Stressed out?

One evening after being unsuccessful in stemming his bleeding nose, and after his mother's medical advice - my son jumped on the internet and found out for himself how to stop it from bleeding.... Somewhere in the world someone had the same problem and had found a way to solve the issue and helped my 15 year old on the other side of the world.... Ain't technology grand!?

Everyone is a little bit stressed and may even be heading towards burnout - but what does that really mean? So I followed my son's lead and thought I would give Mr Google a go and looked up stress and burnout and discovered a goldmine of information on a website called http://www.helpguide.com/

This is that I learnt about stress and burnout.

1) Differences
Burnout my be the result of unrelenting stress, but it isn't the same as too much stress. Stress, by and large, involes too much: too may pressure that demands too much of you physically and psychologically. Stressed people can still imagine, though, that if they can just get everything under contol, they'll feel better. Burnout, on the other hand, is about not enough. Being burned out means feeling empty, devoid of motivation, and beyond caring. People who experience burnout often don't see any hope of positive change in their situations. If excessive stress is like drowing in responsibiities, burnout is being all dried up.One other difference between stress and burnout: while your'e usually aware of being under a lot of stress, you don't always notice burnout when it happens.

2) How do you know?
According to http://www.helpguide.org/ you know when you are dealing with burnout by applying the three R's. Recognise, Reverse and Resilience. Recognise the warning signs of burnout, reverse the damage done by managing stree and seeking support, and build up your resilience to stresse by taking care of your physical and emotional health.

3) Warning signs
Physical signs and symptoms are feeling tired and drained most of the time and change in appetite or sleep habits. Emotional signs were a sense of failure and self-doubt, loss of motivation, and decreased sense of satisfacion and sense of accomplishment. Finally, the behavioural signs and symptoms are withdrawing from responsibiities, proscratstinating, or taking longer to get things done or skipping work or coming and late and leaving early.

4) Preventing burnout
If you are in this position - some simple tips found on http://www.helpguide.org/ include a) starting the day with a relaxing ritual, b) adopting health eating, exercising, and sleeping habits, c) setting boundaries, d)taking a daily break from technology, e) nourishing your creative side and f) learning how to manage stress. My favourie was setting boundaries which had something simple as learning to say "no" to requests for your time. If you find this diffidult (which mother/woman doesn't), remind yourself that saying "no" allows yoiu to say "yes" to the things that you truly want to do...

5) Recovery
Like all things - thankfully stress and burnout have an end. Recovering from it can include three things; 1) Slow down - force yourself to slow down or take a break. Cut back whatever committments and activities you can. Give yourself time to rest, reflect, and heal. 2) Get support - turn to your loved ones for support, and 3) Re-eavaluate your goals and priorities - take time to think about hopes, goals and dreasm. This can be an opportunity to rediscover what really makes you happy and to change your course accordingly.

If you are in this place where anything that I have found on this website applies - make some changes. If I can - anyone can ;-)

Yours in friendship

Mxox