Beat the burnout
The pandemic has pushed many parents to their limit. LAUREN TAYLOR learns how to get life back into balance
IT used to be associated with highpowered jobs but ‘burnout’ is now being felt by more and more parents, as they try to juggle career pressures alongside busy family lives – more so since Covid hit.
The pandemic has been particularly tough on parents; from looking after newborns without outside support, to home-schooling alongside a job. And even as we (hopefully) reach the other side of the Covid crisis, a recent survey of 2,000 parents by the charity Action for Children found four out of five (82%) are still struggling. Many reported they felt like they were “drowning” and “isolated”, and other symptoms included anxiety, disruption to sleep, depression and mental exhaustion.
When does tiredness become ‘burnout’?
“It’s the degree of tiredness,” explains Dr Nihara Krause, consultant clinical psychologist at Bloss (blossapp. com), “if you take tiredness along a spectrum, then being burned out is an absolute, emotional and physical, exhaustion. And it’s not an exhaustion that might be helped by, say, going on holiday. It’s a build up of fatigue and stress and the impact of those things.”
There are cognitive implications too; burnout can come with “loss of fulfilment, a sense of disillusionment about where you’re at,” she says.
It can lead to a loss of self-esteem, where you feel as if you’ve lost who you were, “particularly if you compare yourself to the parent you were pre-burnout, which can lead to
mood and anxiety conditions”.
The pandemic-effect
Covid-19 has impacted everyone in very different ways. “For some it was actually an opportunity to have a break and reconnect with family, for others it caused them an enormous amount of juggle,” says Dr Krause.
For those without much practical support from their partner, single parents or parents of children with additional challenging needs, the stress may have surged.
“When we first experienced the pandemic, one of the first actors it influenced was our sense of safety,” Dr Kruse explains. “If we don’t feel safe, our anxiety levels zoom up. Parents in particular, because of the added layer of responsibility, would have gone into overdrive.”
On top of that, she says, boundaries collapsed because of homeworking. Parents where taking on multiple roles to educate and entertain their children as well as do their own work.
How to get back on track
The first step, Dr Krause says, is to take stock of what’s happening. “I do think it’s important to acknowledge what you’re feeling. If you are experiencing burnout then, even with the best of intentions, you’re not going to be able to deliver what you want to do.” See yourself as a athlete who’s had an injury, she suggests. “There’s no point saying, ‘I’ve got to go and play that match’ – you’ve got to let the wound heal.”
Next, examine how it’s affecting you in terms of food intake, sleep, energy and your thought processes, and get some help, “whether that’s telling someone close to you that you’re feeling exhausted or seeking some [professional] support – I do think that’s always good because it’s hard to get perspective and it’s hard to feel more positive when you’re feeling like this.”
Look into whether some practical help to take the load off is possible, perhaps from your partner or another family member. Could work be more flexible with your hours?
“Try and rebalance some of the things that might have gone out of balance,” says Dr Krause. “So if you were overstretching yourself to do a lot more of the education stuff, can you now start to withdraw that? Can you start to get a bit more of a balance, between what you’re offering and what you want for yourself?”