Recovering from Burnout

What is Burnout from a holistic point of view?

First, we need to view the human being in a holistic way. Let’s look at the 4 components of the human being.

Physical body

Our feelings and emotions (feeling peaceful or anxious or depressed for example)

Our Vitality: how fast we heal, how much energy we have etc; healthy rhythm e.g. sleep

Our Individuality: our goals, dreams and inspirations.

In Burnout we experience stress, too much to do and too little time to do it in.  We get stuck in similar situations for prolonged periods of time. We feel unable to control outside circumstances. Later the same happens to our emotions.  Anxiety appears.  The lack of sleep reduces our vitality.  Eventually we start neglecting our physical body. Simple example would be too many takeaways and too little exercise.

You can see how our 4 aspects (Individuality, Emotions, Vitality and physical body) no longer work in unison and in fact are all over the shop. We get stuck in a destructive cycle.

The first step towards recovery is to face the fact that you cannot carry on like this.  You need to create time for yourself. This is the hardest step. You may need to give up a day at work, for example. But seriously without ‘you time’, you cannot recover from burnout.

Then you create a new pattern of taking care of yourself on all 4 levels

1^st Level of individuality you strengthen when you reconnect with your dreams and goals. I recommend writing them down and reading them daily.

You need to practice a type of mindfulness that works for you. This helps to strengthen us on the level of our individuality and at the second level of feelings.

2^nd Level of our feelings and emotions: I also recommend daily gratitude. It is transformative and helps break vicious emotional cycles fast.

3^rd Level of Vitality you strengthen through the above measures indirectly and directly by strengthening all healthy rhythms or routines. Such as quitting shift work, sleeping at least 7 hours a day.

4^th Level, our physical body you also strengthen indirectly through the above measures. Direct measures include healthy nutrition and exercise. I recommend a little bit of both cardiovascular exercise (walking/cycling…) and stretches (yoga/Pilates…) on regular basis. Nutrition in simple terms: unrefined food cooked at home with plenty of fruits and vegetables. Biodynamic produce is best but organic is also good whenever possible.

Here you have it.

Then we recycle and repeat the above practice till it becomes a habit, done naturally and easily and becomes part of your life.