MENTAL HEALTH, STRESS & WELLBEING
people who are caring professionals who are personal assistants. The PA is the caring person and sees her boss as being the be all and end all, to the point where they might put that person above their own families. So, it doesn’t matter about the profession, it’s about the type of person,” she says.
In his article for The Economist’s 1843 magazine, Josh Cohen, a psychoanalyst specialising in burnout, reiterates the importance of personality in understanding who the condition is likely to impact the most. He talks of his GP patient, Elliot, who upon feeling badly burnt out, takes time off work. Elliot’s plan is to “sleep late, read a novel, take the odd leisurely walk…,” but instead finds himself “packing his schedule with art museums, concerts, theatre, meetings with friends in hot new bars and restaurants…visits to the gym, Spanish lessons, some flat-pack furniture assemblage.”
Elliot is quoted: “I’m trying to figure out how I’ve managed to be doing so much when I didn’t want to be doing anything. Somehow not doing anything seems impossible. I mean, how can you just…do nothing?”
And this is precisely the point. Many sufferers of burnout simply cannot imagine themselves doing nothing. They are hard-wired to continue keeping themselves busy until it’s far too late. Cohen suggests that in some of these more extreme cases, patients have convinced themselves that their value and worth as a human being is directly related to their levels of achievement.
Murray stresses a similar point in her book: “It’s also important to take into consideration that how we are brought up impacts how we view our ability to manage ourselves in adult life. Someone who appears to have it all – a successful career, a family and a great social life – may indeed have it all, but appearances can cover a multitude of issues that can cause burnout.”
TELL-TALE SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS So, how can we identify people suffering from burnout? Are there any noticeable signs? And how do we distinguish those signs between other mental health conditions such as depression?
“When you start to see someone who is disengaged with people, who might be in someone’s company but isn’t fully present, is more irritable, suffers from a lack of sleep and is dependent on alcohol as a coping mechanism, these are the obvious signs that someone is heading towards burnout. Probably the biggest recording of hypnotherapy I do for people is for those really struggling with their sleep.” Murray suggests.
“You can start off with very mild symptoms, a slight inability to communicate with people properly and general irritability. Then, right at the far end of the scale, it can have a massive impact on people’s physical health.”
Physical symptoms can manifest themselves in a multitude of ways, she says. “You’re going to see an elevated heart rate, increase levels of cortisol levels, your glucose levels are going to be increased which
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means you’re going to have an increased need for sugary foods, whether that’s coming from alcohol, sweets or fast-food. You’re going to have headaches and clenched muscles. I have seen clients come to work with me because they ended up going to hospital with what they felt were heart attacks.”
Right now, burnout is classified as an occupational phenomenon and Murray has her fingers crossed that it will stay this way. Burnout, she believes, is not dealt with through medical interventions, but through lifestyle changes. This is essentially what separates it from depression, which is a medical condition.
Many sufferers of burnout simply cannot imagine themselves doing nothing. They are hard-wired to continue keeping themselves busy until it’s far too late.
“Burnout can lead to depression. There would be very similar signs – disengagement, not being able to sleep and turning to other forms of stimulation – a lot of the symptoms are similar, but burnout and depression are completely different.
“If you’re going to look at it from the scientific side of things, with burnout our cortisol levels are depleted because you have been firing the cortisol continually and we don’t get the opportunity to replenish it because we’re not coming out of that high-level situation, whereas in depression we are not in that state of cortisol depletion.”
BURNT-OUT CULTURE In the 21st century western world, many wear their
workaholism with pride, getting to the office early, staying late into the evenings and working from home over the weekend. Meanwhile, any pretence of living a balanced life goes out the window; internally, the façade shatters.
The double-edged sword of technology has obviously played its part in enforcing an ‘always-on’ culture. On the one hand, the speed and convenience of communication that it delivers is hugely empowering, even vital in modern society. Conversely, constant access to work emails, WhatsApp groups and social media channels like LinkedIn ensure that to some extent technology can often hold us hostage. Breaking free from these shackles can often require determination, diligence and drive in equal measure.
Brett Hill, Distribution Director at Towergate Health & Protection, sees the pace of working life becoming faster than ever before, and our ability to switch off more difficult, primarily because of these advancements. “Combined with the fact that we are also working later into our lives, it’s easy to see how burnout could be considered a condition of our times,” he says.
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