Never ending to do list - check. Longer and longer hours working - check. Frustration at being unable to conquer your to do list without working evenings, weekends and holidays - check.
What about that headache though?
At a recent Burnout Prevention Session I spoke about professionals living from the neck up. Everything we do is about evaluating the past, making plans for the future and the work it takes to get there. Law in particular has become factory work for brains - squeezing every more hours in under the strip lighting drafting, planning, strategising, discussing.
It’s with no small sense of irony therefore that I find the vast majority of my clients come to me, not because of the psychological symptoms of burnout, but the physical symptoms that stop them in their tracks. For most of them, looking back they can see a trail of breadcrumbs leading from smaller physical symptoms to their eventual crunch moment.
So here’s 7 physical symptoms of burnout you have been overlooking
1. l like I’m coming down with a cold’.
This one is a direct apology to anyone I ever worked with between the years of 2007 and 2015 when I eventually got my shit together (jokes, I still say this occasionally). You know that feeling? The fuzzy head, the aching neck, that first day of muscle aching tiredness?
I said it.
Every. Damn. Day.
Now I have the immune system of a kid that grew up in a plastic bubble and I just need to observe a sneeze from 100 metres, but even for that I said this one a lot. If you feel like you’re constantly coming down with a cold but it never really transpires into anything? You’ve got burnout body. It’s exhausted and screaming for a break. Maybe you should pay it some attention.
2. IBS flare-ups.
‘Aww I didn’t know you were pregnant, when are you due?’
‘I’m not’
We are all cringing right now, but the truth is that this happens sometimes, particularly when you are struggling with unrelenting stress, which is a known trigger for irritable bowel syndrome. Ditto for exhaustion, increased caffeine intake, the processed foods you are more likely to grab because you just don’t have time for, well, anything. If this is you, your body is sending you a clear sign. Pay attention to it, before you beat someone for their kindly meant words.
3. Migraines
Migraines, tension headaches, call them what you will. If you are lying under a cold compress, popping more painkillers or heading to the GP more often than ever before, this could well be a burnout symptoms that you are overlooking. Please get these checked out, as headaches caused by high blood pressure are not to be messed with.
4. Chest pains
You would think that this would be a red flag symptom, and usually you are right. I have a significant tranche of my clients who have come to me after a suspected heart attack or other heart problem has transpired to be a symptom of anxiety attacks driven by high stress and burnout. I think that they are the lucky ones. They would probably agree.
5. Neck and back pain
Regular visits to the chiropractor, osteopath, physiotherapist or massage therapist draining your time and your wallet? I’m with you. Between 2009 and 2016 I went to the chiropractor on average every 3 weeks, but sometimes as often as once every 4 days. My rationale was that my father had had a bad back, with disc replacement operations in his 40s and I was heading on a similar track.
In the year after I left law and the 60 hour weeks at a desk? I visited the chiropractor once. You figure out the maths there.
6. Weight gain
Pale, puffy and pained, we’ve all felt it as we looked into the mirror. People who are burning out are more reliant on caffeine, on fast food or even healthy convenience food to keep them propped up. Plenty of you have heard my Percy-Pigs-at-10am story (in my defence, our brains are fuelled by simple carbohydrates and I was exhausted. And burned out. Obviously). On the road to burnout you are more likely to drink more to numb out the bad feelings/destress at the end of a long day. Often weight gain is a symptom of the underlying lifestyle malfunction that accompanies burnout.
7. Bumps, bruises and sprains
Have you heard the story about Arianna Huffington’s physical wake up call from burnout? She recalls working long hours making Huffpost a success when she passed out at her desk. Except, she was standing up. In the process of her faint, she hit her head on her desk. As she recounted in an interview with Oprah ‘I hit my head on my desk, broke my cheek bone, got four stitches on my right eye. I was very lucky not to lose my eye’.
In my own blogs I have recalled being so exhausted and distracted that I fell down a spiral staircase, landing in reception in front of hundreds of people from my building. I didn’t report it to a first aider because I had already let slip that I had fallen down the stairs at the train station two weeks beforehand, on my first day at work. My reputation as Calamity Jane was cemented, and my colleagues frequently laughed at me falling off my heels, over boxes, walking into walls, dropping coffee on myself and more.
I’m a klutz, no doubt, but the regularity with which I show up in accident report logs has subsided since getting a handle on my burnout. For those of you that drive long distances, have fallen asleep on the train or regularly deal with lumps and bumps, pay attention.
So, how many on the list have left you sinking in your seat and feeling guilty?
If you’re noticing the symptoms begin to pile up you have a choice. You can take action to identify, manage and reverse burnout now, or you can wait. Until your body stops you, or you eventually break down.
For me, it took years of rationalising and adjusting, surviving on caffeine and sugar and a few hours’ sleep each night before my body broke down. In the wake of the sudden death of my mum I lost my bounce back. I couldn’t seem to pick back up. I hit my breakdown point. It was during this time that I sat, head in my hands, thinking ‘I’m just Searching for some kind of Serenity’.
I don’t want you to struggle as I did. You deserve more than to live a half-life of exhaustion, frustration and hurt. But if not, I’ll be here when you are ready.
PS I’m finally bringing my corporate training the Burnout Prevention Session to individuals. Join me TONIGHT at 8pm for a one hour workshop entirely focusing on how to identify, manage and reverse burnout. Whether you are brand new to burnout or need to hit the reset button, you are guaranteed to walk away from this training with a clearer understanding, a fresh perspective and new ideas to create meaningful change.
Can’t join us live? Not to worry, because I will be recording the training and making the replay available to all attendees to watch again, as often as they want, whenever and wherever they have internet access and a suitable device!
It could be the best £25 that you have ever spent.