From Burnout to Breaks: Why Self-Care Isn’t Optional

Mental energy is a resource that can easily be depleted. In today’s fast-paced professional environment, where productivity gains are constantly chased, and work can easily consume every available minute, feelings of exhaustion have become increasingly common.

Recognising the Signs of Burnout

If you’re feeling emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausted, as a result of chronic stress, then the chances are good that you’re suffering from burnout. Happily, this is a problem that’s easily corrected – provided that you’re willing to adjust your lifestyle.

Why ignoring these signs can lead to long-term issues

The longer you ignore the warning signs, the greater the likelihood that the habits and behavioural patterns that are actually behind your symptoms will become ingrained. This is a problem not just for workers, but for the organisation of which they’re part.

In some cases, burnout and stress-related illness are even recognised in the same way as other workplace health concerns, with compensation sometimes considered when the impact is severe. But ultimately, looking after your wellbeing early on is the best safeguard against reaching that point.

Redefining What Self-Care Really Means

Stress, in small doses, can actually be a good thing – although we tend to think of it as ‘stimulation’, or ‘excitement’ in these contexts. Often, it’s our state of mind that makes the difference. A task that’s stimulating when we’re well rested and feeling refreshed can be stressful when we’re exhausted.

Self-care should be about more than treating yourself to an occasional bubble bath, or a day at the spa – important though these things might be. Instead, it should focus on quality rest that arrives at regular intervals. As recent research has demonstrated, we’re often at our most productive after we’ve just got back from a break.

Practical Ways to Build Breaks Into Your Routine

The practice of introducing small breaks into your day is at the heart of a very popular productivity strategy, the Pomodoro technique. This involves splitting your day into half-hour sessions, with twenty-five minutes of every session being spent working, and five minutes being spent resting.

The downtime you schedule plays a critical role in the results you enjoy. It should therefore be treated as a non-negotiable, in the same way as any other work-related commitment. You wouldn’t feel tempted to cancel an important meeting in order to make way for other work; plan and implement your rest sessions in the same way.

Through exercise, meditation, and simply taking a minute to breathe, here and there, we can replenish our reserves of mental energy, and give ourselves a better chance of avoiding damaging burnout and other, related problems.

**Contributor post