Coined by the psychologist, Herbert Freudenberger in the 1970s, Burnout describes a severe stress condition that leads to severe physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion.
Much worse than ordinary fatigue, burnout makes it challenging for people to cope with stress and handle day-to-day responsibilities. People experiencing burnout often feel like they have nothing left to give and may dread getting out of bed each morning. They may even adopt a pessimistic outlook toward life and feel hopeless.
Burnout can lead to serious physical and psychological illnesses like depression, heart disease, and diabetes.
Burnout is a kind of work-related stress characterized by three specific things. The first is a feeling that you're exhausted -- both emotionally and physically.
Feeling useless and a Failure !! The next 'Burnout pillar' will be a sense of incompetence, a feeling that you just can't be effective.
And third one could be -- Turning Cynical --- Lack of interest in work that can be negative or even callous.
Exhaustion often leads to it.
All these can lead to a lack of accomplishment and productivity. Sometimes, that feeling seems to be a result of the other tent poles of burnout -- exhaustion and cynicism. Other times, all three come down on you at once.
Burnout Syndrome is experienced in many occupations where the work pace has increased, and the demands of work have rapidly grown. It is present among managers, entrepreneurs, white- and blue-collar workers.
Work burnout is a consequence of reciprocal relationship of perceived disparity between the demands of the job and the resources (both material and emotional) that are available to an employee.
Characteristics of people that are prone to burnout are tendency to perfectionism, idealization of profession, high expectations, taking too much responsibility, having difficulties setting boundaries (e.g. refusing tasks).
Personality factors such as neuroticism, excessive shyness, inflexibility, and poor stress management skills, all contribute to how one is affected by stress on the job.
Burnout is generally characterized by:
-some degree of physical and emotional exhaustion.
-socially dysfunctional behaviour, particularly distancing from co-workers.
-suffering strong, negative feelings toward the self and the environment.
-organizational inefficiency through decreased output and poor morale.
Using food, alcohol, or drugs to feel better may be a symptom of job burnout. This can be serious. Obesity, or alcohol and drug misuse, can lead to all sorts of health problems.
Now, is Niksen -- the Dutch Lifestyle concept of Doing Nothing matters and does it help?
** One in four workers - statistics show - are experiencing Burnout. In the US, they say 43 per cent of workers suffer burnout. In India, it is 59 per cent and in South Korea, the number stands at 70 percent.
Now to combat the menace or to help people come out of it ?
Niksen “literally means to do nothing, to be idle or doing something without any use”.
Practicing Niksen could be as simple as just hanging around, looking at your surroundings or listening to music — as long as it’s without purpose.
And mind you, it is 'not done in order to achieve' something or be productive. An article in 'Time' magazine claimed a few years back:
"In the Netherlands, Niksen has historically been dismissed as laziness or as the opposite of being productive. But as stress levels climb in the U.S. and globally and their crushing health impacts, like burnout, Niksen is getting more recognition from the medical community.
Doing nothing is increasingly being framed as a positive, stress-fighting tactic."
Another benefit of Niksen is that it can help people come up with new ideas, according to Veenhoven, who is also the director of the World Database of Happiness,.
“Even when we ‘niks,’” or do nothing, “our brain is still processing information and can use the available processing power to solve pending problems,” he says, which in turn can boost one’s creativity.
This could manifest in having a breakthrough solution to a problem on a walk or a great business idea reveal itself while daydreaming.
Research also supports the idea that doing simple tasks that allow your mind to wander can foster creative problem solving, even improving your ability to work through a problem you might have been stuck on earlier.
A 2013 study published in Frontiers in Psychology, on the pros and cons of a wandering mind, showed that this process can help an individual get inspired about achieving his or her goals and gain clarity about the actions to take in order to meet those goals in the future.
ends
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