A healthy person experiences different emotions throughout his/her life. In doing so, you should be aware that you can experience both positive and negative emotions. Denial of such emotions as anger, sadness, irritation leads to internal accumulation, which provokes emotional experiences that can lead to chronic stress.This denial of emotions leads to emotional devastation, which means you don’t feel any emotion. High-stress levels and the inability of people to cope with their emotions lead to emotional and professional burnout.
Unfortunately, most modern people in economically developed countries face such a problem too often. Lack of emotional intelligence and time to experience emotions causes people to lose their ability to experience any emotions. Emotional burnout is a state in which it seems to you that the world has the same color, all people are the same, no events make you happy or upset, etc. You sink into complete indifference.
Typically, burnout is more common in people working in offices, teachers, doctors, social workers, and others. Working with people takes a lot of energy and puts you under stress. As a result of emotional burnout at work, you get a depletion of nervous, mental, and physical forces, which causes an acute reluctance to work.
Unfortunately, burnout can lead to depression and other mental illnesses. Therefore, if you are experiencing a chronic feeling of fatigue, apathy, lack of energy, unwillingness to go to work, then perhaps you are exhausted emotionally.
If a person gives their strength and energy, but in return receives much less, then this leads to imbalance and emotional burnout. Also, sometimes being a perfectionist, you set yourself unbearable tasks, which s you into sadness and frustration. You understand that you still have a lot to do, but your emotional and physical strength has ended. If you do not give yourself a break at such moments and do not replenish the spent reserve of strength, then your physical and mental health will be at risk.
Causes of burnout.
Emotional burnout occurs as a result of the internal accumulation of negative emotions without a corresponding “discharge” or “release” from them. It leads to the depletion of a person’s emotional, energy, and physical resources. In this case, you lose the ability to experience positive emotions, and your state is similar to “mental death”. A person seems to be alive physically, but his soul is dead. This frightening condition is characterized by emotional and mental exhaustion, decreased job satisfaction, and physical fatigue.
Some people lose a lot of energy when interacting with other people. And if due to different circumstances, they are forced to spend a lot of time communicating with different people, then this leads to emotional exhaustion. Typically, introverts who work in the social field, like doctors or teachers, are more prone to emotional burnout than extroverts.
During times of intense emotional stress, your psyche is faced with loads that it cannot handle. If your neural connections are destroyed by stress, then you begin to lose your energy and confidence.
Burnout symptoms:
Scientists distinguish several groups of burnout symptoms.
The first group includes physical symptoms:
- chronic fatigue,
- deterioration in physical health manifested through constant weakness and deterioration in blood tests,
- frequent viral and colds,
- frequent unreasonable headaches;
- problems in the work of the gastrointestinal tract;
- a drastic change in the weight of your body,
- insomnia;
- a constant desire to sleep throughout the day;
- breathing disorders during physical or emotional stress;
- blurred vision or hearing,
- loss of bodily sensations.
The second group of symptoms is related to mental health:
- indifference to what is happening around you,
- increased irritability,
- frequent outbursts of anger
- increased anxiety,
- a constant feeling of unreasonable fear.
You can notice signs of burnout in yourself or those around you by observing their behavior. If you notice that doing routine work disgusts you, it is difficult for you to complete even the simplest task, you break deadlines and do not feel a sense of responsibility, are indifferent to the result of your work, you are faced with emotional burnout. You should also pay attention to your social life. People with burnout disrupt contacts with friends, coworkers, and family members, abuse alcohol, use drugs or overeat on junk food.
If you notice several symptoms of both groups, then you should contact a psychologist who will help you cope with this problem.
If your personality traits or the nature of your job puts you at increased risk of burnout, you need to use simple preventative techniques, which help you maintain control of your own life and avoid emotional exhaustion:
- full rest at least one day a week,
- observe a sleep schedule, sleep at least 7 hours a day,
- regular physical activity that makes you happy,
- work at your comfortable pace,
- find an activity that brings you the relaxation of mind and body,
- meditate.
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