burnout | St. Louis Corporate Yoga

Learning To Relax To Prevent Burnout

Learning to relax is one skill that will support you in all situations in life. If you looking to decrease the chance of getting burned out you definitely want to practice relaxation at will.

Why is relaxation so important? You might create free time by traveling or taking a few hours off your usual schedule and visit a spa. You might physically stop working and give yourself the time to relax – sounds great, right? But you don’t give yourself a mental break!

If you’re relaxing on the couch but you’re ruminating and stressing about your page long to-do list, then you are not getting the recharging break that you need! The time you think is all about relaxation became just another type of stress.

In order to properly recharge and to avoid adrenal fatigue you need to switch your mind off as well and you need to avoid additional sources of stressors.

Do you think that crashing in front of the TV on the couch will get your batteries recharged? Not at all. Here is what’s happening: your cortisol levels will increase due to the unnatural light from the TV, your joints might ache as a result of bad posture and of course you might eat a few extra calories that you don’t need. To make it all worse: you’re probably going to still be panicking and stressing about all the work that needs to get done while you stare at the screen.

The best thing you can do to recharge your batteries? Exercise! Do you feel that hitting the gym is just putting more stress on you? There are so many other ways you can get your mental break while exercising! How about taking a funky dance class? Or taking a ballet class? Maybe Tai Chi is more your thing. The important thing is to find an exercise that you love and value. If it feels like a punishment… keep exploring.

Why don’t you enjoy the great outdoors? Look for gentle exercise like a brisk walk in a nearby park. The natural setting will help you to relax while the light exercise will trigger the release of serotonin – a natural antidepressant and a perfect tonic for our stress hormones.

Practicing yoga is an awesome solution for relaxation. Vinyasa flow is perfect for helping you get into a flow like state where stress seem to melt away. St. Louis Corporate Yoga offers Vinyasa classes perfectly adjusted to the stressful setting of corporate life. When your company is willing to invest in on site classes, you don’t even have to travel to the yoga studio… as the yoga instructor comes to you before or during work hours.

In order to properly relax, you need to distract your brain, you need to stimulate the production of serotonin and you need to avoid screens. Better yet, try to choose something that you genuinely enjoy and that you can look forward to. This is about the most important thing because when you do something you love doing, it will produce all the right neurochemicals.

Interested in setting up customized corporate yoga classes at your workplace? We would love to help! Call Michelle at 314-630-1677 to take the first step.

How to Recover From Burnout

In our last blogposts we discussed the signs that you might be suffering from burnout. What to do when you realize that burnout is part of your life? First of all, in order to prevent further damage to your health, please consult your GP or a specialist. Getting all the health support you can get is very important in this situation.

Of course, there are steps that you can take on your own to support your recovery. Here are our suggestions:

Distance yourself

The most obvious way to help yourself recover from burnout is to schedule some time off from your work or whatever else it is that is causing you stress. Please bear in mind that going on holiday can be stressful on its own. If getting away to a sunnier place is not on the cards right now, you can still distance yourself from the source of stress by taking a local holiday. Book yourself a long weekend and stay in a spa where you can get various treatments and completely relax your mind. And if yoga is on offer, don’t forget to take a class or two.

Taking a yoga retreat might be just what the doctor ordered. You have virtually unlimited choices with so many different retreats offered nowadays. Just search on Google or go to this comprehensive website BookYogaRetreats.com to find a retreat you love.

Hit “reset”

What if you have no chance to travel? As an alternative, you might decide to dedicate a whole day simply to having a ‘refresh’. This means taking some time out to address smaller stressors and to make life easier for yourself where possible.

You might tidy your apartment, declutter and throw out things you don’t need. Maybe you’ll get a new laptop, maybe you’ll stock up on healthy food or maybe you’ll take time out of your normal schedule in order to catch up on all those emails in your overflowing inbox. While these might seem like small, simple things; they will combine to give you the feeling of being ‘on top’ of everything! This means a little less to take up your mental energy going forward. As a result you’ll be more resilient to stress and much less likely to suffer from burnout again.

Sometimes you just have to hit the ‘reset button’ and while you’re at it you might want to get a new haircut or outfit as a visual reminder of your new lease on life and new attitude. Yes!

Remove the primary stressors

Whatever issue have led you to burn out, you need to work on remedy that situation. The best way to tackle stress and thus to give yourself more mental energy, is to identify an ongoing stressor and then eliminate it.

Taking time off will allow your body to recover and you can use burnout prevention techniques to ensure that the problem doesn’t come back. But if the issue is something more pressing like a troubled relationship, like a bad job or like an illness, then you should also focus on trying to solve that issue. Sometimes this won’t be possible… still just paying conscious attention and coming up with options will make you feel more in control of your life.

In case of severe and ongoing workplace stress for instance you need to look for solutions at your company. Talk to your HR department and manager – be proactive and bring your suggestions on how to improve your situation. And if there is no other option, you might consider looking into finding a new job.

Remember: distance yourself, hit reset and eliminate stressors in order to recover from burnout! Take time to take care of yourself! You can do this!

You – Burning Out?

Spotting burnout early can be a real challenge. You might be so stressed that “spending time” on noticing the early symptoms is not possible. And even if you notice that something is gravely wrong in your life, denial might be the first answer. “It will get better… It is not so bad…It is just this week” – we can get really creative coming up with good reasons not to worry just yet.

Learning to spot burnout is the first crucial step in getting a handle on it. You can’t fight what you can’t see – learn to identify the warning signs when they first emerge.

Signs you might be suffering from burnout

Here are a few early signs that you might be experiencing psychological and physical burnout:

Difficulty to wake up in the morning or get to sleep in the evening – any issues you experience around sleep you must take seriously. Sleep deprivation causes serious health issues and influences all parts of the body. Also falling asleep at unsuitable times/in unsuitable places is a symptom you cannot ignore.
You find it hard to concentrate at work or at home. Do you try to focus on a priority just to experience your thoughts wandering and getting nothing done? You get started but stop doing your project and look for a distraction? Do you find yourself engaging in activities for a short time (maybe only minutes) then starting another thing and then another …. and not finishing any of them? We all have this distracted pattern from time to time but if you begin experience this every day, you need to pay attention!
No motivation to get out of bed in the morning and losing your enthusiasm for things that would normally excite you. You forget how to believe in yourself. You lose hope. You experience dark depressive thoughts. All signs that you need to take some time to consider if you are just having a bad day or getting burned out.
When you work out, you might notice symptoms of overtraining such as lethargy and achy joints that make it hard to train. Those small “aches and pains” become more prominent and hard to ignore. You might even decide to reduce your fitness activities as a result.
Irritability with yourself and others. Do you find it increasingly difficult to deal with family, friends, and coworkers? Feel like screaming at your kids all the time? No tolerance with yourself when you make a mistake? Your closest family members complaining about how difficult it is to live with you? All warning signs of burning out.
You procrastinate even more than normal – and spend precious time on mindless activities. Playing games on Facebook or surfing online is all fine unless those become the major activities you practice in your off time.
Changes in your weight and appetite. A sudden loss of appetite and losing weight is a warning sign especially if before you had difficulty managing your weight. On the other hand you might turn to high calorie “distractions” and with the loss of interest in fitness as discussed above – you might well put on weight.
You become ill all the time, you easily catch all colds and flus going around. And then it takes longer than normal to get back to your healthy self again. Skin problems can be the first signs of burning out! Also getting headaches, indigestion, IBS or Tinnitus (ringing in the ears) can be signs of burnout. Please take some time and talk to your GP about these health issues. The sooner you seek help, the quicker is your recovery.

Not everybody experiences all the same symptoms, of course. You won’t necessarily find that all of the above apply in your particular case. Nevertheless, these are some of the biggest signs of burnout and some of the things you are most likely to notice if you are experiencing it.