Recognize burnout early

It starts with self-understanding

Understanding yourself - what you feel, your behavior (toward others and especially toward yourself) and what makes you happy - helps you take good care of yourself. This self-insight allows you to make the right choices and informed decisions. To get a clear picture of yourself, it is important to make regular time for yourself. By being alone or having a personal conversation, you can sort out your thoughts and identify what is really important to you. Looking openly and honestly at yourself and talking about this can provide a lot of insight.

Unfortunately, we see that many start this too late, causing them to go completely under. They become ill, depressed, overtired, or become unbalanced. To prevent this, it is essential to recognize the first signs of increasing stress in yourself in time. The sooner you recognize symptoms, the sooner you can deal with them.

Self-insight is not a one-time step, but an ongoing process of reflection and openness to yourself.

Recognize symptoms of too much stress

Recognizing your own stress signals is the key to better stress control. When stress takes over, you feel it in your body. Muscle pain, neck and back pain, headaches, gastrointestinal symptoms, fatigue, sleep problems and excessive sweating with little effort are signs that you are overstepping your limits. In addition, the following symptoms may also occur:

• you may feel anxious and restless
• you get emotional and irritable faster
• You suffer from mood swings, indecision and gloominess
• you get more cravings for smoking, alcohol and unhealthy food
• you can remember less well and concentrate worse
• You show impulsive behavior more often, which takes extra energy and distracts you from your situation

Some people also withdraw precisely when they suffer from stress.

For everyone, there is often one signal that is most characteristic. By recognizing these stress-related signals in yourself, you are better able to control your stress levels and intervene in a timely manner. For more information, see our blog: Recognize the Signs of the 12 Stages of Burnout

Gain insight into the impact of your work

Workload plays an important role in causing too much stress, especially when:

• the work is emotionally demanding of you
• you find it difficult to work together or on your own
• you doubt the usefulness of your work
• your work interferes with your private life
• the workload is structurally too high

In addition, personal predisposition plays a role in the development of stress. Some people get burned out faster than others. People who are more susceptible to this are often very loyal, faithful, and honest and set the bar high for both themselves and those around them. These are wonderful qualities, but they can also be a pitfall when boundaries are not properly guarded. Timely setting and being able to monitor your boundaries is therefore really important with these beautiful but demanding traits.

Read our blog: How to prevent burnout? for tips to keep enjoying what you're doing.

Recognizing burnout in others

In some people, burnout can only be read from behavioral changes that are visible from the outside. After all, we cannot see how someone is feeling on the inside. If you notice someone behaving differently, the following four symptoms can be possible signs of burnout:

• degradation of self or work
• loss of humor, creativity, solidarity and flexibility
• more contact via mail rather than physically or by phone
• arriving late and leaving early
• decreased productivity

Did you know that people with burnout tend to become more careless with their appearance? They often feel less good about themselves and therefore pay less attention to their grooming. For example, they feel less like putting on makeup, doing their hair or wearing nice clothes.

When someone experiences too much tension for an extended period of time, it is natural for them to dig their heels in and decrease their commitment to the organization. Often this happens unconsciously; it is a protective mechanism of the body to prevent tension from rising further and compromising health.

Are you an HR professional and would like to receive more information about increasing the sustainable employability of your workforce? Feel free to contact us. We work with professionals in the field of dealing with stress and burnout prevention. Recognize physical and psychological complaints in time, and seize the opportunity to deal with them effectively.