I've been lucky to start to know a behavioural researcher who is focusing on 'mom burnout' (Dr Jacqueline Kerr - she has a great podcast 'Overcoming working mom burnout').
She let me know that there are two awesome Belgian researchers who have been studying parental burnout since the 1980s (Isabelle Roskam and Moïra Mikolajczak).
It's good to know the difference between parental burnout and professional burnout - because you may be blaming work for your burnout when it is parenting or vice versa.
You need to know where your biggest stress is coming from.
Parental burnout is "an exhaustion syndrome, characterised by feeling physically and mentally overwhelmed” by parenting.
In contrast, professional burnout is "a prolonged response to chronic interpersonal stressors on the job. The three key dimensions of this response are an overwhelming exhaustion, feelings of cynicism and detachment from the job, and a sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment" (Maslach & Leiter, 2016).
So both parental and professional burnout are about exhaustion, but the root cause of the chronic stress arises from different places - parenting (unpaid work!) or working (paid work).
It makes me wonder about what happens when the stressors come from both areas of life spilling into each other and it brings me back to the need to:
* really listen to our bodies
* get help when we need it
* understand what causes burnout and how to prevent and recover from it
We need space and time to deal with burnout and to prevent it too.
The short term effort in help seeking that seems so enormous is essential to preventing burnout.
For those, like myself, that have experienced burnout, you'd know that it takes quite a while to recover and reset and help is needed for that part too.
Have you experienced burnout or do you feel like you might be on the cusp?
Big love,
Lara xx
Lara Corr, PhD Pronouns She/Her
Set Me Free Coaching
Get ready to love your work!
lara@setmefree.coach
