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Why in our country they believe that burnout at work is good, what does neoliberalism have to do with it, what causes emotional burnout and how to deal with it – we analyze the syndrome of professional burnout
In May 2019, WHO described the signs of burnout syndrome. It is defined as “a feeling of depleted energy, increased mental distance from work, a cynical or negative attitude towards work, and a drop in professional performance.” We collected stories of those who went through a similar condition, and a psychologist and an expert from the field of philanthropy told how to help themselves in difficult times.
What is emotional burnout
The term “emotional burnout” (from the English burnout) was first introduced by the American psychiatrist Herbert Freudenberger in 1974. He summarized the changes that he saw among the professionals employed in psychiatry. One of the leading modern researchers on the problem of burnout is Christina Maslach, professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley. According to Maslach’s classification, burnout is directly related to constant activity: this is what distinguishes the syndrome from other emotional changes.
In May 2019, WHO described the signs of burnout syndrome. Journalists picked up the news without understanding: there were publications that burnout was officially recognized as a disease. But this is not so [1] – the experts did not include it in the list of medical diagnoses. The syndrome is defined as a phenomenon caused by prolonged stress. This is a factor that can influence the development of diseases, but is not itself.
Public polls show that both employers and employees are concerned about burnout. According to a study [2] by Gallup, 23% of working Americans feel burned out “often or constantly.” A 2017 survey of U.S. human resources executives shows that HR is calling burnout an “epidemic” or “crisis” that has mass implications. But not all experts recognize [3] the very fact of the existence of such a syndrome. And those who support the idea point to a growing number of emotional disorders, which include emotional burnout.
Supporters of the existence of the syndrome believe that the modern world inevitably creates conditions for burnout. Office workers spend 8-10 hours a day behind the screen, people communicate less in person, using social networks and instant messengers for this, the flow of incoming information is constantly growing. It is difficult for a person to cope with such pressure. Burnout is a natural consequence of this, experts say.
Causes of emotional burnout
There are external and internal factors that can lead to burnout. For example, working conditions are external – they can be changed relatively quickly. Internal factors are attitudes, behavior patterns, character traits and beliefs that guide a person in his decisions. External conditions can affect when a person already has internal prerequisites for burnout.
External factors:
The stress of big cities and the cult of success create a strong pressure on a modern person, says Konstantin Pochtenny, business coach, psychologist, teacher: “On the one hand, people in big cities are now experiencing a lot of stress. On the other hand, there is a modern trend that you need to constantly and strongly motivate yourself in everything. This is a double blow to a person, he is constantly in a clamp.
Internal factors:
Signs of emotional burnout
Tracking the first signs of burnout can be difficult, as the condition changes gradually, says Konstantin Pochtenny: “Due to internal factors, a person continues to endure a situation where everything does not suit him. It enters the state of burnout smoothly, in its structure this movement is similar to a spiral. Gradually he refuses from one, then from the other, not noticing how he is slipping into this state.
Previously, the concept of burnout was applied only to those who work in areas where you have to communicate a lot with people. Now it is attributed to any activity – you can burn out from household chores.
A person with burnout has disturbing thoughts. They concern, for example, possible failures at work: “I can’t do it, I won’t succeed.” The future is presented as unclear, disturbing, everything will be worse in it than now. There may be a feeling of emptiness – everything that you liked before has become uninteresting.
Physical fatigue is also possible – a person begins to get sick more often, because the body is trying to rest. Excessive irritability, apathetic states, unwillingness to contact other people, because this is also a waste of energy. A negative assessment of oneself also appears: a person believes that he is useless, incapable of anything, feels doomed because of this. Here, burnout is very similar to depression,” says Konstantin Pochtenny.
Sometimes fatigue is just fatigue, the psychologist says. But if the condition recurs, and a person notices many changes characteristic of burnout, it is worth trying to help yourself. It is also easy to determine the moment when it is time to seek help from a specialist – as soon as the thought of it first appears. “Life always throws up stresses, the important thing is how a person will overcome them,” says the psychologist.
“There is nothing wrong with burnout in and of itself. It is the body that sounds the alarm, reports that something is going wrong in life. You should not try to urgently eliminate the signs of burnout, only to continue working in the same rhythm. On the contrary, it is a signaling system that speaks of the need for change.”
Burnout Test
If you have marked more than five items in this list, you should change the mode of work and rest or seek help from specialists.
Polina Soldatova, psychotherapist:
“For a modern person, there are two conflicting challenges: there are a lot of opportunities to work, learn and be better (you can work from anywhere, access to education and self-development), while it is impossible to survive with this information and speed, you need to master the skills of forming your own boundaries and caring , kindness to yourself.
With the advent of the Internet in the life of every person, the level of anxiety about their own place in life has increased. Looking at the lifestyle of others, people forget that they see only a specially selected fragment of life, with a certain emphasis – for example, a sunny photo in nature and the inscription “today I wrote ten pages of my future book”). And they instantly experience an unpleasant feeling of race (“and I didn’t write anything today”). We lose all the time, even though the race doesn’t really exist.”
Fear of missed opportunities (FOMO, fear of missing out) affects a person’s demands on himself and leads to gradual burnout.
Stages of emotional burnout
Herbert Freudenberger, together with his colleague Gale North, identified 11 stages of burnout [4]:
How to deal with emotional burnout
According to Maria Makarushkina, partner at ECOPSY Consulting, emotional burnout is very different from ordinary work fatigue, and one of its causes is a personal crisis. So you can try:
- Find the causes of the personality crisis: to understand what exactly in the current work cannot be tolerated. If negative factors outweigh returns and satisfaction, consider changing jobs;
- Set boundaries:
- between work and free time and space (do not take on all the tasks of the authorities, limit the period during which you respond to emails, turn off notifications on devices in your free time, use different applications for personal correspondence and correspondence at work);
- between imposed and your personal goals (pay attention to what you need, and not an indicator of success and moral value from the outside);
- between the possible and the impossible;
- Take better care of yourself and your body: add physical activity, increase the time and quality of sleep, etc. Even if it doesn’t address the root cause of burnout, it can help you feel less stressed and deal with stress better.
Post-Soviet myths and burnout as a boon
To date, emotional burnout is a large-scale, researched and discussed problem. However, in post-Soviet society, a set of stereotypes is associated with it.
Polina Soldatova highlights the main myths:
“Due to the fact that there is a ban on self-care, it is easy to devalue your fatigue (which tends to accumulate), not to attach importance to bad sleep, irritability, apathy. Shame is always with us: everyone in life has been told that they do not do enough, that everyone around them is trying, that nothing can be achieved without effort, that one talent is not enough, and being lazy (that is, not having enough motivation to do something) is very bad . Many phrases sit deep and it is difficult to start treating yourself with self-compassion.
Maria Makarushkina lists a few more myths:
“Sometimes these myths contradict each other. Burnt-out employees in companies where Myth #3 thrives are more likely to experience shame. They don’t talk about it internally and with colleagues, but sometimes bring it up when working with external coaches. In general, in my experience, most companies still profess Myth #1.”
It can be assumed that it was the high moral assessment of emotional burnout that created the ground for a broad discussion of this topic in our society. That is, this myth “helped” avoid the stigma [5] of this condition in society, as happens with most negative emotional states and mental disorders.
The problem of the company, not the employee
Zemfira Salamova, lecturer at the HSE School of Cultural Studies:
“Researchers of emotional culture (for example, K. Juhannison) draw parallels between nervousness and overstrain, which residents of large cities complained about in the early XNUMXth century, and emotional or mental burnout. In both cases, a person experiences anxiety due to non-compliance with the requirements that society places on his rhythm of life.
At the beginning of the XNUMXth century, large cities amazed people with the speed of movement, communication, impressions, and at the end of the XNUMXth century in developed countries there was a transition to a neoliberal labor system, in which the boundaries between leisure and work became as blurred as possible.
The term “burnout” itself is very metaphorical: a person who is initially “burning” can burn out, first of all, with ambitions or ideals. Their loss, along with the inability to restore strength, leads to a state of emptiness and emotional exhaustion.
In the 2000s, burnout was primarily considered to be employees who interact a lot with other people (for example, teachers, social workers), as well as representatives of “creative” professions working in the field of advertising, mass communications, and culture. Today, work in a variety of areas is associated with the risk of burnout.
According to Christina Maslakh, an expert on emotional burnout, this phenomenon should be considered as a problem of companies, not individual people [6]: “When we just look at a person, it means: “Hey, we should treat this person”, “You you can work here because you are a problem.” Then it becomes the problem of this person, and not the responsibility of the organization in which he works. However, even taking into account the root of the problem, these same individuals need effective mechanisms and practices.
See also:
- How to deal with procrastination and hustle
- Restore resources and find strength