Burn out – Causes and Impacts to your life
Have you felt disengaged from work and home activities lately? Perhaps you feel exhausted for no particular reason, or feel that what was once an exciting endeavour has turned into a drab and dull everyday routine? These may be signs that you are going through one of the biggest challenges for many people: burn out.
What is Burn Out?
Burn out is often characterized by the lack of energy and enthusiasm to do anything. More often than not, a person who suffers from burn out experiences physical and emotional exhaustion and mental fatigue – all of which are perfect ingredients to a very good recipe for career and life disaster. There are many reasons why burn out happens:
- Conflicting values at work like your goals not being aligned with the company’s objectives and not seeing a future with them
- Feeling of not being rewarded for the work you are doing at home or in the office
- Not enjoying your environment (too many office politics, children arguing constantly, relationship issues with your partner etc.)
- Work overload, caused by taking on too much both at work and at home
These are just some of the most common reasons why people experience burn out. When people experience burn out, they tend to think that they are just having a bad day. However if left unchecked, this can lead to a lot of serious disadvantages to the person – which can affect everything from work, home, and even health.
Burn Out and Work Performance
In the workplace, the most obvious result of burn out is decreased productivity and efficiency among employees. They tend to put in lesser effort and heart into what they are doing, which only leads to mediocre and substandard outputs.
Aside from that, burn out also is one of the reasons for high absenteeism and tardiness rates in the office, as the person who experiences burnout lacks the enthusiasm to wake up in the morning and go to work. In addition, it can also contribute to an increase in delayed projects and turnover jobs, since the person who is supposed to do them is no longer able to do so.
Burn out is also contagious, as the person who suffers from it emits a negative aura which can infect their colleagues, greatly affecting the growth and success of the organization.
Burn Out and Home and Relationships
The effects of burn out are not confined to the workplace and the results of burn out can also exist within the home and relationships. The results can include:
- Omitting negative vibes which then affects partners, children and other family members.
- Frequent argument because the burnt out person becomes too sensitive and irritable.
- Less understanding and more reactive to the problems at home including paying the bills and grocery and even helping their kids with their homework.
These feelings if not taken care of will challenge even the most stable of family and relationships and can inflict serious damage to them.
Burnout and Health
There are many effects of burn out to a person’s health, much of them are pretty similar to those health hazards posed by stress. These include poor sleep habits, depression and anxiety. If you already have anxiety problems, you may find out that it occurs more often now and is triggered by even the smallest and slightest problems. It can even lead to cardiovascular problems like ischemic heart disease, stroke and cardiac arrest. All in all, burn out can affect the physical, emotional and mental state of an individual.
Burn out is something that can’t and shouldn’t be easily dismissed, as the above paragraphs have shown. The longer you prolong doing something the worse it will get. It’s important to take action if you recognise any of the above issues by speaking to someone you trust. Speaking with a professional counsellor often works best as they are trained to identify the specific causes of your burn out and tailor solutions that best suits and answers your needs.