Feeling burned out at work? These strategies can help ease overload
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Work demands are becoming more intense in an age when digital technology keeps workers tethered to the workplace.
People subject to repeated stress may experience “allostatic load, when you’re at your maximum carrying capacity,” according to Tony Schwartz, founder of a consulting firm called The Energy Project. “So often, we just keep going until you hit your breaking point,” he tells the Washington Post.
Schwartz is author of the book, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working.
Research shows that workers have core needs to move between work and rest, to feel valued, to have the opportunity for focused work and self-expression, and to feel their work is meaningful, Schwartz says. In a study he participated in with the Harvard Business Review, a large percentage of 20,000 workers studied felt not one of those core needs was met by their employer.
Schwartz tells the Post that workers can ease overload and get more core needs met at work with these four strategies:
1) Fight fatigue by getting enough sleep.
2) Take regular breaks. Employees who take a break every 90 minutes report a 30 percent higher level of focus than those who take no more than one break a day. They also are 50 percent more able to think creatively.
3) Practice deep breathing to fight the stress hormone cortisol.
4) Do the most important thing first in your workday, without digital interruptions for at least an hour. Then take a break.
Says Schwartz, “Work is just one more addiction when you do it to excess.”
See also:
ABA Journal: “How lawyers can avoid burnout and debilitating anxiety”
