Working from home burnout is real – why therapy is your answer

Working from home burnout is real thanks to being isolated from colleagues and struggling to establish work/life boundaries along with financial worries. Here’s why therapy could be your answer. Martin shares his experience of HealingClouds…

Working from home burnout

You have just survived a mammoth 70-hour working week of back to back meetings all day, barely moving an inch from your seat in hours, apart from the odd water break or a pit stop in the kitchen when you remind yourself to eat, let alone plan what to cook for dinner later when your plate (of work) seems already piled high.

That working environment you started lockdown in has evolved. It’s still your home but you have yet to establish work and home life boundaries. After all what is home time, when you are working from home? You probably have adjusted to one of many workspaces alternating between your living room, bedroom, spare room or the garden (when the weather is good), some spaces of which you never envisaged sharing with work colleagues over a video call.

The occupational health team, who previously would have assessed your office setup, set you monitor angle, adjust table height, provide an ergonomic keyboard and mouse and ensure your office chair was configured to provide optimal posture, does not exist anymore, and it’s left for you to manage yourself, which you never make time to do.

Your work volume seems unmanageable

School drop-offs mid team calls, meeting invites that keep flooding in and you feel like you are sinking, barely able to breathe, let alone take 10 minutes out for some headspace. You get your reminders to stand up and fit in 10,000 steps but you barely make 5,000. Your only social interaction with work colleagues is via chat, there’s no more water cooler moment and you feel like you have less support than before.

Where HealingClouds comes in

Designed as a site to connect you with a network of professional coaches to address your needs on any given day, whether they relate to mind, body, addiction, relationship, personal growth and work, HealingClouds checks in on how you are really feeling.

Through a series of short questions it assesses what it is you need help with and who is there to help. Sometimes you feel you need it all, believe me. The site then curates a list of qualified coaches who can help you at a convenient time of day – morning, afternoon or evening.

You set up the session and pay from as little as £35 a session and voila, an invite is sent across to confirm with your appointment.

Booking an appointment

I decided to book in a session for myself, undecided which area I needed to address, but I settled on work stress and anxiety, which I felt linked to workload and feeling of burnout.

HealingClouds asked a few additional questions to understand whether sleep and overall mood was being affected and after this it matched me with a number of people that matched my needs.

I booked in my session with Rajya, a certified life coach with over 6 years experience and a few days later, I simply logged onto the HealingClouds website and accessed the video link directly at the appointment time.

It felt great, just making introductions and sharing a bit of background around work, family and just helping her get to know a bit more about me. Rajya asked what kind of areas I felt I wanted to tackle in this session.

I asked about how to effectively setup my day and get the most out of it, whilst not feeling like that plate would tip over at any moment. I also asked for tips on how to take time out when too much was going on when I just need a breather. It felt great just to share openly with someone else and hear some different ideas.

Some simple advice she shared just made perfect sense. She acknowledged the problem many people face today is based around home working environment and the difficulty in separating the two.

“When you wake up, prepare yourself like you are going to work, get dressed!” she says. “In this state we are in, we don’t differentiate our home and work enough and getting dressed differently for work sets this in your mind. Also having a morning ritual that involves movement and breath work without digital distractions also helps to clear your mind”.

It all started to make sense. “Put your own oxygen mask on before helping others”. Taking time to look after yourself makes you better able to take care of others.

60 minutes flew by in what felt like an exchange of tips, some of which I was well aware of but had not considered, some of them simple changes that just made sense, helping you set your intentions for the day ahead and making you feel much better.

The verdict

I’ve always championed wellbeing in the workplace and to me, it felt like having your own wellbeing PT and coach on demand. Someone that can listen, offer advice and help you rethink and take action to drive positive changes. I thoroughly recommend the service and found it really helpful in bringing me back from what I felt like was the verge of burnout.

To find out more and to book a session check out their website

By Martin

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