BURNOUT

 One of the most known phenomena in our days is burnout. The term burnout expresses the psychophysical harass of a person that depletes of personal mental storages against the effort to adapt to every day difficulties. Furthermore, this term describes the daily discomfort and sensitivity, the feeling of “empty”, the sense of disappointment and incapability. It is more generally, a disturbance of balance between available and demanded resources. This disturbance is formed when the available resources are not enough to satisfy with the proper way the personal goals. 

The phenomenon of burnout has 4 stages that every patient deals with. Firstly, the stage of idealism-enthusiasm. The patients begin with investing all of their potential, time and available resources in their assignment.  Secondly, is the stage of inaction and apathy, which in this stage, the patient understands that the development of his assignment does not fulfill his expectation and his needs. The next stage is the cancellation stage, where the person wonders if it’s worth doing his duties under pressure and without the recognition of the others. And the last one is the stage of apathy. During this stage the patients invest some energy to avoid responsibilities and they convert their own expectations.

Apart from these stages, the burnout phenomenon can be recognized from its symptoms. The first symptoms that are observed is the increased commitment towards the personal goals, which is followed by the consumption of resources. Another symptom that follows is the decrease of the commitment towards family, friends and other assignments. In addition, it is obvious the appearance of depression and aggression as the loss of motive for the project that undertake. All these symptoms, lead to the progressive resign of emotional and social life. Though, not only psychological symptoms exist but also psychophysical, such as headaches, hypertensions, gastrointestinal disorders.  

As about the people that are affected by this phenomenon, are control freaks that need to prove to themselves and to others that they are capable and helpful because they believe that only in this way they can be approved and can receive love and respect from their fellow human beings. A list will follow with the personality characteristics that are more possible to present burnout effect: 

Excessive work commitment	Excessive ambition	Excessive introvert or extrovert
Idealism	Social stress	Non-realistic personal ambitions
Insistence  in personal demands	Low self-esteem	Enthusiasm, jealousy
Low levels of social life	Anxious personality and neurotic character	Passivity and isolation
Need to control everything	aggression	Sense of power
Need to offer help	Compulsive urge to reach a goal	Inequality of cognitive evaluation

Apart from the frequency that burnout is faced nowadays; there are many ways to help the patients to tranquilize the symptoms of this phenomenon. If you are one of them pay attention. You should decrease the high leveled commitments and try to have more realistic goals that can satisfy you, you should learn how to handle your time and your stress. For any other help you might need you should try visit a psychologist to help you overtake this problem step by step.
 For any questions or advices you might need post me a comment to this article and I will be happy to answer it for you.

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Georgina Papaioannou