How We Make Burnout Worse

If I had to sum up my burnout philosophy, it would be this: When we fall behind with our work, feel hopelessly overwhelmed by our to-do list, and grow increasingly anxious about our energy and time, we cut activities from our lives. We put a stop to what appear to us to be non-essential activities, and spend all our time and energy, and more, on work. We stop exercising, seeing friends, going for walks in nature, exposing ourselves to music and art, or reading books.

We often manage to keep functioning at work this way, maybe even at a high level. But it comes at a steep price: Our lives shrink, and we spiral deeper and deeper into an energy-deficient state.

Intuitively, this approach makes sense—if we only have very limited energy left, we must spend it where it matters most and reduce its usage elsewhere. However, in practice, this strategy is catastrophic.

Why? Because work costs us energy, and the activities we tend to cut are precisely the ones that used to give us energy. If we follow this path, we aggravate our energy deficit further. We end up only expending energy and close all channels through which we used to be able to renew it.

This strategy is akin to austerity. Cutting joy from our lives is an austerity approach to our inner energy economy. We cut, shrink, and rationalize because we are already deep in deficit and feel we must stop all spending on seemingly non-essential things.

But our logic on this is tragically upside down. We work to live, not the other way round. We don’t live to work, and we must remember and make space for what truly matters, what makes us feel alive and brings us joy—not just joy, in fact, but ecstasy.

Ecstasy is Burnout's True Opposite

It is ecstasy that is the true opposite of burnout. Burnout is emptiness and depletion; ecstasy is overflowing fullness.

To recover from burnout, we need to recover our capacity for ecstasy. You need to rediscover whatever it is that makes you feel so abundant and overflowing with aliveness and surplus energy that it bursts and breaks down the barrier between you and the world around you, allowing you to transcend your sense of self and feel oneness. Many of our maladaptive behaviours, including compulsive working, are a misguided search for ecstasy.

Don't Just Cut Expenditure—Reinvest

Just as economic austerity leads to social unrest and depression rather than growth, energy austerity isn't likely to get us into a good place again. Yes, we have to learn to say no to some things and be a wiser steward of limited resources—but we also have to learn to say yes again to other things. We can’t just save and economize on energy; we also need to invest to replenish our limited resources.

Consider companies or institutions that just keep cutting expenditure, don’t reinvest in growth areas, and lack any positive vision for the future. They are doomed. When we are in burnout mode, how we think about time and energy, and what constitutes wasted time and well-invested time, is a kind of energy-economical madness. It is faulty thinking, akin to defective ideology.

Regeneration is an Active Process

To redress our own energy deficit, we need to reinvest in and reintroduce activities that enable growth and thriving. Because here's the thing: Regeneration is an active process.

Regeneration means having more of the right kinds of activities in our lives: nourishing activities, activities that open pathways to ecstasy. Regeneration may require a degree of rest, but never just rest.

And what is more, it seems that we often get the idea of rest wrong, thinking of it as a monolithic, largely passive, largely inactive, consumption-driven state, such as binge-watching Netflix series.

Seven Types of Rest

I recently came across a helpful framework regarding rest. When we wish to rest, we need to ask ourselves: From what exactly do we seek to recover? Do we need physical rest, mental rest, social rest, or something else entirely? If we have a lot of inner noise and a very harsh inner critic, just physical rest can be profoundly unrestful, for example.

Burnout Essential Reads

The Recovery Gap: Your Bounce Back Is the Best Predictor of Burnout

What is the Best Therapy for Burnout?

In Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity (2017), Saundra Dalton-Smith introduces the concept of seven types of rest. Her framework challenges the idea that inactivity alone can restore us, highlighting the multidimensional nature of exhaustion and the need for a much more nuanced (and active) approach to regeneration.

Dalton-Smith distinguishes between:

1. Physical rest: Things like sleep, naps, and massages—pauses for the body, when we need to recover from physical exertion.
2. Mental rest: For an overwhelmed mind or a mind plagued by an inner critic or ruminating thoughts, which can take the form of journaling, brain dumps, guided meditations, or hypnotherapy audios.
3. Sensory rest: For those of us who feel overstimulated from screens, noise, or light pollution, cures include digital detoxing, spending time in silence, darkness, or nature.
4. Creative rest: When we are drained by constant problem-solving, designing, writing, or teaching, replenishing options include seeking to experience beauty, art, and awe without feeling the need to produce anything.
5. Emotional rest: For those of us who are people-pleasers, constantly holding space for others, overly attuned to their needs, and who suppress our own feelings and desires in company, cures include experimenting with more authenticity and vulnerability as well as setting more emotional boundaries.
6. Social rest: If we are drained by the sheer quantity of our social interactions, limiting contact to nourishing people or those who matter most to us, or seeking solitude and more alone time can help.
7. Spiritual rest: For those of us who are burnt out because of a lack of meaning, purpose, and connection, we can restore ourselves through meditation, nature, spiritual community, greater alignment with our values, and acts of service.

To conclude, to recover from burnout, we need both to reintroduce the right kinds of activity and seek the right kind of rest. What is right for us will be completely unique.

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