Burnout recovery: 3 steps to recover from burnout

1.3 million Dutch burnout

Did you always think it would never happen to you? Yet you're sitting at home and completely burned out? You have a burnout?

Then you're not the only one. According to CBS, more than a million Dutch people suffer from burnout symptoms due to work stress. They experience:

• Extreme fatigue
• Insomnia
• Headaches
• Concentration problems
• Gloom
• Panic attacks

Serious symptoms, in other words. Whether burnout recovery is possible? Yes, it certainly is. But you don't solve burnout by a week's vacation or some fewer projects at work.

Do you have mental or physical symptoms and would like medical advice from a specialist? Then consult a physician or psychologist.

Your battery is empty

A burnout occurs after a period of extreme stress. So you don't get burnout immediately if you are very busy for a period of time, for example because you are in the middle of a renovation at home and have to lead a new project at work.

It is a consequence of prolonged stress. Your battery becomes increasingly empty during stressful periods and needs to be recharged regularly. Are you not doing this? Then there is a danger that eventually there is no energy left in you at all and you run out. It can then take quite a while before you are completely back to your old self.

Burnout recovery: 3 steps

Recovering from a burnout therefore takes longer than recovering from stress symptoms. It can take from about 3 months to more than a year, obviously varying by situation and person.

1. Accept that you have burnout and take rest

The very first step in recovering from burnout is accepting that you have burnout. Ignoring the situation you are in does not help in any case. You don't get burnout overnight. You have had multiple symptoms for a long time and apparently you feel at this moment that you cannot continue as you always did.

Are you doing this? Then the situation becomes many times worse. Don't fight it, that way you only work against it and work yourself even deeper into burnout. It is logical that you want to get rid of the burnout as soon as possible. You want to be able to work fully again, to do the things you used to do. But in this phase it is important to listen to your body and take rest.

• Instead, seek help. This can be with your doctor, a psychologist or a special burnout coach. It can be difficult to claw your way up from burnout on your own. In addition, discuss with friends and family that you have a burnout and need to take time for yourself. This will make you come across not as pathetic, but clear.
• Next, see what adjustments you can make in your life. Take rest. If you can still keep working, that's good, but see if you can take days off in between. Create as much rest for yourself as possible. Sleep well and a lot, structure your day, eat healthy and get plenty of (not too intense) exercise such as walking, cycling and yoga. Maybe you can also cancel certain appointments you have scheduled for the coming time?

2. Think of solutions to change your situation

Once you have recovered from the initial blow and have taken a lot of rest, you can start working more actively on your recovery. You don't get burnout overnight. You do something in your life that causes you to get so much stress or that allows stress to affect you so much.

Use the rest period in your burnout to figure out what is causing it. What has caused so much stress? And how are you dealing with it? It also helps well to talk about this with others.

For example, ask yourself the following:

• How is your situation at home? Do you find peace there or is it often tense? And how does that come about?
• How are things at work? Do you still enjoy going to work? Is this what you really want? What do you enjoy doing (within your work)? And what causes you stress?
• How do you deal with stressful situations? Are you for example a perfectionist, afraid to do things wrong or do you have a strong need to prove yourself? And where does that come from?
• How is your relationship with other people? Are there certain tensions that cause stress? Do you have fine family and friends? Or do you often feel lonely?
• How well do you take care of yourself? Do you eat healthily? What do you do for sports? How do you take enough moments of rest?

Buy a nice notebook and keep track of your burnout recovery in it. Writing works very enlightening and can give you many insights.

3. Work consciously on your burnout recovery

If you are in this phase of your recovery, you notice that everything is getting easier again. You have taken a lot of rest and have created clarity for yourself. You sleep better, get more energy and can handle things more easily. You are in this phase of recovery when you notice that things are a little easier again. At this point you can actively work on solutions and make step-by-step changes in your life.

Situations do not resolve themselves on their own. In order to get out of burnout and not fall back into it, it is important to tackle what went wrong. In the previous phase you made clear to yourself what possibly caused the burnout and where all the tension and stress came from. In this phase you start working on solutions.

Think about the following, for example:

• Rearranging your work. Working fewer days, taking on fewer tasks, doing another job or looking for a completely different job.
• Improve your home situation. For example by arranging things more logically, taking the children to a babysitter more often, getting a cleaning lady or working on your relationship.
• Take regular and more time for yourself. Create enough mental and physical rest in your life. Find a sport that energizes you, get out in nature more often, make conscious time for self-care. Devise healthy routines for yourself that you can easily implement in your life.
• Work on your mindset. Adjust expectations on yourself and learn to deal with stressful situations.

Burnout recovery? Take a daily meditation moment

Are you in burnout and want to recover? Meditating is an easy and nice way to take a moment for yourself every day. If you meditate for a few minutes every day you will already notice a difference. You become less susceptible to stress and experience more inner peace. This allows you to think more clearly and enjoy the moment more.

Meditating isn't hard

Meditating isn't hard. Maybe "meditating" sounds vague, floaty and far-fetched. But it is nothing more than a moment of rest for yourself. Without baggy pants or incense. You can just sit on a nice chair, outside in the sun or lying in bed. Close your eyes, take a few good breaths and calm down.

Still, we understand that sometimes meditating can be quite difficult. Especially if you don't have much experience with it. For example, you get easily distracted or don't know what to do.

That's why we have included several guided meditations in the Meditation Moments app. During a guided meditation, a voice guides you through the meditation. So you only have to focus on the voice and do nothing else at all.

The Meditation Moments app contains guided meditations that you can listen to to unwind. But you can also use them to prevent stress down the road.