Stuff Digital Edition

Energy equals me time SQUARED

Niki Bezzant.

Achange is as good as a rest, my nana used to say. That’s pretty good advice for all of us as we look to wind down after a difficult year. It doesn’t have to be a change of scenery – the staycation is a popular option this year for many – but a change of pace and activity is what experts say we need to recharge and re-energise.

Dr Annamaria Garden is an expert in burnout. Her book, Burnout and the Mobilisation of Energy, was published in August. She says that to really wind down and feel refreshed, we need to engage in different activities from our normal everyday lives. “When you’re on holiday, you should be doing things that balance out your usual psychological function,” she says. “You should not be doing the same kind of activity as you normally do when you’re working. One of the things we do when we’re at leisure is expand our personality by doing different kinds of things.”

Garden says the ideal recharging activities are the things that absorb us to the point where we lose track of time.

“This is the cornerstone of how you manage burnout and how you get out of it,” she says.

“When you’re not paying attention to the clock, that’s when you recharge your energy.”

Those activities will be different for everyone, but we can use that same technique all year to stop ourselves crashing and burning by the holidays.

“Leisure will immunise you from burnout,” she says. “And it’s more important even than the hours of work, in the research that I’ve done. If you are working long hours, but you’re keeping up your leisure activities, you are very unlikely to get burnt out.”

If we're sleeping but not feeling rested, or our activities are making us feel depleted instead of restored, then we need to take it easy with a regimen of resting and sleeping until our normal activities don't leave us tired. Dr Annamaria Garden

There are other things we can do now to help wind down, including setting clear boundaries between our work and our selves.

“You are not your work,” Garden says.

“If a project you're on fails, that doesn't mean you're a failure. That's having clear boundaries. Ahead of the holiday time, you can start figuring yourself out. Ask yourself, am I setting clear boundaries?

And then when you're on holiday, make absolutely sure that you're separating yourself from your work, and you don't think about it.”

That will be easier if we can get closure from work. People who are not prone to burnout can usually do this easily, Garden says, but people who get burnt out will find it hard to finish. They will, for example, consider taking work home with them when they're on holiday, when they don't really need to.

“You can start practising that one now, but it's particularly relevant when you're on holiday that you have been able to psychologically finish your work and not to take it with you.”

The third thing to focus on is what Garden calls self-investment.

“It's to do with how much you put into your work, rather than how much you get out of it,” she says.

Burnout-prone people don't feel they've done enough until they're exhausted. Whereas lowburnout people are able to make an automatic calculation, Garden says, that's a “golden rule” to stay out of the burnout zone.

“They make an automatic calculation of what they want the output of their work or activity to be. And then they figure out what amount of energy and time they're prepared to put into that activity.”

It's difficult for many to do, Garden stresses. It took her a good 10 years to get there herself.

Taking small steps in the right direction is the way to tackle it, she says. A step we might take is trying to unlearn some of the unconscious messages we've taken on; messages such as “hurry up” or “try harder”.

It's important to prioritise rest, too. If we're sleeping but not feeling rested, or our activities are making us feel depleted instead of restored, then we need to take it easy with a regimen of resting and sleeping until our normal activities don't leave us tired.

Garden has a fairly intense work life herself, not only as an author and consultant but also working in a mental health facility with suicidal patients.

She says she uses a range of techniques to wind down, and has become good at boundary-setting.

“By the time I drive down the driveway and I've finished a shift, I just let it all go. In that kind of role, we're trained that that is what you must do.”

Other simple activities recharge her too. “I go for a walk; I play music; I read; I go down to the sea; and I'll go and have catchups with friends.”

Savouring the small moments

Brannavan Gnanalingam can relate to the joy to be found in stepping away from the clock.

The author of six novels and Stuff columnist is also a lawyer who is used to taking note of every working minute.

“A lot of my day is spent dealing with deadlines, and with time being compressed. And so one thing I really enjoy is going for a walk and having no reason to have to rush back, and time becoming a little bit more elastic.”

In the meantime, though, he has to get through the weeks leading up to Christmas. “Often it's a really, really stressful period.”

This year, he has the sense there's greater urgency because of the uncertainty of Covid-19.

“Everyone wants stuff done quickly, in case something else happens, or [in case] there's another lockdown.”

When he does wind down, he will be staying in Wellington, where the city empties out pleasantly.

“You get a free run of the playgrounds and the running trails.”

Running is an activity that recharges him.

“My usual running route is to and from work, so it gets a little repetitive, a little boring. In the summer break, I get to go for runs around the trails and up the hills in Wellington. I enjoy that.”

Lingering over a coffee, spending time reading for pleasure, and hanging out with the family are also on Gnanalingam's wind down agenda.

And though writing is an activity he does in his spare time, “I also have to treat it like work, to make sure that when I switch off, I completely switch off and take a break from everything.”

A conscious plan

Auckland writer Lana Lopesi had her own experience of burnout to reflect on when making plans for this summer.

Achieving her PhD and releasing her second book, Bloody Woman, have been highlights of a busy year. But, in 2018, she was diagnosed with burnout, after another intensely busy period of work and travel.

“I just collapsed,” she says. “Until that point, I thought burnout was just another word for feeling really stressed. I didn't know it was an actual real thing and I definitely didn't know that it affected your physical health and your mental health.”

“I was so grumpy at everyone. Any little thing – an email from a colleague – would set me off. I would just get so angry and stressed out about it. And I could feel that I was snapping all the time, and I was tired, but no amount of sleep would make me feel rested.”

Following a period of complete rest, she developed practices and strategies to help herself stay energised, including being “really serious” about rest and time out.

“I'm a lot more conscious about what I take on [now]… I'm really selective about the kind of work that I do,” Lopesi says.

A recent diagnosis of a panic disorder led her to meditation.

“When I feel myself getting stressed out I can do a meditation, which helps me get a bit more mental clarity.”

This year, Lopesi is planning a conscious winddown pre-Christmas, so she can spend a solid month with her children and partner.

“It has actually been quite a considered plan of winding down, which I've never really thought about doing before.

“I'm going to spend some time in the water, swimming with the kids. I like to read fiction. I am planning to watch some trash TV. And maybe spend some time pulling some weeds.”

Cover Feature

en-nz

2021-12-01T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-12-01T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuff.pressreader.com/article/282454237268857

Stuff Limited