Overcoming burnout: the importance of a daily self-care routine

Shortly, I’ll be getting back to working full-time following a much needed career break. I took around 3 months out of the daily work routine to re-charge, re-focus and re-set my mind, body and life.

From the start of 2019 I noticed, that over the course of 6 months, I was heading to burnout. Heck, I say heading to burnout — I already was, in many ways, burnt out. And I needed to get out of my routine. And fast. Most days I felt like a pressure cooker about to burst. And I didn’t feel like myself. As a result, the following happened:

• I felt exhausted. I got to work everyday and did my best — but often stayed late to finish tasks that I could easily have cracked on with the next day. As a result I lost my ability to concentrate and come up with rational solutions to everyday work problems.
• I became prone to anxiety. I’ve had anxiety since I was a child, but normally manage to keep it in check, particularly when things are going well. But I fell into patterns of overthinking and becoming even more exhausted, leading to more overthinking and ultimately, panic attacks.
• I lost my motivation. Or as I like to call it, my mojo. My reason for getting up everyday. I’d always been so passionate and driven in my work and personal life, but it disappeared. I stopped caring. And that scared me.
• I lost my confidence. Possibly one of the worst things to happen. I lost belief and faith in myself and my abilities. I felt frozen in meetings, unable to voice my opinions and think clearly.

Taking some time out was my way of claiming my power back — and my health, my motivation and my confidence. I was able to rest, and recover the zest I have for life and work. Now that I’m going to be heading back to the working world, I’m keen to create a ‘self-care’ (I’m starting to get bored of this term— just me?) routine that will keep me on track with my physical and mental health. Perhaps I’ll call it a mind-body-care routine.

Here are 5 things I’ve come up with that I’m hoping will help:

1. Get to bed on time. So for me, what is ‘on time’ exactly? And what is your ‘on time’? For me, I need 8–9 hours of sleep a night. So if I need to start work at 8.30am I need to leave our flat at 7.30am. I need an hour to get ready, so I need to get up at 6.30am. That means I need to be asleep by 9.30pm-10.30pm. This is not rocket science. It isn’t even science, it’s just logic. A friend of mine jumps out of bed by counting down 5–4–3–2–1 and then just doing it. That’s what I’m going to tell myself. Just do it.
2. Have a morning routine. I’m going to lay my clothes out for work the night-before, and make my lunch and lay out breakfast items the night before too. This should take around 15 minutes. And then help me sleep easy. I’ll get up at 6.30am, shower, write Morning Pages for 20 minutes to empty my head, then have breakfast and check the tube. I then should be ready to head out the door by 7.30am.
3. Journalling. I mentioned Morning Pages in the previous point. Writing for me is a kind of therapy. A way to pave the slate clean and get rid of any mental cobwebs getting in my way. Sometimes I use this time to focus on the positives of the previous day, write about a problem that I’d like to resolve, or come up with new ideas on things to do to achieve my goals. If I get ‘stuck’ I simply write ‘I don’t know what to write’ over and over again until I come up with something and move through the block. For Morning Pages you’re meant to write 3 A4 pages everyday. I do aim for that — especially as a course facilitator told our group that ‘magic happens on the third page’. But if I only have time to do 2 pages, I don’t sweat it too much. Sometimes writing at the end of the day is even better, letting go of the day and helping you have somewhere to put your thoughts while you sleep.
4. Running and yoga. I’m determined to complete the Couch to 5k training programme, which I’m now a third of the way through. And carry on running generally. Running is a great form of meditation and way of starting the day or shaking off the day. Because I’ll be doing some early starts and the mornings are getting colder and darker, I’m feeling somewhat uneasy about having the time to exercise. But I want to find a way. I’ll be looking at doing runs in the morning (in which case my time waking up will have to go back 45 minutes) and looking at whether I can run on my lunch break, or in the evening where I live — in which case I better buy a hi-vis jacket for the winter nights. I can also do Park Runs on Saturday mornings. I really enjoy yoga to strengthen and wind-down too, so I’ll definitely be doing some Yoga With Adriene on non-run days. I’m a fan of her night-time routine videos especially to help ease out of the day.
5. Eating healthy food. And pre-prepping like a mo-fo. But when I go to work I’m surrounded by so many fine eateries in London (where I’ve lived for 7 years now) that everyday becomes a treat day. Submitted that report? Treat yo’self. Wrote a cracking presentation and delivered it to the team? Treat yo’self. But everyday can’t be a freaking treat day. Because my wallet and the scales will not thank me for it — no matter how much I train for a couch to 5k. So I’ll buy some healthy snacks for work — fruit, rice cakes, nuts. And I’ll take lunches in everyday except for Friday which will be my buy-a-lunch day. I’ll carry on with the Aldi shops at weekends and prep meals for the week then too so that it’s taken care of.

And that’s it... for now. Sound do-able? I blimming well hope so. I plan to throw in an Epsom salt bath, some Reiki self-treatment and social time in there too. But with the balance of keeping some ‘white space’ in the diary every week. Because white space is head space, and down time (not looking at phones included) is necessary for our health.

Wish me luck and good vibes.