Immediate Solutions For Burn Out
Ok, your burned out or at least right at the edge: what to do?
Go the fuck to sleep!
Excuse our language but it really is that important.
Easier said than done of course.
When you are in a sleepless pattern, we know that simply wanting to break out of it is almost never enough and that being tired doesn’t necessarily mean that you will sleep - annoyingly. So here are some strategies that have worked for us.
During one of our most stressful years ever we discovered neuro-feedback. This is something which we had previously thought might be woohoo, but having benefitted in the past from acupuncture, and having found a physician who was both an acupuncturist and a practitioner of neuro-feedback who specialized in obsessive/compulsive behaviors (which are also associated with burnout) we decided to give it a try.
It’s a completely non-invasive or stressful process: Some electrodes are clued to your head and you watch a movie and find that sometimes the audio or the visuals change which is the computer noticing less functional patterns in the brain and giving your brain a signal that it might want to try a more functional alternative energy pattern.
Within three sessions – during which one had to actively fight fall asleep – we found that suddenly, we were getting 8 hours a night, despite being woken by infants in between and despite the actual stress of the day to day which didn’t change for a while.
But, the quality of the sleep allowed us to stay functional and productive where previously we would certainly have burned out. We know this because 10 years previously we were in a similar situation and the lack of sleep became cumulative and burnout did happen.
In that case we tried a similar strategy which also worked. We became each others’ babysitters and get down time which became good sleep time as well and this retrieved the situation.
The reason why in retrospect we would choose the neuro-feedback over our being each other’s babysitter solution is that the neuro-feedback allowed both parents to remain present and correct which ultimately made the situation easier.
But, there is no reason not to combine both strategies, and of course when you act as each other’s babysitters, it’s free, as is crashing on a friend’s couch or spare room rather than getting a hotel and neuro-feedback also costs money. Although, compared to other approaches and considering seemingly fast results and lasting results, the cost of neuro-feedback seems to be an investment one should consider.
In terms of time, we did the neuro-feedback fairly intensively for about 6 months and then gradually went less, less and finally not at all and the sleep patterns remained good. In terms of how long it took for the good sleep patterns to kick in, about 3 sessions.
Speaking purely personally, if we ever felt in a similar burnout crisis again, we would not hesitate to pick up the neuro-feedback once more. In fact, we are considering it anyway just to make sure things don’t erode.
Of course, this is a personal account and not a scientific study, however similar accounts seem to have been found in various studies on neuro-feedback.
Once having retrieved the sleep situation, which marks the difference between actual burn out and continued high stress, we could then look at ameliorating the causes of the stress itself.
But, in our experience, if you are at – or approaching – burnout, address the sleep issue first, then the stress issues second.
Additionally, there are various “medical” devices like electro magnetic therapy that have helped us personally sleep better, longer, deeper and just have generally a better quality of rest while sleeping. These devices are usually unfortunately expensive. The particular brand we have found helped us the most is called Bemer. The reason we like it in terms of improved sleep is that it comes with a sleep mode. You sleep on the blanket and it somehow seems to put you down into a more restful sleep and then wake you up at a time specified by you. If you feel this is something you want to look into, we are happy to give you more information if you email us to info@ntls.co
Finally, what we did not ever do, was take sleep medications. The reason was, having tried some in the past we had found two draw backs for us. The first was that sometimes they just didn’t seem to work and the second was that when they did work, we found that the quality of sleep just wasn’t very restorative. We are neither endorsing nor not endorsing medications here, we are simply recounting our own practical experience and that of many others we know. It is of course your prerogative to explore whatever you feel is right for you, with the support of your medical professional.
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