Burnout is a chronic psychological response to prolonged stressors. It often involves the loss of motivation, an increase in procrastination, and a pervasive state of apathy that impacts daily functioning. Burnout is often the largest factor standing between you and your success.
What Causes Burnout?
Stressors come in all forms and varieties. Stressors can come from long term problems, harsh daily routines, overworking, a heavy cognitive load, emotional issues, mental health struggles, identity issues, delayed gratification, and from any situation that you perceive as a major beacon of negativity in your life. Stress that lingers for long periods of time can cause burnout.
Stress can dysregulate the neuroendocrine system and the HPA axis (the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal circuit in the brain), which is responsible for cortisol, our stress hormone. Every person has a finite amount of mental and physical energy. When you are constantly in a state of stress, these cognitive resources can be depleted.
The Amygdala, a region of the brain that deals with fear and stress, works alongside the HPA axis. It can become dysregulated as inflammatory markers from stress increase. This can trigger an excess of adrenaline, worsening burnout.
All of this can hinder executive functioning of the Prefrontal Cortex, the area of our brain that deals with self-control, working memory, attention, skilled tasks, cognition, decision-making, and higher order thinking.
Thus contributing to what we call Burnout. As our cognitive load increases, our brain is working harder to process stimuli, react, and make decisions. In our daily lives, we may feel unmotivated, prone to procrastination, and feel as if we are just not getting anything done. Behind the scenes, the brain is churning away to process an overload of cognitive processes.
How Can We Avoid Burnout?
Burnout largely stems from our environments and our brain's subsequent reactions to the environment. First, we must assess and identify the stressors in our environment. This requires deep introspection.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- What stresses you on a daily basis?
- What situations do you tend to avoid?
- What situations do you tend to avoid?
- What do you dislike about your day to day life?
- What tasks are the hardest to initiate?
Following this, dig deeper and ask yourself "why?" Why are you resistant to certain situations or tasks? Why do you avoid certain day to day affairs? Unravel the thought process hidden in your mind. Jot it down in a journal to help organize your thoughts.
Process of Elimination
Determine which stressors you can feasibly eliminate. Take out excessive tasks that yield no results. Eliminate negative individuals and situations in your life. This is easier said than done. Everyone's situation is unique. But attempt to lower your exposure to negativity. This will help decrease stress and your cognitive load.
Organize For Efficiency
In order to maintain motivation, you must have a clear plan that charted, actionable, steps to follow. Write down your goals and split them into actionable steps on a monthly, weekly, and daily level. Start following through on these steps and track your progress. Set up a routine for yourself that actually works and incorporate your designated steps into your routine.
Lower Cognitive Load
Cognitive load is referred to the mental processing of stimuli and stressors. The brain's executive function areas (the frontal cortex) processes stimuli, stressors, and situations. It is constantly active, making decisions, and forwarding processed stimuli to other parts of the brain. In essence, the frontal cortex truly works overtime.
The more stimuli and stressors are in your environment, the more you will exhaust your executive resources. For instance, if you have a large project due, and you are procrastinating it, your brain is still processing that project in the background. You may be pondering the details, the complexity of the project, what tasks you have to complete for it, etc. The mental gears will keep turning and turning.
This is why it is highly recommended to complete hard tasks earlier in the day. This way you can clear conscious of this burden and easily move on to all the other tasks that have to be completed.
Take Structured Breaks
In between a hectic routine, plan out times to take structured breaks. Letting yourself take breaks without parameters can lead to you laying in bed or laying on the couch all day. This can oftentimes make you feel even worse and exacerbate the cycle of burnout.
Instead, pick a time for break, and an associated fun activity, ahead of time. For instance, during lunch break you will plan on going to X cafe. You will get a treat, listen to some soothing music, and read a book to unwind.
Structured breaks will provide some relief from the work you are doing. But, they will also allow you to stay within parameters and feel productive.
Inspiration Exposure
Find what really inspires you. This can be a public figure, a dream, a goal, a certain outcome, or a certain lifestyle. Envision what the best version of yourself truly looks like and acts like. You can create a vision board with pictures of everything you find inspiring. Look at it everyday to energize yourself and rekindle that motivation. Save quotes in books or on your phone that really mean a lot to you. Surround yourself in positive inspiration. Really bask in it and soak it all in.
Build An Exit Plan
Much of burnout and loss of motivation stems from one not being in their "right path." Everyone has skills and talents that bring to the world. Due to several practical and limiting factors, we often adopt safe paths for ourselves. This can then unfurl into an identity crisis, coupled with loss of motivation.
To mitigate this, give time to the things you love, such as hobbies you are passionate about. Even if it is only for half an hour. Carve out time in your day for the activities that light you up.
Secondly, you can also start building an exit plan. Say you are in a career that your dislike. It is wearing you down. Before you go an quit, quietly build on the side. If your dream is to have a business, start building it slowly. If you want to work in another industry, start applying to jobs.
Build an exit plan. When the road is stable, then you can quit and switch lanes into your new life.
Wrapping Up
There are countless ways to mitigate burnout. It all truly depends on the types of stressors contributing to your burnout. You have to examine your life closely and determine the causes to then remediate the effects. All causes cannot be eliminated of course, but we can change how we feel about them and how we let those factors affect us. Always track your progress and reflect. It is all trial and error. But, once you start tackling the root causes of burnout, you will start to feel better. This will likely propel you to keep improving and making positive changes.
Thanks For Reading!
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