Burnout and the Stress Response Cycle

What is Burnout?

I recently read the book “Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle” written by twin sisters Dr’s. Amelia and Emily Nagoski. I was immediately struck by its relevance to the veterinary field and inspired by their fresh take on the intersection of burnout and stress.

To best understand the intersection of stressors, stress, and burnout, it’s necessary to recognize burnout in ourselves.

Burnout can be defined in a variety of ways. It can be exacerbated by compassion fatigue, moral injury, vicarious trauma, and toxic workplace culture. In “Burnout”, Dr’s. Nagoski describe it as: a combination of “emotional exhaustion”, “depersonalization”, and “decreased sense of accomplishment”, coupled with “Human Giver Syndrome”.

Let’s explore this:

• “Emotional exhaustion”
  • fatigue that comes with caring too much and for too long.
• “Depersonalization”
  • depletion of empathy, caring, compassion.
• “Decreased sense of accomplishment”
  • feeling that nothing you do makes any difference.
• “Human Giver Syndrome”
  • giving whole self to others; messages include that you are not allowed to need or demand anything, and self-care is selfish.

Stressors vs Stress

To combat burnout, we need to first understand the relationship between stressors, stress, and the stress response cycle.

Stressors:

• What causes your stress reaction
• External (long hours, high caseload, challenging client conversations, lack of breaks during shift).
• Internal (perfectionism, rumination, boundary struggles).

Stress:

• Physiological reaction that happens in our bodies as a response to perceived threat. These reactions are intended to help us survive.

Stress Reactions:

• Fight (aggressive), flight (run away/avoid), freeze (stall/passive), appease (people-pleasing)
• Mostly the same no matter what the “threat” is (e.g., being chased by a lion, or stuck in traffic!)

The Stress Response Cycle is a Biological Response

Just like any biological response in our bodies, the stress response cycle is automatic and instantaneous. It follows similar patterns. What we do at each stage and at the end of the cycle is key to moving us through the “chronic stress tunnel”.

Here’s the pattern:

• Beginning: You perceive the threat
  • What’s your “story” about the stressor/the threat?
• Middle: How are you reacting to the stressor?
  • Every system in the body is fully activated to escape threat, using all energy.
• End: Body receives signal you’ve escaped; now you’re safe
  • This is the key time to complete the stress response cycle.

Complete the Stress Response Cycle

When faced with any type of stress, we must actively change our physiological state to a place of safety. This is the first step in completing the stress response cycle. In “Burnout”, the authors share that we can do this in the following simple, evidence-based ways:

• Move (single most efficient strategy!)
• Breathe
• Physical Touch
• Rest
• Laugh
• Find Joy  
• Practice Gratitude
• Cry
• Connection (healthy connection is good for us!)
• Do something creative!

In addition, we must deal with stressors while managing our stress. To help us manage stressors, the authors discuss utilizing “The Monitor”, and the following adaptive coping strategies.

“The Monitor” tells us:

• When to keep going (stay the course)
• When to re-set/re-define realistic expectations (for both winning and failing)
• What is attainable/isn’t attainable
• When to let go and/or leave

Adaptive coping strategies to employ:

• “Planful problem-solving”
  • direct, risk-taking efforts to alter situations to deal with controllable stressors.
• “Positive reappraisal”
  • finding personal positive meaning-making from negative situations to deal with uncontrollable stressors.