writing private psychologist, psychotherapist (Gestalt therapist, MGI), philologist-teacher (MGOU).

Expert: working with topics: - Finding yourself - Crises - Professional self-determination- Relationships (with yourself and important people

Everyone who has ever worked with people has experienced burnout and the stress associated with it. Let's break down what burnout looks like, how to avoid it, and what to do if you're experiencing it right now.

Even if you didn't know it was burnout, that doesn't mean it didn't happen in your professional life.
Specialists of any profession can “burn out”. But professionals in the field are subject to this by definition.

Working with people means not only forgetting about your domestic problems at the workplace, but also somehow delving into the problems of other people, patiently taking into account the context of the lives of the people you come into contact with, responding to it, adapting to the energy of a person and his container.

Containerization is a process that psychoanalysts and psychologists in general describe and use in their work. To put it simply, containment is to withstand the feelings of another person without trying to influence him so that they stop, just to be there. This helps the psychologist's client to live, to share his feelings with another person, gradually stabilizing and finding a way out, a solution.

Thus, psychologists are very attentive to how a mother behaves with a child in early years his life (and not only), whether she has the ability to withstand the aggression of her child (irritation, discontent, whims), his despair, impotence. If the mother is not capable of this (shouts, interrupting the flow of feelings, or rushes to correct the situation that caused a lot of feelings, not letting them live), then this has a bad effect on the development of the child, on his ability to cope with his emotions, on his self-esteem, and, in the future, on the ability to act independently.

We talk about containerization because people who come to our classes, who receive our, let's call it a common word - “service”, express different feelings about our teaching style or the boundaries set (deadlines for submission of papers, criteria for exam marks). We are accustomed to endure them. Everyone who works with people knows how to do it and somehow copes, otherwise they would have left the profession long ago. But problems begin when the process of exhaustion is launched and there is no longer any resource to withstand.

Exhaustion can be varying degrees and for various reasons.

What symptoms do you have emotional burnout?

- tiredness, feeling of exhaustion,
- headaches, gastrointestinal disorders, insomnia,
– work is hard and takes more time,
feeling of helplessness, restlessness, boredom,
- feelings of disappointment, insecurity, guilt,
- a feeling of worthlessness
- increased irritability, suspicion,
– ,
- the desire to distance from colleagues,
- general negative attitude, cynicism and apathy.

If you recognize at least 3 of them, listen to yourself, perhaps you are on the verge of a breakdown and, trying to hold on, like a persistent tin soldier, you can break.

Specialists at particular risk are those who are accustomed to self-criticism and demand high results from themselves, paying little attention to their own exhaustion. Therefore, no matter what stage of emotional burnout you are currently in, to get out of it - “stop digging” and find temporary solutions (for example, a couple of glasses before bed). Of course the most effective remedy, helping, not even to enter the zone of emotional burnout - prevention.
How can we help ourselves to avoid burnout at work?

The key words are self-care.

Namely:

• In my free time it is obligatory (obligatory) to do, including what you like (meaningless but cheerful chatter with friends, trips to nature, lying on the couch, drawing, singing, delicious food). Everything for which there is never time, but it is these actions that give a feeling of fullness and resource. Communication with people who do not take away your energy, but exchange it or give it to you.
• Physical activity or body work. Running, swimming, dancing. These can be relaxing treatments if you are not into fitness. Massage, yoga, sauna, body psychotherapy.
• Conversation with superiors and colleagues about what is difficult for you and what you would like to change. You are not a robot, but a person with a unique view of things, so what is easy for someone can drain you. The first pair, for example. Try to arrange your schedule, place of work so that you feel more comfortable.
• Take mini vacations. As soon as you feel the initial signs of fatigue and reluctance to go to work, find a way to leave for a few days to recover.
• Profession development. Template work just kills creative person. It is impossible for a thinking and developing person to conduct the same discipline from year to year - he gets tired and bored. Therefore, study further, read the latest literature, attend conferences, prepare speeches, let's develop students - joint trips to museums, theme evenings, various methods and forms of conducting classes.
• Focus on what is hard. If there is some specific difficulty in work that takes a lot of energy and you are not enough for a long time, but it cannot be solved administratively, that is, this is some kind of unstable place in your psyche - figure out why it is so draining. How can you behave differently, or look at the situation, what is the reason for your reaction - in this case, coaches, psychologists help.
• Keep your boundaries. We are used to being humane to the problems of colleagues and students. We go forward, thereby constantly making troubles and inconveniences for ourselves. If you tend to move the line, to give people the opportunity to get what they want at your expense, this leads to rapid exhaustion and irritability. Therefore, make it a rule for yourself to first listen to yourself - how ready you are now to agree to what is proposed - give yourself time, if necessary. Be tough on what doesn't suit you.
• Change jobs. It's sad, but sometimes the only solution. And it is important to take it in time for the sake of your mental health.

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The state of a zombie is familiar to every person. It usually occurs at the end working week and it's even a natural process. However, if you burn yourself out at the end of every workday, or if it's been going on for weeks or even months, there are a few decisions that need to be made urgently.

And if this topic seems interesting to you, and you want to develop even more in it, we recommend that you learn real practical techniques for self-motivation, dealing with stress and social adaptation in order to always control your emotional and mental state.

Emotional burnout is unlikely to go away just like that if you continue to do what you are doing. You must understand that you are doing something wrong. So here are four ideas to help you take control and prevent burnout. There are four of them, let's take a closer look at each of them.

sleep more

Of course, you already understand how important it is for the human nervous system. But you still sacrifice an extra hour of sleep for things that are not so important to your life. Emotional burnout is not a disease, but a symptom that can lead to very serious consequences. The more you rest and get enough sleep, the faster your nervous system. The benefits of even a ten-minute daytime sleep are simply incredible, it allows a person to regain strength and take control of emotions. Almost everyone can find time for this.

If we talk about night sleep, there are also quite simple statistics here. The more you sleep, the more you will be able to. If you think that by sacrificing an hour of sleep you will have more time, you are deeply mistaken. Not only will you do less work, but it will also be of very low quality.

When a person sleeps little, his concentration and cognitive abilities fall. The immune system is subjected to a very serious test and the likelihood of disease increases significantly. In addition, a person becomes more irritable, is in constant stress and enters into. There is no need to talk about self-confidence and clarity of thought. Do not sacrifice sleep, find things that do not benefit you and give them up in favor of rest. When you rest or sleep properly, it is physically impossible to burn out emotionally.

Say no to many things

Analyze your past week and note in it the events that led you to stress and at the same time did not bring any benefit. Surely everyone has dozens of such situations. Sadly, at such moments we do not even realize the absolute futility and, at the same time, the destructiveness of such situations, because we carry them out without thinking.

At the same time, you need to say “no” to many entertainments, because sometimes they can not only spoil our mood, but also take away the very time that can be spent on something more important. Entertainment should not take more than two hours on weekdays and more than five hours on weekends, because this leads to emotional instability. The more you have fun, the less you want to work. So when it comes work time you get a huge dose of stress. In addition, pleasure takes time to sleep. And this completely discredits the value of such pleasures and this form of recreation. You should benefit from such events, not circles under the eyes and complete physical and emotional exhaustion.

We are also open to many stimuli. There will be a good couple of dozen of these per day, and at the same time, you may not even react to many of them, because they are not vital for you. Anxiety is a state to which you must also say no. Read Dale Carnegie's book and don't worry about things you can't change.

Schedule time for email and cell phone

These two things are very dangerous because they usually have to do with something negative, call us to actions we don't want to do, and cause unnecessary emotions. It's much more efficient to set aside time, say, twice a day, to look at email and answer emails or complete email-related tasks. You should not go into your email box twenty times a day, this leads to the fact that your unfinished task is superimposed on a new one and you get a strong one.

Same thing with mobile phone. Determine the time (the same twice a day) when you will go to a social network, viber or other application and respond to people. Warn them ahead of time. If they urgently need to convey some information to you, let them call you directly. But put special emphasis on the fact that the call should be of exceptional value.

Despite the fact that social networks attract hundreds of millions of people, in fact, people experience strong negative emotions while being in them. There is a constant comparison of the picture of the life of another person with his own, an oppressed state is acquired. In addition, social networks form a distorted picture of the world. We know that a photograph is not capable of accurately conveying a person's life, but we are still deceived. Any message in social network is also an irritant. Even if it is positive, it usually refers to some action you should take, even if you don't want to.

Ask for help

Strange, but such an ordinary thing rarely comes to a person's head. Of course, you don’t need to be too imposing and often ask for it, but if you have friends, ask them for help. If they are true friends, they will definitely listen and help you.

There is no weakness in this, although most people believe that they should deal with their problems on their own. Yes, in many cases a person must solve their own problems, but when it comes to emotions, it is very important to recharge the energy of a person close to you.

For co-workers, ask them to do some of your work and promise to help back another day. This is normal practice and if your employees reasonable people they will go for it. But again, when asking for help, you always need to know when to stop. Even if a person has never refused you, maybe he just doesn’t want to tell you directly that he is not at all happy with this situation. Learn to give a person as much strength and energy as he gave you.

These four simple steps will help you take control of your emotions and feel alive and real.

If you know any other ways to avoid burnout, write to us in the comments.

Alena Sysoeva

Until recently, it was generally accepted that people whose professional activities belong to the category of “person-to-person” are potentially susceptible to the syndrome of emotional burnout. Observations of the last 2-3 years show that the area of ​​distribution of the "bacillus" of burnout is becoming wider. The reasons for this are our hyperdynamic time. What is this state? What causes it? And what about those who have symptoms of burnout? We will seek answers to these questions in this article.

For the first time, the term "burnout" (emotional burnout) was introduced by the American psychiatrist H. J. Freudenberg in 1974 to characterize the psychological state healthy people whose professional activity is connected with intensive and close communication with clients.

There are three main components of professional burnout:

• emotional and/or physical exhaustion;
• depersonalization (fencing off from other people);
• reduction of personal achievements (lowering of professional competence)

The main components of the burnout syndrome

emotional exhaustion- manifests itself in feelings of emotional overstrain and a feeling of emptiness, exhaustion of one's own emotional resources.

Depersonalization lies in a negative, soulless, cynical attitude towards others. On the one hand, we continue to work, but as if at "arm's length", trying not to waste extra energy, we become suspicious, hostile. At the same time, the quality of work performance suffers significantly.

Reduction of personal achievements manifests itself as a decrease in the sense of competence in one's work, dissatisfaction with oneself, the formation of low self-esteem, negative self-perception in professional terms.

In our opinion, the following factors are the most stressful:

1. Long and intense communication, which includes many emotionally difficult situations. Often professional stresses are associated with the need to interact with "difficult clients". This category of people is most often perceived by staff as the number one stressor, as staff feel "sandwiched" between service standards and unexpected and unfair claims from customers. Such conflicts, as a rule, are remembered for a long time and greatly reduce the efficiency of the service personnel.
2. Insufficient professional training. In many professions, specialists suffer from the fact that every year a huge number of new theories, technologies, and studies appear, the knowledge of which seems necessary in order not to feel “in the tail of progress”. This stressor can be especially dangerous for people with an “excellent student complex”, who always want to know everything and do it better than anyone else. Often it is this attitude that creates fertile ground for the development of burnout syndrome.
3. Emotional relationships with clients and colleagues. Naturally, a specialist of any profession, working in a team, may encounter strong emotions of others. However, the probability of emotional stress among specialists of the “human-to-human” category is much higher. The stressfulness of this factor is also connected with the fact that there are requirements that must be met:. emotional neutrality; . the ability to show empathy and sympathy; . the ability to cope with one's own strong feelings and strong emotions of clients.
4. Professional responsibility and control(the ability to control the situation). The need to make responsible decisions, often in situations of time pressure, is also considered by psychologists as a stressful factor. At the same time, if it seems to a person that he has little or no control over the work situation, then his confidence in the ability to solve work problems decreases.
5. Isolation from peer support. For people-to-people professionals, most of their time is spent interacting with clients, staff, or students. Often during working hours there is no opportunity to discuss professional problems or your emotional state with colleagues. Which also provokes the development of burnout syndrome.
6. Reward(material reinforcement, recognition of merit). Dissatisfaction with pay and withdrawal from participation in organizational decision-making gradually also leads to emotional exhaustion and job apathy.
7. Values. Mismatch between the values ​​of the employee and the organization. When identifying the causes of SEB, it is necessary to analyze whether the work helps to follow the values ​​​​of a person or contradicts them.

In summary, there are seven occupational factors that can trigger BS.
The process of development of the CMEA occurs gradually, in several stages or stages.

According to J. Greenberg's model, the first stage is "Honeymoon"- is characterized by a still positive attitude of the employee to work. But as work stress accumulates, professional activity begins to bring less and less pleasure and productivity gradually decreases.

The second stage of the development of the CMEA - "lack of fuel". At this stage, fatigue appears, a feeling of lack of strength until the end of the working day and the next day, apathy, insomnia, interest in work decreases, distancing and cynicism may develop. At the same time, if the motivation is still high enough, the employee can show good results, but at the expense of his own health.

The third stage is already manifested as chronic symptoms. Excessive work without rest leads to exhaustion, reduced immunity, depression. People with whom you have to work begin to annoy, interest in communication is lost. The state of apathy and indifference becomes chronic.

A crisis- the fourth stage - is marked by a sharp drop in self-esteem. The employee's motivation decreases, there is a tendency to negatively evaluate themselves, their professional achievements and successes. One can also note the desire to relieve oneself of responsibility, to limit one's capabilities and obligations in relation to others. This stage is characterized by frequent diseases, which can lead to partial or complete loss of working capacity.

At the fifth stage - "Wall Break"- all symptoms of burnout are exacerbated in their extreme degree. At the physiological level, they manifest themselves in the form of chronic headaches, sleep disturbance or insomnia, loss of appetite, or vice versa, uncontrolled eating. At the psychological level, there is a complete detachment of the personality from the events taking place around, depression. At the level of behavior, emotional breakdowns become the norm of communication, labor productivity drops sharply, communication with colleagues, friends, and acquaintances is limited to a minimum. As a result, such an acute form of physical and psychological problems can provoke serious illnesses, as well as the abuse of alcohol, drugs as an attempt to cope with stress.

The more signs and the brighter they are expressed, the more serious the situation. Thus, the burnout syndrome not only negatively affects the work, but also “poisons” the life of a person as a whole.

Prevention of burnout syndrome

As in many other cases, the salvation of drowning people is the work of the drowning people themselves. To combat emotional burnout, it is necessary for the person himself to change the position of the “victim of circumstances” to the position of the “owner of his life”, who himself is responsible for everything that happens to him. By following the recommendations listed below, the employee will not only be able to prevent the occurrence of emotional burnout syndrome, but also achieve a decrease in its severity.

1. Make a list of real and abstract reasons that encourage you to work. Determine the motivation, value, and meaning of the work.
2. Set realistic goals, get away from the temptation to "embrace the immensity." Focus on short term rather than long term goals. Achieving short-term goals not only provides feedback that a person is on the right track, but also increases long-term motivation.
3. List everything you enjoy doing, in descending order. Think about the last time you did this. Sometimes you need to "run away" from life's problems and have fun, you need to find an activity that would be exciting and enjoyable.
4. Engage in professional development and self-improvement- regularly meet with friends - this is your support group, attend refresher courses, conferences, trainings. Collaboration gives a sense of a wider world than that which exists within a single team.
5. Organize your work schedule properly- Take care of a sufficient number of breaks for rest and food. Overtime work, as well as work at home after the end of the working day, during weekends and holidays, is an increase in the risk of developing BS.
6. Every day try to celebrate your small "victories", fix them in personal diary Success. The ability to notice your own achievements gives you the opportunity to feel successful, which, in turn, increases self-esteem.
7. Eliminate unnecessary competition. There are many situations in life when we cannot avoid competition. But too much desire for "victory" creates tension and anxiety, makes a person overly aggressive, which, in turn, contributes to the emergence of emotional burnout syndrome.
8. Communicate more often with colleagues and friends Don't be afraid to share your worries with others. When a manager analyzes his feelings and sensations and shares them with others, the likelihood of burnout is significant. If there is the support of close people, the "elbow feeling" in the team, the likelihood of "burnout" is significantly reduced.
9. Start taking care of your physical and mental health. A close connection between the state of the body and the mind has been proven. It is very important to maintain good physical shape through exercise, a balanced regular diet and adequate sleep for at least 7-9 hours a day. Available ways are always "at hand" - this is exercise, walks, a gym, communication with nature, art, which allow you to relax and be distracted. Mastering psychological skills such as relaxation, goal setting, and positive inner language can help reduce the stress levels that lead to burnout.
10. Do something frivolous every day :)

In addition, the application of eight methods of changing self-esteem proposed by L. Basset (1997) will help speed up the process of getting out of a state of burnout.

Ways to change self-esteem

No. n/n		Execution paths
	Try to be more positive about life	Use an internal dialogue with yourself, consisting only of positive statements. If negative thoughts occur, try to immediately switch to a pleasant one.
	Treat people the way they deserve	Seek out in each person not flaws, but virtues
	Treat yourself with respect	Make a list of your strengths. Convince yourself that you have
	Try to get rid of what you don't like about yourself	Look at yourself in the mirror more often, trying to answer the question: is it worth changing something in yourself. If yes, then don't delay.
	Start making your own decisions	Remember that there are no right or wrong decisions. You can always justify and justify any decisions you make.
	Try to surround yourself with things that have a positive effect on you.	Buy your favorite books, tape recordings. Have and love your “weaknesses”
	Start taking risks	Take responsibility, even though the risk may be small at first
	Gain faith: in the person, in the circumstances, etc.	Remember that believing in something greater than ourselves can help us resolve difficult issues. If you can't influence the course of events, "step aside" and just wait

The manager can also help his subordinates avoid the state of emotional burnout. For example:

• It is extremely clear to explain to each employee his place in the structure, functions, rights and duties.
• Track the peculiarities of relations between employees and create a favorable psychological climate in the team.
• Discuss with employees their perspectives professional growth with a clear designation of promotion criteria. Thus, one of the main manifestations of CMEA is prevented - the feeling of the meaninglessness of work.
• Develop traditions in everything: business attire, weekly meetings with colleagues, joint collective recreation, etc.
• Structuring work and organizing workplaces in such a way that the matter becomes meaningful for the performer.
• Discuss with the employee the possibility of moving to an adjacent professional area so that his previous knowledge, skills and abilities find a new application.
• Focus not on what the employee already knows, is able to, has mastered, but on what is the direction of growth for him, so that the profession is perceived as a tool for development.

So, emotional burnout is not a disease or a diagnosis, much less a sentence. According to the advice of many successful people, when we feel prolonged emotional exhaustion and the only desire is to give up and give up everything, we need to try to answer three questions:

1. What is good about what happened?
2. What can I learn?
3. How would I act differently in a similar situation?

The answers you receive will help you benefit and gain important life experience even in the most difficult situations.

Everyone knows that when a racing car comes to the finish line, mechanics carefully inspect and repair it, bring it to working condition. Unfortunately, with regard to our own body and soul, we do not always behave in the same wise way. Compliance simple rules daily self-care and “recharging the batteries” will allow not only to endure the professional “long distance race”, but also to have fun and enjoy the process.

Burnout Syndrome (BES) is a reaction of the body that occurs as a result of prolonged exposure to occupational stress. The WHO European Conference (2005) noted that such work-related conditions are an important problem for about one third of workers in the European Union. According to statistics, "burnout syndrome" at least once in a lifetime occurs in 25% of people. Moreover, today people of almost all professions are at risk.

There are a lot of definitions of EBS, but the most general one looks something like this: burnout syndrome is a state of emotional and physical exhaustion, a decrease in energy potential, accompanied by disorders of the emotional sphere.

Experts note that the risk of developing burnout syndrome is very high degree due to the personality traits of a person. Therefore, SEV can develop under a certain set of circumstances in almost any person. But people most at risk of burnout those who are overwhelmed with responsibilities and day-to-day duties, those who work too hard for an extended period of time with too much intensity. Increase susceptibility to burnout hyperresponsibility, lack of other interests besides work, attitude towards oneself as the only person who is able to cope with the task set for the company.

Rector of the Northern State medical university, Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Pavel Sidorov identifies five key groups of symptoms characteristic of SES:

1. Physical symptoms: fatigue, physical fatigue, exhaustion; weight change; insufficient sleep, insomnia; poor general health, incl. by feeling; shortness of breath, shortness of breath; nausea, dizziness, excessive sweating, trembling; increased blood pressure; ulcers and inflammatory skin diseases; diseases of the cardiovascular system.

2. Emotional symptoms: lack of emotions; pessimism, cynicism and callousness in work and personal life; indifference, fatigue; feeling of helplessness and hopelessness; aggressiveness, irritability; anxiety, increased irrational restlessness, inability to concentrate; depression, guilt; tantrums, mental suffering; loss of ideals, hopes or professional prospects; an increase in depersonalization of one's own or others - people become faceless, like mannequins; loneliness prevails.

3. Behavioral symptoms: working time exceeds 45 hours per week; during work, fatigue and a desire to rest appear; indifference to food; low physical activity; justifying the use of tobacco, alcohol, drugs; accidents - falls, injuries, accidents, etc.; impulsive emotional behavior.

4. Intellectual symptoms: a drop in interest in new theories and ideas in work, in alternative approaches to solving problems; boredom, longing, apathy, loss of taste and interest in life; greater preference for standard patterns, routine, rather than a creative approach; cynicism or indifference to innovations; low participation or refusal to participate in developmental experiments - trainings, education; formal work.

5. Social symptoms: low social activity; a drop in interest in leisure, hobbies; social contacts are limited to work; poor relationships at work and at home; feeling isolated, misunderstood by others and by others; feeling of lack of support from family, friends, colleagues.

Of course, all of the above symptoms manifest themselves differently at different stages of CMEA. Emotional burnout syndrome includes three stages, each of which has four main symptoms:

• 1st stage - "Voltage":
• self dissatisfaction,
• "trapped in a cage"
• experience of traumatic situations,
• anxiety and depression.

• 2nd stage - "Resistance":
• inadequate, selective emotional response,
• emotional and moral disorientation,
• expansion of the sphere of economy of emotions,
• reduction of professional duties.

• 3rd stage - "Exhaustion":
• emotional deficit,
• emotional withdrawal,
• personal withdrawal,
• psychosomatic and psychovegetative disorders.

The main reasons for the occurrence of SEV experts include the following::

Environment: noise, stuffy rooms, a monotonous landscape, the inability to hide from the all-seeing eye of the authorities.

Rhythm of work: overload, constant rush, surprises a hundred times a day, or, conversely, dead monotony.

Relationships: conflicts with management or colleagues; an atmosphere of misunderstanding and struggle for a place under the sun.

Outlook: More precisely, their absence.

Burnout also contributes to a whole range of factors, each of which enhances the effect of the other.

A person is at risk if:

— lives in a metropolis and forced to contact with a lot of people - in traffic jams, shops, on the streets;

— works in a huge corporation, is involved in a daily career race, is afraid of losing his place;

— operates in extreme conditions, hurries, takes risks, shows increased attention to detail, makes responsible decisions, receives not a fixed salary, but a percentage of profits;

- on duty dealing with many colleagues, partners, customers, constantly communicates with them, is involved in solving their problems, faces their negative emotions and experiences.

already mentioned by us Academician Pavel Sidorov gives a number of recommendations, observing which it is possible not only to prevent the occurrence of EBS, but also to achieve a decrease in its severity:

— define and share short and long term goals;

— use"time-outs" that are necessary to ensure mental and physical well-being (rest from work);

— master skills and abilities of self-regulation (relaxation, ideomotor acts, goal setting and positive inner speech help reduce the level of stress leading to burnout);

— get busy professional development and self-improvement (one of the ways to protect against CMEA is the exchange of professional information with representatives of other services, which gives a sense of a wider world than the one that exists within a separate team, there are various ways to do this - advanced training courses, conferences, etc. );

— go away from unnecessary competition (there are situations when it cannot be avoided, but an excessive desire to win gives rise to anxiety, makes a person aggressive, which contributes to the emergence of CM);

— get involved V emotional communication(when a person analyzes his feelings and shares them with others, the likelihood of burnout is significantly reduced or this process is not so pronounced);

— support good physical shape (do not forget that there is a close relationship between the state of the body and the mind: malnutrition, abuse of alcohol, tobacco, weight loss or obesity exacerbate the manifestations of SES).

— try to count and deliberately distribute their loads;

— learn to switch from one activity to another;

— take it easier to conflicts at work;

— do not try be the best always and in everything.

And in conclusion, I would like to note: the danger of CMEA lies in the fact that it tends to progress day by day! It is extremely difficult to slow down this process. Against its background, various chronic diseases can worsen, new diseases develop, and even the composition of the blood can change. At this point, attempts to take care of yourself, as a rule, do not give the desired result. And even professional help the doctor does not bring quick relief. Therefore, the most reasonable thing is to prevent the appearance of this syndrome, "strangle it in the bud."

It often seems that you can only manage to do all the work things if you constantly stay late at work in the evening, take part of the work home, and then work a little more on the weekends, just to be sure. But in reality, this approach only harms productivity and can lead to professional burnout. Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness in the book "At the peak. How to Maintain Peak Efficiency Without Burnout provides many examples that prove that rest - from short breaks during the day and normal sleep to a long vacation after a big project - is extremely important for work. T&P publishes several excerpts from the book.

The secret to sustainable success

Think about what you need to do to make muscles - such as biceps - become stronger. If you try to lift too much weight for you, then you are unlikely to be able to do it more than once. And even if you succeed, you risk injuring yourself. However, by lifting too little weight, you will not achieve anything either: the biceps simply will not grow. So, you need to find the ideal solution - a weight that is difficult for you to lift, which by the end of the workout will bring you to extreme fatigue, but not to injury.

But finding the perfect weight is only half the problem. If you lift every day, several times a day, with little to no rest between workouts, you will almost certainly burn out. If you rarely go to the gym and almost never give your best, then you are also unlikely to become much stronger. The key to training your biceps - and, as we'll learn, any muscle, be it physical, cognitive or emotional - is balancing the right amount of work and the right amount of relaxation. Load + rest = growth. This equation holds true no matter what you're trying to pump.

periodization

In sports science, this cycle of stress, or workload, and rest is called periodization. Stress - we don't mean a fight with a husband or boss, but rather some kind of challenge to our abilities, like lifting weights - poses a challenge for the body. This process is usually accompanied by some breakdown: remember how weak our hands seem to us after a hard workout in the gym. But if you give your body time to rest and recover after a difficult period, it will adjust and become stronger, allowing you to achieve more next time. Over time, the cycle begins to look like this:

You isolate a muscle or ability that you want to develop.

You push her.

Rest and recover, allowing the body to adapt.

Repeat the procedure, this time tensing the muscle or ability a little more than last time.

World-class athletes have honed this skill. At the micro level, they alternate between hard workouts, during which they push themselves to the limit and complete collapse, and light workouts, during which, for example, they jog. They also give great attention recovery, time spent on the couch and in bed, which is no less important to them than the time spent on the treadmill or in the gym. On a macro level, great athletes follow a hard month of training with a week of light exercise. They schedule their season so that it includes only a few peak events, followed by periods of physical and psychological recovery. The days, weeks, months, years that make up a professional athlete's career are a constant ebb and flow of stress and relaxation. Those who can't balance either get injured or burn out (too much stress, not enough rest) or get stuck in one place and reach a plateau (not enough stress, too much rest). Those who can find the right balance are champions for life. […]

The brain is like a muscle

In the mid-1990s, Roy Baumeister, Ph.D., a social psychologist who was then teaching at Case Western Reserve University, revolutionized our understanding of the brain and its capabilities. Baumeister discovered the causes of such banal problems as, for example, why we feel exhausted after we diligently work out a difficult task. Or why, when dieting, we are more likely to break down at night, although we have carefully avoided junk food all day. In other words, Baumeister was trying to understand how and why our will and mind are suddenly rapidly weakening.

When Baumeister began working on this problem, he did not need modern technologies brain research. All he needed was some biscuits and radishes.

For their cleverly designed experiment, Baumeister and colleagues gathered 67 adults in a room that smelled of chocolate chip cookies. After the participants took their seats, freshly prepared cookies were brought into the room. When everyone was salivating, the situation escalated. Half of the participants were allowed to eat cookies, and half were forbidden. Not only that: those who could not have cookies were given radishes and offered to have a bite to eat.

As you might have guessed, the cookie eaters had no problem with the first part of the experiment. Like most in this situation, they happily ate dessert. Those who got the radish, on the contrary, suffered: “They showed a keen interest in the liver, to the point of looking longingly at it, and some even took the cookie to sniff it,” writes Baumeister. It's not easy to resist cookies.

All this looks predictable. Who doesn't mind refusing a treat? However, the situation became even more interesting in the second part of the experiment, during which the suffering of the radish eaters continued. After both groups had finished their meal, all participants were asked to solve a seemingly simple but in fact unsolvable problem. (Yes, it was a brutal experiment, especially for those who got the radish.) The radish eaters lasted just over eight minutes and made 19 attempts to solve the problem. Those who ate the cookies lasted more than 20 minutes and tried to solve the problem 33 times. Where did such a difference come from? The fact is that those doomed to radishes exhausted their mental muscles by refusing biscuits, while biscuit eaters had full tanks psychological fuel and were able to spend more energy on solving the problem.

Baumeister developed several more variations of this experiment and observed the same result each time. Participants who were forced to use their brains—whether through abstinence, solving a difficult task, or making a difficult decision—performed worse on the subsequent task, which also required mental effort. Compared to them, the control group, who were given an easy task at the first stage, such as eating a delicious cookie, showed better results.

Refusing cookies is a dangerous game

It seems that we have some kind of reservoir of mental forces that are spent on all acts of consciousness and self-control, even those that are not related to each other. When people were asked to suppress their emotions during a test—for example, not to show sadness or frustration when watching a sad movie—they subsequently performed worse on a wide range of unrelated tasks, such as refusing tasty food or memory exercises. This phenomenon affects other areas as well. Even physical exercises (for example, squats) are performed worse if we strained our mental muscles before them. The study showed that even when the bodies of the participants did not get tired, the physical performance of those who were mentally exhausted fell. In other words, the line between mental and physical fatigue is not as clear-cut as we think. […]

Inside a weary brain

Instead of experimenting with cookies and radishes, researchers are now studying mental muscles using sophisticated medical technology. What they found is very interesting. People with depleted mental muscles were put into MRI machines (a technology that allows you to observe brain activity). It turned out that the brain of a tired person works in a curious way. When presented with a compelling image, such as a delicious cheeseburger, activity in the part of the brain associated with emotional response (the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex) is increased - compared to the activity in the part of the brain responsible for thoughtful, rational thinking (the prefrontal cortex), when he is asked to solve a difficult problem. Other experiments have shown that after someone is forced to resort to self-control, activity in the prefrontal cortex decreases even more. It is no wonder that when we are mentally exhausted, we are not given difficult tasks and self-control and we choose cartoons and cookies.

Just as your arms get tired and unable to work properly when you lift a barbell to the point of exhaustion, a tired brain is not able to properly cope with its tasks - whether it is resisting temptation, making difficult decisions, or working through complex intellectual problems. Fatigue can cause you to forget your diet for a cookie, give up on a difficult intellectual task, or stop a difficult physical task prematurely. In the worst case, you may even cheat on your loved one.

The good news is that, just like your body, you can make your brain stronger by either exercising your brain or letting it rest. Scientists have found that the more often we resist temptation, overthink, or concentrate intensely, the better we get at it. A new wave of research refutes the assumption that willpower is not an endless resource, as scientists previously believed: by successfully completing small productive tasks, we can gain this strength in order to perform larger tasks in the future. In any case - whether it's willpower, ego depletion, or some other mechanism - we can't continuously strain the brain (at least effectively) without getting tired from time to time. And we can't take on bigger challenges before we gain strength by tackling smaller ones. All this brings us back to where we started: load + rest = growth.

Performance Practices

Remember that “load is stress”: fatigue caused by one task will spread to the next, even if they are completely unrelated.

Take on one thing at a time. Otherwise, you will literally lose energy.

Change the environment to achieve your goals. This is especially important when you know you are exhausted. The environment has an unusually strong influence on our behavior, especially when we are tired.

Have the courage to take a break

The advantages of rest are obvious, they are confirmed by extensive scientific data. And yet, few of us dare to rest. It's not that people want to be exhausted. The fact is, we live in a culture that celebrates exhausting and relentless work, even if the science says it's pointless. We praise the athlete who stays in the gym after a workout to do a few more reps, and we sing of the businessman who sleeps in his office. This is not to say that hard work does not lead to growth. As we wrote in chapter 3, leads. But, hopefully, you now understand that hard work only turns into smart and sustainable work if it is compensated by rest. The irony is that hard work often requires more courage than hard work. Ask authors like Stephen King (“Not working is the real job for me”) or runners like Dina Kastor (“My workouts are the easiest part”). When we leave work, we sink into feelings of guilt and anxiety, especially if we feel that we are threatened by competitors. There is probably no place where this would be more noticeable than among the top managers of the consulting company Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

BCG regularly ranks at the top of the global consulting firms. The company's consultants help CEOs of billionaire companies solve the most delicate problems. And the sooner BCG consultants can find answers, the sooner the company will be rewarded for the next multi-million dollar project. In other words, BCG consultants work in a high-risk environment and under constant pressure from competitors.

Not surprisingly, when the researchers proposed a series of experiments to evaluate the effects of rest on BCG counselors, these counselors responded not only with surprise, but even with derision. Harvard Business Review reports, "The concept of vacation was so alien that BCG management had to practically force some consultants to take days off, especially if they coincided with peak periods of work intensity." Some consultants asked lawyers if they were risking their careers by participating in an experiment.

In one experiment, consultants were asked to take one day off in the middle of the week. For those who usually work 12-plus hours a day, seven days a week, such a request seemed simply absurd. Even the company employee who promoted the study, because she believed regular rest could improve productivity, “was nervous about having to tell a client that every member of her team would take one day a week off.” So she convinced the client (and herself) that if the work began to suffer, the experiment would be terminated immediately.

The second experiment was somewhat less radical: the group of consultants participating in it was asked to take one free evening per week. This meant a complete shutdown from work after six in the evening. No matter what happened to the project - all emails, phone calls, messages, presentations and other work activities were banned. This idea was also met with staunch resistance. One of the managers asked: “What good is a free evening? Will I have to work more on weekends as a result?

In this group of career workaholics who were not shy about expressing negative attitudes towards the experiment, the idea of ​​free evenings seemed to be doomed to failure. But as the months-long experiment unfolded, something unexpected happened. Both groups have completely changed their views. By the end of the experiment, all the consultants who participated in it wanted to have days off. And it was not only that they liked to take care of themselves, communicate with friends and family, but also that their work became much more productive.

Communications between consultants have become more effective, the quality of work with clients has improved. Participants noted that in addition to these close benefits, they also gained greater confidence in the long term of their work. According to the researchers, “After only five months, those consultants who experimented with time off were more optimistic about their work situation in all respects than their non-experimental counterparts.”

BCG consultants found that it was not only the number of hours spent on work that mattered, but also the quality of the work itself. They worked 20 percent less time, but achieved much more and felt better at the same time. If the BCG consultants - along with top athletes, thinkers and creatives - dare to take a break, so can you. It's not easy, the turn may seem quite sharp. But we guarantee that as soon as you start applying the strategies in this book, including rest in the plan for the day, week, year, your productivity and well-being will improve. […]

Give to return

Burnout usually hits us at the most inopportune moment. If you are an athlete, then you may have been approaching the peak of your form. If you are a businessman, then you may have just achieved a new promotion, for which you went out of your way. If you are an artist, you may have been nearing the completion of your masterpiece. And suddenly you realize that you just can't work anymore. You have lost drive, passion and interest. You are burnt out.

Burnout is closely related to the fight/flight stress response. After a long period of stress, the "flight" response kicks in, requiring us to run away from the source of the stress, whatever it may be. Burnout is very common among people who strive to get more out of themselves. This is because constant growth and progress requires that a person puts himself under increasing stress for days, weeks, months and years. As we wrote in the first section, preventing burnout is about switching between periods of stress and rest. But even if we don't neglect rest by getting too close to breaking point (remember that's the whole point), we run the risk of crossing a thin line. And when that happens, we feel burnt out.

Traditionally, burnout victims are advised to take extended vacations. Sometimes this can help, but often it's not the solution. A potential Olympic champion can hardly just stop training for six months before the qualifying round, and most of us cannot stop working for three months. Not to mention the fact that many, having abandoned the business that led to their burnout, risk losing touch with it and never returning to it.

"We live in a culture that celebrates exhausting and relentless work, even if the science says it's pointless"

But there is also good news. Behavioral science offers an alternative approach to burnout that doesn't require long vacations and even offers some chance to increase your drive and motivation. We will call this practice “Giving to get back.” It is based on a study by UCLA psychology professor Shelly Taylor and Wharton School psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania Adam Grant. The essence of the “Give to Return” idea is that during burnout, instead of quitting your job, you need to do it with even more energy, but in a different way.

“Differently” means to start “giving back” in your industry. This can be done in different ways, for example, it can be volunteer work or teaching. The main thing is that you should concentrate on helping others. Helping others activates the reward and pleasure centers in our brains. This will not only make you feel better, but will also help you reconnect with work and positive emotions. Therefore, this practice often leads to a surge of energy and motivation. In his New York Times best-seller book Take or Give?*, Adam Grant cites research in areas ranging from teaching to nursing to prove that self-sacrifice is a powerful antidote to burnout.

But isn't the job of a teacher or a nurse originally one of the helping professions? Theoretically yes. That is why they primarily attract people who are naturally inclined to care for others. But, as any teacher or nurse will tell you, it's easy to lose sight of the direct impact on students or patients under the weight of day-to-day concerns and feel like a small cog in an inefficient machine. That is why it turned out that if you give teachers and nurses the opportunity to directly help people and see the visible results of this help, their burnout is reduced. Grant writes that “confidence in immediate impact protects against stress by preventing exhaustion,” so he advises those who are stressed at work to actively seek out opportunities to personally help people. […]

Performance Practices

Find opportunities to help others in the context of your work. This can be an intense activity, such as coaching and teaching, or a less intense activity, such as posting tips on online forums.

The rules of this “helping others” are simple: you are doing something related to your work, and you are “giving” without expecting to get anything in return.

While the practice of helping others is very effective in preventing and recovering from burnout, you should still avoid burnout by balancing the stress with adequate rest.