Causes Of Stress

Why Do Individuals Burnout And Get Stressed?

One survey was carried out to ascertain amongst a group of nurses three contributing factors to stress and burnout. First and foremost was the amount of hassles causing frustration and exasperation in the first place. By way of example, the greater majority of nurses had to carry around with them every hour of every working day, weighty responsibilities, learning how to accept new challenges and extreme difficulties  not only in dealing with patients directly, but also prescribing drugs, handling new pieces of medical equipment and procedures, facing mounting financial considerations and in house hospital budgeting systems and on top of all of this, having to put up with an irregular life-style not to mention amongst many split shifts which interrupted their normal sleeping patterns. The aforementioned book Moetsukishokogun made the point that, “These daily hassles constitute the greatest influence toward their stress levels and ultimately, burnout.” When problems remain unresolved , frustration simply builds up and thus inevitably, leads to burnout or heightened levels of stress.

The second factor noted in this report was lack of support, not having a friend or counsellor to confide in. Thus, a mother who isolates herself from other mothers is more likely to burnout or feel increased levels of stress related anxiety. The above mentioned survey also found that single nurses are more likely to fall foul of stress related symptoms and burnout than those nurses who were in a steady long term relationship or married. Conversely, nonetheless being married or in a long term relationship can introduce other factors which too are likely to compound the amount of stress being experienced within the workplace if there is little or no communication between the partners. Even when everyone is home, schedules can still often be extremely hectic and an individual may find her or himself still feeling isolated and alone, with no-one to turn to, to talk about openly and honestly, the reasons why they are feeling so stressed out.

The third and final factor associated with stress and burnout are feelings of helplessness. For instance, nurses are more likely to feel sensations of helplessness than doctors in some situations because nurses may lack the authority to make positive changes directly within the work environment. The same can be said for individuals in middle management roles who may burnout or get extremely stressed when they feel that their greatest efforts are not being recognised or appreciated, in other words, that their decision making processes are not actually getting themselves or their department anywhere.  This can lead very easily to frustration and stress, which if left to go without notice, can end up costing a company or public health sector service, huge dollars in lost revenues or worse. As one human resources manager noted, “burnout and heightened feelings of isolation and stress are an underlying factor to feelings of frustration which can create to a bad negative impact via not feeling listened to.”

Feelings of helplessness in people generally germinate in a soil of unappreciative attitudes and bear the fruit of stress and burnout. Many partners will empathise with this point, they burn out when their spouse fails to acknowledge the amount of work involved within their own particular role. Middle managers similarly burnout, get stressed when a company or corporation boss, manager, director or CEO ignores a job well done and picks on them instead for relatively minor mistakes. The bottom line is that we all need to have our own individual efforts applauded every now and again, our efforts warmly acknowledged, this will and does go a very long way towards alleviating stress and burnout in the workplace and within our personal family lives. If we work or are surrounded by family issues where our efforts are not rewarded with kind words of encouragement, be it at home or in the office or at work then we are much more likely to suffer from stress or potentially burnout.

Interestingly, many obstetricians suffer considerably less from burnout and stress in the hospital environment, perhaps due it is thought, to the acknowledgement and praise heaped on such members of staff regularly from new mothers and fathers whose new son or daughter has just been brought into the world by such hospital staff.  Mothers and fathers naturally nearly always thank them very much for all their hard work and expertise. This proves a worthwhile lesson to all of us, that when individuals feel appreciated and wanted and their efforts are acknowledged, individuals feel that they are wanted, that they are useful and ultimately as a result, feel more motivated.

As soon as we find out who tends to burn out and why, it becomes a lot easier to tackle the root cause/s of the problem and to take the required steps to alleviate such internal suffering from those people around us, as they say, ‘commit random acts of kindness’, for kindness, recognition of the efforts of individuals we work with or are at home with goes a very long way to stopping in it’s tracks, burnout and feels of stress.  Ultimately, if we look out for each other constantly, everyone is a winner.