Burnout

I finally got a new job, yay! I literally can’t remember if I mentioned it in a prior post or not and I am too lazy at the moment to go back and look at it. Recently I have been reflecting a lot on burnout, like my chronic case of burnout more specifically. I graduated from college in the 2020 pandemic and have been jumping from a high-stress job to a high-stress job since then. Fingers crossed I finally found a winner for more than just a year or two. So far so good and I have a much lighter mental load. With that lighter mental load, I got to reflect on how well I have been doing overall honestly with my mental health. It’s come up on my YouTube channel before some of my challenges in that department. I more recently have chosen to be somewhat more private with the details of my situation but I do still think general conversations on mental health can be helpful too. I also feel generally more comfortable discussing this in blog format.

I realized that I was finally eating better, changing my work situation, keeping my home neater, (just went through a massive declutter I want to write about soon), and overall just doing better. However, I was still exhausted. I realized that I had been so busy first surviving, and then learning how to function, that I am finally ready to take some time to actively recover from years of chronic stress. One problem though is that I don’t exactly know how to do that. A lot of hobbies of mine got put on hold to focus on learning how to function and now that I am returning to them, I am definitely a happier and healthier person than I was a year ago, I am just terrified of losing “momentum” so to speak.

Fortunately, one of my new/old hobbies is being obsessed with the library in all its forms again. I love listening to audiobooks from the library and it turns out there really is a book for everything. I listened to books on decluttering, stress management, and maintaining friendships. A lot of these had these key phrases in them that really stuck with me. For example what finally let me truly declutter was the idea “Making a landfill in your home is no more environmentally friendly than doing it in the dumpster” There was a lot of old craft supplies and ruined fabrics that just had to go. The book that sparked me writing this post was Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle and the idea of a stress cycle is just absolutely revolutionary to me. It’s the idea that dealing with your stressors (thing that is making you stressed) and your stress (the physiological response) are two entirely separate items on your agenda to deal with things like chronic burnout. I have very much not been doing the second thing. Lots of recent research has mentioned that stress and trauma live in our bodies but the concept that you have to actually attend to that body and signal to your body that you are safe now is a completely revolutionary concept to me. Maybe this was common sense to other people but often times it feels like I missed the boat on a lot of regulation things like this.

I’m looking forward to taking this information and trying to build more time into my life to actually release the stress that has all built up in my body and to see what difference it makes. I’m hoping it will eventually allow me to both take care of myself and participate in the hobbies I love consistently.