Slow
Down Challenge in relation to
Travis Bradberry’s views on burnout
Recently I studied an article about burnout from Dr. Travis
Bradberry. According
to him even the best jobs can lead to burnout. The harder you work and the more
motivated you are to succeed, the easier it is to get in over your head. And
the prevalence of burnout is increasing as technology further blurs the line
between work and home.
The
article further mentions about the new research from the American Psychological
Association and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of
Chicago. They reported the following:
48% of
Americans experienced increased stress over the past 5 years
31% of
employed adults have difficulty managing their work and family responsibilities
53% say
work leaves them "overtired and overwhelmed."
A
Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) poll also found that “burnout from
my current job” was one of the top reasons that people quit. Burnout can get
the better of you, even when you have great passion for your work. Arianna
Huffington experienced this first hand when she almost lost an eye from
burnout. She was so tired at work that she passed out, hitting her face on her
desk. She broke her cheek bone and had to get four stitches on her eye. The continuous work with no break or
variations caused her to reach up to that stage. It was clear when she expressed
her views in a later period how she could have avoided such a state. “I wish I
could go back and tell myself that not only is there no trade-off between
living a well-rounded life and high performance, performance is actually
improved when our lives include time for renewal, wisdom, wonder and giving.
That would have saved me a lot of unnecessary stress, burnout and exhaustion” says,
Arianna Huffington.
Bradberry
further mentions that burnout often results from a misalignment of input and
output; you get burnt out when you feel like you’re putting more into your work
than you’re getting out of it. Sometimes this happens when a job isn’t
rewarding, but more often than not it’s because you aren’t taking care of
yourself.
He indicates
the difficulty when one deals with burnout because according to him, before you
can treat and prevent burnout, you need to recognize the warning signs so that
you’ll know when it’s time to take action. And many are not capable of
recognizing it in time. It is interesting to note some of the issues he
mentioned in his article. He talks about health problems, cognitive
difficulties, fatigue etc.
Health
problems. Burnout
has a massive, negative impact upon your physical and mental health. Whether
you’re experiencing back pain, depression, heart disease, obesity, or you’re
just getting sick a lot, you need to consider the role your work is playing in
this. You’ll know when burnout is affecting your health, and you’ll just have
to decide whether your approach to work is worth the consequences.
Cognitive
difficulties. Research
shows that stress hammers the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain
responsible for executive function. Executive function impacts your memory,
decision-making abilities, emotional control, and focus. When you notice that
you’re making silly mistakes, forgetting important things, having outbursts of
emotion, or making poor decisions, you’re likely burning out. Fatigue. Burnout often leads to exhaustion
because of the toll stress takes on your mind and body. The hallmarks of
burnout fatigue are waking up with no energy after a good night’s sleep, drinking
large amounts of caffeine to get you through the day, or having trouble staying
awake at work.
He also
points out some of the psychological issues such as negativity, decreased
satisfaction and loss of motivation as a result of burnout. Burnout can turn
you very negative, even when you’re usually a positive person. If you find
yourself focusing on the down side of situations, judging others and feeling
cynical, it’s clear that negativity has taken hold and it is time for you to do
something about it.
Burnout
almost always leads to a nagging sense of dissatisfaction. Projects and people
that used to get you excited no longer do so. This dip in satisfaction makes
work very difficult, because no matter what you’re putting into your job, you
don’t feel like you’re getting much out of it.
Losing
your motivation is another drastic effect of burnout. We
begin jobs in a honeymoon phase, seeing everything through rose-colored
glasses. When you’re in this phase, motivation comes naturally. In a burnout
state, you struggle to find the motivation to get the job done. You may
complete tasks, and even complete them well, but the motivation that used to
drive you is gone. Instead of doing work for the sake of the work itself, your
motivation stems from fear—of missing deadlines, letting people down, or
getting fired.
Bradberry’s
observation on how burnout can affect the personal relationship is also
interesting. As he understands, stress bleeds over into everything you do,
particularly how you interact with people. Even when you feel that you’re
keeping your stress under control at work, it can rear its ugly head at home.
It is just because you are taking your work home with you. He sees it as a
sickening feeling when you’re lying in bed thinking about all the work that you
didn’t get done and hoping that you didn’t miss something important? When you
can’t stop thinking about work when you’re at home, it’s a strong sign that
you're burning out. And often it’s your relationships that suffer. Stress makes
many people more likely to snap at others, lose their cool, and get involved in
silly, unnecessary conflicts. Others are more inclined to withdraw and avoid
people they care about.
He also
notices some “Performance issues” with people who have a burnout. People
who burn out are often high achievers, so when their performance begins to
slip, others don’t always notice. It’s crucial to monitor your slippage. How
were you performing a month ago? Six months ago? A year ago? If you see a dip
in your performance, it’s time to determine if burnout is behind it. “When you
experience burnout, your self-control wanes and you find yourself succumbing to
temptations more easily. This is largely due to the way that stress compromises
your decision-making and self-control and also partially due to lower levels of
confidence and motivation” says Bradberry. Life becomes a constant struggle
against the things that feel good momentarily but aren’t good for you at all.
How
to prevent a burnout
Bradberry’s
suggestions to prevent burnout or recover from it, are fantastic from a
scientific point of view. If you recognize many of these symptoms mentioned
above in yourself, it is time to act. Fighting burnout is a simple matter of
self-care. You need good ways to separate yourself from your work so that you
can recharge and find balance. The following methods suggested by Bradberry
will help you to accomplish this.
Disconnect. Disconnecting is the most important
burnout strategy on this list, because if you can’t find time to remove
yourself electronically from your work, then you’ve never really left work.
Making yourself available to your work 24/7 exposes you to a constant barrage
of stressors that prevent you from refocusing and recharging. If taking the
entire evening or weekend off from handling work e-mails and calls isn’t
realistic, try designating specific times to check in on emails and respond to
voicemails. For example, on weekday evenings, you may check emails after
dinner, and on the weekend you may check your messages on Saturday afternoon
while your kids are playing sports. Scheduling such short blocks of time
alleviates stress without sacrificing your availability.
I would
say disconnecting is beneficial only if you return to the same environment with
a new understanding and a new energy. If you don’t do that self-care, you will
be soon facing the burnout again. That is why it is advisable for people to
join with a Holistic Life Programme or the Slow Down Challenge etc. in order to
have a different perspective of life and to understand how it functions.
Many
people fail to pay attention to their body signals according to Bradberry. It’s
easy to think that a headache is the result of dehydration, that a stomachache
is the result of something you ate, and that an aching neck is from sleeping on
it wrong, but that’s not always the case. Oftentimes, aches and pains are an
accumulation of stress and anxiety. Burnout manifests in your body, so learn to
pay attention to your body’s signals so that you can nip burnout in the bud.
Your body is always talking, but you have to listen.
However
to listen to the body one has to know who they are and to be familiar with the
body and its strength. I find that very often people don’t know who they are
and how powerful their body and their senses are. Jeeva Holistic Life
Programmes develops courses and trainings for people to know more about their
senses which in turn help to easily understand the body signals and to react in
time.
Bradberry:”It’s
just as important to plan out your relaxation time as it is to plan out when
you work. Even scheduling something as simple as “read for 30 minutes” benefits
you greatly. Scheduling relaxing activities makes certain they happen as well
as gives you something to look forward to.”
I would
suggest though that when you schedule relaxation time, it is important to remember
to make that actual ‘quiet’ time. Free of thoughts. Even when you read you are
active. So it is still an active relaxation. Meditation is great support in
freeing up your mind. The different methods of meditation that are used during
the Slow Down Challenge conducted by Jeeva Holistic Life Programmes, not only
create an awareness of your body but also help you to free up your mind.
Bradberry
suggests to stay away from sleeping pills. When he says sleeping pills, he
means anything you take that sedates you so that you can sleep. Whether it's
alcohol, Nyquil, Benadryl, Valium, Ambien, or what have you, these substances
greatly disrupt your brain's natural sleep process. Have you ever noticed that
sedatives can give you some really strange dreams? As you sleep and your brain
removes harmful toxins, it cycles through an elaborate series of stages, at
times shuffling through the day’s memories and storing or discarding them
(which causes dreams). Sedation interferes with these cycles, altering the
brain's natural process. Anything that interferes with the brain's natural
sleep process has dire consequences for the quality of your sleep, and you need
adequate, quality sleep to avoid burnout.
How
wonderful it would be if you could sleep without the intake of any chemicals
but to drink just water. However, if you are not aware of the power of this
wonderful universal element you will never use it as a supporting factor for
your sleep. The Slow Down challenge creates an atmosphere where people realize
the power and need and the way of drinking water which help people to relax.
When
Bradberry asks you to get organized, he has a reason. Much of the stress
we experience on a daily basis doesn’t stem from having too much work; it stems
from being too disorganized to handle the work effectively. When you take the
time to get organized, the load feels much more manageable.
I heard
from many people that they have no time to spend extra on anything outside
their work or study. If you say that you have no time to attend a burnout
prevention programme such as the Slow Down Challenge it is an indication that
sooner or later you are going to be a victim of a burnout. So it is important
to decide to take time and dedicate it to yourself. Because the success of your
work strongly depends on your own good health.
Bradberry’s
idea of taking regular breaks during the workday is a right strategy. Physiologically,
we work best in spurts of an hour to an hour and a half, followed by 15-minute
breaks. If you wait until you feel tired to take a break, it’s too late—you’ve
already missed the window of peak productivity and fatigued yourself
unnecessarily in the process. Keeping to a schedule ensures that you work when
you’re the most productive and that you rest during times that would otherwise
be unproductive.
Taking
regular breaks is very suitable to avoid fatigue. You can even use those breaks
to generate more energy, using simple methods. Some of the exercises
used by the Slow Down Challenge are so simple that anyone can do them anytime,
anywhere and at the same time generate more energy to function better.
What
did he mean when Bradberry said that you lean on your support system? It is
something that we ignorantly ignore. It’s tempting to withdraw from other people
when you’re feeling stressed, but they can be powerful allies in the war
against burnout. Sympathetic family and friends are capable of helping you.
Spending time with people who care about you helps you to remove yourself from
the stresses of work and reminds you to live a little and have fun.
The Slow
Down challenge is encouraging people to connect to each other and it is a very
important part of the course. Each and every person attending the course should
feel a comfortable connection to the other. We achieve that by introducing
various greetings ceremonies and methods during the course.
The
final comment on burnout by Bradberry is still to be attended. If the above
mentioned strategies don't work for you, then the problem might be your job,
says, Bradberry. The wrong job can cause burnout in and of itself. In that case
you'll have to decide what's more important: your work or your health.
So,
Slow Down in your life. Take time to learn about your basic senses and get
familiarized with yourself and your body and use the Slow Down Challenge tools
when you see the waves of burnout approaching you.
Joemon Thekkaekurikattukunnal
www.jeeva.eu
