Our burnout moment is a good thing

Burnout 

 

 Thanks to Thought Catalogue on Unsplash

 

As lockdowns start to lift, we have a rare opportunity to address burnout on a systemic level – and make sure everyone’s included

 

IT STARTS WITH a lack of energy, which gradually builds into a sense of exhaustion. You feel an apathy towards your job, when you previously took pride in it. Cynicism sets in. Your productivity drops, or at least it feels that way. You put in more time and effort to try to compensate, but you don’t feel the sense of accomplishment you used to – you just feel even more tired. You’re burned out.

More than a year-and-a-half into the Covid-19 pandemic, burnout is having a moment. Having initially scrambled to adjust to the sudden upheaval of the workplace – made to switch to remote work with little or no preparation, or deemed an essential worker and asked to continue business-as-usual in highly unusual circumstances – we’re perhaps only now really starting to feel the repercussions. 

When the pandemic first hit, says Torsten Voigt, a sociologist at RWTH Aachen University in Germany who has researched burnout, everyone was so busy trying to adjust and keep things moving that we didn’t have time to worry about longer-term consequences. But more than a year on, and with lockdowns starting to lift in some regions, this initial expenditure of energy may be catching up with us. “Now, when we take a deep breath, some will realise that they potentially have given too much at that point and that they need a break,” he says.

But while it may be little comfort to those suffering, there could be an upside to our current burnout reckoning. It presents an opportunity to reconsider our relationship with work – not just on an individual level, but on a societal one.

Because while burnout may be gaining greater recognition, it’s not applied equally. We tend to think of burnout as affecting doctors, teachers, office workers. “I'm not sure if, say, a hairdresser or a car mechanic would say they are burned out,” Voigt says. It’s not that people in these roles don’t experience burnout, he says – but discussions of burnout often seem to be centred on occupations associated with a certain educational or socioeconomic level. You don’t often hear of cleaners, or supermarket workers, or people balancing three jobs as being “burned out”, even though most of us would say their work is objectively harder. “They basically don't even have the luxury to talk about burnout,” Voigt says.

The world in which burnout as a concept was initially conceived likely looked quite different to the one we live and work in today. The gig economy, zero-hours contracts, automation, even smartphones, have transformed the way many of us work. Our understanding of burnout – and how to address it – may need to evolve too.

BURNOUT IS AN intuitive term that’s both easy and difficult to define. On the one hand, it’s a clear metaphor that describes how a lot of people feel when they lose energy and motivation at work. But it is not a medical diagnosis, and lacks the kind of tightly-defined symptom list you might expect for a physical or mental health condition. The World Health Organisation includes burnout in its International Classification of Diseases (ICD) only as an “occupational phenomenon”, and defines it as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” Some researchers question whether burnout is even a distinct phenomenon, or if it might overlap with depression.

Originally, burnout was researched and discussed largely in the context of healthcare workers. The origin of the idea is usually credited to Herbert Freudenberger, an American psychologist who used the term to describe what he saw among employees in the “free clinic” he worked at, which offered medical services to underserved communities, such as people with substance abuse issues. In 1974, Freudenberger wrote about “staff burn-out”, describing physical symptoms including fatigue, frequent headaches and not being able to shake off a cold, as well as behavioural signs such as crying or angering easily, paranoia and drug abuse.

Fight Fatigue by Harnessing the Power of Your Internal Clock

Fatigue 

 

Sluggish? Tired? Seven tips for getting your body into better alignment.

By Arianne Cohen

Illustration by Yann Bastard

I’m typing these words at 1 a.m., which is suboptimal for a morning person like me, according to Christopher Barnes. “If you slam some caffeine and keep the body awake long enough, you can probably do an after-hours task,” says Barnes, a professor of management at the University of Washington who studies performance and fatigue. “But when you’re consuming caffeine to fight your own sleep-regulation processes, ultimately you’re going to pay for that with your health.”

You’re likely attempting to be active when the circadian rhythm that regulates your sleep-wake cycle is calling for rest, says Kevin Koronowski, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California at Irvine who studies metabolism and the circadian clocks that govern everything from hormone levels and cellular processes to body temperature and brain waves.

Chronically misaligned rhythms are associated with cancer and metabolic syndrome (conditions including high blood pressure and cholesterol and excess waistline fat that can spike the risk for heart disease and stroke). There’s also the brain fog that comes with fighting against what the body wants.

Here’s how you can harness the power of your internal clock to help you be more productive.

Identify when you’re most alert. What time do you wake up naturally (without an alarm)? Many people are most alert shortly after that time. Do your most important work then, and don’t waste peak-focus hours on exercise or commuting. Office dwellers are typically most productive around 11 a.m., but you might fire on all cylinders earlier or later.

Set work hours accordingly. If possible, early birds and night owls should shift their schedules to accommodate when they’re most focused. Barnes recommends core office hours from, say, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., but otherwise schedules should be flexible.

Eat to trigger your clock. “When you eat can have a big impact on your rhythm,” Koronowski says. Shift your calories toward breakfast and lunch, with a lighter dinner three to five hours before bedtime. This ramps up your metabolism earlier in the day and dials it down at night when bursts of energy typically aren’t needed.

Ditch the bad diet. “It’s thought that the clock itself responds differently to different dietary nutrients,” Koronowski says. One late-night doughnut won’t reschedule your cellular processes, but chronic munching could.

Talk to your boss. Explain that you’re more effective at certain times. Night owls, beware: Barnes co-authored a paper showing that managers perceive them to be less effective and less conscientious. “It’s unfortunate that this stereotype is so pervasive,” he says.

Think about timing. “A boss giving a rah-rah speech to a night owl at 7:30 a.m. will kind of fall on deaf ears, and not be nearly effective as the same speech later in the day,” Barnes says. Managers should keep an eye on how perceptions can shift throughout the day.  

Sleep when you’re tired. Temperature, noise, light—all of this can affect our ability to doze off. Know what your needs are to fall asleep, and make sure they’re met. Koronowski, for instance, says he likes to remain cool while he sleeps while his wife looks for warmth, so they started using separate blankets.