JULY/AUGUST 2019“Burnout is an accumulative
process,” says Dr Rachel Lewis,
associate professor of occupational
and business psycholog y at Kingston
University, who carried out the
research for International SOS. “It
starts with a reduction in factors that
support our ability to cope, such as
eating a balanced diet, getting quality
sleep and regular exercise. If this
combines with increased external
demand, the result is stress. If stress
is ongoing, it can lead to the first
stage of burnout, which is emotional
exhaustion. If this is left unchecked,
stage two is depersonalisation,
becoming cynical and critical of both
yourself and others. Stage three is
reduced personal accomplishment,
the feeling that you are incompetent
or that you are not achieving. If that
continues, you have reached burnout.”
In the initial stages, many people
take a “push through it” approach. “A
classic response to feelings of stress is
to work harder, which just exacerbates
the symptoms,” says Matthew Holman,
founder of Simpila Healthy Solutions, a
consultancy that addresses mental health
issues in the workplace. “There is still a
stigma to admitting you are struggling,
and a fear that it will bring your
performance and ability into question.”
According to Simpila’s Business
Travel and Mental Health Survey,
80 per cent of those who have
experienced mental health problems
have not told their employer.
Stress aside, frequent travel also
has the potential to increase your
workload. With differing time zones
it’s easy to work a double day, picking
up emails and calls from colleagues
at home on top of the working day
at your destination. “There’s this
feeling among business travellers that‘A classic response
to feelings of stress is
to work harder,
which just exacerbates
the symptoms’49HEALTH
Of course, it’s not only frequent
travellers who experience work-related
stress. According to the Health and
Safety Executive (a UK government
agency), work-related stress, depression
or anxiety accounts for 44 per cent
of work-related ill health and 57 per
cent of all working days lost to ill
health. But according to the Kingston
research, frequent travel adds an
additional element of pressure – 45
per cent of the 200 frequent travellers
surveyed reported higher stress levels
than normal while on work trips. And
31 per cent said they experienced
emotional exhaustion, a major risk
factor of burnout, on a weekly basis.
STAGES OF BURNOUT
Burnout is defined as a “syndrome
of emotional exhaustion,
depersonalisation and reduced
personal accomplishment”, according
to Professor Christina Maslach, the
psychologist who first identified the
syndrome in the 1970s.