According to psychologist Herbert Freuenberger, “burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged or excessive stress.” Burnout doesn’t just happen overnight, and it can manifest differently in everyone, so it’s important to recognize what recovery strategies work for you. These are my top 10 tips, but if none of these seem to resonate with you, don’t be discouraged! Please reach out for a free discovery call and together we can brainstorm other options that do resonate.
Here are my top 10 tips for burnout recovery:
Journaling
Setting boundaries
Movement
Practicing self care
Practicing mindfulness
Getting enough sleep
Celebrating small wins
Making time for flow activities
Reassessing priorities and delegating
Seeking professional support from a coach
Tip number one: Journaling. Cultivating a habit of journaling can relieve stress and anxiety, improve mental clarity, and boost self-worth. The best part of journaling is that there are no rules; you can write about your day, do a brain dump of everything weighing on your mind, make a list of things you’re grateful for, or simply start each morning with a one sentence intention or affirmation. If you’re feeling stuck on what to journal about, there are also endless prompts online. One of my favorite creative journaling prompts is to look around the room and choose a random color, and start with “the color red (or whichever color you chose) is…” and go from there. Journaling is not about what or how much you produce, it’s about what you’ve released during the writing process.
Tip number two: Setting boundaries. Wait! Don’t skip this paragraph thinking “easier said than done.” There are baby steps you can take to make setting boundaries more natural and realistic. For starters, you can self-assess to identify where boundaries may be needed. What is draining your cup instead of filling it? Where are you putting other peoples’ needs ahead of your own? From there, identify one person who is willing to support you and one boundary you feel comfortable setting. It’s okay to set one boundary at a time and focus on upholding just that one at first.
Tip number three: Movement. I tend to recommend low impact movements like stretching, yoga, or going for a walk. However, do what excites you! Exercise is known to reduce stress, improve mood, enhance focus, and increase energy. An added bonus is that movement can also improve your quality of sleep (more on that in tip number six). At risk of sounding like a broken record, go as big or as small as feels right for you. Taking 10 minutes each day may be what works for your schedule, or you may want to set aside an hour. The benefits will be there regardless.
Tip number four: Practicing self care. Self care means something different to everyone. For some, it may mean lighting a candle while they work or splashing some cold water on their face in the morning. For others, it may mean setting aside an entire Sunday afternoon for a manicure, pedicure, facial, and massage. My suggestion here is to make practicing self care a daily habit. The daily task may change from day to day based on time and energy, but making a point to do something for yourself every single day will make a huge difference in your mood, your confidence, and your overall well-being. Remember, you're worth it!
Tip number five: Practicing mindfulness. Burnout is often accompanied by anxiety that has our minds racing with criticism about the past and overwhelm about the future. By intentionally bringing your thoughts back to the present, you can increase emotional resilience and decrease depersonalization. Common ways of practicing mindfulness include meditations, deep breathing exercises, and grounding exercises. Personally, I mindfully brush my teeth by really paying attention to how my gums feel as I’m brushing and the minty taste and smell of the toothpaste. I challenge you to choose one mundane task you perform every single day and start to really pay attention - what do you see, feel, taste, smell, and/or hear? Mindfulness doesn't have to be a big, daunting concept; it really can be as simple as tuning in and noticing how your arms feel as you sweep the floor.
Tip number six: Getting enough sleep. As mentioned in tip number three, sleep is a crucial component of burnout recovery. One of the most common signs of burnout is feeling tired or exhausted even after getting a full night’s rest, and that’s because the quality of sleep matters. Burnout and high stress lowers the quality of our sleep, but there are suggestions backed by science to help improve your sleep quality: no screens at least one hour before bed (and reduce bright lights in general), maintain a consistent sleep schedule (go to bed at the same time every night), and make sure your sleep environment is comfortable (temperature, noise levels, etc.). What can you do to improve the quality of your sleep?
Tip number seven: Celebrating small wins. We all have an inner critic living inside of our heads that can amplify negative narratives and make burnout feel even more overwhelming. This inner critic tends to make our sense of accomplishment diminish, but actively practicing self-compassion is a foolproof way to combat that voice. By acknowledging your feelings and achievements honestly and in the moment, you are gifting yourself with self-compassion. If you’re looking for a specific exercise to help you acknowledge your achievements, try this: take five minutes at the end of each day and reflect on at least one small win – what makes this worth celebrating? Write it down and keep a log that you can refer back to whenever you're doubting your self-worth.
Tip number eight: Making time for flow activities. If you’ve never heard of a “flow state” of mind, it can be summarized most easily as “being in the zone.” Have you ever started a project and next thing you know, you’re looking at the clock wondering where the time went? That’s flow; you’re fully immersed and intensely focused, losing all sense of time. A great way to recover from burnout is to identify your flow activities, and make time for them. You’ll start to feel happier, more intrinsic motivation, and less stress and anxiety. Disclaimer: make sure you have water and snacks nearby, and consider setting a timer so that you don’t fall into “flow addiction” where you start to neglect yourself in other ways in pursuit of a flow state.
Tip number nine: Reassessing priorities and delegating. Taking a moment to realign your goals with your values can be helpful in recovering from burnout, as it provides you with a clearly mapped-out sense of purpose. In an attempt to reassess priorities and delegate, you may want to ask yourself some questions like, what is important to you that you are currently neglecting? What makes you happy and how can you incorporate more of those things into your life? What can you delegate to others in your life to create energy and space for the things that energize you? It’s also important to remind yourself that you are one person and you simply can’t do it all by yourself in one day (and that is normal and okay!).
Tip number ten: Seeking professional support from a coach. Whether the above nine tips are helpful to you or not, seeking professional support from a coach may be beneficial too. As a personal coach, my role is to support you in getting clear on what you value, who you are, and what steps you’re willing to take to reach your aligned vision. The partnership between client and coach is personalized, whereas these nine other tips are more generalized (hence, they may not all resonate with you). Sometimes you know what you want but you aren’t sure how to get there, and a coach can help with that. If you're feeling burned out and want to schedule a free discovery call with me to see if coaching is a good fit for you, please reach out using the Contact Me form.
In summary, burnout gradually sets up camp in your life and shows up differently for everyone. While there are proven ways to combat some of the symptoms of burnout, like stress, what works for one person may not work for the next. Understanding which strategies resonate with you can help you to recover from burnout and prevent it from creeping back into your life in the future.