Are You Stressed or Burned Out?🔥How to Know the Difference
April Likins, NBC-HWC
Empowering Leaders ➡️ "Surviving" to Thriving + Get Their Spark Back | Stress + Work-Life Balance Coach | Board-Certified Health Coach Triple Trained at Duke + IIN + PN | Well-Being Workshops
We are still in the middle of an epic global mental health and burnout crisis.
Life has always been full of stressors. However, this has been different, with many still processing the trauma of the last three years.
Between endless Zoom meetings, deadlines, working remotely, juggling responsibilities at home, worries about the economy, and lengthy to-do lists — stressors feel endless.
So how do you know if you are experiencing everyday stress, chronic stress, or you are in the middle of burnout?
(Keep reading for the warning signs, how others have described burnout, and finding healing.)
“Success doesn’t have to come at the cost of your soul, your sanity, or your health. If it does, it’s time to reevaluate your definition of success.” ― Elaine Welteroth
What Is Stress?
First, let's define stress, which is a disruption in homeostasis and your body's response to internal or external pressures. (Real or imagined.)
Stress varies from person to person, based on perception, which is why two people can have vastly different responses to the exact same stressor.
Like unexpectedly hitting traffic, for example, when you're already late.
One person might shout and bang on the steering wheel, creating a massive physiological stress response. While the other feels stressed but chooses to call ahead and practice deep breathing.
The situation is exactly the same, but the response is different.
Is All Stress Bad?
Stress can be a good thing — it is part of our survival mechanism.
Our body's internal alarm system is designed to protect us from harm (fight, flight, or freeze) or keep us engaged, healthy, and energized.
Healthy stress stretches you outside your comfort zone and can enhance your performance, like getting in a good workout.
The right amount of stress helps you to feel interested, motivated, energized, engaged, and actively moving toward a goal or project.
And if you are being chased by a tiger (or a sketchy person in a dark alley), you want your stress response to kick in so you can fight or flee.
The problem with our modern "hustle culture" society is that everything begins to 'look like a tiger" to our nervous system, which does a lousy job of differentiating threats.
Your nervous system is not designed to fire off at every unexpected email, Slack message from your boss, presentation, or difficult conversation.
That constant daily drip of cortisol (the stress hormone) can wreak havoc on your mood, energy levels, cognition, sleep, waistline, immune system, performance, and overall health.
Why Perception Matters
According to recent stress research, it's not the stressors in your life that are so dangerous to your health but your perception of them.
Let that sink in.
This is why looking at things from a different perspective is often helpful, or looking for the silver linings or lessons. Sometimes we have to look a little harder, but they are always there.
Why Chronic Stress is Dangerous
Long-term, chronic stress can wreak havoc on your mental and physical health, relationships, and career.
Too much can be serious and has been linked to high blood pressure, insomnia, heart issues, type 2 diabetes, obesity, mental health issues, chronic pain, decreased immunity, disease, cancer, decreased longevity, and more.
While that is alarming, knowing what signs to look for and how to better navigate stress, you can live a more resilient life.
Signs of Too Much Stress
Chronic stress shows up differently for everyone, but here are a few warning signs:
The confusing part is that many of these are warning signs of burnout.
Stress VS Burnout
Stress and burnout are not the same, though long-term, chronic stress can lead to burnout.
There is also a common misperception that burnout hits all at once when in reality, it is a slow drip or domino effect stacking up over time.
Although burnout is a type of stress, there currently isn’t an official medical diagnosis for it.
The World Health Organization defines burnout syndrome as “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”
Burnout is characterized by four main things:
And as a stress coach, I've seen repeatedly that it can include many of the chronic stress symptoms above, and you might experience burnout outside of work.
High-achievers, type A personalities, and “do-ers,” or sensitive empaths (or HSP) types are more prone to burnout.
Different types of burnout include:
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What Burnout Feels Like
It may be surprising that when you are in the middle of burnout, it's common not to realize you are experiencing it, making it tougher to identify.
Burnout feels like you are perpetually running fumes — like a car sputtering and stopping as you run out of gas. Your body is depleted and tapped out from running on fumes for far too long.
When you're burned out, your days often feel like they are running together — like you're just going through the motions or living "Groundhog Day."
“One more thing” often feels like the straw that will send everything crashing down.
Burnout, In Their Own Words ❤️
Here is how some of my high-achieving clients and friends have described burnout:
“I looked like I had it all, but I was silently suffering inside.”
“I ran out of fuel and hit a wall. I was screaming for help at work, but no one was listening.”
“I’ve always been seen as a high performer and ‘the golden employee’ at work. So I feel immense pressure to live up to that expectation…I’m the primary breadwinner in my family, and a lot of my identity comes from work and being a servant leader at my company…I’m also a caregiver, so I feel guilty for taking any time to myself…it all feels like too much!”
“I don’t even recognize myself anymore.”
“I feel like I’m half a person right now.”
“If I don’t work myself to exhaustion, I cannot rest.”
“I couldn't think about anything besides work and was struggling with stress-related health issues.”
“I wasn’t disconnecting from my job, so I was living my job. I wasn’t investing in other parts of my life like meeting friends, hobbies, making time for joy, fun, and connection, and it all caught up to me.”
“I kept putting my health, well-being, and family on the back burner in an effort to get ahead.”
“I feel trapped like I can’t escape work or ever catch up… and I feel immense guilt because I’m missing out on my children’s lives.”
“I feel invisible, not appreciated, and isolated…I don’t even know where to begin — something has to change!”
“I’ve hit burnout multiple times. I was pursuing my master's degree, doing an internship, and volunteering part-time at my church — all while balancing being a wife and a mom. I’ve always been prone to headaches. One year while on vacation, I felt like I wanted to make the most of it and ‘do it all,’ so I pushed myself too far. I ended up with a migraine so bad that I couldn’t open my eyes or function. We ended up having to leave our vacation early, and I ended up back home at the ER for the migraine. The wake-up call was when they had to put me on morphine for the migraine. ‘I knew, ok if I don’t get my life together and stop trying to do everything all the time, I’m going to end up in that same place again.’ And I’m embarrassed to say I did it a few more times before I finally learned my lesson.”
Do any of these sound familiar?
Finding Healing
I first hit burnout in 2010, after my father died, and I’ve hit it a few more times since.
(This is why I’m passionate about helping others avoid the costly mistakes I made.)
There’s no one way to hit burnout, and there’s no one way to recover from it.
Often it can take months or even years to finally hit burnout. Which is why recovering isn’t an overnight process. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all magic burnout recovery formula. Healing is an individual journey.
Healing isn’t linear. Some days recovery feels like three steps forward and one step back.
And the hard truth is that no amount of mental health days or PTO will solve burnout.
Like a car that is out of alignment, finding healing requires identifying where the misalignment is in your life, creating a set of recovery tools that work well for you, and making changes.
Healing requires a little soul searching and creating the life you want with purpose and intentionality.
And knowing that you are not alone.
“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” — C.S. Lewis
How I Can Support You as a Stress Coach
Think you may be experiencing burnout? Take my free burnout quiz here.
Download my free guide “15 Ways to Say Goodbye to Chronic Stress for Good” here.
You can learn more about how I can support you through private 1:1 stress coaching here.
How I Can Support Your Team as a Speaker
Is your team burning out? 🔥
76% of employees experience burnout on the job “sometimes,” according to Gallup's recent report, “Employee Burnout: Causes and Cures.”
As a Duke-trained, board-certified health coach specializing in stress, I provide wellness webinars on simple strategies to better manage stress, prevent burnout, and improve well-being and performance.
Want me to help improve your employee's well-being?
Click my speaker request form here.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to connect with me directly. And if you've found this newsletter helpful, please share it with a colleague or friend.
Take good care! ❤️
Warmly,
April
www.AprilLikins.com | © 2023 April Likins
Providing proven strategies to develop organizational leaders, creating a high performance culture where people thrive.
1yVery well said and a great distinction April Likins (NBC-HWC)
Rowland Leadership Training & Consulting
1yGreat article!! I know this will hit home for a lot of folks. I know it did for me!!!