
Have you ever heard about getting burned out during work-from-home (WFH)? This one occupational illness is also often found in employees who have the opportunity to work from home or even anywhere.
Make no mistake, this new working mode, which many think can be impactful in promoting work-life balance, can also contribute to employees experiencing burnout.
Even if you are at home and working without needing to leave the house, you can still experience this work disorder. Keep on reading to know more about this, and what you can do in order to prevent this.
What is Burnout?
Burnout is a stressful condition related to work. WHO says that burnout is not a medical condition, but a condition of chronic stress, or stress that comes continuously until it is accumulated and thus impacts your overall well-being.
According to most professionals, burnout can occur because the workload is too big, disparity in pay, and pressure or bullying from colleagues.
There are several characteristics that you can spot if you experience burnout, such as:
• Often feeling sick
• Lazy to work and even doing hobbies
• Hard to have a good quality of sleep
• Constantly thinking about work, but unable to do it
Why WFH Can Spark Burnout?
After knowing the full information about burnout, now we will enter the fun part – the correlation between working from home and feeling burnout.
Indeed, working from home can help you to be much more productive. You won’t need to spend time commuting, will have minimal distractions, and it will be easier to get whatever you need when you are at home.
However, there are certainly drawbacks to working at home. This is because you may easily get lonely because you won’t have any coworkers to discuss or talk with, you tend to procrastinate a lot, and often feel guilty when you are resting because you felt that you had to work harder.
Working at home is not as beautiful as many people imagine. Thus why, it can be easy for some to experience burnout even if they work from home.
Here are the ultimate reasons why burnout during WFH is very common to happen despite the many benefits it has:
• Often feel like you have no time to separate your personal and work issues due to having the same place to work and rest.
• Feeling like you have to give more to showcase your productivity. This often makes you unable to make time to have a break.
• No line between professional and personal life (work-life balance)
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How to Prevent Burnout When Working from Home?
Burnout can be avoided when you can manage the stress that may arise due to work pressure. If you often experience stress with great frequency, this is the perfect recipe to get a burnout. Follow these recommended tips to prevent burnout better!
Relax
Better mental health at work can be obtained through psychological detachment. The meaning of psychological detachment is “forgetting” work responsibilities temporarily outside of working hours.
Experiencing burnout when WFH can appear when your work stress can’t be managed, and you keep remembering and thinking about all the issues that you encounter even after working hours have passed.
This will make it harder for you to get a proper break, even after you lie down in bed. Thus, it is important to forget about your work responsibilities after it’s time to clock out.
Take a break
During working hours, between many tasks that you have to do – don’t forget to take a few minutes to breathe in and out.
This can help to relax your body and mind even for a moment. When it’s lunchtime, don’t use this to check email, or use social media.
Both of these activities can trigger other stressors, and even push you to feel even more depressed.
Do other things you like after work hour
Still correlating with point number one, after you finish working – don’t think that you still need to take care of work-related matters.
Instead do what you enjoy, such as watching YouTube videos, fav movies, or reading books. You can also call your friends and chat with them to fill in your time. Most people also feel happy when exercising after work.
In essence, fill this free time to do any activity that can take you “away” from work for a while.
Show yourself some love
There are a couple of ways you can show yourself some love. First and foremost, you should be mindful of yourself.
If you notice that you have to do many projects which exceed your capacity, be brave to be compassionate with yourself and discuss this with your superior.
Don’t just aim to be seen as a capable person, but forget that you too need rest and work-life balance to promote your well-being.
You can also try to show yourself, love, by purchasing things that can support your work during WFH.
For example by buying an ergonomic lumbar chair cushion to help avoid tiredness and promote better body posture, or even a laptop bed tray – which can help you to work productively even when you are on your bed. You can easily purchase your working home office supplies at your preferred online e-commerce site.
By following the tips above, you can help yourself to prevent burnout. But if you are already experiencing burnout due to working from home, you can take several of these steps to get better.
• Take time off and rest
• Share your burden with your trusted someone
• Find activities other than work to relieve stress
• Reduce alcohol and caffeine consumption (they can trigger hormones that cause you to be more “energetic”, even though you need rest)
• Ask for new and different responsibilities
• Lead a healthy lifestyle by setting a sleep schedule, exercise, and eat nutritious food
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The bottom line
Understanding the causes of work-from-home burnout is crucial for maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
By implementing effective strategies and prioritizing self-care, individuals can prevent and overcome work-from-home burnout, leading to enhanced well-being and sustained productivity in remote work environments.
Remember, taking proactive steps to address and prevent burnout is essential for long-term success and happiness while working from home.
