More Than Anxiety

Ep 80 - How to Get Your Groove Back - Recovering from Burnout

• Megan Devito • Episode 80

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91% of nurses,
55% of teachers,
75% of overall employees experience burnout - women more than men.

 Working moms experienced burnout at 68% while working dads experience burnout at a rate of 42% - neither of which is a small number!

In this episode, I'm talking about the issue of burnout among high achievers. 
Burnout is a serious problem that affects your physical, mental, and emotional health and I'm sharing the signs, causes, and practical ways to overcome it.

Through real stories and practical advice, I'll show you how to prioritize your mental health and find your way back to feeling energized so you can have a balanced life you love (job, sport, and parenting included). 

Whether you're feeling overwhelmed at work or struggling to find your motivation, this episode is for you. Join us as we uncover the path from burnout to a brighter future. Subscribe now and start your journey towards a healthier, happier you.




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You know you're overwhelmed, burned out, sick to death of work but also trying to do everyting for everyone at home. TAKE THIS QUIZ to find out why you're so overwhelmed and what to do about it.

Megan Devito:

Welcome to the More Than Anxiety podcast. I'm Megan Devito and I'm the Life Coach for stressed out and anxious women who want more out of life. I'm here to help you create a life you love to live, where anxiety isn't holding you back. Get ready for a lighthearted approach to managing anxiety through actionable steps, a lot of truth, talk and inspiration to take action so you walk away feeling confident, calm and ready to live. Let's get to it. Welcome to episode 80 of the More Than Anxiety podcast. This is the first time that I have ever done video with the podcast. I have no idea how this is going to go, but I'm really excited to figure it out. If you've listened to any of my previous episodes on iTunes or Spotify or iHeartRadio or Amazon or Google or all the places I'm glad that you're here. I'm glad that you're back, and if this is your first time listening, whether you are listening on one of those podcast platforms or on YouTube, I'm super excited that you're here as well. So let's go ahead and get started If we've not met before.

Megan Devito:

My name is Megan. I am a Life Coach. I help people who are really high, achieving high functioning, who have a lot of anxiety and stress, figure out how to let go of that stuff and get what they want. And today I want to talk to you guys about burnout. 91% of nurses, 55% of teachers, 75% of employees when you take all the different occupations combined are experiencing burnout. Right now, we are at an all-time high, especially for women, women more than men due to the fact that their work is done not only outside of the home, but also in home. Not specifically guys, I'm not picking on you, but in terms of caring for children, caring for, maybe, elder parents, maybe cleaning the house or doing that stuff a lot of times, that falls into a traditional role for women, so they're just having higher rates of burnout. That's just the way it is Working moms especially, are 68% burnout, while dads experience 42%, neither of which is a small number. This is a huge topic. I see it all the time on LinkedIn, I see it on Instagram and all the places. So I hope this is going to be really beneficial to you to talk about the way that we can start knocking some of this out so people can start to feel good again. Either way, these stats are rising, especially in younger people. So in this episode, you're going to hear more about understanding burnout, recognizing the signs, how to pick up some great coping mechanisms and learn how to create a way to recover. So you either learn to love your job again or you find another job that you love even more than you want to have right now. So let's get started by making sure that you're clear on what burnout actually is. People tend to associate burnout with work, and yeah, that's a really big place where we see burnout happen a lot of the time, but it's not just at work. So if you are outside of the workplace and you're like, wait a minute, I really do think I'm burnout. That's totally possible.

Megan Devito:

And I want to start with a story about my daughter. She has been a swimmer since she was three years old. She has done lots of different teams and she's good, but she's also been I mean, quite literally submerged for a very long time in swimming world. So last year, after we went on this big swim trip, she just got to this place where she wasn't having it anymore. She looked me straight in the face after all these years of swimming and said I don't ever want to do this again. I'm done. And I've coached swim for several years. I've taken a few years where I haven't coached now and just been like a swim mom.

Megan Devito:

But she was ready to walk away from the whole thing and I have to admit like my heart was like, 'Whoa, what? How can you just walk away? You know what I've been doing for a long time.' I'm gonna give her space, right Like I don't want her to do things she doesn't want to do but my heart's breaking. But she was just like no, I don't. So all summer long I've been telling her friend who she was gonna go on this trip with, I'm like 'don't talk about swimming, we're not talking about swimming.' I didn't push it. She was going into high school. I tried not to push high school swimming or going back to club swimming or anything on her and I just let her chill and stay back. And I let her hate it for a while. I let her walk away. And so when we got to last fall, when high school swimming was starting again, her option was I don't care what sport you do, but you have to do a sport. I think it's important to balance athletics and academics and whatever else she wants to do - key club and all the fun things. But you could just pick any sport. I mean tennis, cross country, I don't care what she wants to do and she's like, well, I'm only good at swimming. I'm like, well, swimming it is. She and her best friend found their way back to the pool and by the end of the season she was loving it.

Megan Devito:

But the point is that a lot of student athletes, not just people in the workplace, people in rigorous study programs, people who are just constantly empathetic to other people and absorbing everybody else's emotions; we all experience burnout. And, yes, you can have empathy burnout too. That's an actual, real thing. When it comes to burnout and trying to figure if this is something that you might be experiencing, let's just talk about some symptoms, because you can have physical symptoms, you can have mental symptoms and you can have emotional symptoms of burnout. I'm just gonna give you the laundry list: headaches, which I know is a symptom of everything, but it really is. When your body is tense, when you're always overworked, when you're exhausted, it's common to get a headache. That's one of them.

Megan Devito:

Stomach aches and intestinal issues are a huge symptom for people with anxiety, because when you're constantly stressed and your body's producing all that cortisol, and when you get those adrenaline rushes, you either can't poop or you're gonna poop all the time and your stomach's gonna hurt. Your body doesn't digest food the same way and you don't feel the same way when you are in a really stressed and anxious state. Burnout is a byproduct of stress and anxiety. So, yeah, you might notice that your guts are turning more and you're just really not feeling well. That's a really common symptom of burnout and also stress and anxiety, because it's the same thing. Fatigue; if you are exhausted mentally. Physically you feel like I could get up and move, but mentally you're just spent. Yeah, that could be burnout. But also physical exhaustion, because maybe you're just your body is done, you're just expending so much energy or you're constantly tense. That takes a lot out of you. So fatigue is a huge symptom.

Megan Devito:

Getting sick frequently, lots of colds. You pick up every bug that's going around the office, you get the stomach bug, you get all of those things. When you're in that heightened state of stress, your immune system goes down. So it's really common for people to get sick a lot with sinus infections, everything under the sun. If you notice that you've had changes in your appetite where you're either starving all the time and craving a lot of sugar, or you don't wanna eat because your stomach's upset and if you notice that you either want to sleep all the time or you can't sleep because you can't stop thinking. Those are both really common symptoms that could go along with burnout.

Megan Devito:

Lack of motivation is one Just like I don't wanna do a damn thing. I just wanna sit here and do nothing because I have no energy, and no focus, and no motivation. That's one. I mentioned. Anxiety and depression, that's one. Pessimism. If everything is or no, it's just gonna suck. If you notice that you're very pessimistic about your job, about your friends, about any new opportunities that come up, yes, that goes along with depression, but it also goes along with just being like screw it, like no, I don't want to do any of that, that's one. Apathy.

Megan Devito:

Not caring about things like I don't care or whatever you want to do, is fine. I found myself in this place a lot when I was teaching more days than I am now, where we had just come off COVID. I had taught through COVID. I knew I wanted to take my coaching full time and at that point in time I was very apathetic, very pessimistic, very much, just like I have no motivation to go in. And it was burnout 100%. And it's so funny when I was writing this podcast episode, how I was like I'm writing this episode about something that I didn't even recognize in myself. I thought I was super motivated to coach full time and I was, but there was a lot of burnout mixed in at that point too. So apathy is one. Procrastination.

Megan Devito:

If you notice that you have things that you want to do or that you really need to do, but you keep putting them off because it just feels like too much or it's too overwhelming. If you feel like you just can't get it together or muster the energy, so you put it off or you don't want to think about it, that can be a byproduct of burnout. Feeling like you're failing all the time, like no matter what you do, it's not enough. As another symptom of burnout, if you feel like you're constantly failing, it's going to be really hard to have that zest or that excitement to go do your job. And it could be that you've just put so much into it that you're not getting an equal balance on that, where you're not getting the benefit that you need to stay motivated and to stay really excited about your job or to keep doing that job. That can cause burnout. Irritability like an itchy tag, or just feeling like everything is driving you nuts, when you start noticing that the person next to you chews gum all the time and they chew it really loudly that kind of stuff that could be a burnout symptom.

Megan Devito:

Being overwhelmed is another one where everything feels like too much. It's because you're putting so much in and again you're not getting that same kind of you know, that feel good back at it which everybody really counts on. We disqualify the fact sometimes that we need to get something that makes us feel good about our work. We want to feel like we're being successful, that we're giving back, that we're doing great things, and when we feel like we're not getting that, we can get really overwhelmed with the amount of work or what we're missing out on. Okay, isolating yourself. If you notice that you pull off by yourself a lot of the time, that you just don't want to be in and around anybody because you need that energy break, because there's just too much interaction or too much going on, or even if you're afraid of what they're going to ask you to do next or what they expect of you so that you run away by yourself, that is definitely a symptom of burnout. And if you notice that you're using substances to cope, whether it's cigarettes, alcohol, weed or anything else, when you're so stressed out all the time that the only thing you can do to get yourself to a place where you're numb or not feeling that or feeling anything better than low and it's a substance, that's an issue that you want to take I mean, potentially to a coach, definitely to someone who can help you with that addiction.

Megan Devito:

Whether it's screens and screens are a huge one. Guys, let's not forget that we like to dive into our phones because we can scroll and all of a sudden it's like, uh, what did I just watch on TikTok for an hour? What did I just watch on Reels? Because there's a lot of funny stuff out there. But when we're ignoring our lives to, I just have to scroll because it's so mindless. We're giving ourselves all that dopamine and that little bit of relief, but we're actually not solving the problem.

Megan Devito:

Okay, so let's talk about high achievers and how burnout is especially true for high achievers and how that when you are a high achiever and you're aiming for perfection and you're overworking to try and get to that next level and you work and work, and work, but things are not turning out perfectly the way that you wanted them to or the way that you imagined them to. You start to feel like people are going to find out that you're not as great as you think you are, or that you; Ho w do I want to say this - that you're not as great as they might think you are. There, I finally got it up my mouth. Then you start to experience imposter syndrome, where it's like, oh my god, they're going to find out I'm terrible, I'm going to get fired. Maybe that's such a bad thing if I get fired. What do I do if I get fired?

Megan Devito:

And that builds its own stress and its own anxiety when you start fearing for your job, knowing that you need your job, that you don't have a replacement job, or what happens if you don't have a job. So we just keep creating more anxious thoughts, more anxious habits and patterns, when all we really want to do is enjoy where we are. Potentially unless you really are I'm over it. I just want a different job, and that's okay too. But if you notice that you're going in early or that you're staying late, if you're working weekends or bringing work home with you, and maybe that you get started and then scrap everything that you've been working on because it's not exactly right or what you think it should be. Or maybe you take a really long time to plan something and then you think about what you want to do, like pass the point of having a decent plan because planning is good. We want to have a plan, but we don't need to over plan or we don't need to, like, fixate on the plan. So if you notice that you're doing that, or if you're worried that somebody's going to judge you on your idea, or you're afraid to share your work or your ideas because you think people will see that you're a fake or something like that, all of these things are going to add to that stress, and I've talked about that just a minute ago too.

Megan Devito:

So there are some really big expectations, especially from previous generations, and I will admit that I really love looking at generations and the similarities and the differences between them. I am very middle gen X, my parents are baby boomers. I mean my grandparents, I mean my grandma would have been greatest generation, my grandparents would have been greatest generation, and then looking at the millennials, looking at Gen Z or Gen Alpha or whatever we call all these people and just seeing how we interact and how things are the same and how they've changed. I think that when we look back on previous generations, one of the things that made America really productive is what I'm looking for not good or great or whatever catchphrases of the day, but one of the things that built America to the powerhouse that it was at that point, was that we were really hard workers with really great ideas and we prided ourselves on the amount of work we could do and the things we could create. And I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with hard work, because certainly there is but when we look at some of the previous generations and some of the ideas that we keep dragging along with us about how much or how many hours people should work, or what hard work means about somebody in particular, about who they are as a person, then we have a problem. And again let me be clear I'm not downplaying the value of hard work or excusing people who don't show up for work. There is certainly responsibility and it's a necessity for people to show up for their jobs. That is a huge problem right now, but when we're dealing with stuff like burnout, where we're working more than we're being compensated for, or we're missing out on, our home lives or that balance that we need. That's the problem, and I think that we've gone so far to one side of the issue, where we are working, working, working, and not seeing the same benefits, and that's really where we're creating the burnout and why we're seeing people just not show up. We have to find a way to correct this, and this has to start with really paying attention to who you are.

Megan Devito:

Happy employees are rested employees. There are people who have a strong home life, people who have time to be creative, and then they're more willing to work at heart or work hard when they're at work because they know they get to rest and have fun when they're at home. They're more likely to stick with the same job, which has to be good news for employers. People who are working ungodly hours, who are trying to be everything or everyone and to do it perfectly, people who miss their kids' activities and who take work home with them on a regular basis and who are always calling and sick, because they literally are sick. They're mentally shut off and they're going to get burnout and they're gonna walk away. Nobody wants this. So let's talk about what we have to do to change?

Megan Devito:

I recently had a conversation with somebody who reached out to talk about trying to figure out what her next move was. She's been a nurse for a while and she's been working for years, but she just switched, like, the area of expertise that she was working on and she really felt like she knew the answers to her old job, like she had it down, she was confident and she knew how she could help other people. But she came to me trying to decide what to do next because she really was at this place where she wasn't sure she wanted to be a nurse anymore. So she's looking for a change because she's tired of feeling anxious about being on call and not loving the field that she's in right now, partly because she isn't as interested in the problems that she's helping people with, which makes it harder to learn the basics and the ins and outs. So there's a lot going on from being on call and the confrontation that nurses are experiencing. You know all of these expectations and the overwork, but it's all built up to her working a lot of hours, feeling grouchy at work and grouchy at home and like she's lost, lost touch with who she is and what she wants to do. But this overworking and this worrying and not knowing enough has really rolled over and her not being able to sleep well at night because she's so worried about the next day and if she's going to get called in to work over and what she needs to do to either find a new the job in a different field of nursing, or just find something else entirely. So I asked her what she really wanted and what she said was I just want to be less anxious at work and feel confident about what I'm doing again. I want to be able to be home and be present when I'm at home. She wants to be able to connect with her husband and with her kids and to be able to take a vacation with her family. It doesn't seem like too much to ask, does it? She just wants balance between working home and feel good. This should be a given to me, but this isn't too much to ask.

Megan Devito:

And unfortunately, nurses, teachers, lawyers, doctors, people in sales, therapists they're all burning out and they are leaving. They're leaving these careers that they went to college for and they have no idea what they're going to do next. But they're walking away and the job market is crazy right now, which of course causes them more stress and more anxiety and more problems. So they have to find ways to cope and a lot of times they go to those unhealthy coping mechanisms which might be overeating, because you guys, sugar is a great high, right? I mean, you've probably heard that sugar is as addictive as cocaine and it may not kill you as quickly, but it's not good for you it's. I mean, a little is not going to hurt you. But when you are upset and you're immediate thing is I got to go eat something to get that hit. That's not helping your physical health, it's not helping your mental health and it's not solving a problem. They go home and they grab a drink or they start scrolling on their phone Anything that helps them escape and forget about work so that they can feel good again. And this all makes total sense because when you're feeling depressed or anxious or defeated and all of those things, those things are going to help you really quickly, but only for a short amount of time.

Megan Devito:

So if you think about the little habits that you have to make it through when you're feeling bad, how long do you actually feel better? I mean, think about that for a minute. I mean for something like a cookie. For me, it's usually just until I finish that one and I grab another one and then I feel better again. Then I feel better again. This is how people look down on. The entire thing of Oreos is gone. Or maybe you are like a TikTok or an Instagram scroller and you feel good and you start to laugh because I told you there's a lot of funny stuff out there. But then you wonder what happened and where your time went.

Megan Devito:

And then, as soon as you stop, you notice you feel more anxious, because there's a direct correlation between how much time we spend on social media and how crappy we feel. But we just keep doing it because we get the dopamine in the meantime, or maybe that relaxed feeling that you get from a glass of wine or from a gummy. Maybe it lasts a little bit longer or shorter, but when it's over, you're still stuck with the same problems. So this is what we have to do to really solve the problem and to relight that fire that was there before you got to a place of feeling burned out. You have to take care of yourself. Yes, with more sleep, yes, with more movement, eating well All of those things are important, but you also have to learn to set boundaries around your time at work and your time at home. And this sounds easy and it might be as simple as you just grabbing a piece of paper and making a schedule and saying, done, I've got it, I've got it all figured out.

Megan Devito:

But what I usually see happen is that people almost instantly start coming up with reasons why they can't keep the schedule or they can't even ask about the schedule before they even do it, and they say things to themselves about letting people down at work, but then they also feel bad because they're letting people down at home or they're letting themselves down, but they don't really give that side of things quite as much importance. Another thing I hear people say a lot is that I won't look like a team player. Or they're worried that people will think that they're slacking off. Or they might also worry that they're going to get fired. If they decide to put down a boundary, they might lose respect. Or if they don't get the time they wanted, they're afraid people will think that they're just getting special treatment. Or if they do get the time they wanted, people will think they're getting special treatment. So just notice what your thoughts are and know your brain is trying to keep you from setting those boundaries because it feels like somebody's going to think something about you. So if you don't check your thoughts, you're going to keep doing the same things and feeling worse and worse and worse.

Megan Devito:

Burnout absolutely requires a step back and it requires time for you to work on what you think about yourself, about your job, about your life, about your family and your future, and coaching is really all about helping you look at what you think so that you can change what you do on a daily basis. When you're trying to change habits that are making you feel burnt out, your thoughts are about yourself and what you can and can't do, or what you fear will happen if you get this thing that you want. This isn't like smoking, where your body craves more nicotine. This is your brain being stuck in a habit loop, and to get out of that loop you have to come up with some sort of exit ramp, like, if you can imagine, a traffic circle, you got to get right, but if you're stuck in the middle, you're just going to keep going around and around. So we have to come up with new thoughts that help you get to the right a little bit until you're feeling like, okay, I feel solid and now I can take action.

Megan Devito:

So, going back to my daughter and her time away from swimming, she decided to get back into swimming to stay in shape and she took the emphasis off winning and losing in her times and she decided just to have fun with her friends. And now she's choosing to go work out in the mornings with her brother like at the crack of dawn. She likes her sport again and she's having fun with her friends and her teammates. She's on her phone less and she's smiling more. And I know it can feel like giving up sometimes and walking away, but sometimes letting go is exactly what has to happen for you to move forward and to find what you love.

Megan Devito:

So if you want to talk with me more, you can go to my website. It's megand evito. com/ work with me. You can find the link to my calendar underneath this video or in the show notes of the podcast. Click the link, schedule time for us to talk about how you're feeling, what you want to feel instead. Ask me all the questions about coaching and we'll see where it goes. I hope this was helpful for you. Share this video, like it. Subscribe, do all the things so that you don't miss next week's video. Thanks for being with here. Take care and I'll talk to you again soon. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the More Than Anxiety podcast. Before you go, be sure to subscribe and leave a review so others can easily find this resource as well. And, of course, if you're ready to feel more relaxed, have more energy, more confidence and a lot more fun, you can go to the show notes, click the link and talk to me about coaching. Talk to you soon.