It’s now a year since our first lockdown. While working from home may sound something straight out of a dream: relaxed working hours from the comfort of your home, it can be harmful if your professional and personal hours overlap. The World Health Organization described ‘burnout’ as an ‘occupational phenomenon or syndrome’ that stems due to chronic, unaddressed work stress. If you’ve been feeling exhausted, moody, ineffective, or more negative than usual, you might be working too much or  lost control of healthy work practices and experiencing a ‘work-from-home’ burnout. 

Learning about the warning signs and implementing mitigation measures can help with reducing overall stress, adjusting work practices and improving your effectiveness. 

Signs you’re doing too much WFH

Work From Home burnouts are more common than you might think. Monster.com’s survey in July 2020 revealed that 69% of respondents experienced burnout since the pandemic began, up from 52% in May this year alone. Here are a few warning signs of a work-from-home burnout: 

#1 Fatigue or feeling exhausted all the time

If you don’t limit your work hours and let them bleed into your personal time, you’re paving the way for both mental and physical fatigue that could be extremely harmful. This could also translate to poor eating habits because you might not be making time for cooking meals and eventually skipping them altogether. 

An excessive workload coupled with high expectations is a recipe for burnout, according to Dr Richard Heron, the co-chair of the International Occupational Medicine Society Collaborative.

#2 Increased mental distance from the job

If you feel like your levels of procrastination, have gone up significantly or if you constantly keep calling in sick, you might be experiencing work from home burnout. 

According to the World Health Organization, burnout is also associated with increased absenteeism and turnover. This disrupts organizational function, affects team efficiency negatively, and causes loss of institutional knowledge. 

If you’re easily distracted or if you have to force yourself to focus on work, it’s a very evident sign of a burnout. 

#3 Reduced professional efficiency 

If you’re unable to cope with the environment of a work from home job, the quality of your work will suffer. Toptal’s tech blog warns employees about the consequences of extra work-from-home productivity. 

WFH tends to turn people into workaholics, limiting the human interactions they might have otherwise, and soon it starts reflecting in the work they do. If you’re taking longer to finish tasks, producing a low or substandard quality of work, or missing deadlines, you might be experiencing burnout.  

#4 Physical repercussions 

Stress isn’t just mental experience. It can have physical consequences which can be just as bad. Experiencing digestive problems such as heartburn, constipation, or cramps is one of the many symptoms of stress. Others include craving substances like cigarettes or alcohol to ease off the pressure after a long day or in between meetings. Physical repercussions often go unnoticed because of their subtle nature, however, they are just as important as other factors. 

#5 Mood swings

Have you been more irritable than usual lately? If you or your family have noticed a change in your overall attitude and the conclusion is that you’ve become more aloof and irritable, it is a sign of a burnout. 

Why it’s bad for you 

Burnout does not mean you’re simply exhausted from your job. It translates into something more complex and harmful if it is not addressed in time. Burnouts can pave the way for a plethora of diseases and complications, including heart diseases, high blood pressure, obesity, a weak immune system, depression, anxiety, cognitive decline, and much more.
It also isolates you from your loved ones and adds to one of the most underrated mental issues: loneliness.
If you’re experiencing any of the above signs, you need to do something about it.

How to control work from home stress

WFH burnouts can be triggered by a variety of factors, which include the inability to interact with people directly, being forced to manage household chores with office work, and failing to stick to a set routine because your personal and professional lives are overlapping. This can cause immense stress that can leave you exhausted and frustrated. Here are a few tips for controlling your burnout stress: 

• Fix your work hours and do not work beyond the set time
• Work in a designated space to create a more suitable work-like environment for better focus and less disturbance
• Take small breaks between meetings or every few hours to give your eyes and mind a break
• Cut down on screen time beyond work and opt for offline sources of entertainment once you’re off work
• Avoid taking your laptop to your bedroom. This way you will be less prone to checking your email or doing anything work-related beyond your defined working hours
• Exercise at least 5 times a week to rejuvenate and refresh your mind and body. Exercising helps in reducing cortisol and adrenaline, the body’s stress hormones, and stimulates the production of endorphin, which is a natural painkiller and mood elevator.

Read this before returning to your office

There is no set protocol for how you’re supposed to return to work after a global pandemic that has caused panic and distress. This is a first for the current working generation, and hence it becomes even more critical to manage unprecedented stress as we return to offices in these challenging times. At Max Towers, companies adopted a staggered approach, following roster system for getting employees gradually back to office.

If you’re returning to your office for the first time since the pandemic-induced lockdowns, make sure you take all the necessary safety precautions such as regular sanitization, social distancing, and reduced contact with physical surfaces to reduce the chances of contracting fomites. 

After a return to your work environment, set aside some time to reconnect with your co-workers and colleagues, be it through a combined lunch or a brief chat over coffee adhering to social distancing norms. Given the abundance of stress triggers present in the current scenario, communicating effectively and being articulate and compassionate are the need of the hour.