Stress Cognition

We have already discussed the first two C’s - namely Control and Communication.

The third ‘C’ stands for ‘Cognition’ or perception

So let’s look at how Cognition can help to alleviate the symptoms of burnout and/or stress. When bearing the brunt of excessive stress we tend to fall into the trap  of making negative estimates of everything, our sound judgement is affected, we entrap ourselves in pessimistic viewpoints. However, we need to be completely realistic about the situation. We need to analyze whether or not there really is a basis for such negative thinking patterns, maybe ask your self this question, “Will the result really be as bad as you fear, or are you blowing the fear out of all proportion?” Perhaps it is time to shift one’s perception, move the mind in another direction altogether, to look at the problem of what is causing our stress levels to rise from a completely new angle. Parents Magazine has this to say on this stress technique, “You can start by assuming that if you are burned out and under stress, it’s probably because you are ‘good’, not because you are ‘bad’,”

Recall this point, That the types of individuals who are prone to stress burnout etc set for themselves very high standards and usually care about other people a great deal. One of the most helpful things you can do towards any individual going through burnout or a highly stressful situation, is to give to them a kind word of appreciation, for who they are and the work that they do.  It can be summed up by saying, commit random acts of kindness. For a certainty an encouraging word of appreciation for the efforts of others really does go a very long way towards bolstering that individuals sense of self perception and self confidence. In the family we need to learn this lesson more.  In the workplace much stress management help can be rendered to others through positive affirmation of the good efforts of individual team players. By doing this regularly, getting into the genuine habit of praising others with appreciation, where that praise is due, this really can have a very positive effect on the individual suffering from stress or burnout.

There is light at the end of the tunnel with effective stress management techniques.  Implementing a range of commonsense, caring approaches to tackling the causes of stress, everyone can benefit for the overall good not only of individual people but our work and learning environments too making the whole of society around us, a happier, safer and more prosperous place to be.

Stress Communication

Our second ‘C’ is for a Supportive Circle of Communication

With no pun intended, it is interesting that many firefighters do not experience burnout. This could perhaps be in addition to being considered somewhat heroic characters, they have also developed between themselves a very high level of camaraderie, when working together or spending leisure time in each others company. The fact that they have a supportive circle or group to lean on creates excellent communication between themselves, supporting one another - indeed their very lives often depend on it. Describing methodologies for physicians to cope with stress burnout symptoms, the book ‘Burnout Syndrome’, states this, “For doctors, their family, especially their spouse, is the most effective and and realistic emotional supporter.” Everyone, regardless of who they are, their ethnic background or social group, whatever their job role, their role in society, needs someone or a group of people, that they feel that they can safely confide in, their feelings.

USA Today goes further with this quote, “We must build our own support system of close friends and family. We also must feel free to utilise the resources of our religious centers and mental health services.” While a human support system may recharge our batteries for another day, sometimes this alone is not enough. Martin E. P. Seligman in his book Helplessness makes this interesting observation concerning stress and burnout, namely, that the unbridled individualism in the West can also be seen as a contributing cause for the increase in stress and depression, feelings of burnout today within society and he further added that perhaps what is required to manage stress effectively is finding more meaning within life. He stated this true irrevocable fact that “one necessary condition for meaning is the attachment to something larger than what you are.” Sometimes confiding in a group setting, a communication circle where every member is given free right to express their own individual feelings, this can have a huge positive impact on dealing with stress and subsequent burnout within the workplace environment.  For those individuals that have a religious faith whatever that may be, prayer may also be helpful to help one to relax more and meditate on the more important things and priorities within individual personal lives.

Changing your viewpoint often can help to alleviate stress which naturally brings us to our third ‘C’.

12 Stress Beating Tips

12 Stress Beating Tips

Below are presented 12 tips to prevent stress and prevent burnout from a clinical specialist in mental health nursing.

1. Try to remain in control of your thoughts, feelings and behaviour - meditation can often be of great assistance.
2. When you begin to start the ‘worry’ process, deliberately make a conscious effort to change over to useful, more decisive thinking.
3. When you start to feel agitated, stress is on the horizon waiting to pounce, take good strong deep breaths and consciously relax.
4. Try to put yourself in the shoes of the other individual causing you stress, empathise with their position and try to understand why the stress is developing.
5. Focus on what you appreciate about the people you work with or family members and compliment them regularly. Not false flattery but genuine positive praise.
6. Try and identify and stifle negative, destructive thinking modes which can spiral you downwards emotionally.
7. Learn how to positively assert your personal position, know when to say no.
8. Engaging in brisk physical exercise is extremely good for your overall well being, physically and mentally and of course emotionally.
9. Always do your level headed best to treat everyone else with respect, how you would like to be treated yourself, seeking to bring out always, the best in others.
10. Maintain if you can a sense of humor, a sparkle of life in your eye.
11. Know when to leave your problems whether these be in the workplace or in the home, do not transfer these problems outside of their own arena.
12. Do today what must be done to realise the goal, do not procrastinate and put off until tomorrow, what can be done today.

The above 12 stress busting tips are an adaptation of “Dealing With Feelings, Beating Burnout,” by Ruth Dailey Granger, American Journal of Nursing, January 1992.

Those individuals that are fully aware of their own limitations and the limitations in others too, welcome help and assistance.  This emotional maturity pays dividends when experiencing stress or burnout, realising that one of the paramount keys to avoiding stressful situations in the first place, is knowing when to ask for help. A lot of people are afraid to ask for help especially when experiencing high stress levels for fear of rebuttal or not being taken seriously, or perhaps for fear that they may be looked upon as failing in their job at work. Not asking for help when needed though can lead to even greater problems, not only for you personally, but the entire team effort. Be it secular work, housework or college learning associated work, whatever situation is threatening you with stress or burnout - delegate work wherever you can so that everyone becomes a strong positive team player, by doing so you will usually end up with a much more positive atmosphere. It can be surprising with the right amount of delegation just how much the entire team can accomplish when this ethos is employed. There is absolutely no need for you to feel that you have to carry the whole burden of responsibility on your shoulders, all alone.

Another important stress buster is giving yourself the right amount of rest, not too much and not too little.  The same can be said for diet. Eating fast foods at work, snacking, chocolate bars etc, too much caffeine all of these can also contribute towards heightened stress levels.  Try your best to allocate proper time for breaks at work and at home and give your food time to digest properly.  Easier said than done sure, in many circumstances, all the more reason then when you are out of your work environment to allocate to yourself proper rest periods or ‘you’ time.

Coping With Stress

Stress and Burnout, How Can You Cope With It?

Many individuals who feel completely burdened out with stress, burnout and anxiety naturally want an escape from the symptoms that they are going through and by human nature under such circumstances, some turn to drink or worse drug abuse in the false hope that for a few moments at least, they can once again feel more normal in themselves. Turning to alcohol or drugs though can lead to further negative impact addictions which only compound the problem.  Alcohol and drugs only cover over the problem for an exceedingly short period of time and can through misuse make the problem of stress or burnout, the root causes of stress, a lot more difficult to face up to and resolve.  Sometimes for the most effective stress management techniques to take place in a true reflexive manner, one needs to go straight to the root causes of what is causing the problem in the first place.  There is no positive point to be gained from taking short term measures which in time come back to haunt you and make the problem of stress management much worse.

Other individuals seek stress management relief through other measures such as going on shopping spree’s, buying consumer goods, clothes and accessories that they don’t really want or need, in an effort to make themselves feel better about themselves as individuals.  This too can create a compounded negative impact on dealing with the actual causes of stress and can if it is allowed to go unchecked, add up to even more stress in the future.

Still other people go down the route of promiscuity, all of these measures an effort to escape from life’s hard realities and avoid the pain of what is causing the stress or burn out right from the outset.  Such escapist measures are a two edged sword and whilst temporary relief may feel ever so good, usually the root cause of the stress rears it’s ugly head again very shortly afterwards sending the stress victim into a never ending vicious circle avoiding the real reality of life and what is going wrong.  If allowed to go completely unchecked, these escapist measures just lead to further frustration and often depression or worse.

When individuals try to dilute their problems through escapism, rather than rekindling themselves positively they simply speed up the process of further burnout. When the fire inside you is burning out, stressed out to the maximum, what real steps can you take to alleviate the stress felt that is causing you so much trouble in your life?

Dr Yutaka Ono, a director at Keio University School of Medicine recommends the three C’s for coping with stress and burnout. He explains that, “The three C’s stand for control, communication and cognition.”

In order to overcome the feels of stress or burnout, feelings of helplessness etc, you must be able to feel that you are the one who is in Control of the situation, of your feels and your behaviour.  When frustration and feels of high stress overwhelm you, leading to frustration or worse, dominating your emotions and normal good thinking capacity, crushing your otherwise good ability to solve problems effectively, it is sadly so all too easy to believe that things are out of your hands.  You can either stay in Control or get out of Control, the choice is entirely up to you. However, one point to keep in ever present front of your mind is that you must not simply sit back and allow these feeling to override your more normal behavioural reactions, leading to frustration and helplessness - dwelling on troublesome thoughts and feelings is simply a precursor, a foreboding sign and/or signal of perhaps worse feelings to come, in the near future.  You need not attempt to solve all of your stressed out problems in one go.  Often a step by step approach in byte sized pieces is the most effective method known to alleviating the feelings of burnout and stress.

Do not procrastinate, that is put off the thought of considering the personal implementation of an action plan, one small step at a time, which when added together over time will significantly reduce your feelings of stress putting you in greater Control over your personal life.  If you initiate these steps, you will begin to feel not only more in Control of yourself but too, you will start feeling a lot more so, positively better and more able to face up to your own root causes of your stress distress.

First we want to suggest that you look at what is actually causing you irritation in the first place. If we can identify what are these exact irritations, locate them, label them, then we can put together some measures to start handling these irritations more positively so that we do not feel so stressed out the next time these irritating stress factors come into play, near you. Irritations, stress, can lead to, if unchecked feelings of defeatism, what we want to do is defeat the stress irritations and not the person experiencing the irritating stress factors, which as discussed can prompt irrational feelings of helplessness, getting annoyed with every trifling difficulty in life.

Causes Of Stress

Why Do Individuals Burnout And Get Stressed?

One survey was carried out to ascertain amongst a group of nurses three contributing factors to stress and burnout. First and foremost was the amount of hassles causing frustration and exasperation in the first place. By way of example, the greater majority of nurses had to carry around with them every hour of every working day, weighty responsibilities, learning how to accept new challenges and extreme difficulties  not only in dealing with patients directly, but also prescribing drugs, handling new pieces of medical equipment and procedures, facing mounting financial considerations and in house hospital budgeting systems and on top of all of this, having to put up with an irregular life-style not to mention amongst many split shifts which interrupted their normal sleeping patterns. The aforementioned book Moetsukishokogun made the point that, “These daily hassles constitute the greatest influence toward their stress levels and ultimately, burnout.” When problems remain unresolved , frustration simply builds up and thus inevitably, leads to burnout or heightened levels of stress.

The second factor noted in this report was lack of support, not having a friend or counsellor to confide in. Thus, a mother who isolates herself from other mothers is more likely to burnout or feel increased levels of stress related anxiety. The above mentioned survey also found that single nurses are more likely to fall foul of stress related symptoms and burnout than those nurses who were in a steady long term relationship or married. Conversely, nonetheless being married or in a long term relationship can introduce other factors which too are likely to compound the amount of stress being experienced within the workplace if there is little or no communication between the partners. Even when everyone is home, schedules can still often be extremely hectic and an individual may find her or himself still feeling isolated and alone, with no-one to turn to, to talk about openly and honestly, the reasons why they are feeling so stressed out.

The third and final factor associated with stress and burnout are feelings of helplessness. For instance, nurses are more likely to feel sensations of helplessness than doctors in some situations because nurses may lack the authority to make positive changes directly within the work environment. The same can be said for individuals in middle management roles who may burnout or get extremely stressed when they feel that their greatest efforts are not being recognised or appreciated, in other words, that their decision making processes are not actually getting themselves or their department anywhere.  This can lead very easily to frustration and stress, which if left to go without notice, can end up costing a company or public health sector service, huge dollars in lost revenues or worse. As one human resources manager noted, “burnout and heightened feelings of isolation and stress are an underlying factor to feelings of frustration which can create to a bad negative impact via not feeling listened to.”

Feelings of helplessness in people generally germinate in a soil of unappreciative attitudes and bear the fruit of stress and burnout. Many partners will empathise with this point, they burn out when their spouse fails to acknowledge the amount of work involved within their own particular role. Middle managers similarly burnout, get stressed when a company or corporation boss, manager, director or CEO ignores a job well done and picks on them instead for relatively minor mistakes. The bottom line is that we all need to have our own individual efforts applauded every now and again, our efforts warmly acknowledged, this will and does go a very long way towards alleviating stress and burnout in the workplace and within our personal family lives. If we work or are surrounded by family issues where our efforts are not rewarded with kind words of encouragement, be it at home or in the office or at work then we are much more likely to suffer from stress or potentially burnout.

Interestingly, many obstetricians suffer considerably less from burnout and stress in the hospital environment, perhaps due it is thought, to the acknowledgement and praise heaped on such members of staff regularly from new mothers and fathers whose new son or daughter has just been brought into the world by such hospital staff.  Mothers and fathers naturally nearly always thank them very much for all their hard work and expertise. This proves a worthwhile lesson to all of us, that when individuals feel appreciated and wanted and their efforts are acknowledged, individuals feel that they are wanted, that they are useful and ultimately as a result, feel more motivated.

As soon as we find out who tends to burn out and why, it becomes a lot easier to tackle the root cause/s of the problem and to take the required steps to alleviate such internal suffering from those people around us, as they say, ‘commit random acts of kindness’, for kindness, recognition of the efforts of individuals we work with or are at home with goes a very long way to stopping in it’s tracks, burnout and feels of stress.  Ultimately, if we look out for each other constantly, everyone is a winner.

Who Is At Risk?

Stress / Burnout - Who Is At Risk & Why?

Imagine yourself in this situation: Perhaps you like millions of other individuals, are an office worker. Work is piling up on your office desk, work space. Your mobile phone is ringing incessantly with greater and greater demands being placed on you, for your time and expertise. Customers demands are ringing in your ears. You feel that you cannot possibly multitask everything effectively.  You are trying your best to juggle a thousand and one jobs at once. Your supervisor wants to see you immediately that you are not meeting your quota. Your son is at trouble at school. His teacher wants to see you straight after school. Your pleas for assistance to your partner at home go unheeded. The entire situation seems to be getting more and more out of hand, the phone rings again, more and more demands on your time. Is it any wonder today especially, with an economic crisis upon us, with the added threat of job layoff’s that so many millions of people, just like you, feel so ultimately stressed out to the hilt?

When the situation becomes so out of hand, stress becomes distress, dis-ease sets in and you feel just about ready to explode, knowing that you cannot take very much more of this. All of this paves the way for stress burnout.

According to one brain researcher stress burnout is ” the result of living an out of balance lifestyle, typically associated with an all-work/no-play spiral.” Overwork though is not the only contributing factor to stress and burnout, under the same pressure and similar circumstances, some burn out whilst others individuals are not prone to the same levels of stress.

So, who are the likely candidates and/or victims of stress and burnout likely to be?

Just as there is the increased likelihood that some people will be more prone to a certain disease, the same can be applied to stress and burnout. A professor of social psychology at the University of California noted “in order to suffer from stress, burnout, you must first be on fire.” A most apt description which fits exceeding well when you come to think about it. In a nutshell this is saying that those one’s that are prone to burnout stress related symptoms are in fact, your high achievers, those one’s that set themselves high ideals and goals, in other words often, a company’s often best people can be extremely prone to stress and/or burnout.

If one was to sum up the personality traits of potential victims of stress and burnout, professor Fumiaki Inaoka from the Japanese Red Cross, College of Nursing, wrote in the book, Moetsukishokogun (Burnout Syndrome): “Those who are inclined to burn out have strong tendencies to be sympathetic, human, delicate, dedicated and idealistic.  They are not machine oriented but ‘human orientated’, so to speak.”

Asked to develop a test to screen out those that are more likely to burn out, one specialist expert in the stress management area had this to say: “What companies need to do,” he said, “is find the people who care enough to burn out … and then develop the appropriate platforms within the company to combat burnout.”

Especially vulnerable are those individuals involved directly with human-orientated services, for example social workers, doctors, nurses, and teachers. Perhaps they more than most, eagerly accept the challenge of helping other people, giving of themselves all the time to improve only, the lives of other people around them, within their communities. These individuals, perhaps you are one of them, burn out when they realise that they are not achieving the sometimes unachievable and unattainable goals, which they have set for themselves to aspire to. Caring mothers too can suffer from the same feelings and symptoms for very similar reasons.

What is stress?

Do you feel stressed?

Are you suffering from burnout?

When you feel stressed or burn’t out it can be increasingly difficult to work at the standard ‘normal’ rate of performance that you usually expect from yourself. Being stressed out or burned out is obviously not good good for you, either mentally, physically or spiritually, in fact when you feel as though you are stressed out to the maximum, it often becomes impossible to function as you normally would.

So first let’s explore what stress burnout actually is.

According to H Freuden-Berger in the mid 1970’s he came up with this definition of stress related burnout, which today is just as fitting as it was back then perhaps, “a state of exhaustion resulting from involvement with people in emotionally demanding situations.” Further we could add to this with the assistance of the American Heritage Dictionary, also “a physical or emotional exhaustion, especially as a result of long-term stress or dissipation.”  There are however depending on the researcher you ask or model depended upon , many shades of difference in the definition of the term ‘burnout’.

It can be said that burnout does not in itself have a true or fully precise medical definition, victims are identified by bouts of short or long-term fatigue, a certain lack of enthusiasm , overwhelming feelings of helplessness or hopelessness and commonly too, malaise. The burnout victim often reacts out of the ordinary even when small things don’t go completely according to plan, responding out of character when going through feelings of burnout. Accompanying stress or burnout the victim often feels extremely tired, irritated and isolated, unsure and indecisive about exactly how to combat these feelings.

Burnout stress also causes procrastination, putting off tasks that otherwise under normal circumstances the stress victim would have no problems at all in getting on with. All efforts expended in the home or workplace may seem to the stress victim to be pointless.

Stress or burnout can affect just about anyone, from school age to those more mature in years, from busy high flying executives to just about anyone you could bump into on the street.  Stress costs not only the individual afflicted with burnout a great deal, but it also affects family relationships and colleagues in the workplace.  In short, stress and/or burnout steals from you, your enjoyment of life and your normal rate of productivity.

Some symptoms to look out for, keep on the watch for include:

* Depleted energy reserves
* Lowered resistance to illness
* Increased dissatisfaction
* Feelings of pessimism
* Increased absenteeism
* Inefficiency at work
* Increased irritability

If you notice any of the above in your work ethos or in relationships either working life or family life, you could be starting to feel the effects of stress or burnout. The time to take action is NOW!