adminDr Chido Rwafa
Mental Wellness
Mental Wellness
As discussed in last week’s article on unpacking stress and how to deal with it, mental health is defined as a state of well-being in which an individual realises his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a meaningful contribution to their community.
One key contributor to mental ill health, which affects our ability to work productively and fruitfully as well as our ability to make meaningful contributions to our community is burnout. When we are exposed to excessive amounts of stress over extended periods of time, we can develop burnout and ultimately become unproductive and unfruitful and fail to make any meaningful contribution to those around us.
What is burnout?
Burnout is a disorder where chronic work — related stress which has not been managed appropriately leads to
Physical, mental and emotional exhaustion
Negative, cynical feelings towards one’s work
Decreased productivity and fruitfulness
The chronic, unmanaged stress of burnout results in exhaustion. This is not just feeling tired at the end of a busy day or a hectic week, this exhaustion is chronic and unrelenting.
It is physical as well as psychological, emotional and sometimes spiritual.
We can feel overstretched and overwhelmed with our responsibilities and we may become emotionally hypersensitive and easily irritated.
This exhaustion can affect our physical health, resulting in poor sleep quality and can affect our immunity and pain tolerance, resulting in frequent aches and pains as well as minor illnesses.
Burnout also results in a negative, cynical attitude towards one’s work, a “chikuru kufema” or “whatever will be” attitude.
Burnout causes us to feel detached from our work and from other people and indifferent about what we do. When we are detached, we can lose our sense of purpose and meaning in what we do, we can lose hope.
The physical and emotional exhaustion coupled with feelings of detachment and indifference eventually result in decreased productivity and lack of fruitfulness in our work.
Burnout also leads to poor concentration which can result in increased risk of mistakes and inefficiency.
We can start to mix up appointments, miss deadlines and drop some of the balls we are juggling.
Could you be experiencing burnout?
Do you feel tired and exhausted on most days’ even after you have had enough sleep?
Do you feel overwhelmed, overstretched and overburdened by your responsibilities?
Do you feel like your work now seems to lack meaning and purpose?
Do you dread going to work or feel trapped in your job?
Have you become more forgetful about appointments, deadlines, important family events?
What “balls” have you dropped of late, who have you “dropped” of late?
What causes burnout?
Burnout can be a result of:
chronic unmanaged stress from unmanaged negative thoughts, unmanaged emotions and unmanaged priorities; too much stress leads to emotional distress, exhaustion and burnout
taking on too much work and too many responsibilities, we often have to wear many hats as we shoulder the various responsibilities that we have in life.
At any one time, you may have to be daughter/son, sister/brother, friend, employee, colleague, wife/husband, parent, grandparent.
How many hats do you wear in your life?
It can be overwhelming and without proper support too many responsibilities can lead to burnout;
a lack of work — life balance; when the boundaries between work life and home life become blurred, it is often home life that suffers. We are often pushed to choose between work and family on a daily basis and these can be difficult, overwhelming decisions to make.
poor time management; we often spend a lot of time managing crisis moments, urgent important things, but also urgent, but not so important things. When we fail to prioritise and do what is truly important, we can become overstretched and overwhelmed.
poor relationships with colleagues, friends and family, as human beings. We are interdependent and relational beings. We need help from others to navigate the challenges of work and life. When we are disconnected from others we have to carry our burdens alone and that can lead to burnout.
How to prevent burnout?
Self-care is essential to prevent burnout. Self-care is the practice of caring for your own physical, emotional, psychological well-being.
As we aspire to be mentally healthy, to work productively and contribute meaningfully to our communities, poor self-care, lack of balance and burnout can become stumbling blocks.
Self-care is a critical component of preventive mental healthcare and it is not a ‘selfish’ practice. Self-care is considering your needs, taking care of yourself to care for others, to work and to contribute.
We cannot pour out of an empty cup.
Self-care
Self-care has many components but includes:
Emotional awareness: Burnout often develops because we become disconnected with ourselves and our emotions and we fail to realise when we are getting tired. It is critical therefore to learn to be emotionally aware, acknowledge when we may be struggling and know when to get professional help.
Balancing life and work: To remain effective and prevent burnout, it is essential that there is a balance between the important aspects of our lives.
This work-life balance, work- family balance, balanced lifestyle and avoiding excesses helps us to keep our priorities straight and fulfil our core goals.
We all have finite time and energy and there is an appropriate time and a season for each thing. It is vital to set firm boundaries between home life and work life as well as to dedicate time to key priorities.
We make time for what is important to us and this must be reflected in our daily schedule. We should all value hard work and should make the most of our time at work each day, but we also need a life, a passion, hobbies outside of work to keep ourselves balanced. Time management is also critical to be able to fulfil our priorities at work and at home.
Taking time to rest: There is a need to rest daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and to even take a sabbatical every few years. Rest is necessary for physical and mental rejuvenation. When we take time to rest we can reflect, reconfigure, reset and realign ourselves to our personal visions and goals.
The daily rest should include sleep for seven or more hours a day and is vital for physical and mental health. There is also need to make time to reflect every day, to remain aware of ourselves and our journey, to be conscious of where we are each day and where we are going.
Other periods of rest are the weekends, monthly off days, the annual vacation and for those who can, a sabbatical every few years.
These are all times when we should rest, reflect and reconfigure and realign, take stock of what has happened that week, month and year and set goals for ourselves.
Building and maintaining good relationships with family, friends and colleagues: No human being can exist in isolation. We need the help of others to navigate our way through life. To prevent burnout, we all need to build support and accountability systems to provide structure, practical and emotional support in which we can thrive as individuals. It is important to have people we are accountable to in the workplace for professional success but also within our friends and family members for emotional accountability and growth.
Good relationships also allow us to delegate some responsibilities when we need to.
Maintaining perspective and hope: Hope is mentally protective and critical in preventing and recovery from burnout. We need to have strong reasons to get up each morning. Having a vision for our lives and for our families helps us to have hope. What is your vision for your life? If you feel as if you may have lost sight of your vision, it is important that you make time to re-imagine your dreams, your vision for yourself, your goals. Reflect, refocus your energies and start afresh where necessary.
If you believe you may be experiencing burnout, please make sure to contact your nearest health care provider for assistance.
Look out for next week’s article on demystifying mental health and wellness as we unpack anxiety and how to overcome it.
This Association of Healthcare Funders of Zimbabwe (AHFoZ) article was written by consultant psychiatrist Dr Chido Rwafa Madzvamutse. www.ahfoz.org; [email protected] ([email protected] +263714987729)
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