Essential Guide to Burnout , livre ebook

Lion Hudson - Andrew Procter , Elizabeth Procter

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101 pages

English

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Increasing numbers of people are enduring huge levels of stress, economic pressures, family concerns, worries about jobs and health all contribute. And for many, the stress gets worse, increasing until they cannot even get out of bed to start the day. Their personality changes, their relationships become strained and before long they realize that they have hit burnout; their mind, body and spirit simply cannot take any more. It is preventable. This book enables the reader, wherever they are on the slope toward burnout, to overcome. If they are in the middle of it, it is the first step towards a full recovery and will provide the tools necessary to ensure that they never go back.

Informations

Publié par	Lion Hudson
Date de parution	10 octobre 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780745957913
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0450€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

BURNOUT

Our society has been slow to recognise how common burnout is and how damaging it can be, not just for the person affected but also for their family. In this excellent book, the Procters explain in non-technical language what burnout is, how to recognise that you have it (or are at risk of suffering from it), how to recover, and how to avoid a repetition. It contains much good advice, especially about the practical things that you can do to aid recovery, and a number of telling personal accounts that help to increase our understanding of how burnout happens and how it feels to suffer it.
Paul Britton, MIND

With a warm, considered approach and a blend of scientific and humanistic language this book has universal appeal. It is easy to read, enriched with case illustrations, and thoughtfully arranged with many helpful and original suggestions for preventing and managing burnout. I envisage this uplifting but realistic text being enormously beneficial for prevention, in addition to an essential guide for recovery. Whether it is you or somebody you know feeling the strain, the descriptions and explanations will enhance understanding and increase the ability to provide support. I cannot praise this book enough. I wish I d read this years ago.
Dr Jeannette Phillips, MBBS, MRCP, MRCPsych, Consultant Child Psychiatrist
Dedication
To our four children,
Kate, Emily, Will and Ed

Text copyright 2013 Andrew and Elizabeth Procter This edition copyright 2013 Lion Hudson
The right of Andrew and Elizabeth Procter to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by Lion Books an imprint of Lion Hudson plc Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, England www.lionhudson.com/lion
ISBN 978 0 7459 5585 8 e-ISBN 978 0 7459 5791 3
First edition 2013
Acknowledgments pp. 25, 29-30: Extracts from Jonny: My Autobiography by Jonny Wilkinson, copyright 2011 Jonny Wilkinson, reproduced by permission of Headline Publishing Group Limited.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover image: Anna Goodwin/Hancock
Contents

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE

1. What is Burnout and Have I Got It?

2. Brownout or Burnout?

3. How Does Stress Affect Us?

4. Are Some People More Vulnerable to Burnout Than Others?

5. What Other Factors Contribute to Burnout?

PART TWO

6. Red - I Am Burnt Out; How Can I Stop?

7. Amber - I Am Burnt Out; What Can I Do?

8. Green - I Am Burnt Out; Where Did I Go Wrong?

PART THREE

9. How Can I Mend My Relationships?

10 How Can I Know Myself Better?

11. What Can I Do About My Inner Emptiness?

12. How Can I Relax Properly and Look After Myself?

13. How Can I Recover My Creativity?

14. How Can I Have a Wider Outlook on Life?

15. How Do I Face the Future?

RESOURCES

END NOTES
Acknowledgments

We especially wish to thank all those who were willing to share their personal story of stress and burnout with us. We are also very grateful to Helen Leach, Kate Mendez and Emily Wingfield for their help in typing and commenting on the script.
Introduction

This book is about burnout. Maybe you are reading it because you think you are heading that way, or because you know someone who is in that situation, or you may have been given the book because you have burnt out. Whatever your situation, we sincerely hope this book will be a tool in your full recovery, or help you support someone else.
If you are reading for your benefit, the fact that you have managed to get hold of it, open it and read these words shows that you have the motivation and energy to get better. This is great. It is the seed of your recovery. We hope that your reading of it will water and nurture that seed until it grows up into a full recovery.
Burnout is an official disorder. Once thought to be an illusion, it is recognized as a genuine diagnosis. It has a category in the latest International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) as a life management disorder .
Burnout is big. A recent survey estimates that one-third of British business workers will suffer from it at some stage in their careers. At any one time, half a million people are suffering from work-related stress that makes them ill. Work-related stress accounts for 10 per cent of the workforce being ill and off work. In the UK, 6.5 million working days per year are lost because of stress. This makes work-related stress the second largest category of occupational ill health in industry as a whole.
These are very frightening statistics. Behind every single one of them is a tragic personal story. For this book we have interviewed various people who have suffered from burnout, including Ed. This is the beginning of his story.
CASE HISTORY: ED
Ed is a tall man, and on the last day of a holiday in a villa in Italy with his wife and young family, he banged his head on one of the door lintels. It was not an unusual thing in itself; being so tall he was accustomed to banging his head. This time, however, the small incident proved too much for him. Without him realizing it, he was on the floor, curled up in a ball, weeping uncontrollably. His wife had to take over, drive the family to the airport and get them home.
Banging his head was the last straw in a long sequence of events leading to Ed burning out. He had been under prolonged stress through overwork. He had been promoted to the board of directors at his firm while still a relatively young man, and was under intense pressure to perform. Work was pretty much all there was, he says. This led to him reassessing his values in life. He spent a lot of time talking things through with a number of people, and in the end chose to change jobs. He now has a very good job, but with a very different, healthier outlook on life. He has new priorities, especially about his family and other close relationships.
Ed s full story is given at the start of our first chapter.
ABOUT THE BOOK
This book explains how to recognize when we are burning out, understand what is happening, address what to do next and make a good and positive recovery. It is divided into three parts.

Part One is more factual. It explains what burnout is and how it works. It also gives measuring exercises to help assess how burnt out we are.

Part Two has three chapters on practical things to address when we are well down the road to burnout. They are written to help us in the immediate circumstances of burnout, and use the motif of the red, amber and green of traffic lights. The red chapter is about stopping, the amber chapter about waiting, getting ready to move forward, and the green chapter helps in thinking about the direction in which to go.

Part Three looks at many different facets of life. We emphasize that burnout need not be an end, but can be a beginning of a much more richly satisfying life, a much-needed opportunity to reconsider and remake life choices. This part addresses creativity, spirituality, relationships, getting to know and understand yourself, lifestyle, creativity and culture. It is designed to offer a wide choice of new opportunities in life as we recover.
The final chapter is on how to avoid burnout in the future. It offers a template for planning an ongoing lifestyle free from it.

Each chapter of the book answers a common question asked by people when they get into burnout. While we have tried to make the book progress from its beginning through to its end, please feel free to dip in and mix around the chapters, depending on your interests and requirements. Many of the chapters have suggested exercises. We recommend that you try as many of these as you can. Recovery depends on being able to do things rather than read about them, and it is in the doing of the exercises that the real road to recovery will begin.
This book is an introductory guide, written in non-technical language. It does not offer a deep analysis of emotional and mental health. It is designed to be easily understandable and to offer practical assistance. A final section gives suggestions for further reading and resources if you want to learn more. Where the exercises have suggested getting in touch with specific organizations, their contact details are listed there.

Interviews We have interspersed interviews throughout the book. We interviewed sixteen people in all, from all walks of life, and we are deeply grateful to each one of them. We have changed their names to protect their privacy, and placed one full interview at the start of most chapters. The interviewees names and occupations are:

Clare, fifty-four, consultant psychiatrist
Richard, sixty-nine, a retired priest and writer
Justin, sixty-one, head teacher
John, sixty-two, a civil engineer and team skills training consultant
Sarah, fifty-two, editor
Suha, fifty-four, social worker
Beth, forty-four, family therapist
Ed, thirty-eight, company director
Ross, forty-six, multinational insurance company worker
Austin, thirty-six, art director
Michael, thirty-three, church minister
Heather, sixty, a teacher
Jane, fifty-five, secretary
Nicola, sixty, translator and interpreter
Margaret, forty, designer
Lily, sixty-one, advertising executive

There are snippets from the stories dotted through the text as well, to illustrate particular points. Some of these short illustrations are from others besides those sixteen people. We also draw on stories about people in the public eye.
OUR OWN STORY
We are not above the battle with burnout. We write from the experience of having grappled with it - and writing this book nearly burnt us out!
Andrew was involv