Are You Working too Much from Home? Look for These Signs

You keep counting the days you have left to take your vacation from work. And when you are resting, you fear that it will be time to go back to work. You are not motivated. You wake up tired, you crawl to your desk and you meet work hours looking like a raisin. Nothing seems to cheer you up lately, and you’re stuck in a loop that you can’t get out of. What’s happening to you, really? Why are you no longer motivated by work or your life? Is it work that is affecting your reality or is it the other way around? Is it both?

If you feel identified with the previous lines, you will be interested in this article. It happened to me. With a work from home day starting from 5am (because I run several projects at once) and ending late in the evening, I hardly had time for anything out side work and even when sleeping I would dream of my job or personal tasks. This article will help you identify if you reached the point of burnout, in what stage you are currently in and, best of all, how you can solve it.

Do I work too much?

The World Health Organization admitted last May the syndrome of Burnout, or burned worker, as an occupational disease. The symptoms to detect that a person suffers from it are feelings of severe exhaustion, a greater mental distance from work or feelings of negativity or cynicism and, finally, a reduction in work efficiency and production.

Every day there are more ‘burned’, why? Although the very poor working conditions are often the ones that cause this vital weariness, on many other occasions this exhaustion occurs because of us: we do not know how to manage emotions well and we do not have the keys on how to use emotional intelligence to avoid stress or frustrations. Many of us do not know how to act in certain situations or how to get out of a negative loop simply because we have not been taught to do so, because we lack notions in emotional intelligence.

What to do if I am burned and nothing motivates me?

If you notice that you are burned out, can’t handle your emotions well, and you are at a point where living with that anguish becomes unbearable, what to do?

The most important thing is to become aware that something is happening to you and you are not in your best shape. Once you’re there, you’re on the right track.then, seek help. Y

Go to a specialist. It can be your usual doctor who can do a first evaluation on your condition, and guide you to the right person. It’s important to share your thoughts and fears, in a non judgemental environment and believe it or not, a specialist can be the right solution. You will be heared and most importantly, understood, which will benefit your mental health.

Have you been sick lately?

With this Covid situations, working form home, and God knows what else you’re dealing with, can be big burden on your mental health. The least good part, is that your body starts to get affceted to by those repressed and negative emotions. Why? There is an important connection between the emotional and the endocrine systems. When you feel weak, your body starts to feel the same and all sorts of conditions can develop.

Against the self-help gurus

Marketing is doing a hell of a job promoting all these gurus, personal development coaches, or spirtiual healers. We usually turn to self-help books, thinking it might solve the problem but they are just a dopamine hit for the moment.

Is very important to look out for books that can actually help you with your anxiety and anguish. For a book to be good and serious it must have references. The author does not have to be a professor, but they should have, in their writing, an important scientific line. There is a lot of intrusion in this regard. We must appeal to rigor and science. If you don’t know which book you should start on, ask your specialist to recommend you one. Emotional intelligence books are a good start.

Anxiety, stress, anxiolytics and self-help books have become our daily bread. And yet we still cannot overcome burnout. We lack information on emotional intelligence from the cradle, and it is still time to learn to look for it, don’t you think?