Three Steps to Avoid Burnout for Good

willingness.com

Burnout is on the rise. Defined as “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed,” it was recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a phenomenon in 2019. During the pandemic, the blurring of work/life boundaries has made burnout even more ubiquitous: a survey from Mental Health UK found 46% of UK workers feel “more prone to extreme levels of stress” compared to the year before.

It can be hard to anticipate when  burnout will strike. People may feel varying levels of stress and tiredness, but when this heightens significantly, we often don’t notice until it’s too late. A long, gradual phenomenon, there are plenty of things you can do to prevent burnout from reaching its most intense point.

One technique recommended by psychologists to manage and prevent burnout is the ‘Three R’ approach. “Burnout happens when our stress response continues for a long period of time, which leads to exhaustion,” explains Dr Audrey Tang, a psychologist, mental health and wellness expert and author of books on mindfulness and resilience. “The three R technique helps you deal with stress responses as they arrive.”

The three Rs used in the method to prevent and deal with burnout are: recognise, reverse and resilience. Each of these three steps can help people deal with different stages of  stress. “Think of your stress response like an elastic band being stretched  – burnout is the band snapping,” Dr Tang says.

“Prevention is really important because we need to build up our emotional strength just as we build up our physical strength,” she continues. “Dealing with emotional issues at the point of crisis is not very effective.”

The three R method can help you deal with each stage of stress, so you can build up a toolkit to deal with burnout long term. Here, Dr Tang breaks down the method simply to help you learn how to use it.

What would guess are ways to avoid burnout. Here are the three suggested by Alice Tuner. Follow the link at the bottom of the page for more dtail about each one.

Recognise 

The first step of the three R method is learning to recognise when your body is stressed. “It’s OK to feel a stress response as long as you recognise it,” Dr Tang says. By recognising your stress, you can figure out what’s triggering it and try to deal with that trigger head on. . . . .

Reverse

If you haven’t been able to recognise your stress and deal with it before it becomes an issue, the next step is to try and remove that stress from your life while it’s happening. “Most of us overthink while we’re stressed so trying to stop ourselves from getting carried away with our thoughts is a good way to deal with stress,” Dr Tang says.

Resilience

According to Dr Tang, resilience to stress is something you should try and build up all the time to prevent burnout. This is particularly important after you’ve dealt with a stressful situation. “Building resilience isn’t about how quickly or easily your stress response is triggered – it’s about how long it takes you to calm down from it,” Dr Tang says.

Read the full article at Stylist, with additional details and resources.