Although every job is different, most workers experience stress in some form. In fact, in Headspace's yearly Workforce State of Mind report of 2024, 86% of working Americans said that they feel either moderate, high, or extreme stress. What's more concerning is that out of those who feel extremely stressed, 83% claimed that their stress comes primarily from work.
Prolonged stress can inevitably lead to more serious long-term problems like burnout. Research from SHRM shows that a whopping 44% of American employees feel burned out, 44% say they're "emotionally drained," and 51% feel "used up" when the workday ends. All these numbers raise serious alarm bells, so, what can we do to start feeling better?
First of all, it's important to differentiate between normal work-related stress and burnout. Trauma and relationship therapist Ioana Rotaru tells Bored Panda that the latter is much more extreme. "While we all have experienced some degree of work-related stress, perhaps when we were working towards a deadline, burnout features a state of exhaustion both physical and mental."
"Burnout is chronic stress that has been left unchecked and manifests as a lack of fulfillment, fatigue, emotional numbness, detachment, and cynicism," the therapist explains. "Burnout doesn't quickly improve with rest or self-care, it really needs deeper, more intense recovery that would involve work and lifestyle changes." She notes how research has shown that recovering from burnout can take anywhere from weeks to even several years.
It can be hard to differentiate between work and personal life. Say, Pandas, how many of you have had to answer a work email well past your work hours? Balancing work and personal life can be even harder when you're working from home, and the popularity of remote work hasn't yet subsided since the pandemic. In 2023, 35% of employed Americans did some or all of their work from home.
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Creating boundaries between work and personal life can be a challenge, but, when there's will, there's a way. Trauma and relationship therapist Ioana Rotaru distinguishes two types of boundaries we should be setting if we want a better work-life balance. The first are practical and behavioral boundaries, and the other ones are emotional and psychological.
Practical and behavioral boundaries, as Rotaru explains, include solutions like creating a designated workspace at home and avoiding working in the bedroom, as it interferes with sleep.
Some other behavioral boundaries might be turning off notifications after work hours are over, answering emails, and even deciding to end work at a certain time. To have a better work-life balance, we can also learn time-management skills, how to delegate tasks, engage in hobbies or other fun activities.
Emotional and psychological boundaries, Rotaru says, demand us to reflect deeper. One might ask themselves questions such as: "Why am I even allowing work to spill into the personal?" or "Am I over-identifying with work achievements or failures?" Some people might also wonder whether they're taking on too much responsibility for what's happening at work.
