After completing higher-level education, most individuals feel passionate and ready to make a significant impact in the world. After gaining employment, these individuals work so diligently and give every task their best effort. However, after a few years, these individuals change: they start dreading their work, frequently calling in sick, and look miserable and devastated.
Such symptoms are not abnormal: they are signs of mental burnout. This article discusses mental burnout, and what one can learn from it.
What exactly is Mental Burnout?
Essentially, burnout is a mental or physical collapse caused by stress or too much work. Although most countries lack specific legislation that addresses the vice, it is fatal. In countries such as France and China, workers have committed suicide due to work-related stress while European employees have retired early or taken sick days more frequently than usual.
Burnout also affects teenagers. According to a survey conducted in the United States, 83% of the teens reported that school was their number one source of stress. Other factors included being admitted to a good college and financial worries for their families.
3 Things That You Can Learn From Mental Burnout
1. Burnout and depression are exceedingly related.
Burnout is mostly work-related while depression is broader – it affects all spheres of life. However, the effects of the two are similar: despair, fatigue, agitation, disinterest in work-related activities, etc. Consequently, people suffering from any one of the two crises become overburdened by everyday activities like work. In such circumstances, work per se is not the problem, but a contributing factor to further damage.
2. Burnout gets worse with time
It is easy to assume that burnout will heal with time – it doesn’t. Unless its underlying causes are addressed, the condition only gets worse. The only way to get rid of mental burnout is to start the recovery process as soon as possible. Although the recovery process is slow, it is the only way to address the problem and move on with your life.
3. Some personality traits can contribute to burnout
How you view the world, your work, and yourself determines whether you become fatigued. People who pay too much attention to detail can feel stressed if their fellow workmates underwork they may perceive this as intentional sabotage to their input. In addition, individuals who view everything around them in a negative light are more likely to become stressed and lose focus in life because nothing motivates them to keep working or try to better themselves.
The Bottom Line
People love their jobs because it is their main source of identity and self-worth. It is, therefore, not a wonder that the same jobs can destroy an individuals’ well-being. Many factors cause exhaustion; learning from what one goes through after a period of mental breakdown is as important as knowing how to cope with the vice.