The work-from-home burnout is a thing
One year, one month, and six days we have been working from home now. Sometimes we have a one-and-a-half-meter coffee at the office, we walk together on the beach or in a forest, and we facetim to be able to look each other in the eyes from time to time. I found a kind of mode in working from home, but it really isn't always that easy to get the job done without colleagues.
Take that break between work, I find that quite a challenge. At the office, you have lunch together at the table and pass the hummus and crackers, at home I quickly fall into having lunch behind the laptop. Just like that afternoon walk around three o'clock, you do that more easily when you have company. If I have lunch at home now, then someone else has lunch an hour later or vice versa. Just like my walk, often I get a message with a question after ten minutes. Should I answer that immediately or do we do that when we get home? It turns out I'm not the only one with struggles in that balance. I always manage to detach myself from my computer to go for a walk, no worries, but there are people who ultimately end up in a work-from-home burnout because they can't stop working.
Reebok conducted research into the work-from-home burnout, because that search term on Google suddenly skyrocketed. How is it that we get burned out while working from home? Being burned out comes from prolonged stress, which is fueled by fatigue and detachment. Points that you do touch upon when you're in the middle of a pandemic, indeed. Positive Psychology Practitioner Ruth Cooper Dickson mentions three red flags that may indicate a burnout: having little energy and feeling exhausted, withdrawing yourself, and having less engagement with work and less professional self-reliance. Are these boxes you can check off? Then it's good to take a moment to reflect.
The poor balance between work and free time is the cause of that work-from-home burnout. What can you do yourself? Moving helps, you produce dopamine and serotonin, and those are the substances that make you happy and promote your sleep. By moving, you also let that work be for what it is for a moment, allowing you to develop a healthy rhythm in the day. It is important that you choose something you can maintain. Think of yoga, walking, or during your coffee break, two minutes of jumping rope or dancing in the living room. And don't rush into it, but start with a few minutes a day. It is of course the intention that you keep it up.
