More than stress
While many people may mistake stress for burnout or use the terms interchangeably, medical burnout is an actual medical condition that can result in serious consequences.
How do we tell the difference?
It’s impossible to avoid stress, explained Sharon but one can avoid getting burnt out.
She described her experience with burnout as a time when she “just couldn’t get out of bed and get through the day.”
“I had panic attacks, once when I was driving. It made me seek help and ask what was going on in my life. At first, I thought I was having a heart attack but as I sought help, I realised I was burnt out, I was depleted.”
It has been over a year since her first panic attack, but Sharon now realises that even though it felt sudden, she had probably been headed towards burnout for quite some time.
“Just like how you don’t immediately grow your muscles, you don’t reach burnout so quickly,” she said.
She went on to explain that the early warning signals would look different for each person. And for her, it was quite generic things like getting tired more often than normal, disrupted sleep, and getting more irritable easily.
Frequently experiencing such symptoms can be like the amber light at a traffic junction, signalling you to stop and evaluate if you are just going through a stressful period or if these signs are pointing to something more.
Even though it felt sudden, she had probably been headed towards burnout for quite some time.
We can also get blindsided by how much we enjoy doing many things.
As Sharon shared, “I love hospitality. I love having people over, I love making food, making the home look nice, bringing different groups of people together. Even though I enjoy doing these things, overdoing it can lead to burnout as well because it adds to everything else.
“One of the ah-ha moments for me was that getting burnout was not just about work, or doing things you don’t like… It can also be from things that you genuinely enjoy.”