How to Combat Burnout in Healthcare: Tips for Battling Stress & Anxiety
You may have felt “burned out” at some point in your life. It’s that mental exhaustion you feel after studying for final exams or working on a project for several days in a row. Some people feel burnout after doing repetitive tasks. These examples are all temporary and short-lived. But burnout in healthcare workers is a chronic problem.
In the healthcare workplace, you can spot burnout as intense mental and physical exhaustion that can lead to a host of other symptoms. Fortunately, there are strategies to battle and overcome burnout once it has taken hold.
How Burnout Affects Healthcare Workers
If you’re one of the nurses, doctors, and support staff who has reached the point of burnout, you may experience depersonalization and begin to feel disengaged from people, even your close friends and family. You can become detached from the work you used to enjoy. It can sometimes result in cynicism and a low sense of personal accomplishment. Some describe their feelings as “exhausted, helpless, and heartbroken.”
The National Academy of Medicine routinely surveys healthcare workers about workplace issues. Regarding healthcare worker burnout, they found that 35% to 54% of nurses and physicians and 45% to 60% of medical students and residents feel burnout. In another study, 60% of ER doctors reported combatting burnout that affected every aspect of their lives, even personal relationships. Oncologists have the highest rate of burnout among those surveyed at 70%. Healthcare burnout is not new—91% of healthcare providers say they have felt burnout at some point in their careers.
Women and younger healthcare workers seem to be taking the brunt of the burnout crisis. The incidence of burnout in female healthcare workers that have worked six to 10 years post-training is 11% higher than in men of the same age. Here is a comparison of the prevalence of burnout in healthcare across different professions:
- ER doctors: 60%
- Medical students: 45–60%
- Oncologists: 70%
- Family medicine doctors: 61%
- Critical care healthcare workers: 57%
- Nurses over 35: 30%
- Nurses under 25: 69%
What Causes Burnout in Healthcare?
If you work in a hospital, clinic, or trauma center, you’re probably used to experiencing traumatic, disturbing, and urgent events daily in your job. But that doesn’t seem to be the cause of burnout in healthcare.
Instead, most healthcare workers reporting burnout say the demands on them are far greater than the available resources to do their jobs. Examples are excessive workloads, administrative work not in their job description, inability to control often erratic work schedules, inadequate staffing, interruptions, time pressure, and lack of organizational support.
Spotting Signs of Burnout in Healthcare Workers
If you’re a healthcare worker, you might see signs of burnout in yourself. Look for noticeable emotional exhaustion and increased cynicism. This can stem from a low sense of personal accomplishment at work. Also, keep an eye out for increased irritability, withdrawal from friends and family, and a decrease in personal hygiene.
If you’re experiencing a high level of burnout, you may be at risk for mental health challenges like anxiety and depression. Burnout may impair judgment, lead to excessive drinking, abusing drugs, and difficulty managing emotions and impulses. These behaviors can be warning signs you may need support from a mental health provider. Sadly, about half of physicians say they would try to deal with problems like depression on their own and not seek mental health support in fear of being shunned by their peers and sanctioned by their medical board.
Tips for Combating Burnout in Healthcare Workers
While the best way to battle severe burnout is to seek help from a mental health expert, there are several practices that you can use when you’re feeling the effects of burnout.
1. Try Practicing Mindfulness
The basic idea of mindfulness is to pay attention to your surroundings purposefully, in the present moment, and without judgment. This practice combats burnout by targeting unwanted emotions, unhelpful control techniques, and avoidance.
As an introduction, try this exercise to help you become mindful of your breath. Find a quiet place to sit and focus on your breath. How does it feel? How does it sound? Notice how your chest expands as you breath. As your mind will begin to wander, pull your focus back in to your breath.
Once you’ve gotten the hang of this, you can move your mindfulness to other internal and external things. You can find books to learn more about mindfulness and add it to your daily routine.
2. Take Time for Self-Care
Taking care of patients is a job. Taking care of yourself is critical. Direct the same kind of care you show for patients to yourself as well. Everything from finding quiet time to read or meditate to physical care like taking a long bath or getting a therapeutic massage are ways to care for yourself.
3. Give Yourself Compassion
Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) is used to help workers who care for others but neglect their own self-care. Among the strategies of CFT that you can implement right now is to reverse negative self-talk (i.e., I should have done better) and replace it with balanced and realistic thoughts (i.e., I did the best I could in a challenging situation.)
4. Talk to Someone
Find colleagues to help with difficult decisions and situations and seek an outlet to talk about negative or troubling feelings. This can be a mentor you work with, a trusted friend, or a mental health professional.
5. Find a Better Fit
Not all workplaces are the same. Identify things in the workplace that are most important to you, and see what might be out there. When you interview for a new healthcare job and you want to find a facility offering more flexible hours or a larger staff, ask questions and research until you find it. Here are some things to look for in a healthcare job that will help to prevent burnout:
- Adequate staffing
- High wages
- Paid sick and family leave
- Educational debt assistance
- Free childcare
6. Make a Career Switch
As a healthcare worker, you’ve developed skills that can easily transfer to other jobs and careers. Use those skills and your experience to find a job outside of healthcare. Examples of careers that are logical transitions for healthcare professionals include:
Looking for a New Job—or a New Career?
Whether burnout in healthcare has led you to continue your career at a different facility or you’ve decided to pursue a new career, Monster is here to help with thousands of job postings and career advice. Take a healthy step forward by creating your profile. It’s the fastest way to get spotted by recruiters and hiring managers. Once you tell us your preferences, we’ll send job postings direct to your inbox along with career advice you can use to get back on track.
Information in this article is presented only for information purposes and does not replace the advice of a trained mental health professional. Don’t rely on anything contained in this article as medical advice, and always check with your medical doctor before you make decisions or take action as a result of the article contents.