We can all experience life as a series of things that ‘just need to be done.’ You get up, you start your list of tasks, eat, sleep repeat. If you don’t include your own wellbeing in that day, the constant repeated neglect of self over a long period of time will lead to extreme burnout. There comes a point where pushing yourself hard hits a wall, and then the inevitable collapse.

If you find yourself worried about burnout, there are some little signs that you might be heading that way:

You are so utterly exhausted by the end of the week, you are unable to get out of bed.

By the end of the day. You collapse into a heap and fall asleep

Your weekend is full of excessive sleep, and you feel you need to completely disengage just in order to feel semi-normal by the time Monday comes around.

Talking of sleep - no amount feels enough. You wake up feeling as tired and discombobulated as when you went to bed.

Coffee, and lots of it.

Sugar, and lots of it.

Alcohol, and lots of it, or a need to have ‘just one’ every day to ‘unwind’.

You don’t eat properly - you work so much you merely snack or have junk food as it’s fast and doesn’t require thinking.

Binge watching shows is something most of us do, but if you plunge yourself into another world as a distraction from your own thoughts or dealing with issues. Then you could be on a fast track to burnout.

If you can identify with any of this, and feel you may be at risk, it’s time to start some self-care.

Self-care is not about being happy and upbeat all the time, like the character Joy from ‘Inside Out’. As that movie showed, being happy all the time is impossible and unsustainable - sadness and challenge are also important parts of how we grow, yet we are driven to avoid them. No-one wants to experience pain, but imagine how much more damage we could do if we didn’t have it as a red flag?

If we practice self-care in it’s truest sense, it helps us understand ourselves so much better, and how we can improve mentally, emotionally and spiritually. When we can connect with what makes us, us - we are able to acknowledge what makes us react in certain ways, examine if it’s healthy, and also anchor ourselves during life’s challenges.

We may have bought into the thinking that constant work, striving and ignoring your own warning bells are how you live a fulfilled life, when in reality, if we don’t understand our own passion, purpose and needs, we will be chasing after the wind.

Life-long habits and patterns are really hard to break, but it’s not impossible. It may feel like ‘one more thing to do’, but trying to identify and remove stressors can be life-changing.