GUEST COMMENT: Burnout, and how to avoid it
Burnout can be a feature of any job involving high levels of stress. Teachers can burnout, for example. So can paramedics and policemen. So can bankers.
Burnout is a state where continuous stimulation without relaxation means the organism gets too exhausted to respond further. All creatures need to alternate between tension and relaxation if they are to thrive, or even survive. Constantly fighting fire with fire - being on edge, wired, under pressure, nervously glued to the markets - this can take its toll.
Burnout is not about hard work - hard work alone never killed anyone. If you have a rhythm to your life and get more or less the amount of sleep you need, you should be fine. [How much sleep is necessary? Although needs vary, and most people say they don't get enough, about 6-7 hours a night should do - so long as you're not waking up completely exhausted].
Burnout is also qualitatively different from simple fatigue. You may start to feel TAT - "tired all the time". You could develop a phobia about going into the office. Like the rabbit trapped in the headlight, you may reach a point where you fail to make life and death decisions - let alone minor ones. In effect, there's no more fuel left in your tank, no more stress chemicals like adrenaline and cortisol to call upon for an extra lift. Depression may be a consequence.
If you think you're showing signs of burnout you need to take action NOW since indecision is
a major symptom of full-blown cases. In the short term, one positive measure is to increase the amount of time you spend exercising; a negative measure is to increase your consumption of drink and drugs (although that was a frequent remedy during World War II, the whiskey and benzedrine conflict).
In the medium and long term, however, drink and drugs will get the better of you and over-exercising can lead to physical burnout! There will come a day of reckoning when you need to question your lifestyle since you're not made of metal and cannot function like a computer. There's also a big difference between being 19 and being 39: as you age, you have less resilience, fewer units of psychic energy and are less able to do without rest.
If you can't take that rest, you may have to live with the aftermath. As Dr. Malcolm Carruthers, a Harley Street practitioner, once remarked: "To live for your work may seem admirable, but to die for it seems both unnecessary and uneconomic."
