What is burnout?
Burnout is the result of a prolonged period of stress which negatively affects our wellbeing.
The emotional symptoms can include emotions feeling blunted, feeling helpless or hopeless, becoming tearful, feeling irritable, feeling numb, feeling unappreciated and unfulfilled, feeling anxious and overwhelmed.
Behaviour changes can include disengaging from colleagues and family and friends, losing our sense of commitment, making uncharacteristic mistakes, finding it difficult to plan holidays and being inconsistent with work patterns.
Physical symptoms can include muscle pains, headaches, tiredness, problems with sleep, problems with memory, lack of concentration and weight gain or loss.
Common causes of burnout are having an imbalance of work time/caring for others, versus time off, having a high volume of work, having a lack of resources, feeling unsupported, having job expectations that change or are unclear, feeling powerless in your work role or caring role.
Covid 19 and burnout.
Covid may have led to change in your workplace, having to adapt fast to changes in your new role. You may have increased workload and caring responsibilities, there may have been situations where your personal or professional values felt compromised.
All these situations are stressful and can lead to burnout. Talking therapy and support with self-care can aid recovery.
Contact your GP if you are concerned you may be depressed.
Contact Angela now if you would like mental health support & counselling service.