Why You MUST Prioritise Rest To Avoid Burnout & Optimise Health

A recent survey showed that 88% of UK workers have suffered burnout in the last 2 years.

That’s a lot of people and statistically speaking, probably includes you!

The modern fast paced lifestyle so many of us now lead, especially for individuals who are high achievers and like to push themselves, does not come without its consequences.

And I think one of the biggest issues are the fact these consequences have become normalised and even glorified, with people bragging about being in the 5am club, surviving on 5 hours sleep, or their ability to work 12 hour plus days 6 days a week. It’s also all too easy to look at someone’s job title or salary as a marker of success and ignore what state their health is in as a consequence.

Are you really winning at life of you are earning a 6-figure salary but are overweight with high blood pressure, high risk of illness, no time to rest your body and mind, feel exhausted and are border line depressed?

If we take a step back and look at the bigger picture, this behaviour in the long term isn’t setting you up for a life of happiness, health,energy and longevity. In fact, it is creating quite the opposite.

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Constantly overworking will eventually show up in the form of burnout,  or a more serious illness, as we discussed is the case with 88% of the population already.

And ironically, if your aim is to achieve big things at work and optimise your performance, this will certainly get in your way as you will reach a point when you simply can’t keep going and are forced to stop.

So how do we know when we have hit burnout?

Burnout occurs from constant pressure and chronic stress and can be described as a state of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion.

I read a great analogy from Dr Rangan Chatterjee recently who described our normal stress response like a stretchy rubber band.

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A healthy stress response is one in which we are pushed and stretched and positively aided to perform at our best but then return back to anormal more rested state. Picture a band being stretched but then returning toits normal shape.

However, if we consistently keep stretching and pulling at this band, we reach a point at which it no longer returns to its normal shape and becomesdeformed. This is the point in which we feel tired, wired and argumentative all of the time with our real personality becoming lost- we are burnt out.

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And this is all because we haven’t given ourselves the time and space to rest and recover- we have failed to prioritise rest.

As a first step to avoiding burnout, here are 5 signs to look out for that could suggest you are on your way:

1.Loneliness & Disconnection – You feel like you’re observing the world instead of participating

2.Emotional Exhaustion- You have a very short fuse, your responses are irrationally irritated, you have a negative bias on all your opinions of people around you.

3.Decreased Creativity & Performance- You struggle to think clearly, have brain fog and find it super challenging to be creative and perform at work.

4.Constant Low Mood – The things that used to give you pleasure no longer do. You generally feel low and it doesn’t take much to put you on the verge of tears.

5.Poor Sleep – Your sleep quality and quantity is declining.In many cases you might feel exhausted yet still struggle to fall asleep.

Next week, I will go into the different types of rest we-need and how you can fit them into your modern lifestyle.

Have a great week,

Lizzie

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