The Hidden Side of Burnout
I wrote this article with those who want to achieve the best level of performance in mind, entrepreneurs who want to fulfil their mission and entrepreneurs who want to improve the results of their teams. Although it can help everyone who reads it, this is the group of people who will benefit the most.
Why? Because they are the ones who suffer the most from burnout and who therefore need to know how their hidden side can be the key to treating it, preventing it and increasing their overall performance.
The figures for burnout are staggering from any perspective we look at. In 2016, the World Economic Forum estimated that burnout cost the world economy $322 billion to the world economy. If we look more broadly at the impact of work-related stress (which is also at the root of burnout), we're talking $500 billion and 550 million working days lost per year, according to the American Psychology Association (APA).
This was before the pandemic. Now, at this time and according to the same APA study, there is a 38% increase in symptoms associated with this state of exhaustion. The impact of this data is really impressive and global:
According to the consultancy firm Gallup, almost 75% of workers report symptoms of burnout, albeit not permanent ones. This means that only a quarter of people feel at full capacity;
The APA tells us that the main symptoms for the 1500 workers studied are decreased cognitive ability, emotional exhaustion and physical fatigue (by 36%, 32% and 44%, respectively). We have to agree that these people fail to be their best version, both personally and professionally.
According to data shared by Forbes, burnout accounts for 20 to 50 per cent of employee turnover each year.
It's fair to say that burnout is increasing, affecting more and more people and probably slowing down personal, professional and business growth.
An important step was taken in 2019 when the World Health Organization described Burnout as a medical syndrome for the first time, using this definition:
"Burnout is a syndrome resulting from chronic occupational stress to which the individual has not properly adapted. It is characterised by three dimensions:
Feeling of lack of energy or exhaustion
Increased emotional detachment or feelings of negativism or cynicism towards work
Reduced professional effectiveness.
Burnout refers specifically to the occupational phenomenon and should not be applied to other areas of life"
It clearly assumes that the basis of the syndrome is the chronic stress level of job stress. Much has been written about how to approach burnout, how to lessen its impact. This article from The Economist turns out to be a summary of the commonly recommended approach:
Change of corporate culture to eliminate or reduce 6 factors causing the most stress (high workload, alienation from decision, diminished recognition, toxic dynamics, lack of fairness and conflicting values) by adopting the "three C's of Maslach": collaboration, customization and commit.
Changing attitude towards work, reducing negative engagement and seeking to build social relationships
Creating rituals that help tolerate the impact of stress, improving alertness and productivity
Rest.
This is the known side of burnout, the most obvious and the most visible, that of being a mental health problem combined with occupational issues. However, it completely fails to recognise the existence of the other side, which seems to be hidden and unnoticed by everyone.
But in fact, and despite adjectivising it as "hidden", it is clearly laid out in the very first sentence of the WHO definition:
"Burnout is a syndrome resulting from chronic occupational stress to which the individual has not properly adapted. "
Let me translate into more understandable language: after a constant response to high levels of stress, the system was losing the ability to react and adapt to circumstances to the extent necessary to be able to continue functioning.
Think about this scenario: you need your phone in your daily life. Your activity depends on being reachable, which means you need the battery to last until the end of the day. What do we do every day to try to make sure that happens? We charge the battery so that when the new day starts, we have a full charge at our disposal to use its full potential.
Meanwhile, you start to notice that when you wake up, the battery is not at 100%. You realise that your phone no longer recharges as well, has less capacity, lasts less and that it quickly goes into that energy-saving mode, losing performance.
Faced with this scenario, two hypotheses arise to try to avoid running out of battery on your mobile phone:
maintain the same energy recovery strategy but limit its use to the minimum possible, hoping it will be enough to return to the previous battery and performance level, or
optimises the recharging process, delivering more charge and accumulating more battery so you can use as much as you need to achieve the best results.
Which option do you choose? I would venture to say the second: instead of accepting limiting your action because the battery won't charge, hindering what you can do during your day, you choose to ensure that you give your phone all the tools to function at the level you want and need.
Does it make sense? I hope so.
Now replace "mobile phone" with "body" and you get a very close look at what burnout is, its two sides and what the options are for improving and treating it.
burnout is a state in which the systems involved in stress response and adaptation and focus/performance have been brought to exhaustion by being used intensely and demanding over a prolonged period without being given a chance to recover and recharge properly. It's like trying to make a call on a dead mobile phone: no matter how much you want to and how urgent it is, it's not going to be possible.
burnout comes when we stop working. Not because we don't want to, but simply because we can no longer do it.
So the solution is not (only) to change the factors that surround us but to recover and recharge the batteries of the various systems, to give you all the tools so that you can maintain the levels of reaction, adaptation and performance!
There are two central systems in this process:
The hypothalamic-pituitary-suprarenal (HPA) axis
This is the control system par excellence of stress responses by regulating the release of cortisol, the stress hormone. This release is the final step in a process controlled by several intermediates which lead to the adrenal gland producing this hormone.
It is a highly metabolically costly process, designed with a single goal in mind: survival. Our stress response is not programmed to save resources, only to save us! If we survived the chase of a lion, then we would then have time to recover.
In this day and age, where we start our days receiving notifications, have important meetings throughout the day and are forced to make decisions permanently, the metabolic expenditure of having to constantly respond to these stress peaks is very high and leads to a progressive loss of "battery" and responsiveness.
According to this study published in 2020 done with police officers in the USA, there are certain states of burnout in which the ability to produce and release cortisol is impaired, pointing to an inability of the system to do so. One of the reasons given is reduced levels of vitamin C. Besides its known immune and antioxidant effect, this vitamin is fundamental for brain and adrenal function, in particular to maintain stress response capacity, such as the release of catecholamines and cortisol. On the other hand, it can also control the production of cortisol associated with stress.
Ensuring there is enough vitamin C is one of the initial steps in keeping the battery charged and ready to respond. This is just one example of very many.
The autonomic nervous system
We have two nervous systems: the central nervous system, consciously controlled by us and which allows me to be writing this text, and the autonomic nervous system, which remains behind the scenes and not only preserves us but ensures our survival.
It is divided into two sections that are absolutely necessary for our survival
The sympathetic system controls our reactions to stress, responsible for ensuring that when we were being chased by a saber-toothed tiger we mobilised all the necessary resources to escape and survive.
The parasympathetic system manages the process of recharging and regeneration, allowing you to recover from the impact that the sympathetic has.
Our physiological reaction to the tiger chasing us is the same as when we receive an email, an argument or an important meeting: we will activate the same stress response systems. But, unlike before, we now have no time to recharge our batteries and regain our balance. We go from stress to stress, moving towards a predominance of the sympathetic system.
Most people describe this state as hypervigilance, inability to relax (it can even get worse on holiday) or feeling like a boiling pot or a car skidding without being able to move forward.
What this team of researchers concluded in 2015 can be no surprise: "Burnout is characterised by dysregulation of the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems and the HPA axis."
I agree that the whole environment around us leads to this imbalance and that it is important to improve external factors, thereby decreasing threat and stress responses. But even taking into consideration that these changes are slow or even impossible to make, it is potentially more effective to focus on what we can do to balance them, improving our health, recovery and performance.
I leave some suggestions:
Measure heart rate variability (HRV). It is said that you cannot improve what you cannot measure. So it makes sense to assess how this balance is. One of the best markers is HRV which I measure with the Oura Ring. According to Harvard, it is a non-invasive way to assess the imbalance between the two systems. A high-tech company in Taiwan tried to see if they could use HRV to assess the health of their 6,000 workers and concluded that"HRV measurement can be applied in an occupational context to assess burnout. Not only does it allow workers to be identified as needing medical help, but it also allows for timely care to be provided, promoting their health.
Activate the parasympathetic system using breathing techniques. According to the University of Ottawa in Canada, deep and slow abdominal breathing reduces anxiety and the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, increasing the feeling of relaxation. One of the best known breathing techniques (used even by US Navy Seals ) is called box breathing, in which you breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, breathe out for 4 seconds and hold again for 4 seconds, going back to the beginning.
Assume "power postures". Changing the posture influences the physiology and we can use that to change which system is more predominant. This is what happens "expansive" postures or power poses (see herewhat I' m referring to). In a study conducted in Japan published in 2019 it was shown that these postures increased activation of the parasympathetic nervous system. One possible mechanism that helps explain this phenomenon could be the increased sense of control, strength and autonomy that comes from assuming these postures frequently.
I hope you got the impact of the hidden side of burnout. It's not an emotional health issue, but a metabolic one.
And until we look at it that way, we won't be able to make a difference.
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