Understanding%20Job%20Burnout:

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• Understanding Job Burnout
• Help for the Caring Professional
• Cara OConnell-Edwards, PhD
• Licensed Clinical Psychologist
• Assistant Clinical Professor
• Department of Physical Medicine Rehabilitation
• The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  School of Medicine

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Learning Objectives

• At the conclusion of this presentation, the
  participant should be able to
• 1. Recognize the common physical, emotional, and
  behavioral warning signs of job burnout
• 2. Identify both individual vulnerabilities and
  job-specific risks that increase the likelihood
  of developing job burnout
• 3. Gain practical tips for stress-management and
  preventing burnout

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Stress at Work

• More than half of all American workers describe
  frequent stress at work
• In the US, workers have fewer vacation days per
  year than any other developed country
• Over 30 of workers stay connected to the
  office when they are on vacation
• Working parents report feeling preoccupied by
  work and regularly bring work projects home
• Source CareerBuilder.Com CNN.com, Five warning
  signs of job burnout

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• Work STRESS is often confused with CHALLENGE
• Challenges motivate us to perform, while chronic
  stress makes it difficult to carryout routine
  work duties
• Left unchecked, chronic stress can lead to BURNOUT

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• Defining the problem

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STRESS

• Stress can result from any situation where we
  feel that the demands we are facing exceed our
  resources
• Resources include Time, Money, Energy, Thought,
  Patience, Creativity, Compassion, etc
• Because life is full of Demands, and all us of
  have a limited amount of Resources to meet these
  demands, STRESS becomes a fact of life

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Burnout

• Burnout is a state of physical, emotional and
  mental exhaustion caused by long-term exposure to
  demanding work situations. Burnout is the
  cumulative result of stress.
• Source Mayo Clinic, Mayoclinic.com

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Chronic Stress Burnout impacts our health, mood
states, and even our thinking.
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• Common signs and symptoms of chronic stress and
  burnout

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Signs of Burnout Health

• Your sleep is changing
• You feel exhausted
• Youre always getting sick and/or you take more
  sick days
• You have frequent aches and pains
• You are using alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, food,
  or shopping to feel better about work

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Emotional Signs of burnout

• Youre frequently bored at work
• Work feels meaningless, there is no purpose in
  your work
• You are often irritable or lose your temper with
  coworkers, family, and friends
• You feel preoccupied by fears of losing your job
• You are more cynical about your work (the so
  what factor)

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Cognitive Signs of Burnout

• You cant concentrate
• You have trouble making decisions
• Your mind goes blank
• You make more mistakes
• You work hard but seem to accomplish very little
• You zone out or stay on automatic pilot

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NIOSH Model of Job Stress
Stressful Risk of Injury
or Illness Job Conditions Individu
al and Situational Factors available at
www.cdc.gov/niosh
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• Reviewing common environmental and individual
  traps that lead to burnout

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Looking aroundThe work environments that create
burnout

• Low control
• Lack of reward
• Unclear expectations
• Unrealistic expectations
• Too little or too much work
• Lack of feedback
• Critical boss

• Frequent Deadlines
• Too little pay
• Competing demands
• Office politics
• Bureaucracy
• Unhealthy coworkers
• Helping/caregiving profession

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Looking within. Individual variables that
increase risk for burnout

• Your expectations dont match reality
• You have rigid ideas about how things should be
• Youre a perfectionist
• Cant say no
• You ruminate (replay) conversations with
  coworkers, managers
• You are experiencing a personal or family crisis

• You have dysfunctional relationships with
  coworkers
• You are juggling several roles
• You habitually take work home with you
• You have trouble organizing/managing time

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• Every workplace offers challenges, stressors, and
  opportunities
• We are all vulnerable and may experience several
  of these common symptoms at some point during our
  work lives
• The helping professions have some of the highest
  risk for job burnout

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What can be done?

• Fact
• Our ability to cope with stress has an impact on
  our health and happiness.
• FactWe all have strategies to cope with stress
  that we use on a daily basis.
• FactOur Coping Strategies have the potential to
  either Help or Hinder (make worse) us in dealing
  with any given situation.
• FactIt is never too late to learn new Coping
  Strategies to improve our health and happiness.

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Strategies for preventing and coping with stress
and burnout
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• The first step to managing stress at work is
  increasing awareness of the individual and
  environmental triggers that make us vulnerable to
  the stress response

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Emotional habits are hard to break

• Habits/patterns of responding to stressful
  situations become automatic, and may be difficult
  to recognize at first

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A Mindful Approach to Reducing Stress

• Mindfulness means paying attention in a
  particular way on purpose, in the present
  moment, and nonjudgementally. This kind of
  attention nurtures greater awareness, clarity,
  and acceptance of present-moment reality. It
  wakes us up to the fact that our lives unfold
  only in moments (Wherever you go, There you
  are. page 4).
• -Jon Kabat-Zinn

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Origins of Mindfulness

• Mindfulness is routed in eastern philosophy but
  has been applied to western medicine
• Mind-body medicine recognizes the link between
  what is going on in the mind (stress, negative
  emotions) and the body (disease states, healing)
• Mindfulness has been applied to stress management
  and is a useful approach to combating the impact
  of chronic stress on psychological and physical
  health

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Mindfulness

• Focused awareness on the present
• moment
• Paying attention to what is happening internally
  or externally while it is happening
• Can be practiced formally or applied in
  moment-by-moment experiences

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What can mindfulness do for me?
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• Some of the worst things in my life never
  actually happened. (Mark Twain)
• Life is what happens to you while you're busy
  making other plans. (John Lennon)

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• How am I feeling right now?
• What is going on with me at this moment?

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Some mindful approaches to stress

• All that we have is the present moment
• Thoughts are not facts
• We are more than our thoughts
• Enhanced awareness adds more joy to life

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Tips for enjoying more moments
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• 1. Keep Breathing

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• 2. Move more

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• 3. Stay Connected

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• 4. Plan your day

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• 5. Do one thing at a time

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• 6. Just Say no

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• 7. Reward yourself

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• 8. Change your thinking

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• 9. Turn down the noise

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• 10. Build your social support network

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Wrapping Up

• Questions and Discussion