How Can Practicing Gratitude Help You Overcome Burnout At Work?

20.03.2019 WELLNESS 0.0 0

burnout at work

Job burnout is a specific type of work-related stress defined by a sense of physical and emotional exhaustion. Burnout is the result of many different work-related factors including extremes in activity, lack of support, dysfunctional workplace dynamics, and unclear job expectations to name a few.

You may be experiencing burnout if you're suffering from fatigue, insomnia, irritability, excessive stress, or sadness. Long-term stress isn't good for anyone and can even lead to chronic health conditions like diabetes and heart disease.

The good news is you can use gratitude to help reduce burnout and to keep it from happening before it starts.

burnout at workplace

How Can Gratitude Help With Your Burnout?
If you're feeling unhappy with your daily schedule, you're not alone. In a recent survey, only 33% of Americans reported being happy in their daily lives.

Gratitude is a way to express your appreciation for the things in your everyday life you may not have been paying attention to but would miss if they were gone.

Gratitude helps to find a balance between your work-related responsibilities by carving out a few moments to think about the aspects of your life you enjoy the most. Research has found that daily gratitude journals helped reduce negative thought processes, which helped to improve sleep patterns.

Gratitude journals have also been found to improve the overall functioning of the hypothalamus, which is responsible for your bodily functions. The way you feel about your life directly impacts your well-being.

workplace stress

How Can You Practice Gratitude at Your Workplace?

Many people focus on short-term solutions when feelings of burnout start to occur. Although these solutions, such as taking a vacation, can definitely help, the relief that comes from them is often temporary.

That said, to relieve burnout at work, you need to use both short-term and long-term solutions that will have a deeper impact. Here are a few ways you can use gratitude to reduce your risk of burnout at your workplace:

Rediscover your purpose. It's easy to get caught up in the extremes of your job if your work involves long periods of monotonous activity or long periods of high-stress activity. One of the ways you can feel a sense of appreciation for your job again is to rediscover your purpose. Look at how your work impacts the lives of other people and why you were grateful for that impact in the first place.
Remember kindness and give to others. Remember a moment at your job when you were complimented or appreciated for your work. Remember how that appreciation made you feel. Good, right? Now share some of that kindness with others. Quick, easy acts of kindness and genuine appreciation can not only add meaning to your career and help your co-workers but they can also make you feel good, too.
Make a list of the things you love most about your job. Burnout can sometimes come from dissatisfaction with your workplace. But are you dissatisfied with all of it? By making a list of the things you appreciate and love the most about your job, you can more easily identify the things you don't like and how (if you can) you can fix them.

Short-term solutions to stress can make you feel good now, but it's important to practice long-term strategies to keep stress from turning into burnout. When you practice gratitude in your workplace, you can help to keep the burnout at bay and manage it when it creeps up on you.