Burnout is a kind of job depression and is a motivational problem. A person struggling with burnout is demotivated, dispirited, depressed - DOWN.  The person caught up in the burnout cycle finds it more and more difficult to perform and increasingly dreads going to work.

Burnout is caused by feelings of uncontrollability. Powerlessness, damned-if-you-do damned-if-you-don't situations. Long hours, per se, don’t cause burnout – but overwork that is unappreciated and underpaid in which a person feels trapped or ineffective can be very devastating to motivation. Once motivation is damaged it is very hard to rekindle. Burnout is overcome/prevented by developing feelings of control over the job - which is an on-going process.

It is vitally important to analyze what is getting you down about your current job before seeking a new one.  If you don't, you could get yourself into a worse situation. When you clearly pinpoint the problems in the current job, then - before - leaving, it is better to attempt to improve the current job.  If that doesn't work, perhaps you can make a lateral move within the company.  You are more valuable to the current company because you know how "things work around here". And, more importantly, you are not going without a job and without a pay check.

If you do determine that you need to move on - don't just quit. It easier to get a new job when you already have a job.  As soon as you are unemployed - even if it is by design - you are less desirable and a little suspicious - i.e., if you are so great why are you without a job?!!

Developing a sense of “personal power” or “controllability” is essential for preventing or overcoming burnout. Changing jobs is one possibility, but it should not be the first option. It is all to easy to get fed up and quit. However, doing so does not identify what the specific factors in the job were getting you down. You may leap from the pan into the fire and get yourself into an even worse situation. Also, you are more attractive to employers when you have a job, than when you are unemployed.

Before simply quitting, it is better to attempt to make changes in the job and if that fails, try to make a lateral move within the company.

Click here to find out other burnout symptoms: http://www.docpotter.com/BeaJob__sympt.html

Copyright: 2009 Beverly A. Potter

You live with an ever-present companion—you! You spend more time with yourself then with anyone else. In fact, you spend all your time with yourself. This internal companion talks to you continuously, virtually nonstop—even when you're sleeping! As a consequence, you have more influence over yourself and more ability to create your future than anyone else.

This internal companon is you talking to you, inside your mind. You are the creator of your internal environment. You guide yourself, criticize yourself, give to or withhold from yourself, belittle or support yourself. The internal you feels like a distinctly different person speaking to you, but it is really you inside, talking to you. How you react to a worrisome situation is largely determined by what you tell yourself about it. Through this internal dialogue, you make decisions, set goals, feel happy or sad, relaxed or anxious, hopeful or lost.

Worrywarts talk to themselves in ways that leave them feeling anxious, afraid, and inadequate. They talk to themselves in ways that magnify trivial mistakes, making a big fuss needlessly over picayune problems. Worrywarts have selective vision, they focus on FUD—Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt—in virtualy every situation, keeping themselves in a constant state of anxiety and dread. Their "fuddy" self-talk creates a psychological environment that is toxic and taking.

Smart worriers actively soothe themselves. When they feel anxious, depressed or annoyed, smart worriers soothe themselves. This enables them to bounce back quickly from disappointments and setbacks. Their self-talk creates a psychological environment that is supportive and hopeful.

The way that you talk to yourself traps you in worrywarting. To break out, you must stop talking to yourself in ways that make you feel anxious, small and helpless, and start being supportive and encouraging in your self-talk. Psychologists call self-talk that is soothing and brings you back to balance "compassionate self-talk" and "the language of self-support".

Talking to yourself compassionately can be learned. Like learning any new language, learning the language of self-support takes time, practice and dedication. Self-nurturing is not that hard, really. The key is to imagine how a good friend would talk to you, and then talk to yourself that way. The hard part is breaking "fuddy" self-talk habits and actually talking to yourself in a compassionate and self-supportive way.

How To Break The Worrywart Cycle:Go to article.

Are You Worrying Yourself Sick?

Dr. Beverly Potter

WORRYWARTS SPEND A LOT OF TIME WORRYING, in fact, they can't not worry.  Like a mantra, fears are chanted repetitively in the worrywart's head, But unlike a mantra, which brings serenity and accompanying health benefits to the meditator, worrying generates anxiety and revves up your body. Once on the fear track, an anxious mind does not deviate.  It is hard to distract.  While this one-track-mindedness can mean survival in a real emergency, when there is no emergency, worrywarts lose perspective, confusing their fears with reality.

Living in a constant state of alarm stresses your body in the bad way. Your emotional mind reacts to imagined catastrophes as if they were real, sending signals to your body that there is a danger-a threat. Your body mobilizes to ready for the threat. Your emotional mind, noticing tension, triggers more anxiety and worry. A vicious cycle of escalating worry and anxiety is set into motion.

Emotional State and Disease
THERE IS IMPRESSIVE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE of the negative impact of chronic anxiety upon sickness and recovery. People who are chronically anxious, who suffer long periods of sadness and pessimism, who experience unremitting tension or incessant hostility, or who are cynical or suspicious have a dramatically greater risk of developing disease including asthma, arthritis, headaches, peptic ulcers and heart disease.

Your emotional state plays a significant role in your health and vulnerability to disease.  Intense negative emotions of any kind send regular surges of stress hormones through your body.  Chronic anger or agitation puts you at risk healthwise.  It doesn't matter whether these distressing emotions are expressed or held in.  The important factor in their deleterious impact is whether or not negative emotions are chronic.

Worrying Triggers Negative Emotions
WORRYWARTING STIRS UP NEGATIVE EMTIONS and then keeps reinforcing them over and over until you believe the broken record of fear, uncertainty and doubt. In addition to anger and hostility, most deleterious are feeling victimized, helplessness, out of control, and pressured for time. The emotional mind interprets situations that stir up these feelings as "threatening."  Faced with a threat your body mobilizes by releasing chemical stimulants-sodium lactate, adrenaline, cortisol-to prepare for fight-flight.  Blood pressure goes up, blood sugar level up, digestive system slows down, breathing becomes shallow, stomach muscles contract, the heart pounds. Non-essential functions shutdown, only those essential for survival are keep operating.  You are ready to take action, to confront a life threatening event.  But you are not facing a life threatening event-you are worrywarting, creating exaggerated images in your mind of disasters which your emotional brain responds to as if they were real.

Most people don't realize the tremendous impact that a thought, an image, or emotion can have upon the emotional brain, which in turn tells the body how to respond.  Positive stress, like the stress of competition when you feel confident in your ability, for example, contributes to heightened functioning and peak performance. But bad stress like chronic anxiety, frequent hostility, or often feeling helpless, for example, make you more vulnerable to negative life events such job loss, personal injury, trauma, which in turn generate even more stress.

Unrelenting stress compromises immune functioning and puts excessive demand on cardiovascular system. The more stress, the more likely you will catch cold or come down with the flu or another infectious disease.  Stress has been found to increase vulnerability to viral infections, speed metastasis of cancer, accelerate onset of diabetes, worsen asthma and exacerbate plaque formation. Stress is correlated with arteriosclerosis and suffering myocardial infarction.

Some stressors are more injurious than others. When the source of stress is ambiguous, undefined, or prolonged, or when several sources exist simultaneously, you do not return to a normal mental and physiological baseline as rapidly and you will continue to have a potentially damaging stress reaction.  This prolonged activation of your body's basic operating system is fundamental to the development of stress-related disorders.

Worrywarting, with its parading images of catastrophe, keeps you in a continuous state of alarm, which wears out the body and lowers resistance.  The anxiety generated by worrywarting keeps you in state of disequilibrium, increasing susceptibility to wide range of diseases and disorders. When the emotional brain responds to your worry thoughts by triggering the fight-flight response and you do not fight or flee, but restrain yourself instead, your emotional brain interprets your immobility as insufficient preparation and increases tension.  A high degree of alertness that must be maintained without relief, such as that required of air traffic controller, for example, is extremely stressful and linked to health problems. Similarly the hyperviligence that accompanies chronic worry is tremendously stressful.

Are You A Worrywart? Take the Worrywart Quiz to find out.

From The Worrywarts Companion: Twenty-One Ways to Soothe Yourself and Worry Smart, McGraw-hill, 2008.

Worry is a mental fire drill. It helps us prepare for danger.  But because worry triggers anxiety, worry begets worrywarting and you can get trapped in worry. The solution is not to try to stop worrying, but to worry smart as I write in my book, the Worrywort's Companion.  Smart worry is doing the work of worry, then realizing that you are riled up, taking purposeful action to soothe yourself.

CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, worrying isn't necessarily negative, if it's done properly. Worry is like a mental fire drill. It helps you anticipate danger, identify risks and rehearse a plan before it happens

Worrying becomes a problem, however, when you get fixated on the worry, dwell on the imagined danger and allow this fearfulness to escalate into paralyzing anxiety.

The good news? You can change your thinking. To become a "smart worrier," instead of a worrywart, try practicing the following techniques when you begin to worry.
 
CALM YOURSELF DOWN
Many highly effective people are hard-wired to become problematic worriers. They're conscientious, and they plan in advance. This kind of mental make-up sets the stage for worrywarting.

To become a smart worrier, realize you've triggered anxiety and learn to soothe yourself before your anxiety gets out of hand. To quell anxiety fast, breathe deeply. Take deep, cleansing breaths slowly and steadily. 

WEAN YOURSELF FROM WORRYING
Another way to control worry is to compartmentalize it by training yourself to worry in one spot.

For example: At home, your worry spot might be the basement. At the office, it could be a conference room. The technique? At first, when you worry, go to your designated worry spot. Then gradually try to go to that spot less.
 
KEEP A WORRY JOURNAL
Put your worries on paper when you're overwhelmed by the magnitude of a worrisome situation. Even when nothing is resolved, lists help focus worries and make them finite. The mere act of writing down concerns creates a safety zone between you and your thoughts so you don't feel so possessed by them. Take your worry journal to your worry spot.

PRACTICE UNDERREACTING
Worrywarts imagine the worst-case scenario. For example, in the midst of a work project, they imagine missing the deadline, then losing their job, house and family, ultimately becoming homeless.

Statistically, most things work out OK, so why not imagine a happy ending? Concentrating on a happy ending builds hope and creates the expectation that all will be well in the end. Hope keeps worry in its place.

For more information, click here.