Episode 77 | Preventing Burnout In Our Lives

Episode Notes:

In a companion episode to Dr. Laura’s last episode on burnout (E73), she addresses what we need to know to identify and treat our burnout. Rather than talking to workplaces about how to prevent burnout in employees, this episode is all about us as individuals. What does burnout look like? What contributes to it? And what can we do about it? How do we help ourselves?

Dr. Laura first defines burnout as “a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress” which means that personal and relationship stress, though impacting burnout, do not define the syndrome. She explains that mental health is on a continuum on which four main stages of depletion exist. We start off Healthy, move into Reacting, then if our needs are not addressed we enter into the Injured stage until, finally, we are deeply unwell in Illness. Each of these stages of burnout comes with increased mental and physical symptoms that must be recognized. Dr. Laura shares her insight on how we start to feel, the things we start to give up, and the ways in which we become ill. She explains how we need our work lives to foster our mental wellness so we can avoid burnout and mental illness in general.

“I want to leave you with the fact that there is a way to address burnout once it happens, once you reach that end stage of burnout and you just feel a lack of energy, cynical, like you’re not good enough, there is a way to get well again. And that burnout is not your fault. Oftentimes it’s the organizational conditions you’re in. It’s the overload. It’s the brutal boss that you’re working for. It’s the unhealthy team dynamics that are grating and wearing away at you. So it’s not your fault, but you have the power to get the help you need.” Dr. Laura

Note: If you wish to see the images Dr. Laura references, this episode can also be found on her YouTube channel here.

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