So, it’s a Friday. You’ve been working really hard on a marketing pitch for your client for two weeks now. You are at the top of your game, employed in a well-known brand consulting company, and working with the greatest office mates ever. Your bosses adore you, your teammates love you, and your clients love you. You get paid above the industry average. You’re ecstatic to finish the project. You clock out at 10:00 p.m., and you look around. You’re alone in the office, and you realize you made your career your entire personality.
It’s okay to love your job, especially if it involves your passions in life. However, work burnout is an authentic thing. In 2017, a quarter of the people surveyed felt exhausted or burnt out every day. Even those with extreme hobbies tend to get tired of their own interests. Too much of the same thing can lead to stress and can lead to other mental troubles. Burnout can steer you towards depression and anxiety. Stress happens in almost all activities, but you need to learn how to cope. It would help if you remembered to balance work and play and manage your daily stressors.
Managing Your Schedule
Keeping a strict cutoff on work is one of the best ways to reduce your stress. I know that sometimes, especially if you really enjoy your craft, you tend to work overtime. However, too much overtime is known to result in industry burnout. Those people always working long hours ended up with a mixed bag of health problems. From lack of sleep to extreme anxiety, those who always did overtime had a higher chance to develop serious diseases in the long run. Maintaining a better sleep schedule decreases your risk of developing mental health problems as well.
Keeping a cap on the number of hours you work in a day will help you manage your stressors. Work should not be your entire life. There are many things other things you can do to make yourself happy. You will never know what those are if you spend 80% of your waking hours dedicated to work.
Meditating
The new trend nowadays for millennials is to meditate. Meditation is one of the greatest innovative but ancient ways you can keep your mental health in check. It can bring about a sense of calm and peace to your life. From building self-awareness and focusing on your present life to letting go of negative thoughts and achieving new perspectives, you can clear away the wealth and overflow of information you receive every day. It can effectively bring about tranquility and serenity despite being an activity you can do for a short time.
Eating Healthier
Healthier food choices go hand in hand with stress reduction. Stress-eating is the delicious but dangerous side effect of work burnout. To compensate for the stressful loads you are experiencing at work, you stuff yourself with delectable sweets and other serotonin-inducing food. Most seek out high caloric foods and drinks when they are stressed. Choosing healthier food will make you feel lighter, more focused, and more active to go about your daily activities. Being healthy does not mean you get to eat like a vegetarian if that’s not your cup of tea. Eating food like fruits, chocolates, and nuts in moderation are forgivable things you can eat when trying to reduce your unhealthy food intake.
Exercising
Despite being counter-intuitive, the temporary suffering you feel when you are exercising actually releases and stimulates the endorphins production — the body’s biggest mood booster. It also reduces adrenaline and cortisol — known regulators of stress and metabolism. Exercising can lead to further happiness and contentment. Exercising will also increase your chances to live longer and maintain a healthier body image.
Saying No to Vices
Reducing your alcohol intake and saying no completely to smoking will drastically improve your life. I personally know more than a handful of working professionals who have developed multiple destructive addictions and vices throughout their careers. Addiction can be a tricky subject to touch upon. However, endless accounts of failures in their home lives and careers were always the main themes of those who have developed addictions to vices. It is already enough that you are stressing over your job. There is no need to add another negative to patch up that hole.
It is not forbidden to love your job. However, work burnout happens all the time. There are a lot of methods people use to cope with their stressors in life. Make sure you choose the right ones to get over that hump and manage stress. It would be best if you always strived to balance work and play.
