← Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People (HSP): Inner Work and Strategies for Coping with Stress, Overwhelm, and Negative Emotions
Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People (HSP): Inner Work and Strategies for Coping with Stress, Overwhelm, and Negative Emotions
Episode 270 Clip 10 Symptoms of Burnout You Shouldn't Ignore as a Highly Sensitive Person
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Are You Missing These 10 Subtle Signs of Burnout as a Highly Sensitive Person? If you're constantly exhausted, snapping at loved ones, or feeling emotionally numb, you might be facing more than just a rough week—burnout could be quietly taking hold....
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Todd Smith
By the end of this episode, you'll know how to recognize the early signs of burnout that you should never ignore and what to do before it derails your energy, mood and sense of purpose. Welcome to Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People, a podcast helping HSPs avoid overwhelm, eliminate stress, and find true inner freedom. I'm your host, Todd Smith, a facilitator of the work of Byron Katie, a way to question and reduce stressful thoughts. And you guessed it, I'm a highly sensitive person myself. In this episode, you'll discover the 10 most overlooked symptoms of burnout in highly sensitive people and why they often go unnoticed, how to tell the difference between everyday exhaustion and burnout, and a simple way to begin reversing burnout, even if your plate is full. This is an edition of Strategy Fridays where we think about specific things you can do to help manage stress as a highly sensitive person. Here are 10 of the most overlooked symptoms of burnout in highly sensitive people and why they often go unnoticed. The first one, and these are in no particular order. The first one is that you're constantly tired, even after rest. This is a clear signal that rest alone isn't quite what you're needing. You need something more. And when your energy doesn't bounce back, it's a sign that there may be some burnout going on. It's easily missed because you can think that everyone's tired, you know, like it's normal, right, in our busy world. And you can start thinking, oh, that's just the way it is. And many highly sensitive people actually get used to functioning in a kind of low grade state of depletion. They kind of normalize it. But this shouldn't be ignored because the right kind of rest, when you get real deep rest, resets the nervous system and it provides the basis for everything you do, whereas burnout quietly undermines your ability to function and your joy in life. Meditation is a great support in this way. There are many kinds of meditations and they all basically point in the same direction of rest and meditation. The rest in meditation is different than the rest in sleep, and it can be super helpful. I practice transcendental meditation. It's amazing. I've been enjoying it since I was a kid and I can literally at the end of the day, be exhausted, sit down to meditate, and 20 minutes later feel like my energy is back up and full again. So meditation is something definitely to keep in mind for deep rest. So another sign that burnout is maybe on the way or beginning for you is you start to feel like small things are overwhelming. You know, small sounds, little sound. Now you've heard it before and it is a little annoying, but now it's really annoying, or having to make decisions, it's just. It's getting on your nerves or interruptions are bugging you more than usual. In other words, your threshold has been lowered. And that just lets you know that your system is getting maxed out. And it's easy to miss this because you may just think, oh, I'm too sensitive. You know, you may even try to overcompensate and try to be push harder to prove that you're capable. But really what's going on is that your threshold is getting reached. And it's good to pay attention to. Shouldn't be ignored because if you don't, this is like a red flag. If you don't, then the crashes just become bigger the longer you delay getting rest. Another sign is that you feel emotionally numb or flat. And this can point towards overwhelm because usually as HSPs, we're very emotional people, we have a rich inner life. And if you feel detached or blank, it may be like, yeah, it just can be a good sign to notice. And you can miss this as being a sign of overwhelm or, sorry, a sign of burnout, because it. You may think that it's some kind of a calm, like you may can. You may confuse numbness for calmness. Numbness is not the same as calmness. Peace is awake. It's alert, but it's calm. Whereas numbness is kind of like a sleep. And it looks calm, but it's kind of dead. And so you may even fool yourself thinking, oh, I'm getting better, I'm feeling better because, you know, I'm not reacting as much. But it may be actually your system shutting down and saying, I'm having to go offline because I can't handle anything. So it can be a sign that there's a little bit of burnout beginning. And this shouldn't be ignored because numbness is not peace. And it's like calling out saying, we need rest, we need to shut down. We need to look at what's going on, whether it's something deeper emotionally that needs to be dealt with, or it's some kind of lifestyle change that needs to be changed. So a fourth sign that burnout may be happening is that you start snapping or withdrawing from loved ones. This happens so easily when your energy gets down, when you get consistently pushed, and you may kind of snap at people you may snap at yourself. It's this irritability that naturally comes out. It's like the heart is no longer fluid. It no longer has this energy or joy in it. And then it sees everything through that point of view. You may miss this as a sign of burnout because you may think, oh, I'm just being moody, or maybe I'm too sensitive. And you may even think that your reactions are something like a character flaw instead of seeing them as the signs of stress. This is always a fine point for highly sensitive people. We are sensitive. And a lot of times people associate sensitivity with stress. They're not the same thing. They're not the same thing at all. But when you confuse the two, you may start thinking that it's something to do with you rather than just a sign that you're overwhelmed. And the fifth sign that you may be dealing with some burnout is you start feeling guilty for needing alone time, especially if you're needing rest. And you may feel shame or guilt about taking the rest that you need. And this is easily missed because we often think that taking up space for yourself is selfish or that we as HSPs, are excessive in our needs for rest and alone time. And so we may compare ourselves to other people around us that don't need as much and then feel bad about it. And that guilt can drown out this signal that the body's saying, hey, I need some rest, please, I need some rest. And if you don't deal with it, then what happens is you don't get the rest. The burnout continues. And then on top of that, you start feeling resentment, and you may start getting emotional burnout as well, because you're not able to give yourself what you want or what you need in your environment. Another sign of burnout is your creativity dries up. HSPs thrive on inspiration. We love meaning and depth and creativity. And often our sense of purpose is linked to creativity. And so if that is missing, if that dries up, then that's a real sign that something's off, something. We should look at this because this is not normal for us. It's easy to kind of put this aside and think, oh, well, maybe, maybe I'm not trying hard enough, or maybe there's something that's just going to pass or something like that. But oftentimes it needs to really be given the attention to say, what's going on? How can I readjust my lifestyle so that I have more joy in my life? Another sign of burnout is you start people pleasing more, more than usual. And this is something that is hard for hsps anyway. We tend to be aware of everyone else's emotions and we tend to want peace and all that. And so we get into other people's business. And when you're stressed, you will tend to do that more and it becomes more of a desperate thing. It's not so much of a balanced thing. And so it can be a sign. And it, if you catch it, then you can just be aware that maybe what really I need is some restorative time for myself instead of getting off, caught into somebody else's dramas. Another sign of burnout that may be subtle is that you feel like everything you do is too much or not enough. In other words, you start judging yourself, your inner critic gets louder and you start to have self doubt. So you can discount this and think, oh, it's not really burnout, this is just my, you know, I've always felt this way. So you may think, oh, that's just my personality. But even though HSPS can get into self doubt, when it worsens, it's just a sign that you're getting further and further away from yourself and from balance and it's something to pay attention to. And number nine, the for reasons for why or how you can detect burnout in yourself is if you notice that you're keeping on fantasizing about escaping. Like you're starting to think about that vacation or that one time if I could just get away, or if I could just have a day alone, you know, in a library or something like that. I was, you know, like these are, these fantasies are telling you something like it's not just restlessness, it's not just a romantic idea here. It could be a cry for help, saying, hey, I can't do this anymore. And you may need to reassess and look at how can I give myself some downtime. It doesn't have to be a huge vacation, but it has to be something. And finally, number 10, the reason why, or it's not reason why, but a sign that you may be dealing with burnout is that even the things you love start to feel heavy. And so things that you actually love, your hobbies, your sacred routines, projects, if they start feeling like chores, then it's time to pause and it's time to not push harder. This is not necessarily disinterest, it could just be depletion. You don't have enough juice now to sustain what you're doing. And so even things that you love aren't sustainable if you're Tired. So how do you tell the difference between everyday exhaustion and burnout? Everyday exhaustion is similar. It feels tired, it feels heavy, but it's caused by a specific thing. Like, think of like if you had a poor sleep or a long day or some kind of emotional stress, you can still bounce back and it just takes a good night's sleep or some rest. You still feel interest or motivation. You're not like wanting to get away completely. You can still find small joys, you know, you may still enjoy music or conversation or food or. And your energy returns after downtime. And so just a weekend can make a huge difference. But burnout, on the other hand, is more chronic. It's cumulative depletion. Physical, emotional, mental. And rest alone doesn't fix it. Even with sleep, you may still feel exhausted. Motivation may be gone, not just delayed, but just can't get it back anymore. You may feel emotionally flat or numb or easily overwhelmed. Your joy or creativity and connection feel like they're out of reach. And again you fantasize about escape or quitting or disappearing. And you may feel stuck in a kind of shame or guilt or resentment. So for example, if you take a week off and then you come back just as tired, disconnected and unmotivated as before, your body rested maybe, but your system didn't really reset. And so that's a sign there that it's something deeper. It's burnout. And what's a simple way to begin reversing burnout, even if your plate is very full? This is always the challenge, because taking time to rest means taking things off your plate a lot of times. And where can you begin? Just get moving in that direction. I think the key is to start with micro rest. Not necessarily a full day off, not necessarily overhauling your schedule. Just little pockets of rest woven into your current life. It could be as little as a 90 second reset. Just close your eyes, breathe deeply, feel your feet. No phone, no fixing, just being. Or you can just take a pause and build it into your day. Just one pause per day. Maybe you just take time to sip some tea or just step outside, be in nature, lie down with no agenda. Or let your body feel like it's off duty, even for like five minutes once a day can make a difference where you start feeling like there's some leisure time in your life. Not just work, work, work, work. Another one you can do is to have a rule for a little while where it's like no more yes. You can't say yes immediately for a week and just instead you can say Let me get back to you. Or, you know, give me some time to think about that and then you can check in with your energy before responding. And then finally, another thing that can just help you is to name what's draining you. Write down one thing that added some silent stress in your life recently. Maybe it's a commitment, a belief, a task, and you don't have to solve it, but just see it clearly. And by seeing it, it creates space. And of course, I love the work of Byron Katie. So if you can name what's draining you, you can also question the thought that you have the stressful belief that you have. And, and often that can really change your perspective and open things up. Remember that burnout drive. Burnout thrives on uninterrupted depletion. So if you can take small breaks, then you can cut this vicious cycle and begin to find balance again. Just Turning the ship 1 degree already starts to move it in a new direction. So the feeling I'm left with today is that we as highly sensitive people are especially capable of noticing the subtle signs of burnout. And when we pay attention to our experience, it can help us avoid further burnout. In other words, the earlier we catch it, the sooner we can correct it. In this episode, we looked at the 10 most overlooked symptoms of burnout in highly sensitive people. Why they often go unnoticed. We saw that they were, first of all, constantly feeling tired, even after rest, small things, starting to feel overwhelming, feeling emotionally numb or flat, starting to snap or withdraw from loved ones, feeling guilty for needing alone time, noticing that your creativity is drying up, or noticing that you're starting to people please more than you normally would, or feeling like everything you do is too much or not enough. And also if you keep fantasizing about escaping. And finally, if things that you love start to feel heavy. We also looked at how to tell the difference between everyday exhaustion and burnout. And it's as simple as temporary versus chronic. Everyday exhaustion can be addressed by good night's sleep, some time off chronic exhaustion, it requires something deeper, a deeper approach and some resetting. And then finally, we looked at a simple way to begin reversing burnout. Even when your plate seems full and there's nothing you can do about it, one is just taking some micro rest, even 90 seconds or five minutes, doing something that feels a little bit more like leisure than push. And then of course, doing inner work I think is really super helpful because it starts to get into the actual underpinnings of why you keep pushing. And as you unravel some of the stresses, then it can become easier to rest moving forward. So thank you for listening. It's great to explore with you. This podcast comes out three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Join me next time for Breakthrough Mondays, where I share success stories and helpful insights for highly sensitive people on the path towards inner freedom. Tired of feeling overwhelmed by everything all at once? Take the HSP stress test@truinnerfreedom.com youm'll also find a link in the show notes. The test will reveal your unique sensitivity profile, including how your nervous system naturally responds to stimulation, emotions, social energy, and more. You'll also gain a clearer picture of how stress might be amplifying that sensitivity. Take the HSP Stress Test now. It's a powerful first step on your journey to true inner freedom.