Burnout is a condition of physical, mental and emotional fatigue brought about by prolonged stress. It happens when you constantly feel emotionally and physically depleted, overwhelmed by your daily tasks because of which you don’t feel like getting anything done.
As the stress increases, you start to lose the motivation that drove you to take on a specific job in the first place.
Burnout doesn’t occur suddenly, it’s a gradual process that happens when you’re in a constant state of stress for a prolonged period of time. And many times you don’t even realize it.
The signs and symptoms initially feel harmless but over time will get worse with time and prolonged exposure to stress. Which is why it’s important to tackle it before it gets worse. Here’s a list of some of the signs and symptoms of burnout.
Signs And Symptoms Of Burnout
- Feeling tired and drained most of the time
- Change in appetite or sleep habits
- Frequent headaches or muscle pain
- Sense of failure and self-doubt
- Beginning to have a negative outlook
- Lashing out at others because of your own frustrations
- Isolating yourself from others
- Skipping work or coming in late and leaving early
- Procrastinating
- Using drugs, alcohol, or food to cope
- Avoiding responsibilities Feeling detached or lonely
You can prevent burnout by making some lifestyle changes. Make sure you eat and sleep at the right time and you always get enough rest. Exercising helps to release positive hormones and reduces the stress hormones in your brain.
Spending at least 20 minutes every day in some form of exercise – it could be yoga, gymming, or just even walking – can make you feel better.
Other than this listening to relaxing music can help you unwind after work. Or even using apps like reminder apps and meditation apps can help you prevent burnout. Here’s a list of technologies you can use to prevent burnout.
Technologies To Prevent Burnout
1. Relaxing Music: No better way to relax than listening to good music that calms your nerves. Find relaxing playlists on apps like Spotify. It’s easy to find relaxing music playlists on Spotify using Spotify codes. Simply scan the Spotify code using your app and you can save the playlist on your phone.
You can even make a collection of your favorite tracks and sare via Spotify codes. Or you can create a custom QR code wherein you can put all your favorite tracks together for easy and quick access.
2. ASMR Videos: Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response videos use audio-visual induced sensation that helps you relax and unwind. You can even listen to them if you have difficulty falling asleep. You can easily access such relaxing videos by generating a QR code for it and make it portable.
What’s, more, you can even share it with your friends. Use an online dynamic QR code generator to easily design and create a QR code.
3. Headspace: Headspace is a free application that is incredible for individuals who are simply beginning on the journey of mindfulness and meditation. It’s a guided meditation app that uses calming voices and sooting illustrations that helps you meditate.
This app is very popular as it makes meditation accessible to everyone and guides you through different stages of meditation. Ultimately, the app teaches you how to meditate and the importance of practicing mindfulness.
4. Calm: This helps you calm your nerves by taking you to a space of calming elements that can guide you as you overcome troubling emotions or a disturbed mental state. If you have trouble falling asleep, this is the perfect app because of offers sleep stories narrated to you in soothing voices that will easily lull you into sleep.
Other than this, you can also play calming nature sounds and scenes to help you calm down. The app also has audio lessons on how to reduce stress and practice mindfulness. In fact, it won the iPhone app of the year award in 2017.
5. Personal Zen: This is another free app that helps you shift into a positive state of mind. The effectiveness of the app has been proven with the help of clinical studies. The app helps you reduce feelings of stress and anxiety by offering game-like activities. The game forces you to ignore negative stimuli and focus on the non-threatening and positive scenarios.
This game works on a principle called Attention-Bias Modification Training, where you avoid negative stimuli training your brain to avoid negative emotions and focus on everything that’s positive. You just have to play this game a few times a week for its effect to eventually show.
6. MindFi: If you often feel restless then this app is perfect for you. The app is designed in such a way that it helps you stay focused on the current activity and in turn also help increase your productivity. The app is specially designed for those who find it difficult to take time out for themselves because of their busy schedule.
It helps you take care of your mental health and practice mindfulness on a daily basis. The app offers short doses of mindfulness exercises so that you can spend at least a few minutes on meditation and reflection despite your busy lifestyle.
7. Urban Mind: This app helps you understand your state of mind and how different environments affect your mental state. The app assesses how you are feeling based on questions like where are you and how you are feeling.
It will then understand what environments make you feel stressed, anxious, sad, or happy. The app asks you a list of questions relating to your current surroundings, activity and how you’re feeling. The app makes a detailed report for you after two weeks so you can understand your state of mind better.
Final Thoughts
Whether you’re feeling stressed because of work or practicing on staying calm in stressful situations, these technologies can help you overcome burnout. These apps are a great way to take some time out for yourself and concentrate on being more mindful about your mental state to avoid burning out.
Whether you are trying to remain calm in stressful situations, have too much on your plate or have simply been neglecting your mental health for the sake of work, download one (or all) of these apps.
Having this level of support so readily available is a fantastic way for busy people to keep on top of their mental health and to avoid burning out.