Anxiety And Burnout Syndrome In The Coronavirus Pandemic
The health and social crisis of the coronavirus has brought with it a strong impact on the lives of all of us on a personal, social, economic and work level. And this, of course, It has psychological repercussions.
And it is more than evident that the appearance of this new virus has completely changed the way we communicate, live in society, work and manage our free time.
The work paradigm that we knew, prior to the pandemic, has disappeared; Currently, new ways of working from home have generated many problems, both physically and psychologically, for workers in our country.
One of the disorders that is currently affecting more people since the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic is burnout syndrome. or Burnout, which has already been recognized by the WHO as a psychological alteration to take into account.
This syndrome is characterized by a state of intense exhaustion on a physical, mental and emotional level that may be caused by a situation of sustained work stress , due to a work environment that is too demanding or due to excessively long work hours, among other things. In short, it is linked to a poor fit between the incentive system and the demands of the job, which gives rise to negative emotionality such as excess anxiety mixed with demoralization.
For many people, this syndrome is adding to the problems caused by the pandemic we are currently experiencing; and its consequences range from the impossibility of continuing to do the job for the job-burned person, to the appearance of anxiety and/or depressive problems.
Causes of this problem in the context of the pandemic
There are several causes that explain the appearance of burnout syndrome in the context of the current coronavirus pandemic; These are the most notable.
1. Isolation
The months of confinement experienced over the last year have been a truly distressing situation for a large number of people who have been working alone in their homes for prolonged periods of time and without being able to leave the house.
This situation experienced by so many citizens during the first months of the pandemic has been one of the greatest sources of stress which, combined with the impossibility of meeting friends and family, have triggered, in many cases, the appearance of burnout syndrome.
2. Monotony
Throughout these months we have all similarly noticed the monotony in the passing of the days. And the lack of incentives and leisure plans with other people beyond daily work, especially for those who telework (since the experiences to which they are exposed are less varied), can be a difficult situation to overcome psychologically.
Besides that, The feeling that every day is the same, that there is no change from one week to the next, can also generate feelings of frustration and discomfort. ; Together with work demands, they result in a cocktail that is very conducive to the appearance of this syndrome.
3. Anxiety generators
There are many sources of anxiety and stress that we can encounter in a pandemic context, and all of them can affect a person’s well-being in one way or another.
The health crisis that overwhelms us every day, the illness or death of a family member, the global economic crisis and its effects on a personal level, confinement or the fear of losing a job are some of the vicissitudes with which we live every day and that can generate burnout syndrome in many people.
4. Difficulty in family conciliation
Family balance has always been a challenge for a large part of our country’s workers, and the current context of a global pandemic puts the possibility of reconciling work life with family life even more at risk.
Fathers and mothers who work at home with their children in times of confinement have found themselves with the difficult task of attending to their work obligations at the same time as carrying out their duties as parents.
This context can be another of the most common stress generators, especially when children prevent their parents from working.
5. Uncertainty
The uncertainty we are currently experiencing is another of the constants that affects the lives of the vast majority of the population, whose job future hangs by a thread in many cases or who have been affected in one way or another by the health crisis. , economic and social caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
In many cases, uncertainty eliminates daily incentives (by not ensuring that in the medium and long term the achievement of goals is possible or will provide benefits) and can also cause demotivation, stress or anxiety, which in turn is susceptible to generating a burnout syndrome in the person.
Teleworking sometimes leads to blurring of daily work schedules. That is why the long work hours carried out by employees who work from home, along with other risk elements such as work stress or high demands, can also contribute to the appearance of burnout syndrome, because Even if we save the minutes of travel, it is easy to fall into poor management of the hours of the day. As Parkinson’s law says, work tends to expand until it takes up all the available time, which in the case of working from home is, many times, the entire day.
This happens mainly in those cases in which the worker extends, often without realizing it, his working day due to the lack of temporary references and the lack of supervision and immediate support from those who in other situations would have been by his side.
What can we do about this?
Burnout syndrome and other forms of discomfort caused especially by the work context can and should be treated through psychotherapy. Therefore, if you suffer from them, we invite you to contact us. In Psychology 360 We offer online psychological assistance adapted to current times, based on our extensive experience as mental health professionals.
