Modern society has its advantages and benefits but also its fair share of challenges. Millions of Americans experience daily stress or eventually develop burnout from their jobs and other life elements. If you or a loved one need mental health treatment in Scottsdale because of stress, you’ve come to the right place.
Read on to discover the signs and symptoms of stress and job burnout and learn how to get the mental health treatment you need to thrive again.
What is Stress?
Put simply, stress is mental and/or physical strain that accumulates as you approach and tackle tough challenges. For example, you might feel stressed on the days before you have to make a big presentation at work or if you deal with a difficult family situation.
Normally, some stress is fine and even beneficial. Stress can heighten focus and help us summon extra energy to deal with a difficult crisis when needed. But prolonged stress can be harmful to the body and mind.
Specifically, stress causes the production of damaging cortisol hormones (too many of which can harm your body). Stress can also lead to various negative health symptoms, such as lack of sleep, irritability, and even immune system deficiencies.
Stress is a normal part of the human experience. But if you experience too much stress because of your life circumstances or events, you may need help getting your life back on track. Mental health treatment in Scottsdale may help you deal with stress by helping you develop healthy coping strategies or determining the right steps to correct your life’s course.
What is Burnout?
Burnout1 is essentially a prolonged state of high stress. Most people think of burnout as relating to their careers or jobs (hence the popularity of the term “job burnout”). But you can also feel burnout because of things unrelated to your career.
Burnout is usually characterized by intense physical, mental, and/or emotional exhaustion. It always occurs because of prolonged, high-level stress and usually accompanies feeling overwhelmed, emotional fatigue, and so on.
Burnout can lead to serious and negative long-term consequences, including reduced productivity, health effects, lack of energy, and much more. Many of the effects of burnout affect every element of a victim’s life, including their relationships, careers, and their home lives.
How to Identify Stress and Burnout in Yourself
Because intense stress and burnout can be so negatively impactful, you need to know how to identify stress and burnout in yourself. Unfortunately, some stress can feel so ubiquitous and “normal” that you may not even know that you’re experiencing burnout until worse side effects occur.
Let’s take a look at some of the most common signs and symptoms of stress and burnout. 2
Physical Symptoms of Burnout
The physical symptoms of burnout and stress are fairly similar and are usually detectable over long spans of time, such as several weeks or months. Common physical symptoms of stress and burnout include:
- Lack of energy or feeling constantly fatigued
- Difficulty sleeping or insomnia, especially if your mind races
- Feeling aches and pains over your body, despite not knowing the exact source or cause of the pains
- Becoming sick more easily – intense stress and burnout can cause your immune system to become weaker to viruses
Mental Symptoms
In many ways, the mental symptoms of stress and burnout are much more severe and noticeable than the physical symptoms, which can often be confused with regular end-of-day tiredness. Common mental symptoms of burnout include but are not limited to:
- Feeling like every day is a “bad day”
- Being unable to take pride in your accomplishments
- Feeling disillusioned with your job, your relationship, or other elements of your life
- Finding it difficult to concentrate
- Finding it more tempting to use food, drugs, or alcohol to numb the feelings or to feel better
- Mood swings, particularly intense irritability
- Anxious or depressive symptoms
- The development of anxiety or depressive disorders
The mental health symptoms of burnout usually don’t crop up overnight. Instead, they typically appear over several weeks, so you may need the advice of a close friend or loved one to identify them in yourself.
Treating Stress and Burnout in Your Life
While stress and burnout can be frustrating and tiring to deal with, there are ways to treat these conditions healthfully.
For example, taking up more positive habits like meditation, yoga, and exercise can do wonders for reducing stress throughout your body. Physical exercise, for example, helps burn off cortisol stress hormones, reducing the physical stress load your body may feel. Yoga and meditation help to calm your mind and reduce the mental symptoms of stress and burnout across the board.
Furthermore, spending more time in nature or outdoors positively correlates with reduced stress. Many modern people find it tough to spend enough time outdoors. Instead, they spend too much time inside looking at screens. Similarly, spending less time on your mobile phone and social media networks may help reduce the social stress you feel in relation to your friends and family members.
If your burnout is primarily caused by a bad job3 or increased work responsibilities, getting a new job or asking for reduced responsibilities can help you regain your energy and your positive mindset. If needed, speak to your work’s human resources department about taking time off for a mental health break.
Contact Healing Foundations for Mental Health Treatment in Scottsdale
Remember that you aren’t alone if you believe you’re suffering from stress or job burnout. Healing Foundations can provide you with the mental health treatment support you need at our Scottsdale facility.
At Healing Foundations, we offer a variety of different treatment protocols in conjunction with medication and psychotherapy or talk therapy. Specifically, we offer treatments like cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT, dialectical behavioral therapy or DBT, exposure therapy, and much more. Contact us today to see how we can help you deal with stress and job burnout.
Sources:
[1] https://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/burnout-prevention-and-recovery.htm
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3156844/
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/15/well/live/burnout-work-stress.html