You feel constantly exhausted, snap at loved ones, and always have a cold — sound familiar?
If so, you could be dealing with burnout.
Stress is inevitable in life, but whether you’re self-employed or a student, you can prevent burnout by avoiding work and life fatigue.
When I started freelance writing full-time, I often burnt myself out by taking on too many projects and responsibilities at once.
Now that I know how to recognize the signs and stages of burnout, I’m sharing some tips to help you manage stress and live a balanced life.
Signs of Burnout
Though burnout can look a little different in everyone, many people will share some common symptoms.
These might include:
- Exhaustion and fatigue
- Isolation
- Irritability
- Anxiety
- Forgetfulness
- Physical health issues, like frequent illnesses, unexplained aches and pains, and insomnia
Even if you can’t notice these symptoms in yourself, those around you likely will.
This can often be a wake-up call, so don’t ignore it!
It’s critical to pay close attention to the early signs, especially if you or your loved ones believe you might be approaching burnout.
If you shrug off these warning signs, you could face severe consequences for your mental and physical health.
Chronic burnout has been associated with everything from depression to higher rates of Type 2 diabetes, so listen to what your body is trying to tell you.
Five Stages of Burnout
Though it may feel sudden, burnout doesn’t typically happen all at once.
It creeps up on you over the course of several different stages, so if you can recognize what’s happening in the moment, you can adjust your patterns to avoid severe burnout.
- Honeymoon: Burnout often starts with a honeymoon phase, in which it can seem like you’re on top of all your responsibilities. You’re excited and feel driven to take on as many different projects as possible.
- Onset of stress: Once you’ve overloaded yourself with tasks or responsibilities, next comes stress, which will appear gradually in different areas of your life. However, you may still tell yourself that everything is under control.
- Chronic stress: When you reach chronic stress, you’re spending more days stressed out than not. And those symptoms we mentioned — isolation, low energy, and irritability — will likely begin to make themselves known.
- Burnout: Burnout hits when you’ve reached your limits. It impacts how you function in your home and work environments, and you may find yourself plagued by the mental health-related issues we mentioned above, as well as physical symptoms.
- Habitual burnout: The most severe stage of burnout, habitual burnout can lead to fatigue and behavioral changes, including anxiety and depression. This stage can also be the most difficult to recognize — by then, you’ll be accustomed to a life of burnout.
However inevitable it may feel, there’s no need to suffer through habitual burnout or chronic stress.
You can use several different strategies to avoid burnout before it takes over your life:
Take preventive action early
To truly prevent burnout, take action as early as possible.
Track your stress levels to recognize the signs of burnout, and don’t delay addressing the root cause(s).
You might want to consider limiting new projects so you can cover what you already have on your plate.
Though it may feel all the more stressful to set aside your responsibilities for self-care, if you let yourself become burnt out, you’ll lose much more time recovering.
Even when I have multiple deadlines coming up, I always factor in some downtime to rest and recharge.
Focus on self-care
Self-care is often seen as a corny trend these days, but your health is no joke.
Even when you’re not suffering from burnout, focus on the essentials — food, health, and sleep — before all else.
This will allow you to approach your other responsibilities from a better place.
Eat well, get plenty of exercise, and follow a healthy sleep schedule.
That last one is particularly important — it can be easy to ignore the need for sleep when you’re already running on fumes, but speaking from experience (and data), good sleep is vital to managing stress.
Set boundaries — both in and outside work
Turning down a new, exciting task can be hard, but your bandwidth may be more limited than you think.
When I became self-employed, I spent my free time trying out way too many side hustles, only to feel overwhelmed when work and life responsibilities piled up.
That’s not to say you can’t challenge yourself, but know what you’re able to reasonably handle.
When you do feel burnt out, find the cause and avoid it in the future.
And if someone (a boss, for example) ignores your boundaries, explore your options to change the situation.
Develop long-term stress management strategies
Everyone manages stress differently, but the key is making sure that your methods are sustainable (so, no, retail therapy doesn’t count).
I use a daily to-do list and always set aside some extra time for my hobbies, both of which clear my head when I’m stressed.
But these strategies vary from person to person.
My partner manages stress by meditating, while another friend uses a mindfulness app and yoga practice.
Find what works for you, and double down on it whenever you feel chronic stress or burnout coming on.
Adjust your environment
Too often, our environment can be our biggest stressor — and we usually don’t even realize it.
Even if you’re knee-deep in deadlines, take a moment to tidy your home office or desk.
This isn’t procrastinating; it may be just the push you need to help get your work done.
Or, if even that sounds overwhelming, change your environment altogether when you can.
Personally, I always head to the local public library for some peace and quiet if I’m feeling stressed out by my home office.
(Those of you with roommates, take note!)
Take care of priorities first
When you’re staggered by a lengthy to-do list, identify your top priorities first.
Though all of the responsibilities you face may seem urgent or timely, some will be less pressing than others — one project may have a more flexible deadline than another, for example.
Tackle your priorities right off the bat, and you can ease off the gas pedal when it comes time for those other tasks.
That said, your number-one priority should always be your mental and physical health, so keep that in mind as you decide what to put first.
Be flexible and forgiving with yourself
This ties into self-care, but it’s worth emphasizing as its own point.
Stay flexible in your expectations of yourself, and be able to forgive yourself when you fall short of a deadline or need to sleep more than you need to clean the house.
Though it may motivate you for short periods of time, beating yourself up whenever you fail won’t do you any good.
We’re only human, after all, and it’s more effective to learn from your mistakes and move on rather than acting like they’re the end of the world.
Ask for help
Whether you’re just starting to feel stressed or you’re well into burnout territory, don’t wait to ask for help.
Even if you’re self-employed and can’t ask a coworker to share your workload, your friends or family members may be able to help in other areas of your life.
At the very least, those around you can likely provide a sympathetic ear to your struggles.
You can also seek out resources to help resolve whatever type of burnout you’re experiencing.
This could include learning new self-care strategies or even attending therapy.
Face burnout head-on
Especially for those of us who are self-employed, it can be tempting to say “yes” to everything and anything.
But if it’s starting to impact your ability to manage stress and live a balanced life, then you’ll need to do everything in your power to avoid burnout before it strikes.
When you feel overwhelmed, aim to prevent work and life fatigue before those symptoms spiral.
The longer you wait, the more you’ll struggle to recuperate from the effects of burnout.
So go ahead — take that mental health break and get some fresh air.
You’ll be glad you did.