Recovering from Overperforming

Like many people during the pandemic, I worked significantly more hours than usual, often more than 70 hours per week.

My role at the time was focused on responding to the covid-19 public health crisis in a University setting. I was part of a team creating policies and protocols in uncertainty and chaos and then executing. Sometimes the execution was a success, other times a clear failure.  It was incredibly stressful work that required flexibility and adaptability, as well as creative and quick thinking. After the acute crisis passed, my workload continued to be greater than normal, and new problems arose that required immediate attention and response. I was working in a system wired for reactivity, always on high alert, and unable to find the off-switch.

The effects of prolonged and cumulative stress are significant, and yet often unnoticed, when we are in the throes of work overload. We humans are adaptable creatures, and those of us who were conditioned to perform at a high level can adjust seemingly well, until we burnout from overworking and overperforming. According to Dr. Christina Maslach, the psychologist best known for researching and defining burnout, there are three primary components of burnout: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced performance effectiveness. In my own experience I noticed that emotional exhaustion was the dominant experience. I felt wiped out and drained by everything on my to-do list. Tasks that used to take me very little time to complete, took significantly longer; minor annoyances felt significant and permanent. In order to recover from burnout, I took time to focus very intentionally on recovery and resetting my baseline. If you are struggling with signs and symptoms of burnout, you are not going to be able to power your way through it – believe me, I tried!

Here are a few brief suggestions for recovering from overperforming and burnout:

• Flush the chronic, cumulative effects of stress out of your body. According to the Nagoski sisters, who wrote Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, there are a number of ways you can do this: movement (run, walk, dance, hike, etc.), breathing (try breathing in for a count of five, and breathing out for a count of five), laughter, creativity, connection (hug someone you love for 20 seconds), and a cathartic cry. Experiment with each of these to determine which strategy works best for you and allows you to release stored stress from your body.
• Track your Heart Rate Variability (HRV) as an indicator of your stress baseline and take steps to adjust your HRV as needed. HRV is an important indicator of our level of coherence and nervous system regulation. It is essentially a physiological indicator of our internal emotional landscape. You can return to your pre-burnout baseline or create a new baseline with practice. One of the most effective ways of creating a new baseline is through the practice of biofeedback.
• Prioritize states of slowness. How can you engage the parasympathetic nervous system? The part of the central nervous system responsible for “rest and digest” that helps us to recover. When I was recovering from burnout, I prioritized walking over running, sitting over standing, and sleeping above all else. Slowing down after overworking can be very difficult at first, and you may need to ease into it, but learning to “be” after so much “doing” is critical. You might experiment with a slow walk outside, without music or podcasts, and just notice your surroundings. You might also consider experimenting with meditation, learning to sit and observe quietly.
• Revisit your priorities in the context of your values. When I was overworking my relationships and my well-being was consistently neglected. Work came above everything else. Now that I am recovered I can see how misaligned my priorities were and how I was living out of alignment with my core values, but it happened slowly and progressively, and it took me some time to notice my “new normal.” Stepping back and asking myself hard questions about how I was living out my values, allowed me to make changes and set appropriate boundaries. For me, recovery has involved learning how to fit work into my life rather than fitting my life around my work. It’s sometimes still a challenge to say no to a project or opportunity, but my life is richer when I am well taken care of and those I love are flourishing.