7 Tips to Deal with Stress and Burnout
Stress and burnout have become all-too-common in today’s society. New research indicates that more than one third (about 35%) of working Canadians reported experiencing burnout in 2021. Rates of burnout were even higher for employees in health and patient care, with about 53% reporting burnout, and a staggering 66% of nurses and 61% of mental heath professionals experiencing burnout.
So what exactly is burnout? How is stress related? And what can you do about it?
In their book, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, twin sisters Emily and Amelia Nagoski write about stress and burnout and how to manage it by ‘completing the stress cycle’.
Burnout
Burnout is a state of emotional, physical and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. Burnout happens after a long period of chronic stress that can no longer be sustained and leaves you feeling depleted, unmotivated, and empty.
According to Herbert Freudenberger, who coined the term ‘burnout’ in 1975, burnout involves 3 components:
Emotional exhaustion – the fatigue that comes from caring too much, for too long
Depersonalization – the depletion of empathy, caring, and compassion
Decreased sense of accomplishment – a sense of futility: feeling that nothing you do makes any difference.
The difference between stress and burnout is that stress tends to be an activating response that causes you to take on too much and be over-involved in tasks and responsibilities, whereas people experiencing burnout feel tired, drained, and are often emotionally disengaged or detached.
Stress versus Stressors
Stressors are what activate the stress response in your body. This can be anything from an upcoming presentation at work, dealing with your family during the holidays, managing finances, worries about health, etc. All of these are things that can be interpreted by your brain as a potential threat.
Stress is the physiological and neurological response in your body to a stressor. This includes: increased stress hormones (cortisol and adrenaline), increased heart rate and blood pressure (to get blood flowing to the extremities to help you fight the threat or run away), increased muscle tension, decreased digestive activity (because now’s not the time to be digesting food – your body is trying to conserve energy for immediate survival functions), and decreased immune function.
Stress and Your Nervous System
Typically, stress is an adaptive response to a threat. Back in the day, when the stressor we faced might have been a bear in the woods, it was adaptive for your body to respond with a fight, flight, or freeze response. Your sympathetic nervous system would be activated and respond by sending a bunch of chemicals and hormones to help you gear up to attack the threat (fight response), and if you weren’t strong or big enough to fight, then your body prepares you to run away or flee (flight response), and if you can’t run away, then your body immobilizes you to play dead (freeze response). All of these are a response to help protect you and keep you safe.
However, in today’s world, when the threat you are facing is not necessarily a bear, but rather a presentation at work, your body may not get the same chance to move through the full stress response. You don’t physically fight anyone or anything, you don’t run away, and you don’t play dead. Instead, you do the presentation and go back to your desk to finish the workday. This means that all the tension, stress hormones, and chemicals meant to help you survive don’t get used up. It just stays in your body.
So, even if you’ve dealt with the stressor (e.g., the presentation at work is done), you may not have dealt with the stress in your body (e.g., you still feel tense and on edge). We need to help turn off the sympathetic nervous system (the part responsible for the fight or flight response) and turn on the parasympathetic nervous system (the part responsible for rest and digestion).
That’s where ‘Completing the Stress Cycle’ comes in
Completing the Stress Cycle is a way to let your body and brain know that the stressor is over – that you are safe now, that you can shut off the stress response. Below are 7 ways that you can complete the stress cycle.
7 Ways to Complete the Stress Cycle:
Physical activity. Physical activity is the number one most effective strategy for completing the stress response cycle. You can do this by engaging in movement, whether it’s running, stretching, shaking, yoga, playing a sport, or just having a good ol’ dancing sesh in your living room.
Breathing. Deep, slow breaths help to decrease the stress response, especially when the exhale is long, slow, and goes all the way until the end of the breath. Try breathing in for a slow count of 4, and then exhaling for 6 counts.
Positive Social Interactions. Engaging in casual but friendly social interaction is a good way to signal to ourselves that we are safe. Try having a phone call with your friends or family, or just having a quick hello with a neighbour in the hallway.
Laughter. Laughing (whether by yourself or with someone else) can help regulate emotions and release stress. Deep, guttural, belly laughs signal to your brain and your body that you are okay and that you are safe. Try watching comedy skits online, telling jokes with your friend, or reminiscing about something funny that happened.
Affection. Engaging in physical affection (like a 20-second hug or a 6-second kiss) can change your hormones (e.g., increasing the social-bonding hormone oxytocin, which has anti-stress-like effects), lowers your blood pressure and heart rate, and improves mood. Even petting a cat or dog can help to lower blood pressure and make us feel good.
Crying. Crying has a soothing effect by activating your parasympathetic nervous system (the part of your nervous system that helps with rest and digestion), reduces pain through the release of oxytocin and natural endorphins, and helps release stress hormones such as cortisol. Crying also signals to others that we are not okay, so it can help us elicit support from others.
Creative Expression. Engaging in the arts (listening to or creating music, drawing, painting, theatre, storytelling, improv, etc.) can be helpful as they typically create a space that encourages the expression and release of emotions. Can you think of a song or a movie that really moves you and brings you to tears? Allowing yourself to experience emotions along with the characters in a film can help move your own body and nervous system through the complete cycle of the stress response.
Next time you are feeling stressed, try out one of these things to help you complete the stress cycle and let your body know that the stressor is over.
Dealing with stress and completing the stress cycle on a regular basis can help you prevent burnout. But if you are already experiencing burnout, it might take more than a quick dancing session to recover. Healing from burnout is a longer-term process and may mean taking time off work, re-evaluating priorities, reducing obligations, setting boundaries, asking for help, and more.
Working with a counsellor can help you learn strategies to manage stress and prevent burnout. Click here to learn more about finding a counsellor.
Resources:
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. Book by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski. 2019. https://www.burnoutbook.net/
New research shows more than a third of Canadians reporting burnout. https://www.canadalife.com/about-us/news-highlights/news/new-research-shows-more-than-a-third-of-all-canadians-reporting-burnout.html
Career Burnout. https://www.camh.ca/en/camh-news-and-stories/career-burnout
