How do you know if you burnout?

Burnout is caused by prolonged stress, and you may not realise it until it hits 3 levels of who you are, physically, mentally, and emotionally. 

Let’s be mindful and understand 3 levels of burned out signs and how to prevent it from happening to you.

Physical level:

• • Feeling exhaustion, low energy. 
  • Frequent headaches, muscle pain for no reason. 
  • Digestion difficulty.
  • Easily get sick because of unhealthy immunit

Mental level:

• • Lack of concentration. 
  • Trouble sleeping or changing sleep habits. 
  • Fatigue, always tired. 
  • Procrastinating, trouble focusing on finishing your task.

Emotional level:

• • Increase anxiety, feeling like everything is out of your control. 
  • Self-doubt, imposter syndrome. 
  • Impatient, often frustrated at work or at home. 
  • Feeling numb and distant from work and family. 

What is the cause of burnout?  

For years, I lived my life like a hamster in a wheel; I ignored minor burnout signs and thought I was a superwoman who could do everything. I was tempted to push myself harder and harder because I told myself it was just another task, season, and project. When I was exhausted physically, mentally, or emotionally, I only changed my mindset and considered positive can help me move forward with the hope that it will go away. 

I learned that burnout would never go away, even though it may fade sometime, but it will come back again like a circle. I wasn’t aware of the signs that my body-mind tried to warn me until I was often frustrated at home, procrastinated with work, numbness, and wanted to distance myself from work and family.  

While prolonged stress is one of the causes of burnout, often burnout happens when the body-mind is out of balance. Body and mind can’t separate entities; what thought arises in mind will affect the body, and what feelings occur in the body will affect the mind. 

The body is brilliant; it has a system to protect itself from dying whenever it experiences a distressing event, and it will generate massive energy to handle the event. It also has a reset method once it passes the event. For those who don’t listen to the body but allow the mind to keep going, we will reach the point when the body is running out of energy, leading to burnout.

3 steps to prevent burnout from coming back:

Have you experienced feeling frustrated with the same thing over and over again? You tried to achieve something at work or improve your relationship with your loved ones, but it seems like it will never end despite your hard work. 

Motivating yourself with positive thinking and changing your mindset seems to work for a while, but the same issue still returns in a circle. 

When I experienced burnout, my body and mind were misaligned. While the mind wanted more, the body felt exhausted, sending the signal to the mind by creating blockages within the body through the feeling of tense and tight muscles. But the mind still didn’t listen. So the body started to protest, feeling frustrated, numbed, and procrastinated. The numbness in my body prevented me from living life with joy.

It’s the reason why positive thinking and changing mindset alone won’t prevent burnout from coming back. It needs to heal and bring the alignment back to the body-mind. 

1. Address the root cause.

Be mindful of understanding the root cause of burnout through Chakra balancing, identify the distressing event, and bring it up to the surface. Sometimes living too close can blind you; stepping away from it and looking at it from a distance can help you to address it efficiently.

2. Heal it from the root.

Feeling occurs in the body, so start the healing process from the body. When the body protests, it signals that something needs to be changed. But this step could be the scariest part, and most of us avoid it because of fear of changing. Fear could make you uncomfortable speaking out, asking for help, and changing. But, if you want to live life with more peace and ease, you have to be brave. Feel the fear and do it anyway.

3. Maintain your balance.

Once, my wise mother-in-law said that life is about learning to cope with stress and maintain balance. If your life is imbalanced, find the balance. If you push yourself too hard, be kind and make time to relax. If you are too busy, slow down. Balance can be different for everyone, so find your balance that aligns with your body-mind. 

Stress is part of living in this fast-moving world, and if you understand stress, you will be glad to experience it(I will explain why in the next article). Taking self-care into action regularly to balance body-mind would be the best solution to preventing burnout. 

Burnout can be different in each individual and could affect different levels of who you are. If you want to get clarity and find the right solutions to prevent or heal burnout, please feel free to book a body-mind diagnosis assessment. It’s a free 45-minute body-mind checkup, and you can check the link below for more details.