Hi, Welcome my lovely people!  I’m Bee, a Pharmacist, Psychological Coach, Writer and Designer. Today I will write to you about how to deal with mental burnout and its step by step guidance for this solution. I welcome you all again into my new article, so let’s get started.

At some point of our life we all suffer a strange phenomenon that consists of – continuous feeling of stress (with or without reason), feeling depressed. Feeling of overwhelmed, emotionally or mentally drained etc. These are the signs of mental burnout. Mental burnout is a condition that arrives when we are constantly exposed into excessive stress over long period of time. Mental health burnout makes us feeling hopeless, physically sick ,tired and unmotivated to do anything we need to do. 

In todays article I will help you to battle this condition. After reading this article fully, you will be able to get clear picture of how to deal with mental burnout. Cuz, we can not control the phenomenon that gives us mental burnout situation but we can control and manage ourselves to get out of it and live healthy and happy positive life. 

Understanding the Mental Burnout Situation more Precisely

It is important to understand the problem before making solution for it. As you have already got an idea for mental burnout and basic problems associated with it. Now let’s see what are the symptoms of mental burnout.

Symptoms of Mental Burnout:

1. Feeling emotionally drained or exhausted
2. Feeling of shedding tears or crying without understanding the actual reason
3. Constant fatigue, headache, tension and stress in muscle joint
4. Losing interest from your favourite chores and hobbies
5. You feel pain or strain in your body without reason
6. You fall into sickness every now and then which feels unusual

Common Reasons of Mental Burnout:

1. Emotional burdens and Chronic stress: Carrying a lot of unresolved emotional baggage from life, family issue or reason, personal relationships problem, negative thinking or perception, taking a prolonged stress from work or from life are also common reasons for mental burnout
   
2. Overworking or Excessive work burden: you have taken more tasks on yourself than you can complete then feeling of failure causing you mental fatigue and feeling of helplessness, working too much without giving time for body and mind to recharge.
   
3. Lack of work life balance: Working all the time or doing too many things at a time without having relaxation or break. Extended long period of work hour time in continuous manner – these are common reasons
   
4. Perfectionist tendencies: There is no such things named perfect, but still many of us overburden us with unrealistic expectations and push us to achieve that impossible and expecting high from ourself than our capabilities accelerate mental burnout easily.

These are most common reasons which I discussed above for being in mental burnout condition.

I give you another example, if a car is driven for a long time (for example for 30 day straight)  without changing the engine oil, without taking care of parts, without turning off the engine, taking a break , then what will happen? Engine will blow up and the car will be broken. We humans are kinda same, but instead of our engine getting blown up we feel down,drained , sick, and unmotivated and feeling of helplessness and so on. 

Now that we identify and pinpoint the reasons and symptoms of this problem , let’s address this problem to solve it. 

A Realistic Positive Message

Firstly, I want all of you to understand and acknowledge a very simple thing, which is – mental burnout does not mean that you are a failure. It does not mean you are worthless or incapable in your life. These consequences don’t define your worth, your capability , your strength, your performance scale nor your self worth. It’s a simple state of situation that results of our action or mistakes (which is absolutely okay and fine, cuz we are human)  which can easily be solved and in no time you will be back in the game. 

Step-by-Step Guide of Healing : Your Journey to Recovery

Simple thing to remember there is no quick fix to any problem, you have to give time , ask yourself did you burn out mentally overnight or it took months or even years!! So fixing this problem also will take time. Im not talking about a year to fix it, I’m practically speaking for about a couple of weeks you need to give yourself. And this is how my guide is designed.

Step -1 : Recognize the situation and Accept it without being worried or being judged

You are already a champion , do you know why? It’s because you have already identified your mental burnout problem and started to find solution , which is why you are reading this article to solve it, so you are already miles ahead of the journey to recovery from the mental burnout. 

It is the first step, it relieves tension for our nerves, and unknown things always cause more stress , but after you have identified your problem and accepted it without guilt and feeling of being judged, it takes a super power to do so , which I believe you have already done. 

And after that now my request don’t criticize yourself inside of you. Talk to yourself as same as you would have talk with a loved one. Say to yourself – it’s okay to feel burdened, its okay to fail, it’s okay not to meet expectation from everyone. Its okay to make yourself priority first- its not selfishness, its self respect.  Much love to you all. 

Step -2: Everyday Self Care Strategies:

1. Breathing exercise:
   

• Inhale deeply and expand your lungs just like taking deep breath.
  and now hold it for 4 seconds. Don’t exhale for 4 seconds.
  
• Now softly and slowly exhale that air from lung for 4 seconds
  
• After exhaling, don’t breathe/ inhale for 4 seconds.
  
• Now repeat the process 4 times.
  

This breathing technique is an immediate switch to calm our nerves and brain, it resets our brain and calms you down immediately.  My suggestion is that you do this exercise 3 times a day (minimum), and additionally  at any time of day when you start to feel the symptoms of mental burnout or stress or overthinking, the signs I discussed above .

2. Practicing of taking Short Break:
   

• Meditate everyday for 5 minutes minimum
  
• Walk 3-5 minutes inside home/workplace or around your house block
  
• Do small stretching for 10 minutes. It will relax your muscle ligaments and nerves. Also it will clear your lymphatic system.
  
• Take a notebook and write 3 things you are grateful for today.

During this short break at any time of day is super beneficial for your recovery. Make it a daily habit. 

3. Focus on your daily Nutrition and Hydration planning: 

• Water is very important for mental and physical detoxification. Take 2 Liters of water everyday.
  
• Eat healthy and nutrition rich foods, do not deprive yourself from certain kind of nutrients, you need daily balanced protein , carbs and macro nutrients. So make sure you are getting a balanced diet.
  
• Reduce having coffee or tea and processed sugar. And completely stop having caffeine after evening at all. You can have natural sugar in little amount in your diet, for instance maple syrup etc. But no to processed sugar.
  

Step 3: Preparing a Self-Care Routine Which is Easy to Maintain

I will craft you an easy to maintain self care routine which you will enjoy following and also it is a prescription from me to all of you my loves. I want you all to incorporate this routine in your mental burn out healing routine. 

Morning Routine: 

• Leave the bed 15 minutes earlier than you usually wake up everyday. 
• After waking up from bed do not use any smartphone or internet for 1 hour
• Drink plenty of water in empty stomach after getting up from bed
• You can do the breathing exercise which I suggested in step 2 at this moment or you can do it later in the day (its your wish) but do not miss it. 
• Have some stretching (for 1-2 minutes) 
• Then take Breakfast ( make sure your first meal of the day will be packed with nutrition and hearty. 
• Now you are good to go to start your day with positivity and happily. 

Evening/ Night  Routine 

• Remember in step 2 I mentioned, no caffeine at evening and/or before bed
• Set up alarm for your bed time and go to sleep same time everyday
• Do Not use smartphone or internet 30 minute before bed
• Practice gratefulness in this 30 minutes while away from your phone or devices before bed
• Forgive everyone before bed
• Do not eat too heavy before sleep
• Eat yogurt at night with berries or bananas.

Physical Exercise Routine:

• Make 10-15 minutes time for light exercise
• Go for 10 minute walk 
• Move your body anyway possible 
• Stretching or Running for 10 minutes is well appreciated

Step 4: Emotion and Psychological Mindset Reset

It is very much important to reset our mind and emotion after being over burn and exhausted. From the shifting and re balancing mindset and emotional state will bring you to the level ground and back into your feet again. How can you do it the process are given below – 

• You have to unburden or dump all the feelings from inside of your brain to outside
• Do not judge yourself nor others in this possess
• Write all the things inside your head on a paper or notebook, it does not need to be perfect, just write all without any editing or embellishing.
• Then read those things you have written, you will be able to find out some things that makes you uncomfortable or the proper reason for your distress. If you observe closely your writing , you can also find a common pattern of your thought and within those pattern you can easily find out the problem which you need to remove from your thought pattern. 
• Make friends with like minded people and engage in new activities
• Do things together that excites you, you can go camping or a group tour with them.
• After this process, make the journaling habit for some day, write everything that comes to your mind, you will be so unburdened and this feeling is amazing. 
• After this 4th step, Now your mental emotional and psychological state is resetted again 

After finishing these steps it should be all good, but even if you still feel uncomfortable and sense that the problem is not 70-90% improved but it did work 50% only. You follow the below steps ( If you feel you have recovered 70-90%, then you might skip the following steps as your will) 

• Find out some of the positive therapist in your city or near to you,
• If you have some trustworthy friends or have a partner , you can share your problems with them and even if they can’t do anything, a positive listening ear can help you a lot. 

Step 5: Setting up Boundaries in Workplace and in Personal Life

Usually setting up boundaries in our workplace and in personal relationships and life is an important factor which acts as a great contributor for mental health stability, healing and sustaining  healthy well- being. 

Setting up Boundaries in Workplace and in Personal Life work as a shield of protection against overworking. In order to achieve that, learn how to say no to certain things, understand your boundaries and let them know that these boundaries must not be crossed. 

You are not that person who needs to do everything and with perfection and high standards. Ask for help from time to time, share the workload, do not take it all in, try to share the responsibilities with team work and which will significantly reduce unnecessary workloads. 

Another benefit of setting up boundaries is that you put yourself in a position of respect and dignity which your other colleagues and peers start to feel and reciprocate with this. After setting up boundaries and starting to say no you will not be distracted or stressed by your current project or work which needs to finish. 

At the workplace setting up boundaries also reduces chances for misunderstanding and other kinds of conflict with everyone. Cuz people know about your dos and don’ts and expectations so they will be able to mind their own business and follow the line you have set up for yourself. It is a significant step for protection against yourself from mental burnout. 

Step – 6: Development of Long term Resilience Building

Sounds complicated right? Not at all, let me break it down this final step with ease. 

Long term resilience building means, you must develop a set or mental process of how you will tackle and systematically recover from a bad incident and unwanted difficult situation. Once you have found your discipline or rules, then you shall be more pre advanced prepared for anything in the future that might come. Because life is such- one day we are lucky and happy and another day is a disaster. And this cycle goes on till we go to the grave. So preparing beforehand for the negative or stressful or traumatic events – like a fire drill which is done by a firefighter before battling the actual fire breakout situation, helps you to be strong and stress free in stressful conditions when arises. 

Also fortify this process with – 

• Reduce overthinking
• Reduce over expectation from yourself
• Believe in yourself capability
• Cultivate confidence within yourself
• Build networks and like minded people, surrounded with positive individuals.
• Get married if possible with like minded person
• Have an optimistic and positive outlook towards everything that life offers to us. 
• Whatever happens , happens for betterment. 
• Do regular emotional check ins, 
• Do regular emotional baggage dumping by writing them in paper and burning them all
• Forgive everyone before sleep in bed
• Keep cultivate the habit of learning
• Continuous learning improves our brain capability and capacity to battle stress and negativity and Knowledge guides us and protects us by itself once we acquire them. 

Final Thoughts: 

Yes this is it, the basic effective smartly crafted article i gifted for you all. Hope you all will benefit from this article and will be able to deal with mental burnout with these Step-by-Step Guide to Recharge and Heal your life.

Also keep in mind that is not a fast and furious journey or a straight linear success, there will be ups and downs to enjoy the fruits of final stages. But never give up. Give time. Forgive yourself, don’t be too hard on yourself. Love yourself first. Love has a superior power for overcoming every impossible thing. 

Much love to all of you, Subscribe to my newsletters so that you may get notified when I post a new article. Share this article please with the people in need. And also when you have time, I invite you to read my other articles also too. Take care my dears.