Hi, this is Veerle Van Tricht.
I’m a medical doctor and I have developed The Burnout Solution, because I know burnout is a very big problem in Western society. Studies have been done by the American Society of Psychology that says that more than 50% of employees suffer from stress and emotional exhaustion and these are only a few aspects of burnout. By studying several patients and clients with burnout and I’ve come to recognise the five common signs and symptoms.
I’ll give you a few hints, because it’s important to recognise this early. So if you are too exhausted to get out of bed in the morning, this might lead to bad performance at work and this exhaustion can also be a big problem for doctors and nurses, who have to perform to perfection. Now perfectionism is a recurring trait in people who get burnout, therefore it is very, very prominent amongst doctors, dentists, bankers, entrepreneurs and other professionals who want to do a really good job.
The second sign you might find in yourself or a partner, or a colleague, or a friend with burnout is a very low mood and they get very angry, irritable, they fight with their partners, which is really a bad case scenario because your partner might be your only support system at that stage and, in the worst case scenario, you will chase your partner away and this can lead to divorce and even more complications in your life, so you need to be aware of that. Why I’m saying all of this is I hope that some people who are reading this will recognise that they have a problem that is serious and that needs action, so I’m here to help you with that.
Another way to recognise that somebody might have burnout is that they lie awake at night worrying, so they have a very bad sleep pattern. Again, this leads to bad performance at work and physical exhaustion. Why this burnout is so serious is that your immune system, once it’s down, and your energy levels are down, there’s several things that can go wrong in the body. First of all, there’s a higher risk of infections, there’s a higher risk of cancer, and with a low mood, in the worst case scenario, this leads to depression and even to suicide. To add to the danger: people who are exhausted and/or have a low mood have a higher risk of accidents, not only causing damage to themselves but also to others, whether it is in traffic, or whether it is in hospital. So this is a very important issue that needs to be addressed.
In my 20 years of experience in the medical world, I have worked on three continents as a specialist. I’ve seen burnout in many societies and I also know that most doctors don’t recognise it, and it’s not even accepted in most of the medical world as a real problem. I want you to recognise it early, so you can find help from somebody who understands it is a real problem and somebody who knows how to deal with it. This is a multi-factorial problem, it’s complex and it needs an expert to get you out of burnout. And another thing that I can say is I’ve been through it twice myself, I have studied it really in depth and came to the best of the best of solutions for it.
I hope that you will take the questionnaire that you can find in the link associated to this video next to it. And if you find out that you have burnout, or your partner has burnout, or somebody else you know, please refer them on, because it can have very big negative effects not only for you but also for your family because you are the captain of your ship and imagine you are sailing into a storm and your kids are there and you could normally bring your boat to safety but you fall ill, who’s gonna care for your children? You’re number one and you need to make yourself a priority, okay? So be honest to yourself. If you have a problem, there is help. So I hope that my email was useful for you, that I clarified the importance of early recognition of burnout in yourself or others is important.
If you want to find out how bad you score on the scale of burnout, there’s a link. If you click on that, there’s a questionnaire that can give you more clarity on that.
