Are you feeling disillusioned due to constant stress ? Are you helpless ? Are you completely worn out ? If yes, then, you may be suffering from burnout.
The unhappiness and detachment burnout causes can threaten your job, your relationships, and your health. But burnout can be healed. If you recognize the signs and symptoms of burnout in its early stages, simple stress management strategies may be enough to solve the problem.
What is Burnout ?
Burnout is a psychological term for a state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed and unable to meet constant demands. As the stress continues, you begin to lose the interest or motivation that led you to take on a certain role in the first place.
Burnout is sometimes referred to as "Problems related to life-management difficulty"
The term burnout in psychology was coined by Herbert Freudenberger in his 1974 Staff burnout, presumably based on the 1960 novel "A Burnt-Out Case" by Graham Greene, which describes a protagonist suffering from burnout.
Researches & Theories :
(1) Maslach Burnout Inventory method is the first important breakthrough in knowing the burnout. It is the most well-studied measurement of burnout in the literature. Maslach interviewed a wide range of human services workers about the emotional stress of their job, and discovered that the coping strategies had important implications for people’s professional identity and job behavior.
Maslach and her colleague Jackson first identified the construct "burnout" in the 1970s, and developed a measure that weighs the effects of emotional exhaustion and reduced sense of personal accomplishment. This indicator has become the standard tool for measuring burnout in research on the syndrome.
The Maslach Burnout Inventory method uses a three dimensional description of exhaustion, cynicism and inefficacy.Maslach and her colleague, Michael Leiter, defined the antithesis of burnout as engagement. Engagement is characterized by energy,involvement and efficacy, the opposites of exhaustion, cynicism and inefficacy.
Some researchers and practitioners have argued for an "exhaustion only" model that sees that symptom as the hallmark of burnout.
(2) The study of 'Aboard cruise ships' describes the burn out as "a general wearing out or alienation from the pressures of work"
"Understanding burnout to be personal and private is problematic when it functions to disregard the ways burnout is largely an organizational issue caused by long hours, little down time, and continual peer, customer, and superior surveillance".
One individual can experience few stressors, but be unable to process the stress well and thus experience burnout. Another person,
however, can experience a significant amount of stressors, but process each well, and avoid burnout.
(3) Psychologists Herbert Freudenberger and Gail North have a different theory of 12 phases :
A compulsion to prove oneself.
Working harder.
Neglecting one's own needs.
Displacement of conflicts.
Revision of values.
Denial of emerging problems.
Withdrawal.
Behavioral changes become obvious to others.
Depersonalization.
Inner emptiness.
Depression.
Burnout syndrome.
(4) "The Stress Doc's Vital Lesson of the Four 'R's":
If no matter what you say or what you do, Results, Rewards, Recognition and Relief are not forthcoming, and you can't mean "no" or won't let go...trouble awaits.
The groundwork is being laid for apathy, callousness and despair. So, Let us examine "The Four Stages of Burnout":
i. Physical, Mental and Emotional Exhaustion.
Normally, you pride yourself on doing a thorough job, a high quality performance. Now you are looking for shortcuts, if not cutting corners. And this gulps your self-esteem. There may even be pangs of guilt. A case of the "brain strain" is developing, accompanied by an energy shortage and feelings of exhaustion. If stress levels continue unabated, you may be ripe for the second stage.
ii. Shame and Doubt.
You're not feeling confident about the future; and you're feeling pretty lousy in the present. Not surprisingly, you may even start discounting your past accomplishments. Beware ! This is not a logical process; it's a psychological one.
iii. Cynicism and Callousness.
In response to that prolonged feeling of insecurity or vulnerability, some folks feel there's only one thing left to do: put on the heavy armor. They develop an attitude "No one's getting to me." And, in the short run, the strategy often works. But later, you become sufficiently insensitive or obnoxious, people start avoiding you. You start believing, only selfishness motivates human action.
And there's another reason for paying attention to this process. Burnout doesn't just facilitate a hardening of the psyche. When your stress starts to smolder into frustration and anger; then turns to suspicion and mistrust as you enclose yourself in embattled armor or a crusty shell.
iv. Failure, Helplessness and Crisis.
There are times when you think,whether you do your tasks well or not, it doesn't matter. Your coping structure seems to be coming unglued.
In fact, one reason this stage is so disorienting is that a person's mind defenses have worn down. Cracks start appearing in the defensive armor. Painful memories and old hurts normally contained by your emotional defenses are leaking through the cracks.
A slight or an emotional bump can set off an overly sensitive and personal reaction. Now a mate's occasional, somewhat annoying behavior really irritates as it reminds you of a mannerism of your father.
Other Burnouts :
v. Double-Edged-
When times are driven and you have rigid responsibilities on your shoulders, uncertainty and major change, can quickly transform a performance benefit into a personal and professional liability.
vi. On the Edge-
People start jumping out of jobs or school, out of relationships, sometimes just jumping. And for those not into jumping, you may be into swinging by the fourth stage. Mood swinging, that is, between short highs and/or prolonged depressive lows.
(5) Model proposed by Sutton and Kahn (1986) :
In the model, the ability to understand, predict, and control events in the work environment can reduce the potential adverse effects generally associated with certain work conditions.
Using a sample of physicians, dentists, and nurses from a large naval medical hospital, the present study examined the moderating effects of understandable, predictable, and controllable work situations on the relationship between perceived role stress, satisfaction, and psychological well-being.
Understanding and control were found to have moderating effects on the relationship between perceived stress and satisfaction. Understanding, prediction, and control were found to have direct relationships with perceived stress, but only control had a significant direct relationship with satisfaction. None of these variables were found to have significant direct relationships with psychological well-being.
(6) Schneider's (1987) attraction-selection-attrition model and Pfeffer's (1983) organization demography model were used to generate individual-level and group-level hypotheses relating interpersonal context to recruitment, promotion, and turnover patterns.
Interpersonal context was operationalized as personal dissimilarity and group heterogeneity with respect to age, tenure, education level, curriculum, alma mater, military service, and career experiences.
For 93 top management teams in bank holding companies examined over a 4-yr period, turnover rate was predicted by group heterogeneity. For individuals, turnover was predicted by dissimilarity to other group members, but promotion was not. Team heterogeneity was a relatively strong predictor of team turnover rates.
Furthermore, reliance on internal recruitment predicted subsequent team homogeneity.
(7)The first era of burnout- Two Sides of same Coin :
On the clinical side, the focus was on symptoms of burnout and on issues of mental health. On the social side, the focus was on the relationship between provider and recipient, and on the situational context of service occupations.
Most of this initial research was descriptive and non-empirical—it was more qualitative in nature, using such techniques as interviews, case studies, and onsite observations.
When the 90s arrived, the intellectual contributions of non-Anglo-Saxon authors in terms of theory, research, and intervention were considerable along with the most notable work of Schaufeli and his colleagues. The empirical phase continued, but with several new directions.
First, the concept of burnout was extended to occupations beyond the human services and education.
Second, burnout research was enhanced by more sophisticated methodology and statistical tools. The complex relationships among organizational factors and the three components of burnout led to the use of structural models in much of burnout research contribute ny Leiter, and also spurred developmental proposals of the merits of "Seqential versus Phase models".
A third direction has been the development of new theoretical perspectives on burnout.
A Research Overview :
The current body of research evidence yields a fairly consistent picture of the burnout phenomenon. Because burnout is a prolonged response to chronic job stressors, it tends to be fairly stable over time.
It is an important mediator of the causal link between various job stressors and individual stress outcomes. The exhaustion component of burnout tends to predict the rise of cynicism, while the inefficacy component tends to develop independently.
Case Study :
The problem of burn out is often overlooked in the elite adult athletes. Professional athletes spend all of their time working on one sport, year around, trying to improve their skills and maintain the highest level of focus and competition.
A theme among many of these articles is the use of the self determined motivation continuum. The studies use this continuum to compile their data over time and track changes in personal motivation and attitudes towards the sport.
Lemyre, Treasure, and Roberts used this method when tracking motivation within elite level swimmers. Forty four male and female swimmers were surveyed every week and asked to record the positive and negative effects they felt from practice and competition.
This data was plotted every third week to determine each athlete's self determined motivation to continue competing in their sport. The result showed that athletes in the same conditions were often times experiencing very different feelings towards their sport.
All of the studies have shown that athletes who do not let the negative things effect them as highly are more satisfied with their sport.
SYMPTOMS :
You are driving on Burnout Road if :
- Every day is a bad day.
- You lead to detachment and depression.
- Caring about your work or home life seems like a total waste of energy.
- You feel exhausted all the time.
- You feel helplessness and hopelessness.
- Loss of motivation, ideals, and hope.
- You feel like nothing you do makes a difference or is appreciated.
- You may make life seem not worth living.
- Your are pulled towards disengagement.
- Your emotions are blunted.
CAUSES :
External factors
- Place of work or home is stressful, disorganized
- People on the job or at home are stressful, anxious, tense, hostile
- Focus of control is outside of yourself and in the hands of others, either supervisors, customers or family members
Internal factors
- Motivation to do your best at home or on the job all of the time
- Mourning for self-image of "being special"
Organizational Dynamics
- The lines of authority strictly enforced
- Unrealistic expectations concerning family or co-worker organization
- Lack of supportive mechanisms
Roles Expectations
- Expectations and behavior of your role as being restrictive and confined, either at home or on the job
- Overtime, less time to spend at home
Prevention Measures and Conclusions :
(1) Stemming from Mayo's Hawthorne Studies, Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) were designed to assist employees in dealing with the primary causes of stress. Some programs included counseling and psychological services for employees.
(2) Stress Management Training (SMT) is employed by many organizations today as a way to get employees to either work through stress or to manage their stress levels; to maintain stress levels below that which might lead to higher instances of burnout.
(3) Stress interventions
Research has been conducted that links certain interventions, such as narrative writing or topic-specific training to reductions in physiological and psychological stress.
(4) Problem-based coping
On an individual basis, employees can cope with the problems related to burnout and stress by focusing on the causes of their stress. This type of coping has successfully been linked to reductions in individual stress.
(5) Appraisal-based coping
Appraisal-based coping strategies deal with individual interpretations of what is and is not a stress inducing activity. There have been mixed findings related to the effectiveness of appraisal-based coping strategies.
(6) Social support
Social support has been seen as one of the largest predictors toward a reduction in burnout and stress for workers. Creating an organizationally-supportive environment as well as ensuring that employees have supportive work environments do mediate the negative aspects of burnout and stress.
More ways to cope with job burnout :
- Quit doing what you’re doing and do something else, or improve your situation, atleast your state of mind.
- Address your problems. Take a proactive approach to issues in your workplace.
- Clarify your job description. Ask your boss for an updated description of your job duties and responsibilities.
- Ask for new duties. Try out something new- a different grade task.
- Take time off. Taking regular annual leave breaks during the year to reenergise.
- Participate in external workshops, seminars, continuing education activities.
- Take regular annual leave breaks during the year to reenergise.
- Seek appropriate professional support and assistance from the counselling staff to help you deal with your stresses, and to
discuss other options available.
Recovery requires additional analysis and steps on our behalf too. These maybe :
* Slow down
* Get support
* Reevaluate your goals and priorities
* Acknowledge your losses
* Diversify responsibilities, put more variety in both your job and your home life.
The unhappiness and detachment burnout causes can threaten your job, your relationships, and your health. But burnout can be healed. If you recognize the signs and symptoms of burnout in its early stages, simple stress management strategies may be enough to solve the problem.
What is Burnout ?
Burnout is a psychological term for a state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed and unable to meet constant demands. As the stress continues, you begin to lose the interest or motivation that led you to take on a certain role in the first place.
Burnout is sometimes referred to as "Problems related to life-management difficulty"
The term burnout in psychology was coined by Herbert Freudenberger in his 1974 Staff burnout, presumably based on the 1960 novel "A Burnt-Out Case" by Graham Greene, which describes a protagonist suffering from burnout.
Researches & Theories :
(1) Maslach Burnout Inventory method is the first important breakthrough in knowing the burnout. It is the most well-studied measurement of burnout in the literature. Maslach interviewed a wide range of human services workers about the emotional stress of their job, and discovered that the coping strategies had important implications for people’s professional identity and job behavior.
Maslach and her colleague Jackson first identified the construct "burnout" in the 1970s, and developed a measure that weighs the effects of emotional exhaustion and reduced sense of personal accomplishment. This indicator has become the standard tool for measuring burnout in research on the syndrome.
The Maslach Burnout Inventory method uses a three dimensional description of exhaustion, cynicism and inefficacy.Maslach and her colleague, Michael Leiter, defined the antithesis of burnout as engagement. Engagement is characterized by energy,involvement and efficacy, the opposites of exhaustion, cynicism and inefficacy.
Some researchers and practitioners have argued for an "exhaustion only" model that sees that symptom as the hallmark of burnout.
(2) The study of 'Aboard cruise ships' describes the burn out as "a general wearing out or alienation from the pressures of work"
"Understanding burnout to be personal and private is problematic when it functions to disregard the ways burnout is largely an organizational issue caused by long hours, little down time, and continual peer, customer, and superior surveillance".
One individual can experience few stressors, but be unable to process the stress well and thus experience burnout. Another person,
however, can experience a significant amount of stressors, but process each well, and avoid burnout.
(3) Psychologists Herbert Freudenberger and Gail North have a different theory of 12 phases :
A compulsion to prove oneself.
Working harder.
Neglecting one's own needs.
Displacement of conflicts.
Revision of values.
Denial of emerging problems.
Withdrawal.
Behavioral changes become obvious to others.
Depersonalization.
Inner emptiness.
Depression.
Burnout syndrome.
(4) "The Stress Doc's Vital Lesson of the Four 'R's":
If no matter what you say or what you do, Results, Rewards, Recognition and Relief are not forthcoming, and you can't mean "no" or won't let go...trouble awaits.
The groundwork is being laid for apathy, callousness and despair. So, Let us examine "The Four Stages of Burnout":
i. Physical, Mental and Emotional Exhaustion.
Normally, you pride yourself on doing a thorough job, a high quality performance. Now you are looking for shortcuts, if not cutting corners. And this gulps your self-esteem. There may even be pangs of guilt. A case of the "brain strain" is developing, accompanied by an energy shortage and feelings of exhaustion. If stress levels continue unabated, you may be ripe for the second stage.
ii. Shame and Doubt.
You're not feeling confident about the future; and you're feeling pretty lousy in the present. Not surprisingly, you may even start discounting your past accomplishments. Beware ! This is not a logical process; it's a psychological one.
iii. Cynicism and Callousness.
In response to that prolonged feeling of insecurity or vulnerability, some folks feel there's only one thing left to do: put on the heavy armor. They develop an attitude "No one's getting to me." And, in the short run, the strategy often works. But later, you become sufficiently insensitive or obnoxious, people start avoiding you. You start believing, only selfishness motivates human action.
And there's another reason for paying attention to this process. Burnout doesn't just facilitate a hardening of the psyche. When your stress starts to smolder into frustration and anger; then turns to suspicion and mistrust as you enclose yourself in embattled armor or a crusty shell.
iv. Failure, Helplessness and Crisis.
There are times when you think,whether you do your tasks well or not, it doesn't matter. Your coping structure seems to be coming unglued.
In fact, one reason this stage is so disorienting is that a person's mind defenses have worn down. Cracks start appearing in the defensive armor. Painful memories and old hurts normally contained by your emotional defenses are leaking through the cracks.
A slight or an emotional bump can set off an overly sensitive and personal reaction. Now a mate's occasional, somewhat annoying behavior really irritates as it reminds you of a mannerism of your father.
Other Burnouts :
v. Double-Edged-
When times are driven and you have rigid responsibilities on your shoulders, uncertainty and major change, can quickly transform a performance benefit into a personal and professional liability.
vi. On the Edge-
People start jumping out of jobs or school, out of relationships, sometimes just jumping. And for those not into jumping, you may be into swinging by the fourth stage. Mood swinging, that is, between short highs and/or prolonged depressive lows.
(5) Model proposed by Sutton and Kahn (1986) :
In the model, the ability to understand, predict, and control events in the work environment can reduce the potential adverse effects generally associated with certain work conditions.
Using a sample of physicians, dentists, and nurses from a large naval medical hospital, the present study examined the moderating effects of understandable, predictable, and controllable work situations on the relationship between perceived role stress, satisfaction, and psychological well-being.
Understanding and control were found to have moderating effects on the relationship between perceived stress and satisfaction. Understanding, prediction, and control were found to have direct relationships with perceived stress, but only control had a significant direct relationship with satisfaction. None of these variables were found to have significant direct relationships with psychological well-being.
(6) Schneider's (1987) attraction-selection-attrition model and Pfeffer's (1983) organization demography model were used to generate individual-level and group-level hypotheses relating interpersonal context to recruitment, promotion, and turnover patterns.
Interpersonal context was operationalized as personal dissimilarity and group heterogeneity with respect to age, tenure, education level, curriculum, alma mater, military service, and career experiences.
For 93 top management teams in bank holding companies examined over a 4-yr period, turnover rate was predicted by group heterogeneity. For individuals, turnover was predicted by dissimilarity to other group members, but promotion was not. Team heterogeneity was a relatively strong predictor of team turnover rates.
Furthermore, reliance on internal recruitment predicted subsequent team homogeneity.
(7)The first era of burnout- Two Sides of same Coin :
On the clinical side, the focus was on symptoms of burnout and on issues of mental health. On the social side, the focus was on the relationship between provider and recipient, and on the situational context of service occupations.
Most of this initial research was descriptive and non-empirical—it was more qualitative in nature, using such techniques as interviews, case studies, and onsite observations.
When the 90s arrived, the intellectual contributions of non-Anglo-Saxon authors in terms of theory, research, and intervention were considerable along with the most notable work of Schaufeli and his colleagues. The empirical phase continued, but with several new directions.
First, the concept of burnout was extended to occupations beyond the human services and education.
Second, burnout research was enhanced by more sophisticated methodology and statistical tools. The complex relationships among organizational factors and the three components of burnout led to the use of structural models in much of burnout research contribute ny Leiter, and also spurred developmental proposals of the merits of "Seqential versus Phase models".
A third direction has been the development of new theoretical perspectives on burnout.
A Research Overview :
The current body of research evidence yields a fairly consistent picture of the burnout phenomenon. Because burnout is a prolonged response to chronic job stressors, it tends to be fairly stable over time.
It is an important mediator of the causal link between various job stressors and individual stress outcomes. The exhaustion component of burnout tends to predict the rise of cynicism, while the inefficacy component tends to develop independently.
Case Study :
The problem of burn out is often overlooked in the elite adult athletes. Professional athletes spend all of their time working on one sport, year around, trying to improve their skills and maintain the highest level of focus and competition.
A theme among many of these articles is the use of the self determined motivation continuum. The studies use this continuum to compile their data over time and track changes in personal motivation and attitudes towards the sport.
Lemyre, Treasure, and Roberts used this method when tracking motivation within elite level swimmers. Forty four male and female swimmers were surveyed every week and asked to record the positive and negative effects they felt from practice and competition.
This data was plotted every third week to determine each athlete's self determined motivation to continue competing in their sport. The result showed that athletes in the same conditions were often times experiencing very different feelings towards their sport.
All of the studies have shown that athletes who do not let the negative things effect them as highly are more satisfied with their sport.
SYMPTOMS :
You are driving on Burnout Road if :
- Every day is a bad day.
- You lead to detachment and depression.
- Caring about your work or home life seems like a total waste of energy.
- You feel exhausted all the time.
- You feel helplessness and hopelessness.
- Loss of motivation, ideals, and hope.
- You feel like nothing you do makes a difference or is appreciated.
- You may make life seem not worth living.
- Your are pulled towards disengagement.
- Your emotions are blunted.
CAUSES :
External factors
- Place of work or home is stressful, disorganized
- People on the job or at home are stressful, anxious, tense, hostile
- Focus of control is outside of yourself and in the hands of others, either supervisors, customers or family members
Internal factors
- Motivation to do your best at home or on the job all of the time
- Mourning for self-image of "being special"
Organizational Dynamics
- The lines of authority strictly enforced
- Unrealistic expectations concerning family or co-worker organization
- Lack of supportive mechanisms
Roles Expectations
- Expectations and behavior of your role as being restrictive and confined, either at home or on the job
- Overtime, less time to spend at home
Prevention Measures and Conclusions :
(1) Stemming from Mayo's Hawthorne Studies, Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) were designed to assist employees in dealing with the primary causes of stress. Some programs included counseling and psychological services for employees.
(2) Stress Management Training (SMT) is employed by many organizations today as a way to get employees to either work through stress or to manage their stress levels; to maintain stress levels below that which might lead to higher instances of burnout.
(3) Stress interventions
Research has been conducted that links certain interventions, such as narrative writing or topic-specific training to reductions in physiological and psychological stress.
(4) Problem-based coping
On an individual basis, employees can cope with the problems related to burnout and stress by focusing on the causes of their stress. This type of coping has successfully been linked to reductions in individual stress.
(5) Appraisal-based coping
Appraisal-based coping strategies deal with individual interpretations of what is and is not a stress inducing activity. There have been mixed findings related to the effectiveness of appraisal-based coping strategies.
(6) Social support
Social support has been seen as one of the largest predictors toward a reduction in burnout and stress for workers. Creating an organizationally-supportive environment as well as ensuring that employees have supportive work environments do mediate the negative aspects of burnout and stress.
More ways to cope with job burnout :
- Quit doing what you’re doing and do something else, or improve your situation, atleast your state of mind.
- Address your problems. Take a proactive approach to issues in your workplace.
- Clarify your job description. Ask your boss for an updated description of your job duties and responsibilities.
- Ask for new duties. Try out something new- a different grade task.
- Take time off. Taking regular annual leave breaks during the year to reenergise.
- Participate in external workshops, seminars, continuing education activities.
- Take regular annual leave breaks during the year to reenergise.
- Seek appropriate professional support and assistance from the counselling staff to help you deal with your stresses, and to
discuss other options available.
Recovery requires additional analysis and steps on our behalf too. These maybe :
* Slow down
* Get support
* Reevaluate your goals and priorities
* Acknowledge your losses
* Diversify responsibilities, put more variety in both your job and your home life.
No comments:
Post a Comment