Are you burned out?

In Pakistan, the concept of the workplace environment and workplace health is still non-existent

Do you drag yourself to work? Have you become irritable at your job? Are you not satisfied by your workplace achievements? If yes, then you might be burned out.

Imagine a few years into a profession and you start to feel burned out: exhausted, drained and fatigued both mentally and physically.

Intense competition, limited financial resources, cut-throat corporate culture, defined number of jobs in highly-skilled professions and an overall dismal economic situation are a few external factors that affect and determine people’s career choices.

For instance, a peek at the result of the recent Part-1 professional examination conducted by the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan for young doctors would show that most of the young graduates choose to join internal medicine and surgery residency training programmes across Pakistan, while few opt for allied sciences like anaesthesiology, radiology and pathology. Fewer yet join fields like psychiatry, forensic medicine and basic sciences. This segregation determines a very specific career path for a batch of doctors that clear this first step. Almost all enter the residency training after the Part-1 exam with a certain degree of enthusiasm and passion for their respective fields, but the ungodly work-hours, low pay-packages, lack of adequate counselling facilities and pressure to clear examinations and complete workplace tasks on time, lead to burn out at a very young age.

Professions where you are unable to control your schedule and workload are unclear about what your boss expects from you, and face dysfunctional workplace dynamics in the form of working with an office bully or in an environment where you feel undermined by colleagues, and where work-life balance is a myth, contribute to job stress and ultimately early burn-out.

Generally, this syndrome manifests as anxiety, apprehension and fear of failure. It gradually morphs into physical manifestations of increased heart rates, blood pressures and fidgetiness. Eventually, one develops an aversion and then people start to look for exits in desperate situations. But having committed to a field, there is generally no going back. Very few are lucky enough to find a way out by getting into related sub-specialties and super-specialties, but the majority who suffer, either switch their jobs frequently, quit altogether or make silent compromises at the cost of their mental health and professional competence.

On May 29, 2019, the World Health Organization updated its website’s mental health section with an interesting addition. A more detailed description of a very prevalent and under-emphasised condition: workplace burnout. The official definition in the International Classification of Diseases-11 states that “Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterised by three dimensions: (1) feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; (2) increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and (3) reduced professional efficacy. Burn-out refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life.”

Some researchers linked it to a milder form of depression. Others call it “work-related unhappiness”. There are many predisposing factors like personality traits, genetic factors and external stimuli to trigger such a response. By and large it’s quite obvious: undue chronic stress at work leads to a natural state of being worn out.

In Pakistan, the concept of workplace environment and workplace health is still non-existent. Counselling facilities are never a part of our workplace. One can indulge in relaxing activities such as yoga, eating and sleeping healthy, regular physical exercise and finding a good support system in order to deal with it at a personal level. And while it is difficult to contemplate, the option of shifting jobs is always there.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 7^th, 2019.

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