Burnout vs. Stress- Spotting The Difference is the First Step

Burnout and stress are some of the most prevalent issues affecting working age individuals today. Whether you’re a student or a worker, the long days, unforgiving hours, and lack of ability to rest as long as you’d like or need contribute to a sense of overwhelming negative effects. However, while burnout and stress can and often do go hand in hand, the signs of someone suffering from one or the other are different. 

Stress can be categorized as an uncontrolled increase in energy and workload, taking on so much that you feel like there isn’t enough of you to go around, and a feeling of urgency taking root in your system- your fight or flight activates, and your system gets flooded with cortisol and adrenaline. Long term stress can lead to a consistently uncontrollable emotional state, and after an excessive amount of time, the effects of stress turn into burnout or become physical, and that’s where the danger can sometimes start. 

Burnout can be categorized as the exact opposite. Where stress leads you to become over-engaged and urgent about the work you’re doing, burnout will leave you with a feeling of lethargic disengagement. You stop caring, lose motivation, and suppress your emotional state to a low grade level of care. There’s a certain feeling of helplessness, like you need to just stop what you’re doing and lay down for a long time. This can become a long term, depressive episode very quickly, and again, when the effects become physical, it can become complicated. 

Poor sleep, persistent headaches, muscle and joint pain, lowered immune systems, fatigue and mind fog, and excessively imbalanced hormonal symptoms due to uncontrolled flooding of the body’s hormonal system can all cause long term problems if left untreated by a professional. Sometimes, treating that stress or burnout medically may alleviate symptoms, such as taking prescription sleep medications to rest, but can create larger problems because you’re treating a symptom, not the root cause. 

Acupuncture can help alleviate the symptoms- sleep problems, the stress response of fight or flight, the headaches, and poor immune system, among many more- but it also helps calm you down, body and mind. This is because acupuncture can treat the root cause of your body’s response to stress. It helps your body heal itself, from the inside out. It can help improve circulation of blood and qi to your depleted organs, restoring you back to your healthy balance in body, mind, and spirit.

If this sounds like something you need, give us a call to schedule your consultation today at (904) 296-9545! Se habla Español!