The Nervous System Behind Burnout
Signs You Are Near Burnout or In An Active Burnout
The thought of going into work makes you: procrastinate, freeze, ill
Willfully ignoring deadlines
You delay going to sleep to be on your phone to feel like you have “me” time
You day dream about getting sick, or not seriously injured but injured enough so that you don’t have to go into work
Pure exhaustion that even sleep or short leave can’t cure
A feeling of no extra time outside of commute and work
Please note there is a difference between DGAF (Don’t Give a Fuck) and Burnout from my experience with burnout there is still a desire to be employed, DGAF can get quite destructive if not attended to.
The Nervous System Behind Burnout
Burnout happens when one state of your nervous system is “on” too much and usually it is the sympathetic branch. The Sympathetic is part of the Autonomic Nervous System is the “GO” part. This means it is responsible for for the fight/flight response that keeps us alive. There is a trend on social media that goes something like “I wish my nervous system knew it was an email and not a tiger”. Guess what, it doesn’t matter, not only that the corporate life style and technology can still register at the nervous system level as a threat because in a way it is. Constantly having to be on or available, lack of boundaries in a work place, a toxic work environment, co-workers or bosses you don’t like, traffic are stress inducing. Even just the experience that you are not fully in control of your own life, that your boss and job can make decisions for you. These can all illicit a fight/flight/freeze response and continuously showing up your nervous system is now in a heightened state for a prolonged time and this is not sustainable. Imagine trying to drive a car without filling up the gas tank, eventually it will stop and so will you. Your parasympathetic part of your nervous system will over ride to allow you to rest and a lot of this time the rest comes in the form of sickness. Your body will actually force you to rest because constantly being on and available is not realistic nor healthy.
How Does Somatic Experiencing Help With Burnout?
Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a form of therapy where a client experiences one’s own body separate from their mind and is guided to allow the nervous system to complete old traumas by releasing emotions and movements. Somatic Experiencing allows the client to move their nervous system back into one that has a healthy awareness instead of ping ponging between fight, flight, freeze and fawn.
Whether you come to SE already burned out or on the brink of burn out Somatic Experiencing helps you slow down and discharge some of your work experience from your nervous system. SE also helps you bring awareness to your own body to understand and identify burn out feelings and gives you tools to help you renegotiate the stress through enlarging your own capacity to hold the stress that comes with work, life and managing it all.
