Micro Habits of Rest: 5 ways to reconnect during burnout by Amanda Nakano
Micro Habits of Rest: 5 Ways to Reconnect During Burnout
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" – The Summer Day, Mary Oliver
Understanding Burnout
I’ve always been struck by the words of American poet Mary Oliver, as she often confronts the finite reality of human life. I can’t help but get existential when we are confronted with the experience of burnout, as it forces us to question whether this is the life we want to live.
Burnout often leads us into passive but resentful submission to a life that runs against our wishes and values. There is often both relief and sadness in realizing one is experiencing burnout: relief for finally naming the perpetual fog, frustration, and hopelessness, and sadness for the realization of how far we’ve strayed from the life we desire or out of control our current one feels. I hope to illuminate some of the different components of burnout, as well as offer practical ways to build resilience into your life.
What Causes Burnout?
Burnout comes in many shapes and forms. For some people, there is a clear perpetrator, while for others, it may be an amalgamation of habitual stressors. Regardless of the cause, burnout can be understood as a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It isn’t necessarily the stress itself, but the result of being immersed in high stress for a long time—we become stretched beyond our ability to cope. Our bodies are fantastic at responding to stress; we have an array of hormones that come online to help us move through threats, but they are most effective in the short term. When stress is prolonged and we remain locked in a survival response, it starts to take a toll on us.
Here are a few examples of the different form’s burnout can take:
Academic burnout
Neurodivergent burnout
Workplace burnout
Parenting burnout
Creative burnout
Caregiver burnout
As you can see, if there is a role to fulfill, chances are there is a form of burnout that can emerge from it. Here are some common threads between these different ways of experiencing burnout:
An overwhelming and unmanageable demand in your workload or tasks.
Not receiving adequate treatment, protection, or support in your role.
Not having clear objectives or expectations in your work.
Chronic stress due to high pressure work environments and tight deadlines.
Feeling unrecognized or unappreciated for your contributions.
Feeling unsupported or isolated in your role.
Feeling unable to accomplish tasks or inadequate in the role you fulfill.
So, what do we do if our livelihood is dependent on the very job that feels like it’s sucking the life out of us? Or if you are the sole caregiver to someone you deeply love, but feel completely overwhelmed and isolated by the demands? Many of us don’t have the full freedom to up and leave the responsibilities, jobs, or roles that have led us to burnout. It would be completely justified to feel frustration, anger, and sadness towards the capitalist system we live in, as it so often favors our productivity over our humanity. So, how do we bear the reality we are forced to live in while also striving to live the life we desire? I invite you to consider your needs.
Sleep Is Great, But What Else?
A resounding response I hear when working with folks experiencing burnout is the desire to simply stop everything and catch up on sleep—something that is often long overdue. This is a valid need many of us share. However, I think it’s valuable to ask ourselves: Is that really all I need? Would parts of me still feel unsatisfied, unfulfilled, or restless? After waking up from much-needed sleep—then what? As a culture, we aren’t really taught how to rest. If anything, we are actively discouraged from resting when needed. We often feel the lack of something, but knowing what it is can feel elusive. Sometimes rest doesn’t mean coming to a full stop but rather reconnecting to what is meaningful and fulfilling to recover.
Sleep really is great, but it can be tempting to assume a reset will automatically happen during that break. I’d love to bring your attention to the power of building everyday habits (micro habits) that can enable rest and recovery, while increasing resilience to burnout in the long run. The allure of a one and done remedy is powerful, but not always helpful! By creating more space in your everyday life for rest, you actually resource yourself better for the future.
Accurate Self-Care: 5 Needs to Cultivate Burnout Resilience
So where do we start—what do we do!?
What I’d like to introduce to you draws from the work of William Glasser, a therapist from the 1960s responsible for a modality of counseling called Reality Therapy. Glasser sought to place responsibility and autonomy back into the lives of individuals, arguing that the only thing we can truly control is ourselves. He proposed five basic needs: Survival, Love/Belonging, Freedom, Power, and Fun. While I would not consider myself a counselor who operates within this modality, I’ve always found a lot of wisdom in his conceptualization of our basic needs in the context of burnout.
When we are living from a survival stance (prolonged chronic stress), we lose touch (out of necessity) with our ability to view our lives from a spacious and grounded place. We stop seeing choices or thinking of alternatives. We start reacting rather than responding. This is due to the physiological response of stress activating a survival mode (flight, fight, or freeze), which is adaptive in the short term but limiting and even harmful in the long term. By intentionally reconnecting and attending to these different needs, we can reinforce both internal and external safety.
1. Survival
The need for survival addresses our physical needs for shelter, food, and water. Without these, we don’t last long. If you are fortunate enough to have these basic needs covered, I invite you to take this question to the next level and view it through a more embodied lens.
If your body is the shelter you exist in, how well do you care for it? When there is pain, injury, or sickness, do you pause and tend to it, or do you push through? Does your body get the exercise or movement it craves throughout the day? What about your body’s need for nourishment and hydration? Do you eat enough food to fuel you throughout the day? And as for sleep, how many hours a night do you get, and how many hours do you think you need? There are many questions that could be asked here, but ultimately they ask: How well do you listen and respond to your body when it’s trying to tell you something?
2. Love/Belonging
As mammals, we are wired from birth to seek social and physical connection with others. This drive is so fundamental that our early neurological development is facilitated through interactions and affection from our caregivers. We need places and people in our lives where we feel known, valued, and loved. Consider the quality of relationships in your life. Are there people you feel this way with? Are there friendships or relationships that do the opposite? Are there places or communities where you feel a sense of belonging? Perhaps you feel warmth and love from animal companions—those are valid too!
3. Freedom
It would be unrealistic to expect to be free from all restrictions in our daily lives. There are certain systems built into society that are difficult, if not impossible, to avoid. Yet, we still have choice in our lives and are ultimately responsible for the lives we lead. Freedom speaks to our need for autonomy and choice. Where in your life do you experience choice, options, or freedom from restriction? Where do you enact autonomy or independence? What are some areas in which you can cultivate more awareness of choice? It can be easy to discredit the availability of choice but try to dig deep. What socks did you choose to wear today? What cup did you drink your morning coffee from? What media or content did you choose to engage with today? The greater our realization of choice, the greater our intentionality in our lives.
4. Power
Power speaks to our drive to feel effective, do our best, and be accomplished in our lives. Where do you feel a sense of confidence or self-efficacy? As we discussed earlier, burnout can be accompanied by feelings of inadequacy, helplessness, and uncertainty. Take time to consider what skills you possess. What are your areas of knowledge, expertise, or talent?
You might be tempted to compare or belittle the areas of power you have in your life, but there is no limit to how great or small those types of skills, confidence, expertise, talent, or knowledge can be. The purpose of this awareness is to recognize the things you can do rather than criticize yourself for what you cannot do.
Recognizing different areas of power can also help you diversify beyond the skillset you might use in the context of burnout. You are a whole person with a life and identity beyond the role you fulfill!
5. Fun
In some ways, fun is the opposite of the survival stance one inhabits during burnout. Fun activates play, enjoyment, pleasure, and curiosity. Fun can also include spontaneity, novel activities, relaxation, humor, and much more! By intentionally participating in fun, we activate parts of ourselves that are otherwise unavailable during burnout and reinforce safety.
What are things you find fun? If you had an uninterrupted hour dedicated to doing something fun, what would you choose? What about 10 minutes? What pockets of fun can you create or become mindful of throughout your day?
Bringing It All Together
Now that we’ve covered these different needs, where do you notice you are most fulfilled? Where do you notice the most deficit? Are there needs that unintentionally get prioritized over others? It is my open that after reading this post, you can attend to yourself with greater mindfulness and compassion, and feel more equipped to live a fulfilling, meaningful life.