What happens to our bodies when we are approaching burnout? How often do you stop to assess what your body is trying to tell you?
Last week, I started musing here about Covid burnout, a nasty re-incarnation of a malaise that has been around since the Victorians.
Before I became a life coach, I worked for many years as a physiotherapist (physical therapist). As a consequence, I am very tuned in to the connection between our physical bodies and our mental and emotional well being. Our bodies are often screaming at us that something is wrong long before we become (or choose to become) conscious of this fact.
This has been compounded over the past 18 months by increased home working and on-screen time. It may be that you suddenly had to set up a home working ‘office’ within the space of a few days. Few of us have the luxury of an actual home office, especially if there are several of us working at home. Thus, like many, you find yourself sitting at the kitchen table or a folding table in the corner of a room, on a chair that makes do.
Add to this the impact of looking at a screen all day that may or may not be at the right height, and chances are your body is rebelling somewhat.
What is your body trying to tell you? That things need to change.
I read an article in a paper the other week written by the broadcaster Jeremy Vine where he observed that we are less Working From Home and more Living At Work.
This really struck a chord.
Boundaries between work and home have become so blurred as to almost disappear. The daily commute disappeared. And that time perhaps gave you some head space and some exercise, or at least the chance to listen to something in the car/bus. All that vanished. Home ceased to be a sanctuary as tech, piles of papers and the ping of emails took over.
All this contributes to what I call brain soup: that feeling of drowning in mental overload when you can no longer think straight and are suffering from a tight, constrained feeling around your head. You can read more on brain soup here.
The physical cost of all these factors is high.
Sore neck, tense shoulders, trigger points in muscles in your back. Difficulty sleeping, headaches, postural aches and pains. Prolonged periods of sitting with virtual rather than physical meetings, removing the need to walk to a different part of your actual office. Weight gain and decreased fitness perhaps, for similar reasons.
We know all this but as is often the case, there are no quick fix solutions.
But we can apply the One Degree Principle – a marvellous coaching principle that says that small changes made daily over a longer period of time bring about big changes.
Here are some simple changes that might make a big difference.
Limit how long you sit at your screen for.
This might seem incredibly obvious. However, it is all too easy to find we have been sitting in one position at our screen for hours at a time if we have back to back Zoom meetings or are absorbed in a task. Set a timer for 25-30 minutes, at which point move away from the screen and change position, before starting the timer again. This is not new – the Pomodoro technique has been around for a while. But it serves to aid productivity whilst reminding us of the importance of regular breaks. Ensure there is a five minute break between online meetings to allow you to get up, move, look away from the screen and change position.
Stretch, move, breathe.
Our bodies are designed to move not to be static. Tension in our neck, shoulders, postural problems – all of them very common with prolonged screen use and potentially non-ideal ‘office’ furniture at home. Deep breathing, postural stretches, yoga, Pilates – all are useful to restore and rebalance where there are problems. The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy has a range of tips and advice for keeping healthy and managing stress, plus exercises for desk based working.
Change routines.
Rather than a video call, where possible schedule a phone call and go for a walk whilst you talk. Make phone calls standing up. Get a standing desk, or use old fashioned pen and paper rather than a screen. Eat lunch in a different place, go for a walk during lunch, or work from a different venue.
Make it short and sweet.
If you’ve not got time for long exercise routines, do 5 minute bursts – 5 minutes running up and down the stairs or doing squats/burpees/press ups all count and feel more achievable.
Reintroduce your commute.
If you commuted to a physical work place pre-pandemic, but are now working at home, re-introduce that into your day. Use the time you would spend commuting going for a walk instead. This serves as useful transition and mental prep time for the day ahead.
Brain dump.
This helps with brain soup. Get everything out of your head onto paper to free up head space and allow you to take back some kind of control. Bullet journalling can help too – more on this here.
Above all, be kind to your body.
We are all getting older. I am reaching a certain age when more and more bits of my body are rebelling. I can no longer expect my body to cope with all that I think I can fit into a day. What is your body trying to tell you? That you need to be kind to it, give it some love and some respect. Your mind and emotions will thank you for it.