How to cope with stress and burnout
byWith levels of stress and burnout at concerning levels in accountancy, it’s time to practise some self-care.
Worrying statistics from Caba (the mental health charity that supports the ICAEW community) have shown that over half of all respondents (56%) to their survey on mental health felt that they were struggling with burnout and stress. This compared to an average of 41% of respondents in other professions.
You may not be at all surprised by this statistic within your profession. With growing pressure to meet deadlines, overwhelming workloads, an illusion of 9 to 5 office work (which, in reality, is far more extensive), growing pressure from both HMRC and clients, it is no wonder that accountants are feeling increasingly stressed and overwhelmed.
One of the most worrying findings of the Caba research was that almost half of all accountants were reluctant to mention that they were struggling or feeling excessively stressed for fear of being treated differently.
If we are not keen to speak openly to our employers about our struggles or to take advantage of an employee assistance programme or mental health first aiders, how can we support ourselves and others? As KevinRinger stated in response to AccountingWEB’s earlier article, “No wonder practitioners are leaving the profession in their droves.”
Stress or burnout
Stress and burnout are words that are often part of our daily language but how much do we really understand the impact of both and is there a difference between the two?
Burnout is a term first coined in 1975 by Herbert Freudenberger who used it to define extreme stress. Freudenberger associated burnout with three key symptoms:
- emotional exhaustion – the exhaustion we feel when we feel we have “cared too much”
- depersonalisation – when our capacity for empathy and caring dwindles
- decreased accomplishments – when we begin to feel that we are not contributing or productive; “nothing I do matters”.
Burnout is therefore different to stress and should not be used synonymously. Stress is a natural mental and physiological response to a threat, while burnout is the condition created when we suffer chronic exposure to stress.
According to the World Health Organization, burnout is not a medical condition but is defined as an “occupational phenomenon”. Although many people may now attribute burnout to many areas of their lives, the true definition of it from Freudenberger and WHO is that it is something that relates to our work life.
When stress becomes a problem
We tend to think of all stress as negative but that isn’t the case. Stress is the physiological response to a real or perceived threat – if there is a threat present then stress prepares us for that fight or flight response which will keep us alive (hopefully!).
If we are running for our lives, stress is not only essential to help us escape but it is also short lived – we either survive or we don’t. However, for most of us, the stressors we encounter on a regular basis are less likely to be a threat to our physical survival and far more likely to be emotional stressors – things like deadlines, difficult clients, family pressures, a pandemic, money worries and much more. These are much more complicated for us to deal with as they can be pervasive, constant and can continue for days, weeks, months or even years. This is when stress can become chronic.
Rethinking stress
We know that our modern lives (especially within accountancy) are never going to be stress free and so how can we manage our stressors better in order to avoid chronic stress and burnout?
Amazingly, the first step to handling stress better is to rethink it. It turns out, if we believe stress is really bad for us, then it is likely to be.
Kelly McGonigal (author of The Upside of Stress) gathered research on stress from multiple studies and found something fascinating. She found that when looking at individuals’ stress levels and how they interpreted their stress, the biggest factor in suffering adverse reactions from stress was not the stress levels themselves but rather how people interpreted their stress.
Essentially, when people believe that their stress levels are too high, and that they cannot cope and it is damaging to them, then they were likely to suffer. However, people with similar stress levels who believed they could cope and that the stress levels were manageable did not suffer as many adverse effects (you can find out more in McGonigal’s TED talk).
Changing beliefs about anything is challenging but it appears that this is where we need to begin to help us manage our stressful lives better by reminding ourselves that we can cope and finding meaning in the work we are doing.
Create boundaries
It is clear when looking at burnout specifically, that people who reach burnout stage tend to all have at least one thing in common – they tend to have very poor or very blurry boundaries.
Boundaries are our own rules that we put in place that let others know how they can or cannot treat us and if we do not have them, we risk allowing others to treat us any way that they wish, leaving us overburdened, exhausted and overwhelmed.
When we have firm boundaries in place, we can initially upset others, but we also create a firm framework to let them know how they can treat us.
In terms of work, this could look like:
- Having a separate work and personal phone (and stepping away from the work phone at a set hour)
- Not checking emails out of your specified working hours
- Not allowing people to transfer their stress onto you
- Having a clear shutdown time for your working day.
When we talk of boundaries, a great way to start setting them is to identify the difference between bright and blurry lines. Often, we set a boundary that is blurry, so we say: “I will try to finish work earlier”. But it lacks clarity and is ambiguous, meaning that within no time we have extended our work day yet again.
A bright line is a legal term that is designed to make a rule clear and unambiguous. So, “I will finish work at 6pm” – no exceptions. When we set bright-line boundaries they become clear to everyone around us, including ourselves.
Prioritise sleep
As we become more and more stressed, our sleep is often one of the first things likely to suffer. Yet every time we lose sleep and have a restless night, it lines us up for a stressful day ahead before we have even begun.
WHO suggests we need an average of eight hours’ sleep per night. We are individuals so that can fluctuate from person to person but what is clear is that whenever we deprive ourselves of sleep, we suffer mentally and physically. Neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker stated that there is no part of our physical or mental wellbeing that is not significantly improved by us getting enough sleep and is not significantly impaired but us not getting enough sleep.
Sleep is often seen as an inconvenience or something that we have to do, but the truth is, without sleep any other practice in looking after yourself – exercise, meditation, eating well and so on – will not be as effective.
Most people suffer with periods of sleeplessness from time to time, often brought on by illness or stress, but if your sleep is consistently struggling, it would be a good idea to consider focusing on this and trying to improve it. If you have chronic insomnia it is also important you speak to your GP.
Here are some ways you can begin to improve your sleep:
- Create a routine When we have children, we tend to focus on their bedtime routine quite strictly, but that goes out of the window when we are adults. However, our brain is associative, it likes regularity, so if you do the same things every evening to prepare for sleep, your brain will begin to notice the pattern.
- Turn off devices 90% of all adults look at a screen within the last hour before they attempt to sleep. Yet we know that exposure to screens impairs our ability to produce melatonin (which helps us drift off to sleep), plus staring at emails, the news or social media may well increase cortisol (a stress hormone), which inhibits our ability to sleep. Stop looking at devices at least one hour before you want to sleep.
- Do something relaxing What relaxes you? Reading a book, taking a hot bath, listening to calming music? Do the same relaxing activity every night.
- Be consistent Every sleep expert in the world will tell you that the key rule to sleeping well is to be consistent in your sleep. Waking and going to bed at the same time every day (even on weekends) is what helps us achieve a healthy sleeping pattern.
Moving forward
Stress is an inevitable aspect of any job with high client demands and deadlines. Taking care of yourself within this is crucial in order for you to manage that. Consider ways in which you could embrace some of the ideas discussed and other ways that you could lower and manage your stress better, starting by looking at the resources on the Mind website.
If your stress levels are concerning you, then it is also important to find the courage to speak up about this to someone who can help, because you are certainly not alone.
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Lianne Weaver is the Managing Director of Beam Development & Training Ltd, which delivers unique wellbeing, happiness, personal development and resilience training to companies and individuals both in the classroom and online. She works with government organisations, banks, law firms as well as SME’s. Lianne is also a therapist, working...
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The only stress level I have is reading this tosh.
Actually I only read the CV, all that personal development and resilience guff was enough.
Am I being harsh? Ask the people in Ukraine what they think.....
As the stress continues, you begin to lose the interest and motivation that led you to take on a certain role in the first place. Burnout reduces productivity and saps your energy, leaving you feeling increasingly helpless, hopeless, cynical, and resentful. Eventually, you may feel like you have nothing more to give.