The relationship between burnout and irritability

The burnout syndrome is one of the psychological disorders linked to the job, but its implications go beyond the professional world. In fact, those who suffer from this maladjustment tend to behave differently in relationships as well. personal data of their private life, since the wear and tear they suffer does not disappear when their day ends labor.

In the following lines we will enter one of the psychological consequences of burnout syndrome that has a greater capacity to damage personal relationships: irritability.

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What is burnout syndrome?

The burnout syndrome, also known as burnout syndrome or professional burnout syndrome, is a set of psychological symptoms that arise from continued exposure to a work context that emotionally drains the worker and is linked to high levels of stress. This concept is described in the International Classification of Diseases, although it is absent in DSM-5, another of the most widely used diagnostic manuals in the field of mental health.

On the other hand, research on burnout syndrome reflects that there are certain professions more likely to facilitate the appearance of this psychological problem. For example, health workers seem to be especially vulnerable to suffering from this phenomenon, something that is not It is surprising considering the level of responsibility that a single person can have in this kind of works.

In the same way, those jobs in which there is an excess of workload in general (taking into account the resources available to the person and the relative lack of ability to delegate tasks) also tend to generate burnout syndrome. And something similar happens with professions in which there is no clear separation between hours of free time and those of performance work, something that can be associated with Parkinson's law: work tends to expand to cover all the time available for do it.

On the other hand, work remains at high levels of demand without clearly offering the possibility of improving the employment situation in the short term, of so that the person is subjected to a constant torrent of tasks that is almost never interrupted, nor does it make it possible to stop to see everything from the distance and more globally and make strategic decisions (the worker under pressure tends to focus on urgent obligations because they feels overwhelmed).

Thus, in burnout syndrome there are three fundamental psychological characteristics:

• A lot of work to do.
• An insufficient amount of incentives distributed in the short, medium and long term
• Being in a situation where the person would feel bad if they delegate (or cannot directly) or take time off

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How do burnout syndrome and irritability interact?

In psychology, irritability is the propensity to respond with hostility to social interactions that you do not initiate, or to attitudes, reactions, and consequences that go out of the way when socializing or interacting with the environment. That is, it is associated with an interest in keeping interactions limited to the minimum necessary to achieve a specific purpose, without having to spend more time and effort than necessary to do so; Any situation in which this is not fulfilled creates discomfort and a tendency to blame others or objects for these kinds of “setbacks”.

Thus, irritability is clearly anger and a predisposition to react with outbursts of anger before unforeseen situations, some of which in other circumstances would not even come to be considered a trouble.

Although there are people prone to being irritable, irritability also depends on the context, and the fact of having developed burn syndrome facilitates its appearance. It is believed that the cause of this is that, due to the psychological exhaustion generated by this experience, the person feels that or can take on other “fronts” of work that are seen as extra problems.

Due to the physical and / or mental fatigue that he suffers, he adopts a mentality from which he tries to compensate for that discomfort being very sensitive to situations where you might blame your surroundings for setbacks that arise in your He passed.

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What can be done about this problem?

Faced with burnout syndrome, it is important to have professional help in the context of psychotherapy. In this way, it is possible to train stress and anxiety management skills, as well as time management and optimization methods.

Now, in many cases the solution also involves making changes in the professional field, something that can be facilitated by the process of introspection and prioritization of goals that occurs in psychotherapy.

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Are you interested in having professional psychological support?

If you want to start a psychotherapy process to overcome a problem related to anxiety, work stress or other psychological disorders related to the world of work, Get in contact with us.

In our Psychology center we serve people of all ages, and we offer both individual, family and couple psychotherapy. You can find us in Irún, or contract our services online through video calls.