Pause as a great tool to deal with burnout and protect health

Putting on the brakes, taking a break, taking care of yourself are simple actions at first glance, but essential to protect your health.mental avalanche in all areas, including the jobas advised by experts to deal with and prevent the work burnout.

During the I Ibero-American Congress against Burnout that concludes this Saturday in La Romana (southeast of the Dominican Republic), psychologists, neuroscientists, doctors, communicators and “coaches” presented and defended a series of tools to deal with the “burnout syndrome” and in which company and employee must be involved for mutual benefit.

Productivity, a great beneficiary of a stress-free worker

In a society where productivity is highly valued, the “burnout” It affects millions of people around the world, who suffer its consequences on a physical, cognitive, emotional and behavioral level.

Therefore, according to the Venezuelan expert in organizational development Jacques Giraud, it is necessary to redefine the concept of productivity, “a change of consciousness” in which all the parties involved (employees, companies and leaders) must participate, which must go from “top to bottom” and it has to be based on two elements: balance between personal life and work and inclusion of the need for rest in the productive structure.

Otherwise, Giraud warned, productivity will be affected, the worker will end up leaving and the company will lose talent, with the consequent impact on results.

For the Spanish psychologist Alejandra Vallejo-Nágera, this change must also occur in the person because “We have an association that we are what we work on and, if I stop working, I stop being”so we do not stop producing in order not to stop being, and this ends up causing chronic stress and finally burnout

In his opinion, the company also has to face changes, the Human Resources departments “they have to be of resources and not of human spare parts, if the worker does not adapt to the production machine, I change it and that’s it”.

As the Argentine neuroscientist Néstor Braidot warned, work stress “jibariza” functionally the brain, so decision-making is poorer, slower and sometimes wrong, and this affects productivity.

The necessary disconnection

Given the negative effects of stress and work burnout, all the participants in this I Ibero-American Congress against Burnout, organized by the group Vacation is a Human Right Foundation (VIARH), advocated using various tools, but all of them with a common characteristic : the conscious pause.

The leadership development expert Aldo Cívico is committed to changing the mental map, which is “obsolete”and focus it on the future that one wants to create with positivity.

To do this, Cívico uses a technique to heal traumas and release emotions through its reflection in the cerebral amygdala and the release of neurotransmitters such as serotonin, oxytocin or GABA, the Haveninga psychosensory treatment through touch itself.

For his part, Giraud proposes three tools: planning and closing each day before connecting digitally, structuring an agenda in writing with breaks included, and planning the week and reviewing it at the end of it, so that on days off there are no work occupations.

In those breaks that the experts defend, you can do many activities, totally unrelated to work, such as nature walks, mindfulness, meditation, exercise (Alejandra Vallejo-Nágera defends Chi kung with body-mind benefits) or enjoying a Good conversation.

Braidot explains that aerobic exercise is essential, 45 minutes a day promote neurogenesis and benefit the hippocampus, an essential brain structure in learning and memory.

And he concludes with a positive message: “through training one can self-direct the brain. We have the brain in our hands.”

Source: EFE