Planning Ahead to Prevent Burnout
Rest is necessary to prevent burnout, and scheduling breaks before we need them is the best way to stay well. By the time we feel like we need a break, we have often already fallen behind.
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Please Don't Compete in the Burnout Olympics
Competing over who is the most burned out creates a culture that rewards suffering. We have choices about how we respond to stress and how we treat ourselves and others.
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Overload Burnout
Overload burnout happens when we have too many things to do and not enough time to do them in. It isn't impacted as much by how we feel about our work — it's just the sheer volume of tasks.
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Under-Challenged Burnout
Burnout does not only come from too much work. Underchallenged burnout happens when work is exhausting not because it is too much, but because it does not let us be our best selves.
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Compassion Fatigue
Compassion fatigue is a specific type of burnout that comes from caring too much, for too long. It tends to result in it becoming harder to care about and connect with people.
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What Is Burnout?
The word burnout originates from electrical devices. Think of a burned out lightbulb — it has all the energy it needs, but still will not work. People get burned out the same way.
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Disrupting Negative Patterns to Change Beliefs
CBT is based on the idea that our thoughts affect our emotions, which affect our actions — in a repetitive cycle. By examining this relationship, we can break negative cycles over time.
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Reprocessing Memories to Change Beliefs
Negative beliefs are often the product of unprocessed emotions tied to past experiences. There are several ways to reprocess those memories — from talking and writing, to movement and EMDR.
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How Group Therapy Can Help With Negative Beliefs
Since beliefs require emotional evidence from our own experiences, one of the best ways to change them is to seek out new experiences. Group therapy is a great place to meet people who surprise us.
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Noticing Beliefs
Noticing beliefs may be harder than we expect. Our brains are designed to do a lot of things very quickly, so many of our thoughts go unnoticed — including the ones shaping how we see ourselves.
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Where Do Beliefs Come From?
Beliefs are things we think that we also have an emotional attachment to. We start forming them from the moment we are born — long before we form conscious thought or memory.
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The Difference Between Believing and Knowing
There is a meaningful difference between knowing something and believing something. When you believe something, there is an emotional component — which makes beliefs much harder to change than facts.
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Other Things to Try: A List of Quick Grounding Activities
A list of grounding activities that do not need a full instructions page — from mental exercises like counting backwards, to sensory techniques like holding ice or splashing water on your face.
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Intentional Breathing: 3 Breath Pattern Grounding Techniques
Breathing patterns can be a tool for grounding. Here are three patterns that help refocus racing thoughts and signal safety to your nervous system.
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Noticing Everything: Body Scanning Grounding Technique
Body scanning involves noticing feelings or sensations in your body from head to toe. The goal is to help you recognize that you are safe where you are, in this moment.
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Step-By-Step: Describe a Familiar Activity Grounding Technique
This grounding technique is a thought exercise you can do anywhere. Imagining a familiar task in detail, step by step, gives your mind something calm and concrete to focus on.
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Head to Toe: Muscle Tensing and Releasing Grounding Technique
This exercise engages your muscles to regulate the nervous system and release tension. Our anxiety response was built for physical danger — this technique helps your body believe the danger has passed.
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Being in the Moment: The 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Technique
The 5-4-3-2-1 technique engages all five senses to create awareness of the present moment. Name 5 things you can see, 4 you can feel, 3 you can hear, 2 you can smell, and 1 you can taste.
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Grounding Techniques: How to Calm Your Mind and Body When Emotion Hits
Grounding exercises are simple techniques you can use alone to become calmer and more focused during moments of distress. Here is what they are, who can use them, and when they work best.
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