5 MUST DO Daily Habits When Dealing With Burnout

To listen to the blog post Habits You Need To Adapt When Dealing With Burnout over reading it just click the play button below.

This post is going to tell you how to go about:

• dealing with burnout
• dealing with work burnout
• burnout symptoms
• burnout meaning
• and burnout syndrome 

But before I get into it I want to tell you a little story so that you can understand the severity of burnout.  As someone who has experienced burnout on multiple occasions and has ended up in the hospital on multiple occasions (once having been taken away in an ambulance from my job) burnout is serious.

1. Burnout Symptoms & Burnout syndrome

Burnout symptoms are not just emotional it can also be physical and can include:

• Chronic fatigue. Emotionally exhausted, drained, and depleted, and you may feel a sense of dread about what lies ahead on any given day.

• Insomnia.

• Forgetfulness/impaired concentration and attention.

• Physical symptoms may include chest pain, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, gastrointestinal pain, dizziness, fainting, and/or headaches (all of which should be medically assessed). All of which I had by the way.

• Increased illness. Because your body is depleted, your immune system becomes weakened.

• Loss of appetite.

• Anxiety.

• Depression.

• Anger. At first, this may present as interpersonal tension and irritability. In the latter stages, this may turn into angry outbursts and serious arguments at home and in the workplace.

The reason why I feel that it is important to say that is because we all experience burnout or even stress differently.  For me, I never really think I am stress or on the verge of burnout because I do not feel it until my body starts to shut down on me. 

When you are dealing with burnout that means that you have endured high levels of stress for a long time.  This could lead to high blood pressure, heart attack, among other things and your body is literally trying to protect itself when you are experiencing these symptoms.

Dealing with burnout can also be very complicated because it is not like you can take a rest for a day or two and then jump right back into everything you had been doing before thinking you are going to be fine because that is not true.   

It is also complicated because burnout is not just about work.  As a single mom who at my worse was working on my own business, working at a highly stressful job, going to grad school full time, and trying to be a mother I had burnout. You can watch my single mother video below and click here to subscribe to my YouTube channel.

I was also in a state where I had burnout and felt like there was nothing I could do about it.  I had to work, I had to parent, I could not just stop my life. Bills needed to be paid and my son needed to be parented.  And that is the confusion when dealing with burnout because your life cannot just stop.  But as I have experienced it many times.  I am going to give you tips that will help you to start dealing with burnout that you can do from home. 

1. Dealing With Work Burnout And Burnout Syndrome ~ You Have to Cut Some Things Out

You maybe like me where I just cannot up and quit my job and go live on the beach to destress.  That is not a realistic way for you to start dealing with burnout.  But what is real is that you must find ways to slow down.  Going on a one-week vacation may help for the time being but if after you come back you jump right back into your rigorous schedule then that hardly helps.

Instead, you can do the following when dealing with burnout:

Dealing With Work Burnout ~ Combine a day off with another day off.  Meaning if you have the weekend off, then try to take a Friday or a Monday off for a three-day weekend and try to do that at least twice a month. This will give you a more prolonged period of rest time if you can at least do this for three months and give yourself time to recover a few weeks out of the month. 

Dealing With Work Burnout ~ Ask someone to babysit your kids. My son has stayed with my mother for a week or even a few weeks.  I know you love your kids, but they can contribute to burnout if you have a lot going on.  Getting a break from them does not make you a bad mom (see my blog here on mom guilt) nor does it mean you do not love them.  But sometimes it can be needed to help decrease your stress level.

Dealing With Work Burnout ~ Say no.  You can say no to overtime, you do not have to work 50 hours a week.  You do not have to say yes to extra projects, and you do not have to stress yourself out doing everything that other people or even your friends want you to.  If you find yourself always running to fix everything or everyone else’s problems, then stop.  This could be contributing to your burn out.

Dealing With Work Burnout ~ Find another job.  If you have a job that you know is just going to burn you out.  Then find a new one and a higher paying one.  As a correctional officer working 12-16 hour days, I was burned out. And there was NOTHING that was going to change the fact that the job was stressful.  So once I had my son, still working 12-16 hours jobs just was not going to work. No matter how I spinned it.  And I did have to find another job that was not as stressful.

2. Dealing With Burnout Symptoms ~ A Bath

I know that this sounds simple but a  bath can help with a lot of the physical symptoms that you experience with burnout. 

• And a bath can help alleviate stress.
• Improve heart health.
• Taking a bath may help you to breathe easier.
• Your brain and nervous system can benefit from bathing.
• Bathing can benefit your muscles, joints and bones.
• Take care of your blood and immunity with a bath. 

One thing that you can do is take a bath once or twice a week to help relax the body and do the following.

Dealing With Burnout Symptoms ~ Put in bath bombs. I have the following bath bombs and they let off a scent that will help calm you down.  You can click here to buy them.

Dealing With Burnout Symptoms ~ Essentials oils: Certain oils have certain scents that can help distress you and calm you down.  You can click here to see some great oils that help deal with the symptoms of burnout along with the diffuser which I will talk about below.  But most of them help with stress, immune system, mental clarity, pain, gastrointestinal issues, (all of which are signs of burnout) add a few to your bathwater.

Dealing With Burnout Symptoms ~ Epson Salt: Epsom salt is also known as magnesium sulfate. It is a chemical compound made up of magnesium, sulfur, and oxygen. Some of the main burnout symptoms that I get are insomnia, body aches, and gastrointestinal issues.  And Epson salt helps with all of that.  Put it in your bath, it is absorbed through the skin and it can help.  Click here to buy.

Dealing With Burnout Symptoms ~ Listen to music: Personally, I have an echo which you can buy here to listen to music, an audiobook, or something.  For me, if I am not listening to something in the bath, then I am thinking.  Thinking about what I must do next, my schedule, what I have to do tomorrow. All of which makes my burnout symptoms worse because I am not allowing my mind to rest.  Listen to music and just focusing on that or even an audiobook will drown out the noise of your mind and just help you relax.

Therefore I say making a bath apart of your regular regime is a must for dealing with burnout.  Doing it once may help but do it twice a week over many months will help a lot more. 

3. Dealing With Burnout Symptoms ~ Use a Diffuser

Remember how we talked about those essential oils.  Above was a list of essential oils that help with stress and you can click here to buy them along with the diffuser.  Not only can you add them to your bath but also adding them to a diffuser and putting it by your bed when you sleep, in your office when you work, in the bathroom when you take a bath can help you consume the benefits of the essential oils to relax you.  

4. Dealing With Burnout Symptoms ~ Journal

I am a huge advocate of journaling.  Because stress and even burnout is balled up energy.  Once you have had a stressful day you need a way to release that.  And by making a habit to just write everything down in a journal helps trust me.  Just write what you feel, sometimes I write stuff down so hard I cannot even read it later, or I write so big because that is how frustrated I am. 

It does not matter about keeping your journal neat or like it needs to be a published books.  Just write, don’t worry about spelling, grammar, just write out your stress what made you stressed, if you are depressed and why.  Writing helps get that energy out of you and onto paper so that it is no longer in you.  I also have a video below that you can watch on how to transform pain. Click here to see some of my recommendations for journals. 

5. Dealing With Burnout Symptoms ~ Yoga

So you do not have to be a fitness guru in order to do this.  I am not, NOT BY far.  But I will literally go to YouTube type in Yoga to alleviate stress and do it.  Below is one of the videos that I have used that helps a lot. And it really is just stretching, breathing, and doing it in a way that will help your body. 

Don’t worry I am not recommending something where you are going to be doing headstands, and flipping your legs over your head.  If that is your ability then great. But most people are not trying to do all of that and that may not be relaxing for the typical person.  Even if you do not like the video below, just a simple search on YouTube about relaxing yoga routine that will alleviate stress will yield tons of results. And I am sure you will be able to find a video you can do. 

One thing that I do is try not to do a Yoga routine that would have me doing the most with my body or that will stress me out, even more, trying to figure it out.  But rather something simple.  Yoga is a mind-body practice that combines physical poses, controlled breathing, and meditation or relaxation. Yoga may help reduce stress, lower blood pressure, and lower your heart rate.

All of which you may experience with burn out.  While you are doing it, remember that Echo? Try to put on some relaxing music to keep your mind in a peaceful state.  And use your diffuser as well with the essential oils to also help keep you relaxed while doing Yoga

Okay, these are my tips for dealing with burnout and understand that it must be done for a prolonged period of time.  As I said before you have burnout due to prolonged stress so you must have a long term method that you use to put your mind at ease.

Doing it for one day or one week may help in the short term but not the long.  So plan on doing this for months if you really want to see results.   If you know someone who can read this post, then share it with them.