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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday May 30 2019, @05:39AM   Printer-friendly
from the running-on-empty dept.

Burnout is now an Official Medical Diagnosis, Says the World Health Organization:

If you feel chronically exhausted or frustrated with your work, keep making small mistakes or feel stuck in a cycle of unproductiveness, you may want to take a trip to your doctor. Even if it isn't burnout, it's worth getting checked out.

Why does burnout happen?

Burnout occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally and mentally depleted and unable to keep up with constant demands at work. As stress continues to mount, you may feel hopeless, disinterested and resentful when it comes to your work life.

According to the American Institute of Stress, Americans now work longer and harder than before: In one generation, the number of hours worked increased by 8% to an average of 47 hours per week.

Some other startling statistics from the Institute of Stress:

  • 25% of workers have felt like screaming or shouting because of job stress
  • Nearly 50% of workers say they need help learning how to manage stress
  • More than a third of workers (35%) say they feel their jobs harm their physical or emotional health

And from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health:

  • 40% of workers report their job as being very or extremely stressful
  • 75% of employees believe on-the-job stress is much higher than it was a generation ago
  • Workers associate job stress with health issues more than they associate financial or family problems with health issues

As for what to do about it? There are no hard-and-fast rules, but the suggestions basically amount to separating from activities that lead to "immediate reaction required". Only check your e-mail in the morning, at lunch, and at the end of the day. Log out of chat applications whenever possible. Reduce the amount of time spent on social media. Go for a walk without your cellphone or media device.

In a nutshell: take back control of your life.


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 30 2019, @02:17PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 30 2019, @02:17PM (#849294)

    I tried this several years ago. I failed at it. My list became so large that it took more time to manage than just doing the critical things that came up every day (purely reactionary). The list also got overwhelming and a bit depressing as it showed all the great things I couldn't do because the list was too large and there was no way to get through it all. I spoke to my manager about it and his response was that he was impressed by the ownership I showed and how I wanted to make things better. He also said my priorities were way off. I needed to do what others wanted me to do (and only that), and not build a better product so it didn't fail next week. He said to let it fail, and then respond to the requests to fix it at that point. He actually said to care LESS about everything, and do what management wanted, and look happy about it. I migrated into management shortly after that point in hopes of changing things from a higher level. But that is a story for another thread.

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