner), along with increased cynicism about the world and others. This can also manifest as little outbursts of anger, often directed at loved ones at home after maintaining professionalism at work.
Physical Exhaustion: A debilitating lack of energy for work, hobbies, friends, or family. This often presents as feeling "tired and wired" – exhausted but with a racing mind that prevents sleep. Other symptoms include brain fog (haziness in thinking) and a loss of self-awareness, leading individuals to double down on the very behaviours that caused burnout.
Procrastination: Repeatedly delaying tasks and struggling with decision-making, weighing too many options without taking action.
Neglect of Self-Care: A decline in healthy food choices (more takeaways, comfort eating, late-night snacking), reduced physical activity, and even neglecting basic hygiene like showering or shaving. This ironically occurs when self-care is most needed, reinforcing a vicious cycle.
Inability to Gain Pleasure (Anhedonia): Losing enjoyment from activities that were once pleasurable, leading to a desire to stay in bed and a feeling of dullness. This is a common precursor to burnout.
Lack of Creativity: An inability to think of new ideas, solve problems, or navigate simple everyday challenges, impacting both work and home life.
10-Step Action Plan to Combat Burnout
Awareness: Recognising the signs of burnout in oneself is crucial. Many people don't realise they are burnt out until it's too late, requiring significant recovery time. Awareness is the first, powerful step in addressing the problem.
Intentionally Engage with Another Human Being: Countering disconnection by actively reaching out to and spending time with others. Even short, regular interactions (e.g., a weekly coffee with a friend, a "date night" with a partner) can create positive ripple effects and combat the detrimental health impacts of loneliness. Men, in particular, are encouraged to prioritise nourishing friendships.
Prioritise Sleep: Improving sleep quality is vital, even if it's just by 15-20 minutes daily. Trading sleep for activities like binge-watching results in lower creativity, energy, empathy, and increased cravings the following day. Key tips include:
Exposing oneself to natural light in the morning to set circadian rhythm.
Limiting caffeine intake to the morning, especially when under stress.
Winding down at least one hour before bed by sending the brain signals that work is over (e.g., a "campfire time" cut-off for devices, reading, taking a bath, watching uplifting content).
Avoiding associating the bedroom with work by doing work outside of it.
Schedule Rest: Intentionally planning and prioritising rest and recovery to build resilience and prevent the nervous system from becoming permanently altered by stress. Scheduling rest in a diary, just like work commitments, helps ensure it happens. This can include activities like yoga, Epsom salt baths, or walking breaks.
A 15-minute walk at lunchtime without technology is highly effective for improving creativity and problem-solving by activating the brain's default mode network.
Achieving 7-8 hours of sleep, accessing "flow" states 1-2 times a week (deep concentration in an enjoyable, slightly challenging activity), and engaging in regular active recovery (e.g., yoga, walks in nature) are three critical habits that can make burnout "almost impossible".
Passive recovery (e.g., watching TV with a glass of wine) differs from active recovery.
Define the End of Your Workday: Establishing clear boundaries for when the workday ends, as modern technology means to-do lists are never truly finished. This involves deciding "what does done look like today" and consciously disengaging, preventing constant work from leading to burnout. "If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will".
Learn How to Say No: Setting boundaries and saying "no" to requests that compromise one's well-being, especially for "people pleasers" who often seek external validation. It's important to weigh the consequences of saying "yes" (i.e., what one is saying "no" to) and consider making "no" the default decision. Honesty and clarity are key when declining, even if it feels uncomfortable initially.
Movement: Incorporating daily physical activity, even short bursts (e.g., 10-15 minute walk, two minutes of skipping). Movement can change one's emotional state, burning off stress when agitated or providing energy when feeling low and unmotivated. The key is to overcome the initial resistance and experience the positive feeling afterwards.
Pay Attention to Food Intake: Making conscious, healthier food choices to support recovery. Avoiding highly processed foods, excessive sugar, comfort eating, and late-night snacking. Having healthy food readily available at home is crucial. Distinguishing between physical and emotional hunger can help prevent using food as a coping mechanism for underlying emotional needs.
Live in Alignment with Your Values: Reflecting on core values (e.g., integrity, compassion, curiosity) and assessing whether daily actions align with them. Living a life out of alignment can be a major factor in burnout. Regularly (e.g., weekly) checking how much of one's life was lived in accordance with these values can reveal areas needing change for long-term health and happiness.
Do Something You Love Every Day: Engaging in an activity purely for personal pleasure for at least five minutes daily. This builds resilience to stress and counteracts the anhedonia associated with burnout. Examples include reading, listening to music, playing an instrument, or watching a favourite comedian. Reconnecting with past hobbies can be particularly transformative.
Principles of Behaviour Change
Rule 1: Start Easy and Small: Many health plans fail because they rely too heavily on motivation, which is a "wave" that fluctuates. Plans should be designed for the "trough" of motivation, making them easy to do even on busy, stressful days when motivation is low. Making a behaviour simple (e.g., one-click ordering for Amazon, Netflix auto-playing the next episode) significantly increases the likelihood of adherence.
Rule 2: Place the Habit Strategically: New behaviours need a trigger. The most effective trigger is attaching a new habit to an existing, ingrained habit (e.g., doing a five-minute workout while coffee brews). This removes the need for motivation, reminders, or complex decision-making, transforming a new action into a routine.
Identity Change Through Action: Consistently performing small, easy health actions helps individuals change their identity, moving from someone who "can't stick to health plans" to someone who "can." This positive momentum creates upward spirals in other areas of life.
Self-Compassion and Gratitude
It is crucial not to conflate failure at a specific health plan with being a personal failure. Maintaining a distinction between one's actions and one's intrinsic worth is key for self-esteem.
Exercises like writing down five things loved about oneself daily, or practicing gratitude (e.g., reflecting on what one has done to make someone else happy, what others have done for them, and what they've learned each day) can quickly build self-esteem and provide perspective, making it harder to be self-critical.
Making gratitude practices easy to do (e.g., discussing at the dinner table, keeping a journal by the bedside) increases adherence.