Latest / insyed; cozy psychology / you still have a battery

Transcript

you still have a battery · insyed; cozy psychology

• 0:01
  Welcome back to Inside. I'm INSyed. And every week
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  I take real academic research and bring it closer
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  to the life you're actually living. Like a diary
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  that did psychology. Let's take a peek INSyed.
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  I spent the past five hours working on a report.
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  It's submission deadline is close, but I'm so
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  tired. Three coffee and a can cups tired. But
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  still, I wanted to power through until it was
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  done. Because I didn't want to ever look at it
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  again. That's when the question started to creep
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  up on me. Was I burnt out? I ignored it because
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  I still had work to do. But as I was typing in
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  Word, it just kept crawling back to me. Am I
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  burnt out? I realized there that if I needed
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  to ask myself twice, I've already answered it.
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  I am. What fuel I had five hours ago had run
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  dry and now I lay in my bed, drained as if I'd
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  just run a marathon. Ironically, with my laptop
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  still plugged in, still at 100 % fully charged
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  beside me, here I realize, I'm no machine, but
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  I still have a battery. With exam season closing
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  in, burnout was something I expected. Everyone
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  I knew and had met this past week seems to share
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  that same exasperated sigh of productivity. We
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  all know that burnout is bad, so how could I,
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  expecting it to happen? Not realized I let my
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  productivity become self -destruction. I turned
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  back to my report and opened a new tab. I wanted
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  answers. We all know that burnout is bad, so
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  how could I, expecting it to happen, not realize
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  I let my productivity become self -destruction.
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  I turned back to my report and opened a new tab.
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  I wanted answers. I found a paper that looked
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  at how something like burnout could connect with
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  something as hopeful as well -being. As I read
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  about general practitioners, those who deal with
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  way more than I do, helping others through providing
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  healthcare, I slowly saw myself in them. The
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  paper said that burnout lays on a spectrum, like
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  a sea of self -destruction. One that flows between
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  seven different themes. Two of them caught my
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  eye. Exhaustion and disengagement. Exhaustion
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  was obvious, but the latter... Disengagement
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  was something I didn't even realize had happened.
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  I knew burnout made me tired, but I had to realize
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  it had also made me stop caring. These are people
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  who chose a career around caring for others,
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  and burnout had made them hollow through no fault
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  of their own. I looked back at my report. If
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  it could do that to them, I knew what it had
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  done to me. I became disengaged. I looked at
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  my report like it was a chore, and this began
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  to show beyond the screen. Because of this grindset,
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  I saw basic things as a waste of time. I'd skipped
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  meals, push away friends, and stayed up so late
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  to the point where what I had made wouldn't even
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  be worth it. This wasn't gonna work, so I thought
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  I'd try something. I unplugged my laptop. I was
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  going to let my laptop die. And so I continued
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  working on that report, this time fully aware
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  I was on a timer. And since I had no idea how
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  fast or slow my battery would die, I had no idea
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  how much time I had left. So I locked in. More
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  immersed than I ever was before. There were no
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  distractions, just me and my soon -to -die laptop.
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  After about two and a half hours, my laptop gave
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  me that dreaded low battery pop -up. Instead
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  of plugging in and trudging on, I closed my laptop.
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  That didn't feel like two and a half hours, it
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  felt like 45 minutes. And so, as the pixels on
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  my laptop screen dimmed, new light appeared everywhere
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  else I looked. I stepped back and made dinner
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  while my laptop charged. Letting it die gave
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  me space, a chance to breathe, to rest, to recharge.
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  I invite you to try and do the same. Rest days
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  exist for a reason. You are no machine, but you
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  still have a battery. And that brings us to the
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  end of this week's INSyed. Thank you for spending
• 4:16
  your time here. If something today stayed with
• 4:18
  you, the best way you can support is to share
• 4:20
  it with someone it may reach. You can also follow
• 4:23
  the show wherever you listen. And if you have
• 4:25
  a moment, leaving a review genuinely helps more
• 4:28
  people find us. Until next week, remember that
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  there's always more INSyed.