Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – Are you tired? And if you’re feeling completely lacking in energy, and your sense of belonging and self-esteem waning, you may be a victim of burnout, experts say.
And after two years of living with the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic, you can feel extremely tired.
When you stay in this state for a long time, it can lead to changes in your brain.
“You’ll notice things like you’re more irritable, more destructive, and less motivated and hopeful,” said Amy Arnstein, professor of neuroscience at Yale University School of Medicine who studies the neural mechanisms of fatigue.
Arnstein added that understanding how your brain reacts to fatigue can be helpful, as it shows people that many of their reactions are part of a “natural phenomenon”.
The brain during exhaustion
Chronic stress has long been known to contribute to mental and physical illness, and researchers can now monitor what’s happening in the brain.
“The most surprising effects are the thinning of gray matter in a region of the brain called the prefrontal cortex,” Arnstein explained. “It helps us behave appropriately, it gives us insight into ourselves and others, it gives us perspective. It allows us to make complex decisions, to be We have the capacity for abstract logical thinking rather than concrete or habitual responses.”
By weakening this area, experts have suggested, fatigue can affect our ability to pay attention and retain memories, making new things more difficult to learn and increasing the risk of making mistakes.
And that’s not all, as researchers have discovered that fatigue can lead to an enlargement of the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for the “fight or flight” response when we are in danger.
“You start to see the world as harmful even when it isn’t,” Arnstein said.
But, can you reverse these changes in the brain once they occur? Studies in mice show that this is possible.
A 2018 study of people found that CBT reduced the size of the amygdala and returned the prefrontal cortex to pre-stress levels.
“If you feel like you are in control of the triggers, then there are no toxic brain changes,” Arnstein said. “If you feel out of control, it leads to chemical changes in the prefrontal cortex that weaken connections, and actually erode those connections over time. the time”.
What is fatigue?
Exhaustion manifests itself through 3 main symptoms that can intertwine in ways unique to each person, experts say.
“One of them gets the most attention, which is burnout,” said Kira Shabram, assistant professor of management at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business.
Many employers try to fix workplace burnout by giving employees time off to rest and recharge.
Shabram noted that this is absolutely necessary for recovery, but may not be sufficient.
“The problem is that there are two other dimensions,” Shabram explained, “which are inefficiency, or feeling like you’re not really getting things done, and pessimism, or feeling left out, whether from the work itself or from other people.”
Your endurance
The good news, experts said, is that studies show you can recover from fatigue, and if your problem is burnout, “give yourself permission to self-care. Take a nap, take a day off, take sick leave.”
Try to do healthy activities as part of self-care, such as “trying to sleep and eat healthy, non-sugar foods.”
“Alcohol is what people often look for to relieve stress, but it actually makes you feel worse the next day,” Arnstein added. “The same goes for taking benzodiazepines, such as Valium. But healthy physiological activities, (such as) exercise and meditation, can help. Which gives you perspective to be really useful.”
When it comes to addressing the feeling of alienation that comes with burnout, Shabram says the solution can seem unexpected. “What we find is that empathy for others helps restore that sense of belonging,” she says.
She added, “Be a mentor for someone and start volunteering. And what we’ve found is that those actions of doing something nice for someone else really get you out of feeling left out.”
But don’t forget to be self-compassionate. “We’ve found that compassion for others and self-compassion help to overcome fatigue,” Shabram explained.
And studies show that these activities don’t need to be bulky or time-consuming to reduce fatigue, Shabram noted, as even simple initiatives have a huge impact the next day.
“Claiming someone, and taking them out for a 5-minute walk for coffee, we see that this leads to a noticeable change in their fatigue state the next day,” Shabram explained.