Nagging feelings

NAMITA NEPAL

Does this happen to you? You get up in the morning with a nagging feeling that you were better off sleeping. There really is nothing to look forward to in the day, whether it’s at work or at home. You feel like an elastic band stretched to its brink, about to snap any moment. This is not something a vacation will remedy. It is definitely more insidious. It is a complete loss of focus on the job or at home, and is called burnout and it can make your life absolutely not worth living. Tackle it pronto or you could end up with clinical depression. Take this up seriously.

In the meantime, an amalgamation of factors can push you unwittingly to burnout precipice. It’s the state of emotional and physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. This continuous and intense stress overwhelms you and makes you unable to meet constant demands, affecting you emotionally as well as physically. It reduces your productivity and saps your energy, making you feel cynical, powerless, resentful negative and seeps into every area of your life. With some, it is found that a burnout manifests as irritability and they constantly snap at others, nag or make deprecatory remarks about them. It could manifest as depression in some, leading them to be lethargic and sleepy, reclusive and introverted and make them avoid socializing.

Others turn to escapist behaviors like extra-marital affairs

or excessive drugs, alcohol,

partying or shopping-anything that gives them a temporary high and helps them get momentary respite from their negative feelings. These may, in turn, lead to relationships and

personal lives falling apart, leading to added stress, and creating a vicious cycle of negativity. If you sink into burnout, you will feel completely beyond caring, drained of energy and devoid of motivation, and see no hope at all. What’s worse, you will not even attempt to make things better.

Burnout can take months to surface, and you may not even realize that you are undergoing it. So be careful. Pay heed if a close friend or relative points out a change in your attitude or behavior, which is uncharacteristic of you. It might be the first signal for you to redress the situation. Remember, you will not just snap out of it, and you cannot just get over it.

You have to make the effort to pull yourself through, and the first step is to be aware that something is wrong with you. Treat burnout as an illness. What more, it can be treated and may require professional help. There are millions of people with burnout. Think about this for life is worth living. Enjoy it.