We can’t support others if we’re completely depleted ourselves. Unfortunately, helping professionals often work in environments with high caseloads, low budgets, frequent turnover, and ongoing systemic barriers. Such environments often lead to mental distress and burnout.

It’s no surprise that burnout is widespread. Nearly half of healthcare workers report experiencing burnout, according to a CDC article on mental health among healthcare workers.

Before you can help clients navigate distress, you must learn to recognize and care for your own.

---

What Is Burnout?

Burnout is a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged stress.
Common signs include:

• Helplessness or hopelessness
• Irritability
• Inability to focus
• Changes in sleep or appetite
• Social withdrawal
• Difficulty completing daily tasks
• Problems with work or school

Sound familiar? Burnout is one of the leading contributors to Depression and anxiety among service providers.

Remember: Burnout is not a personal failure. It’s a predictable response to chronic stress and unsustainable environments. Learning to listen to your own body is an ethical part of your work.

---

Trauma-by-Proxy

Many helping professionals experience indirect trauma, also called trauma-by-proxy.
This happens when:

• You hear repeated traumatic stories
• You witness clients being harmed by systems
• You watch the same barriers block people again and again

Because helping professionals tend to be highly empathetic, we are more vulnerable to PTSD-like symptoms. The good news is that practicing burnout prevention strategies also helps reduce the risk for trauma-by-proxy.

---

Prevention Strategies

Below are some tried-and-tested burnout prevention strategies you can adopt as part of your practice.

Leave work at work.

Remember to set firm boundaries with your clients. Most clients do not need round-the-clock access. Set work hours and hold them. For example

“I don’t check emails before 8 a.m. or after 5 p.m.”

Even with a large caseload, you function better — and support clients better — when you protect your time.

Protect your deep-thought time

Your deep-thought time is that time of the day when your brain is most productive. For example, my deep-thought time is usually between 9am and 2pm. Block off those hours for writing, planning, or creative tasks. Save emails, phone calls, and simple tasks for lower-energy parts of the day.

Take up a hobby

A NLM study on hobbies shows that engaging in a hobby significantly lowers the risk of mental distress. Hobbies can be anything: knitting, gardening, painting, Dungeons & Dragons, baking, crafting, building tiny wooden boats, anything that helps your brain shift out of crisis mode.

Move your body

According to the CDC article, Benefits of Physical Activity, even moderate activity can reduce short-term anxiety and the risk of Depression.

You don’t need a gym membership. Movement can look like:

• Walking during lunch
• Parking farther away
• Taking the stairs
• Doing chores
• Stretching for 5 minutes
• A short dance break

Learn to say no

You do not need to “go above and beyond” to be effective at your job. Saying no when you are at capacity is one of the strongest protective factors against burnout.

Use Professional Help

According to an NLM Literature Review on burnout prevention strategies, practitioners who regularly engage in therapy have significantly lower risk of developing burnout. If you can’t afford regular talk-therapy, consider putting together a peer support group.

Whatever you do, the most effective and long-lasting practitioners incorporate burnout prevention as an essential part of their practice.

---

What About You?

Take a moment to think about your own patterns:

• What drains you the most?
• What restores you?
• What boundaries need strengthening?
• What small habit could you add this week to help you breathe easier?

---

---

Remember to notice what you’re thinking and learning. Take a break if you need one.

When you’re ready, continue to the Module 3 Summary and Reflection.