Career Couch: When Stress Flirts With Burnout
January 17, 2010 by admin
Filed under Career News and Advice
Q. You are a professional who is accustomed to stress, but all the uncertainty and anxiety in the workplace these days is putting you under more pressure than usual. You feel burned out — are you?
Chris Reed
A. Determine whether you’re suffering from burnout by assessing how you feel both mentally and physically, said Debbie Mandel, a stress management expert in Lawrence, N.Y., and author of “Addicted to Stress.”
Ms. Mandel suggested asking yourself these questions about the signs of burnout: Do you have various aches and pains that come and go? Do you have trouble focusing? Are you very irritable with others and, if so, why? Are you having more conflicts than usual with people at work? Are you fatigued all the time?
“Awareness is key,” Ms. Mandel said. “Just knowing this is happening is a start, because then you can work to counteract it.”
Look for physical symptoms, too, because stress can cause problems like insomnia, backaches, headaches and chest pain, said Dr. Lorrie Elliott, associate medical director of the Center for Partnership Medicine, an executive health program at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
Although these symptoms are often stress-related, if they are severe or persistent, you should seek help from a physician to see if there are underlying health problems, Dr. Elliott said.
Rebecca Weingarten, an executive coach and co-founder of DLC Executive Coaching and Consulting in New York, said her clients were reporting burnout even though they regularly operated under high levels of stress.
“These are new stressors, like fear …
Read the original article at NYTimes