Burnout and Kindness - Mindfully Well Counselling Cork

Joy, rest, do less and nourish – how burnout and kindness go together: My final thoughts about recovery from burnout!

Joy and Rest – Sound Advice from a Fatigue Specialist

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/21/work-needs-rest-and-rest-takes-work-fatigue-specialist-vincent-deary-on-coping-with-life

In his book How We Break: Navigating the Wear and Tear of Living, Vincent Deary professor of psychology at Northumbria University and a clinical fatigue specialist talks about burnout both from his own experience and from the experience of his patients. He says that working on ourselves is always going to be important: “We each have to work on the self we are born with in order to survive, or thrive.” Some, like Deary himself, he says “won’t be a good fit for their environment, which means some of us are harder work for ourselves than others. We “tremble” as we encounter the turbulence of life, including the changes we have to navigate but, again, some of us tremble more than others.” And “There’s no wriggle room and we break,” as Deary himself did while writing this book.

Deary has a mantra: “work needs rest and rest takes work.” We need to take time out to rest in order to heal from extreme exhaustion, chronic illness, or unexpected life events. He says:

“One of the things I noticed in the fatigue clinic is that tired people can often do the things they need to do, but a lot of them really struggle with switching off. But we need to allow ourselves to rest, to nap, to enjoy, to deliberately switch on to joy and nourishment and the stuff that actually fills the tank….In the last few years, I saw friends, family, colleagues, society, to an extent, just become overwhelmed, or exhausted, or hopeless or joyless. Ordinary people going through ordinary suffering. Some of them crossed the clinical line into physical or mental health systems, but most of them were just struggling to get on with life. Often the first casualty of stress is joy. Deliberately leaning into that joy and finding out the stuff that restores you is really key to recovery.”

When he suffered from burnout himself, he says he did exactly what he helps people in the fatigue clinic to do, which is, “gradually get back into things at my own pace and do a combination of physical and emotional rehab. Incremental engagement with life. I think that is what true convalescence is. It’s not just rest and it’s not just activity, it’s that mixture of both: it’s acknowledging that there is a deep need for rest and recovery.”

Do LESS not MORE

So we have a whole list of things that will potentially help us to recover from the state of burnout we are in – all good, all effective, all to be highly recommended – but there is a massive elephant in the room. The tired and overwhelmed individual now has a whole list of extra things to do for self-care when they’re already exhausted and overwhelmed! Don’t add anything to your plate, only take things away.

Remove your headphones when you’re out running or walking the dog. You don’t need any more information or stimulation at that time; you need to be with the dog, the fresh air, the sounds.
Turn off the music and news in the car while commuting. It’s time to breathe mindfully and focus on the road.
Remove the social media apps from your smartphone so they don’t tempt you to feed that addiction all day long. Using social media, especially all day long on a smartphone, has been linked with increases in anxiety, depression, and suicide.
Turn your phone onto silent. Each time your phone notifies you of something, it fires off a tiny stress response and interrupts your focus from what you’re doing.

And finally….NOURISH

This is really about the attitude with which we make our changes rather than the changes themselves – an attitude of intense kindness and self compassion:

Nourish your body with good food. If our appetite is poor, then little and often might be better than three larger meals.
Nourish your body with rest and plenty of sleep. Try some relaxation techniques to help us rest well. Try to let go.
Nourish your mind. Gently brush off negative thoughts and engage with positive ones; maybe try a mantra such as “I am recovering, I’ve got this!l” – use your own positive message and repeat it whenever negativity looms.
Nourish your emotions. Breathe through any feelings that come up, allowing them to flow naturally – feel the calm of knowing we are recovering.
Nourish your time. Choose wisely which activities we would like and need to do. Use the “50% solution” – only use half our available energy in activity and the other half for our recovery.
Nourish and protect your recovery space. Tell people that we are spending this time to restore our energy and be well again, and allow people who are supportive (and not everyone will be) to help us with this.
Nourish yourself on all levels – physical, mental and spiritual: Enjoy a hobby, reading, art, watching a favourite TV show, or simply factoring time in for a walk. Engage in activities that feed our spirit.