The Dangers of Work From Home Burnout and What to Do About It

Sneak Peek:

Kristin:    00:00:00    Yesterday I finished an article for Medium called 12 Signs of Work from Home Burnout. And this morning I found myself face down on my bathroom floor and had to call 911. What happened? I'm Kristin from Traveling with Kristin, and today we're talking about remote work burnout. 

Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests.

Kristin:    00:00:53    The topic of today's episode hits very close to home, as you might imagine from the opening statement of this podcast, but it's a really serious and important topic. And so we are going to talk about it today and I hope that this helps. Any of you who have been feeling stressed out while working from home, and I probably should have taken the whole day off today. It's ironic that I am recording a podcast when just a few hours ago there was an ambulance in my driveway, but I felt like talking about this and writing about it helps me process it. And I also wanted to share this story with you today like raw because it just happened. But before we get to that story, <laugh>, there's another story that has some background and will provide some context to what happened today. So first, I just wanted to thank everybody again for listening.  

Kristin:    00:02:04    I think this is episode 65 or 66 or something like that of Badass Digital Nomads podcast where we help people work online and travel and live life on their own terms, but sometimes we can be our own worst enemies, as I'm sure many of you can relate to. So we're in this together, right? I'd also like to thank Ava Rimer for leaving a review. Um, Monday for the podcast. She says, very informative and inspiring. Kristin's podcasts are my go-to when on a long drive. I'm working to become a remote worker and her podcasts are helping me get there by providing information I can apply today and motivating me to take action. Thank you Ava, for that review. And thank you to everyone out there listening. I hear and read all of your comments, messages, and reviews. So thank you so much for connecting with me remotely.  

Kristin:    00:03:08    Let's get into it. Work from home Burnout, it's a thing and in the research from my article, I discovered that at least 70% of Americans, according to a Monster.com survey report feeling work from home burnout, which is up from 50% two months ago. So the more people who are working from home and the longer that they are working remotely, and the longer this pandemic goes on, the more of them are experiencing, um, work from home burnout. And this is really interesting because remote work and working from home provides amazing work life balance, provides the opportunity for achieving better work life balance. But what tends to happen is that people work more even though they don't have to. If you are self-employed, you might work more hours when you're working from home because you're worried that you aren't gonna make enough money or that you're not gonna succeed with your business or all of the other reasons that that motivates you to work harder and harder.  

Kristin:    00:04:27    Um, and if you work for a company, you might work harder than normal if you work from home because you feel like you have to prove yourself or you don't wanna be seen as being a slacker or not being productive or you feel like you have to work harder to show that you're actually working. And the other thing, I think the reason why people work more is that they don't have as many distractions and there's not enough separation. Sometimes they don't create boundaries between their work and their personal lives, so they end up letting their work hours bleed into their personal hours because they're not going anywhere. They're not commuting to a place of work, they don't have a designated space that's where they're going to be doing their work. So that's really important to do if you work from home and you have a small space, even if you put a desk in the corner of your room and your work from home.  

Kristin:    00:05:25    Ritual is like when I start working, I make my bed, sit down at my desk, put on my headphones and start working or whatever it is. You know, you, you should define a space that you're going to work in and that can help, um, that can help avoid some of these issues of overwork. And I'll provide a few other solutions at the end, um, of the podcast. But the most important thing to know is that at least two thirds of people working from home report that they are experiencing burnout. So the overwhelming majority and since the pandemic, people's workdays have extended by two to three hours at least in uh, western countries in the us, Canada, and Europe, and probably in more places to be honest. But that's the only places that we have data for it right now. So those are the statistics, including people like me who've been working from home, working remotely for a really long time and completely burnt out at my own.  

Kristin:    00:06:35    You know, it was my own decision to get to this point. So let's, let's talk about what happened and how I got here and what I've learned from it so that you can notice warning signs in your own life and, um, avoid doing what I did. So as I mentioned to explain why I ironically woke up on my floor after writing an article about remote work burnout less than 24 hours before. We have to go back to the year 2004. Yes, 2004. I had graduated from college and had studied abroad for a year during college and I knew that I wanted to live in another country, but I didn't know how to get a job in another country and I didn't know exactly what type of job I wanted. So the only thing that I thought to do was to <laugh>, procrastinate, buy some extra time, try to figure out my life, and hopefully gather more information so that I could make a decision about where I wanted to live and what I wanted to work in.  

Kristin:    00:07:52    So I always was a really good student and I thought, okay, I majored in international business, my school has a really good business program, why don't I just get an MBA because I'll learn a lot more and that will help prepare me better for the workforce. And it can't hurt, right? I mean, besides student loans. So being my overachiever kind of perfectionist self, which is like a whole nother story in its in its own where I grew up always being involved in a lot of different extracurricular activities and always being really busy like from sports to student council to like all sorts of things that kind of is like become a pattern in my life where I'm always doing a lot of stuff at once and school was no object. So always taking a heavy course load, um, being active on campus in different groups and different clubs and things like that.  

Kristin:    00:08:57    And then for grad school, instead of being an, you know, rational person, <laugh> and saying, okay, let me get some work experience first and then go back to school or let me work part-time and go to school part-time for two years. I thought, I don't wanna do that, I just wanna get it over with. So I signed up for a nine month MBA program. I accelerated MBA three semesters and nine months with a more than maxed out course load took on student loans and then I thought, well, I have to work so I don't have to take more student loans. So I started waiting tables, became a grad assistant at the UCF College of Business so I could get discounted tuition and took on my internship, um, working at an energy startup, uh, doing business development for a solar power company. So here I am with a full, full-time, MBA and three jobs.  

Kristin:    00:10:03    You can see what's gonna happen next, right? I was 21 years old, so after going to school from 7:00 AM until noon, I had classes, I would eat lunch and then I would go directly to the business school office and start working filing. I don't really remember everything I did. I do know I did a lot of filing, emailing, administrative stuff, um, grading some papers, organizing and running errands for the professors and the, the administration of the office there. So I would do that for a few hours, then I would come home, um, workout. Oh yeah, I was also training to be a professional surfer. So I was like doing surf competitions and working out twice a day. So I would work out and then I would go to my internship in the afternoon, and then I would study when I got home. So I would eat dinner and then I would study till like three in the morning and then I would sleep for a few hours and then I would be up at six making coffee, going back to class.  

Kristin:    00:11:16    And I was so addicted to coffee at the time that I would put a shot of espresso in the coffee grounds. So I would put the coffee grounds in the coffee maker and then I would add ground espresso to that because I needed to stay awake. And I was also sponsored by Monster Energy at the time, the, um, energy drink. And from surfing with, um, Red Bull sponsorships, I always had free Red Bull. So in my garage I had pallets of Monster Energy sugar free, right? Because I was on this like workout plan and diet. And then on top of the pallets of the sugar free Red Bull, I had sugar free Monster energy or vice versa. I had pallets of this free, probably poisonous beverage.  

Kristin:    00:12:15    So things went on like this for about August, September, October, three months, three and a half months before my body was like LOL-- Oh yeah. And then on top of that, I was also waiting tables on the weekends. Anyway, so after a few months of this abuse that I thought that I could handle my body was like, actually no in my brain specifically. So after a particularly hard week where we had our midterms, so I was turning in, um, I was studying for midterms, I was turning in my midterm papers and our group projects and pulled like, I think two all-nighters in a row, just in the library and working with my group. And honestly, this was even, I think Adderall existed yet, but it existed, but I hadn't tried it and I was afraid to like add pharmaceutical drugs to my <laugh> repertoire there.  

Kristin:    00:13:16    So anyway, turned in all of my papers and things according to the deadline. Um, and then I had been living in Costa Rica a couple years earlier, and I got involved with a charity organization that helped orphans in San Jose and we would do like mentorship, and we held an annual surf tournament where we would teach the orphans how to surf, like bring them to the beach on the bus and hang out with them all day. And I started doing that in 2002. So I had been doing, doing it for like two years, but I wasn't living in Costa Rica, I was in Florida. So the organizers all chipped in money to buy me a plane ticket to go to Costa Rica for the event, which was held every November. It was called the Pura Vida No Pro. And so the event was taking place the day after my midterms and my midterm deadlines.  

Kristin:    00:14:20    So I went directly from turning in my last paper online to packing my suitcase. And then my roommate took me to the airport, um, which was maybe like 30 minutes away. And I had a 7:00 AM flight from Orlando to Atlanta and then Atlanta to Costa Rica. And as I was connecting in Atlanta, if you've ever been to Atlanta Airport, I think it's the biggest airport or the busiest airport in the country or the world. No, it's one of the busiest airports in the biggest airports. They have these trains that take you between the terminals because it would take too long to walk. And I remember being in the train and starting to feel like a little queasy, and the train stopped and I got off and got onto the escalator and I was feeling very lightheaded, like I was gonna pass out or throw up or something.  

Kristin:    00:15:21    And things started getting very dark and I thought, well, maybe my blood sugar is low because I haven't eaten anything, but I've been up, you know, all night. And so I remember opening my backpack to take a pear out of my backpack and taking a bite of the pear, and now I'm like halfway up the escalator. And that's the last thing I remember until I woke up and I woke up laying on the floor of the terminal just seeing like a circle of people around me and being very confused, just not knowing where I was, not knowing why I was laying down and not recognizing any of the faces that I saw above me.  

Kristin:    00:16:13    And, um, people were asking me questions like, what's your name? You know, probably to see if I had a concussion or something like that. And then that part is all a blur. All I know is that one of the, you know, the airport staff was there, they put me in a wheelchair, they called my mom and I don't really remember what they were talking about, but I think they put me on the phone with her. And I was like, I don't know, I just passed out in the airport. And my mom's like, oh my god, you know, like, be careful. Like, did you eat something? Like whatever, drink some water. And I was just kind of out of it. So they took me to a deli to get some food. I got like a, a wrap and a, a bottle of water, and then they wheeled me onto the plane and I just kind of sat there in a daze the whole way to Cost Rica.  

Kristin:    00:17:06    And this was before iPhones, so I didn't have, my phone didn't work in Costa Rica, it was like a flip phone. And so I was in Costa Rica the whole weekend at the charity event telling everybody what happened. Like nobody understood. They're just like, wow, that's crazy that that happened to you. And then, um, a few days later, like three days later, I flew back to Orlando, I surfed and everything that weekend, like my head was really sore, my jaw was really sore and like swollen and I just didn't know what happened to me. And as I'm going back through the Atlanta Airport on my return flight, I get off the plane, I turn on my phone and I have all these messages from my family members, like, what happened? We heard, like we talked to your mom. And so I call my brother back and I'm like three, eight years older than him, so I was 21, you know, he's like still a teenager basically.  

Kristin:    00:18:05    And he's like, what happened? And I started explaining the story and then this guy like walks up to me in the airport and flags me down and he's like, Hey, hey, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, who are you? And he's like, I am Rob, like you're the girl with epilepsy. And I was like, what? And he is like, yeah, the seizure. Like I, you fell into me a few days ago, like you had a seizure in the airport, right? And I was like, wait a second. And I was like, hold on to my brother. I'm like, I'm, I'm like, I'll call you back, hold on. And this guy walks up to me and he is like, yeah, I'm a doctor and or a dentist. And his friend was a doctor. He's like, we were on our way to this conference and as we were getting off the escalator, you like fell on top of us and we caught you.  

Kristin:    00:18:58    And um, you had a seizure, like a grand mal seizure, like two or three minutes on the floor of the airport and we made sure you didn't like hit your head on the ground. And I was like, what? Because I had never had a seizure before. And that explained why my head was so sore. And so he's like, yeah, I'm just on my way on vacation with my wife. Like, we gotta catch our flight, but like, good to see that you're okay, you know, you should probably get that checked out. You should probably go to the hospital or something. And I was like, yeah, thank you. Bye. I never saw him again. Just completely random coincidence, synchronicity, intervention from the universe, God, whatever you wanna call it. Like crazy. And um, at that moment, at 21 years old, I was like, I think I did this to myself.  

Kristin:    00:19:51    Like, I think I pushed myself to the limit so far that I actually had a seizure. And so after that, I called my brother back, called my mom, like, told everyone what happened and had to go get all of these tests done. They thought I had a brain tumor. It was, you know, a really scary time. And in the end they did diagnose me with epilepsy. Um, they took my driver's license away for six months. I couldn't swim, I couldn't surf. And um, they never figured out like what the cause was, but I intuitively feel like it was a burnout <laugh>, like it was working multiple jobs, studying full-time, MBA, coffee, Red Bull, Monster energy drinks, espresso, three hours of sleep, a night stress, like not to mention my future, you know, like trying to get good grades in this grad school program so I could get a good job and like all of this pressure on like a very young person, some of it manufactured <laugh> by myself, some of it perceived pressure from society and whatever my idea of success was in the corporate world.  

Kristin:    00:21:09    And um, this, that situation is what led to me moving to Costa Rica at the end of the MBA program. And ironically, so because this happened and I was forced to slow down, I got better grades the next two semesters. So I probably cut back by half on the hours I was studying. I threw away all of the energy drinks. Um, I, I went down to one cup of coffee per day. I started sleeping more. Um, I gave up my internship early and I stopped waiting tables until the summer and I just only had the grad assistantship and the school and that was pretty much it. Oh, and I took on a remote internship where I was writing articles and interning with a sports management agency that was in a different city. And I never actually met the owners. I just like worked a few hours a week whenever I had time.  

Kristin:    00:22:15    So I never thought about that. I actually had a remote internship appropriate. Um, so in the end, I didn't pursue the surfing career because I couldn't surf for like more than half a year and I just got onto a different track in life. And that experience was the defining reason why I didn't take a corporate job out of grad school when I had this really good job offer with a marketing firm, a market research firm that I write about on Medium in the article that went viral this month, which you can follow me on Medium at medium.com/@KristinMWilson. And I'll link to it in the show notes. I know a lot of you guys are from Medium or from YouTube or from the podcast, but writing is like also one of my top three loves writing, audio, video. So definitely, um, hang out with me over on Medium if you like, reading and writing, but I write wrote about that this month and I just thought, okay, if I burnt out at 21 and I have this job where I'm gonna be working in a cubicle and it's gonna be high pressure and this environment, but I also have a job offer where I can go to Costa Rica, which I really love, and then I can surf there and I can live on the beach and I can relax more and I can have a better pace of life and quality of life, even though I'm making less money, I'm gonna take that.  

Kristin:    00:23:55    Because if I continue on this track of high achievement and climbing the corporate ladder or taking like a consulting job or something like that where I'm traveling a lot, I was like, I'm gonna burn out again way before my midlife crisis, <laugh>, you know, I think I probably achieved, not achieved, I sped up the timeline between like burnout when you start college at 18 and when you hit it at like 40 or 50 years old, I hit it at 21. And so I realized that I needed to do something differently. So I did. So that that story and, um, living in Costa Rica really helped because I was forced to slow down. I lived in a place with dirt roads. We had slow internet that came from a satellite and was like 128 kilobytes per second. And I didn't have a cell phone and I just, you know, kind of like worked at the real estate office, hung out with other expats and people that live there, taught surf lessons on the side, uh, worked at my friend's sushi bar and just kind of lived this jungle lifestyle.  

Kristin:    00:25:18    And, you know, eventually my focus became more on my career and real estate than on surfing and that other kind of stuff. But anyway, like that's how my career started and it really changed my life and led to where I am today because had I not gone back to Costa Rica, I probably would've gotten locked into a nine to five job and a nine to five mentality, which would've been worse. <laugh>. So that, you know, career change or decision to start my career in Costa Rica and to then travel from there really was good for my mental health and my physical health and my happiness level. And I never had another seizure again. And so, and I just got really healthy living down there. All the organic food and juices and fresh fruits and vegetables and yoga retreats and juice fasting retreats and all these sorts of experimental health and wellness places that are in Costa Rica.  

Kristin:    00:26:24    I lived there in the middle of that triangle, in the Blue Zones, actually in the Nicoya Peninsula Blue Zone, which is an area where people achieve the highest longevity in the world. Places like Greece and in the Mediterranean, there's like a few pockets around the world where people have a longer life expectancy and a higher quality of life. And I lived in one of those places, so I got to reap the benefits of that. But it's always been in the back of my head, you know, don't push too hard, don't push too hard. And so I think I have been, I think I have been pushing much harder <laugh> in the past two years because there was a time in life where I was making six figures a year working like part-time, you know, 15, 20 hours a week, and I needed more challenge. And that's when I started this journey of self-reflection, reading books, journaling, listening to podcasts for like three or four years before admitting that what I really wanted to do was help people through content, through videos, through writing, um, through a podcast that interviewed entrepreneurs and digital nomads about how they got out of the rat race and how they created a life on their own terms and a job description that they invented for themselves.  

Kristin:    00:27:52    I was just fascinated with, with that process and grateful that I was able to go through that transformation myself, but also like, how does everyone else do it? Because everyone does it in a different way.  

Kristin:    00:28:09    But <laugh> after, you know, making that decision and then starting this process and really starting from zero, buying a camera for the first time, um, buying a microphone, learning how to do an interview, learning how to edit videos, like setting up a YouTube channel, starting a blog, buying a website, URL, setting up a Medium profile, like all of these things, speaking at conferences, like sitting for other interviews. Like I just kept adding and adding and adding to my plate, writing a book, <laugh>, creating online courses. And it was like I was doing so many things at once because I finally figured out what my purpose was in life. And that was to help other people create a life on their terms and create lives of freedom. And it was my freedom to choose and to decide that I wanted to do all of these things.  

Kristin:    00:29:05    And so I maybe ignored some of my own limits because I thought, I like what I'm doing, I wanna do it all the time. I'll just do it as much as I want <laugh>. But uh, you know, we still need to set some boundaries. And so I don't know what gave me the idea of writing this article about work from home burnout. Maybe it was just a subconscious knowing that I was burning out or that a a premonition <laugh> that of what was about to happen a few days later. But for whatever reason, I, I was at my apartment in Miami and I think I was out for a walk or something where I get a lot of ideas and I typed out this outline into my phone, like signs that you're burning out. And I put like 15 different things that came to the top of my head, all of which I had experienced at one time or another.  

Kristin:    00:30:07    And then as I started researching it, I realized that, you know, these signs were valid and that a lot of other people were suffering from it too. And that, you know, studies and surveys were coming out about that. So I thought, okay, I definitely have to publish this article. This is very important, very timely. And um, you know, millions and millions of people are suffering from this at the same time. And I've been there and I can, I can help them see the warning signs and, and get, get through it or prevent it from getting really bad. So as I started writing, I write for Medium in my quote unquote free time because it's not like a job for me. I mean, I do make money that way, but it's not my number one priority every day. So I only write maybe two days a week and usually it's after my other work is done.  

Kristin:    00:31:00    So I start writing the article, it was on my to-do list that day. I thought it was almost done, like I had the draft done, I'm like, I just need to edit it. And it was like 10 or 11:00 PM and I, and I'm writing and I'm editing and then it's like, yeah, 11:00 PM and I was reading about, you know, warning signs of burnout and it was saying that just because you work from home, that doesn't mean you have to check every single task off your to-do list that day and have an insatiable drive for productivity or feel guilty about yourself because you didn't finish all your work for that day or stay up until two in the morning answering email or writing that proposal. And I was like, oh my God, it's 11:00 PM and I've been working all day and I'm sitting at my computer writing an article about burnout at midnight.  

Kristin:    00:31:58    Like I knew I wasn't gonna finish probably for two or three hours. And so I thought, this is crazy. And I tweeted about it, <laugh>, I was like that feeling of irony and hypocrisy where you realize that you're writing an article about work from home burnout while working from home at 11:00 PM after like a 12 hour work day. And so I just tweeted that, closed my laptop and went to bed and I thought, okay, I'm gonna finish it tomorrow when I'm fresh. So I blocked off my whole morning for like working on my book and finishing this article. And I, and I like it. I like how it turned out. And so I'm feeling pretty good about myself. I'm like, I think this is gonna help a lot of people. And then, um, I'm house sitting for my parents. So I had other stuff on my to-do list, like I had to go to the grocery store, walk the dog, run some errands, things like that.  

Kristin:    00:32:58    So I did that, did my workout for the day, like made dinner DJ practice at night. Um, but I got the bed still around 11:00 PM and I got almost eight hours of sleep. And so now we're at this morning I wake up around, I guess it was seven. Yeah. And, um, felt fine and my parents came back. So my dad's going out to walk the dog. I go to, um, set up my workout for the morning. 'cause I do an hour of yoga or pure bar class every morning. And since he was walking the dog, I'm like, great, I'm gonna get my workout in now and then I'll be done by 8:00 AM and then I can take a shower and start my day and yay, this is gonna be a great day. And then I got my bottle of water for the workout and I always drink like eight hour, eight ounces, eight to 12 ounces of water as soon as I wake up.  

Kristin:    00:34:02    But before I could drink the water, I start feeling really dizzy. And I was like, that's weird. Like, why am I feeling dizzy? I don't usually eat breakfast this early. I don't drink coffee this early. Like my brain's trying to figure out like, why are you feeling so bad all of a sudden 30 minutes after waking up? And so instead of popping the Advil, I'm like looking around like, should I start working out? Should I sit down? Should I lay down? Like what should I do at this moment? Like I feel really dizzy and like very sick, like nauseous. I'm like, I'm not pregnant. Like I'm just going through all of these things that could be happening to me in the moment. And then I'm like, God, I feel like I'm gonna like throw up or something. This is really weird. And um, I just remember going into the bathroom like just in case I was like, I wanna like throw up on the floor or something.  

Kristin:    00:34:59    And again, boom, last thing I remember, I don't know how long I was out for, but I started feeling like I was in a dream and paralyzed, like I couldn't move. But yeah, it just felt like a dream where you're in a dream and you're watching the dream, but you're not moving your body, but you're kind of like aware that you're, you're aware that you're aware <laugh>, like you're aware that you're alive and you're in the dream, but you can't like stop it yet. Or you're just waiting to wake up and you know that you're gonna wake up soon, but you're letting the dream kind of play out. And, but then I was feeling like pain in my head and discomfort and I was like, what is going on? And I couldn't figure out where I was or if I was awake or if I was dreaming.  

Kristin:    00:36:01    I was like, what is going on? I couldn't get my bearings out about me. And then I opened my eyes. It took a while for me to like actually open them and I'm laying face down on the bathroom floor, like I like open my eyes and I see like the, the wall and the tile and I was just like, what am I doing on the floor? <laugh> very confused, very, very confused. I don't know if you've ever passed out. I guess this is what it feels like. And then I just laid there for a little while until I could like get the strength to push myself up. And I'm like, I must have passed out. Did I have a seizure again? And I just got really scared. And so I, I called my mom because she's a nurse and she was working at the hospital today and I called like three times.  

Kristin:    00:36:58    She didn't answer. I'm like, uh, she's probably with a patient. I call my dad, he's walking the dog called him a few times, he doesn't answer. And I'm like in serious pain now. Like my stomach hurts, my head hurts. I'm dizzy, I'm nauseous, I feel like I'm gonna throw up again. Like, I'm like, am I gonna fall over again? What's happening? Like, so I just like collapse onto the couch and just call 911. I'm like, I don't know what else to do. I don't know what's happening to me. I don't know if I'm like, is this like, like what's going on? Is this like a serious medical condition? I don't, I didn't know. And um, yeah, so then the ambulance came and the fire truck, this is like 7:15, 7:30 in the morning probably at this point. Yeah. And they took all my vitals and they're like asking me what happened and everything and everything was fine.  

Kristin:    00:37:57    Like I had a low heart rate and low blood pressure, like lower than the normal range, but they're like, you know, that could be because you're in shape, you exercise a lot. It could be because you passed out or it could be that your blood pressure dropped and then you passed out. Like they're like, it could be all of these things and you know, we don't know, but we can take you to the hospital for tests. But I just felt like once they checked everything, and again, I am still in like extreme discomfort and pain, but I could answer their questions and I, I just wanted to make sure I didn't have a concussion and that I was like, okay, generally that it wasn't an emergency that like I needed to go to the hospital or you know, that my heart rate was like dropping out or something else.  

Kristin:    00:38:45    So they left after like 20 or 30 minutes and then I fell asleep for like an hour and then my dad came back with the dog. They go on these like long walks on the, um, on the beach and I had like all these things, you know, like all those stickers and like the cables and things hooked up to me. It was so surreal you guys. I told my dad what happened and I called my mom back and like told her what happened and everyone was just thinking like, you've been pushing yourself too hard. <laugh>. Like they weren't like, it just made me sad to think like, did I just burn out because like, did I just burn out on my passion, on my passion for remote work and my passion for this work from home lifestyle and freedom and location independence and helping people and writing and creating content and working, like did I just burn out myself in helping other people to not burn out from their corporate jobs and from the stress of their physical jobs?  

Kristin:    00:39:54    Like what the heck? And so the first thing I thought of as this was happening is, or as the paramedics were there and they're asking me about my health history and everything, was that how grateful I am to be healthy otherwise. And I was thinking like, this is the last thing I need is to find out this morning that I have some kind of serious medical condition. And then in the US of course there's all of the like insurance problems and the medical costs and you could like go bankrupt from medical costs and there's all those other things attached to it. And I was just like, oh my god, this moment of clarity of like, this is the only important thing like your health, if you don't have that, you don't have anything else. You have to put yourself first. You have to put your health first.  

Kristin:    00:40:51    You have to put your oxygen mask on first and your goals and aspirations come second to that. They have to, your job has to come second to your health, your responsibilities at work, answering those emails or answering those messages after midnight, like opening up your laptop after dinner. Like it's time that everybody set some boundaries, myself included. I mean, just the fact that millions of people got sent to work from home overnight and instead of gaining back a few hours a day of self care and work life balance or more sleep people just added two to three hours to their work days is unacceptable. Like that is a crazy mindset and that is adopting the most harmful habits of the corporate work culture and bringing them into your house. And it's tragic like to replace your commute with just working longer hours at your home office.  

Kristin:    00:42:04    We can't be doing this. And that goes for freelancers, self-employed people, online business owners, myself included. And I'm sharing this story, these two stories with you today to show that this is a lifelong challenge. Like you have to reality check yourself throughout life. Like just because you quit your job you hate and start a new job or start working for yourself, you still have to put your health and wellness and your mental and physical health first. Otherwise none of that other stuff is gonna work. Like you can't travel if you're sick, you can't work on your business. You know, if you are, if you're ill or you're too tired, uh, you can't do your best work if you've been burning the candle at both ends, you can't be as creative. There's so many downsides to burnout. So I'll define what the World Health Organization says burnout is, and then you can read the Medium article that I'll link to in the show notes with the 12 signs, anecdotal signs that I came up with that I have and through myself.  

Kristin:    00:43:33    And again, it's, I wrote this article because I've been there and I don't think it was a coincidence that this happened within 24 hours of writing this article. And so I had to take to the mic and make a podcast about it because I'm talking to myself as much as you guys. So the Japanese have a word for Death by overwork and it's called Karoshi. And that sounds extreme, but people actually have died because they worked too much. And you might not drop dead at your computer or you might not pass out in your bathroom. But over death by overwork could come in like a more sinister long-term way through declining health indicators throughout life. And so when you have the opportunity to work from home or to work remotely and to put yourself in a, in a healthy place, more so than sitting on the metro every day or sitting in your car in traffic every day, it's really important not to um, bring that unlimited like infinite work achievement mindset into your bedroom or into your kitchen or into your living room to really set some boundaries.  

Kristin:    00:45:08    So as I mentioned, 69% of respondents of this monster survey said that they've experienced burnout since the pandemic started, since they started working from home. And that's up from 52% in May. And I think, you know, the longer that the more people work remotely and the longer they work remotely, the more these types of studies are going to come out because it seems like everyone is kind of following the same trend. And um, see the World Health Organization describes burnout as a quote, occupational phenomenon or syndrome unquote, stemming from chronic unaddressed work stress. So if you're feeling more stressed than normal, more negative than usual about your job, if you're feeling exhausted, if you're feeling ineffective or less productive at work, if you're feeling less creative and if you're feeling a general aversion to your work responsibilities, it could be burnout. And I'll also link to the World Health Organization's website in the show notes.  

Kristin:    00:46:23    And you know, maybe, maybe this burnout is coming because I am not traveling, so I'm not, I'm not spending as much time sightseeing or hanging out with people or doing social things or you know, things that are normal in life, <laugh> and when it's not a pandemic. But also I thought I was doing a pretty good job getting seven or eight hours of sleep per night, walking every day, exercising every day, eating at home instead of eating out, um, cooking healthy food. But apparently that wasn't enough. So I wrote some things here where if you work more hours at home than you did in the office, you could be burning out. If you wake up in the morning and the first thing you're thinking about is a work problem that you've been trying to solve in your head overnight, it might be a sign of burnout. If you wander around your house during the workday without remembering what you were doing, it could be a sign of burnout.  

Kristin:    00:47:32    Reduced professional efficacy is one of the top three signs of burnout. So if you are like doing something or, and you can't remember what you were about to do or you can't remember what you did at work that day or yesterday or last week, like you could have too much on your plate. Another thing I put is if you still eat lunch at your desk, that's not good. If you think it's okay to take work calls from anywhere, if you're in the grocery store or on a walk or in or in the car, like try to try to put, of course you can walk on a work call because that's better than sitting at your desk. But try to designate times that you're going to work and then don't work outside of those times because then you're just letting your work seep into every other aspect of your day.  

Kristin:    00:48:20    This is a really sad one I wrote, if you ignore calls from your friends or family because you've been working too much or you've been in zoom meetings all day, that one makes me really sad because I wanna connect with my friends and family. I wanna do live streams in the group. I wanna engage with people and video comments and messages and like sometimes I'm just too tired 'cause I answered four hours of email and I wrote two articles and I edited a video <laugh> and like all the other stuff I did in the day and like, you know, I need to pick less things to do. It's not about finishing your to-do list that day. It's about putting a manageable amount of tasks on your to-do list and then adding in a buffer time in case you don't finish. Or in case those tasks take longer than you expect, which is really common.  

Kristin:    00:49:14    Another sign is if you work really late every night or if you never close your laptop, like if you have so many things going on that you don't wanna restart your computer 'cause you don't wanna close everything out, then you know, take a step back. Or if you're, I wrote if you find yourself shuffling back to your computer after you eat dinner, like if you work all day and then you have dinner and then you go back to work at night, like that's too much. Even if you love what you do, even if you have a side hustle, like you can do a work sprint for some amount of time, but you can't sustain that kind of like Gary v 14, 16 hour a day work stuff or too long because I don't know, I just don't think that that's human. Another thing is not having any after work hobbies.  

Kristin:    00:50:07    So I've pretty much made my hobbies, um, walking long walks through the islands around my house on the beach, standup paddling, like doing something in nature, something without screens. Something besides Netflix and social media. 'cause that's not really rejuvenating if, if you haven't gone outside in a few days, a lot of people are still on lockdown. But if you've only been like eating, sleeping and working and you don't know what time of day it is, you don't know what the weather's like 'cause you haven't been out there. Maybe time to take a break. Also, if you notice that you're procrastinating more, then you did even at the office, that could be a sign of what the World Health Organization calls increased mental distance from one's job or feelings of cynicism or negativity about your job. And this, there's two more. The next one is, you know, what a work hangover feels like.  

Kristin:    00:51:07    And this is one where I was complaining about having a work hangover to one of my friends and he said, sounds like burnout to me. Wilson, he was right because that was, that was one of my friends from coworking Bansko. And he told me that like a week ago and then this happened. And then the last one you've injured yourself, I really can't, I can't even with this irony. So I actually wrote about this seizure that I had in the article and said that my workaholism never fully went away, but I've learned how to manage it. And then the next morning I passed out.  

Kristin:    00:51:55    So I don't wanna blame it all on myself. Like I'm not saying it's a hundred percent my fault that I had a seizure or a hundred percent my fault that I passed out this morning. But it's definitely like a clue if your body needs a reset, like a hard reset, your brain and your body and it's gonna find a way to get it. Whether that means, you know, getting sick with a cold or the flu or something like that. Or maybe, um, one time I tripped and fell and like broke my foot in two places because I was jet lagged and I was tired and I wasn't, you know, fully there. I had too much on my plate and I wasn't paying attention and I fell. And so those kinds of things can happen. So try not to let it get to a point where you have like a physical injury because you've like let it go that far.  

Kristin:    00:53:04    So as some solutions and antidotes to burnout, I put that less is more. So it's not just about what can you add to your, to-do list to cure burnout. It's about what can you take away, what can you cut back on? What's draining your energy that you can replace with something that rejuvenates you? What is a task that you don't like doing or that tires you out that you can stop doing or delegate to someone else? What kind of boundaries and limits can you put on your working hours each day so that you're not working 12 hours a day, you're working maybe six hours a day, you know, in an eight hour workday you still have breaks, you still have your lunch break, you might have some meetings, you're not working the whole entire eight hours, so you know, nobody's perfect and life is stressful, especially during the pandemic and I get that.  

Kristin:    00:54:10    But um, I'm concerned for the world if everyone's working from home and we're all having burnout symptoms, that's not good. So I think it's up to us to take initiative to make sure that we are staying cognizant of these risks and these tendencies and maybe even the societal pressure to work more from home to make up for not having that face time in the office. So, um, talk to your clients or talk to your supervisors about setting consistent hours or times that you go, you will be available on communication not all day, every day and all night, 24 hours. Um, put some healthy routines into place and if you keep finding yourself too busy, then it's time to look at what activities you can cut out and what activities are draining you. And then of course, sleep more, move more, eat better. Meditate. I meditate every day.  

Kristin:    00:55:23    Actually, I missed a couple days this week for the first time in like over, I think I just passed 50 days in a row and I, and I missed a couple, but I've been going on those walks. So I also wrote to get an accountability partner because sometimes we need that third person perspective. Like my friend who said, sounds like burnout to me, work hangover. Um, or in this case talking about it on a podcast <laugh> so people can hold you accountable. I also posted in my Facebook group that I wanted to work on my book every day for an hour until it was done. And I made that commitment two days ago and I posted a spreadsheet of every day, like I would track what I did on the book, but then this happened today. So now I'm like even reevaluating that, okay, maybe I don't need to work on my book every single day.  

Kristin:    00:56:22    Maybe I, I don't need to be so extreme. Maybe I can do one video instead of two videos. You know, maybe I can write less articles. Like there's a lot of ways for me to cut back that I'm exploring, but I just wanted to share this with you, with you guys so that um, in case you're feeling symptoms of remote work burnout, you can know that you're not alone. That almost everyone else is experiencing something similar, um, including experienced remote workers and digital nomads like myself. So we can't think that if we fix it once, that it's fixed forever. It's like health and wellness is something to prioritize throughout life. And working from home offers a really unprecedented opportunity to have a slower morning when you wake up in the morning and not rush off to get the kids to school and rush to get to work and get on the freeway or on the subway.  

Kristin:    00:57:26    It's an opportunity to take a real lunch break. It's an opportunity to go outside whenever you want fresh air and not have to walk through an office park to get out the front door. And it's an opportunity to set yourself up financially so that you can live where you want and travel more and just have a more regular, enjoyable, natural way of life and pace of life. So I hope that this was helpful, um, for you guys. I also put at the end, you know, take a vacation, get a new job, like take action if you, um, if you're feeling burnt out and if you do take action and those things aren't working, then you might need to take a more drastic action like, um, getting a job that's less stressful or taking some time off or something like that. And so one of the things I'm working on is a remote jobs course, so I will incorporate this burnout into that course. But thank you all for listening today. Please take care of yourselves, stay safe. And if you have any friends, coworkers, colleagues, relatives, family members, anyone who you suspect is suffering from burnout, please share this podcast with them.  

Kristin:    00:58:57    I really feel like this is so important and if my suffering and my story can help anyone, then that will make it all worth it. So thank you guys for listening. Leave a review, see you next week. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, you can support the podcast and look cool while you're doing it by checking out our new merch Over on teespring.com/stores/TravelingwithKristin. We have t-shirts, pink top stickers, coffee mugs, hoodies, cell phone cases, bags and more. Again, that's at teespring.com/stores/TravelingwithKristin.