How to prevent burnout at work: 9 ways to prevent burnout in your team and organisation
If you’re looking for the answer on how to prevent burnout at work for your employees and colleagues, then welcome; you’ve come to the right place!
How to prevent burnout at work
We all know that burnout is something we want to avoid, both for ourselves and for our teams – but less of us know exactly how to prevent burnout at work. Alongside building awareness within your company and conducting training around burnout to mitigate its risks, another key component is creating a better work-life harmony on the ground. In today’s blog, I’ll show you just some of the ways you can do this.
Digital detoxes
I love Instagram and Netflix as much as the next person (possibly, probably more…) but there’s no denying that our online habits have a huge effect on our offline habits. And I don’t mean just the good stuff, like you reading brilliant articles you find entitled “how to prevent burnout at work”, and then going and implementing them within your team…I mean the bad stuff, the constant stress levels, dopamine cravings, and more that we get from our phones
A digital detox can be a great way of restoring some balance, and what better place to do this than at a creative workshop? You’ll be so immersed in having fun with your fingers that you’ll fully forget about your phone for at least a couple of hours, and your brain will thank you for it.
Get moving
Movement plays an important part in preventing burnout in humans. As Harvard’s Dr Srini Pillay explains: ‘your mind and body are intimately connected. And while your brain is the master control system for your body’s movement, the way you move can also affect the way you think and feel.’ It can literally change our brain on a physiological level, resulting in improved mood, deeper clarity, and a stronger resilience, which are all useful when thinking about how to prevent burnout at work.
Don’t worry, I’m not about to force you into something super intense and athletic, like marathon running or rock climbing! Movement can also be just as effective when it is slower and more simplified (and sometimes, more effective when it’s not competitive, not something else you need to ‘win’ at). One of my favourite resources for movement is Well With Hels’ videos - I love how her flows are categorised by how you’re feeling, so you can deepen your practice of tuning into what your body needs.
Journaling
If you kept a teenage diary, you’ll remember how cathartic it was to get everything down on paper, even if it didn’t actually have an impact on whatever situation it is that you were writing about.
Journaling is pretty much the same, apart from it does have an impact on the situation: it’s been shown to reduce mental distress, and significantly benefit our health (and has even been suggested to reduce the number of sick days we take off work.) For more information on how to prevent burnout at work using journaling, you can check out my blog post here.
Experience nature regularly
Nature has been shown to have a positive impact on managing and reducing stress and anxiety across the board, but it’s particularly important when it comes to how to prevent burnout at work.
In particular, a sense of “connectedness” with nature has a particular positive effect on our mental wellbeing. This is a deeper feeling of connection to nature than just, say, seeing a tree when you pop out to grab lunch, or passing a dusty potted plant en route to the water cooler. It’s taking time to immerse yourself in nature and how it feels. Of course, this is often difficult in a work environment, because our deskbound jobs are so far from this.
Meditation apps
Some people immediately bristle when they hear the word meditation – and can you believe, I used to be one of them? As someone who always needed to be on the go (AKA, someone headed straight to Burnout City), the idea of taking a moment to do nothing felt totally alien.
Luckily, however, there are answers to how to prevent burnout at work that don’t mean you have to sit on your own in total, cross-legged silence. Apps like Headspace, Calm and Insight Timer all have a number of different ways to facilitate a moment of meditative quiet (note: it doesn’t have to be silence!), based on what you’re looking for.
Getting creative
Alternatively, you might prefer what I like to call meditation for doers: that is, getting crafty and creative. Crafts are brilliant at helping your mental wellbeing in so many ways, as the Crafts Council explains: “The effort, multi-sensory engagement, repetitive actions and anticipation of satisfaction involved in making something are related to release of neurotransmitters that promote joy and well-being, while also reducing stress hormones.” They also require attention and focusing on the present, which is excellent mindfulness in action. Plus, the often repetitive nature of the particular task can feel meditative.
Nourishing food
As above, the brain and the body don’t operate as two separate things: so it stands to reason that nourishing your body also nourishes your big beautiful brain. Prepare food that you love in not only your heart, body, and soul, but that your mind can thank you for too.
Sound therapy
If you haven’t heard of sound therapy, don’t worry: it pretty much does what it says on the tin. Essentially, it uses therapeutic sound techniques which affect physiology, neurology and psychology, to provide the listener with a feeling of pause and serenity. Though we so often call the anxieties and stress in our head “noise”, we don’t often extend the metaphor to think about how we could use sound to combat it!
In fact, our sense of hearing isn’t often thought of at all when thinking about how to prevent burnout at work, but sound therapy has been shown to be very effective at improving health and wellbeing. If you’re looking for a place to start, I’d recommend Jazreena Harlow’s online sound baths.
Talking
A key pillar of the Recess Living mission is to bring conversations about mental health to the mainstream: it’s why I founded my Twice As Nourished supper club events, to provide a space for everyone to share how they really feel. The benefits of talking about our feelings, and how we’re coping, cannot be overstated – whether it’s with friends, loved ones or professional resources.
Looking for more help with how to prevent burnout at work within your team or organisation? Get in touch here for a bespoke workshop quote.