Combating Burnout In The Workplace (infographic)

Burnout is a serious problem that is receiving more attention than ever. When you experience stress, there are two ways to handle it. Either you deal with and release that stress or you hold on to it and it builds up. When a person experiences chronic stress, eventually their stress levels overload and can lead to burnout. In the United States, 51% of workers say they have felt burned out more than once, and 77% of professionals and 84% of Millennials have experienced burnout at some point in their careers. What is burnout and how can we address the burnout epidemic that is sweeping the nation?

Burnout Culture In The U.S. Workplace

64% of American workers say they feel stressed or frustrated at work at least once a week, but this doesn’t mean every one of them is suffering from burnout. In order for normal, day-to-day stress to turn into burnout it would need to build over time. If you experience normal daily stressors like deadlines and failures, chances are you are going to move forward from them relatively easily. But when you start to experience the same frustrations on a regular basis, it becomes harder to move on from them. When stress starts to build it leads to burnout.

During times of stress, your body’s cortisol levels can increase two to five times. When these cortisol levels are sustained for a long period of time it can increase your blood pressure and A1C levels as well as lower your immunity. Over time this can lead to hypertension, type II diabetes, heart disease, depression, and more. There is a real and physical consequence to burnout and prolonged stress, so fighting your stress is crucial for your long-term health and well-being.

Avoiding Chronic Stress And Burnout

In order to effectively deal with stress, it’s important to understand the root of the stress. Identifying stressors can help you put in place ways to deal with it so it doesn’t build up. If you are stressed about too many deadlines, you can ask for accommodations at work to help you better manage them. If you are stressed about interacting with a particular client, you can ask to be reassigned.

If your source of stress is something that is unavoidable in your daily work activities, it is still possible to manage that stress. Start by establishing a routine. Controlling some of the unknowns in your schedule can help you feel better predictability in your day-to-day routine. Prioritize your day so that you are completing the most important tasks first and leaving the least important tasks until last so that if things carry over it’s not something that is going to stress you out.

When you are home from work, ensure you are following a routine, getting enough sleep, exercising, and eating right. Socialize with friends and family, meditate, and know when it’s time to seek out professional help in the form of therapy, yoga, or even medical intervention.

Not getting enough sleep can lead to burnout and burnout can lead to a decreased ability to sleep. Maintaining a routine with good sleep hygiene, including turning off screens at least an hour before bedtime, can go a long way. Physical activity can also help you burn off your excess cortisol levels. After all, they are an artifact from when fight or flight kept humans alive on a daily basis, so it makes sense that exercise can help.

Learn more about burnout and chronic stress as well as how to keep it at bay from the infographic below. Are you ready to learn how to combat burnout in the workplace?



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Coronavirus is Impacting the Social Media Ads We See

Coronavirus is impacting everything these days, and it turns out that even the ads we are seeing on social media are being impacted by the virus in ways that we had not really been able to predict all in all. The reason behind this is that brands are starting to become a lot more responsible in terms of the ads that they are posting, and the fact of the matter is that this is resulting in the visual landscape of social media being altered so that it is pretty much entirely centered around the outbreak of Covid-19 that the world is currently going through.

A study of the ads that are currently being posted has resulted in a lot of imagery that shows people washing their hands and the like. This is probably being done in order to encourage people to start practicing things like proper personal hygiene which at this current point in time may just be the only thing that could potentially end up preventing the virus from having too much of an impact on the world around us.

Also, an interesting thing to note is that ads focusing on human connection as well as proximity are starting to become a lot less prominent as well, and this is because of the fact that social distancing is necessary in order to prevent the spread of the virus to a large extent. Brands are probably focusing on this to make it less likely that people would think about socializing in general.

"Our computer vision AI identified that social distancing is already showing itself in imagery and video, with a 30% drop in the use of “human connection” imagery just on March 12th. Further, we identified a 12% drop in the use of “human connection” imagery between February and March (e.g. shaking hands, holding hands, hugging, kissing, etc.", explained Bridget Johnston in a blog post. Adding further, "There was an 8% drop in the use of “travel” imagery (e.g. world, flights, control towers, airports, airplanes)".

This does tell us a lot about how we often tend to live our lives and feel things based on the visual input that we are getting. Ads influence us a lot more than we realize, so it’s good that brands are taking this pandemic seriously as far as their ads are concerned.

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• Related: Coronavirus Pandemic – Implications on the World Economy

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Read next: YouTube Will Start Displaying Trustworthy Coronavirus Related Videos On Its Homepage

WHO to the Rescue: WhatsApp Goes Extra Miles to Help People Overcome Fears of Coronavirus

World Health Organization (WHO) is coming up with all possible ways to provide information regarding coronavirus.

Social media platforms including Facebook and WhatsApp are try their best to spread the facts and curb the misinformation.

The struggle of distributing “authentic” content in timely manner is a real struggle, in the past WhatsApp has faced a lot of criticism for facilitating fake news.

The coronavirus that initially originated from Wuhan, China is now stated as a Global pandemic by WHO. With its horrendous outbreak, it has affected millions of people and has claimed many lives already...and it’s still spreading! Almost every country is taking quarantine and social distancing measures to combat the disease.

In these times of global social distress, people are staying at home all the time, with restaurants, bars, malls, and other recreational activities at a halt. This has prompted the extensive use of smartphones and mobile applications, social media sites taking the lead amongst them all. Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp have become the major sources of communication. Recently, Facebook, YouTube, and other applications took measures to stop spreading false news, and now WhatsApp is taking responsible measures in collaboration with the World Health Organization.

On Friday, WHO launched a chat bot for WhatsApp messenger app where it provides details, precautionary measures and other authentic information regarding coronavirus. All user around the world who have Whatsapp installed on their devices can simply start conversation with bot by simply adding this number in contacts +41798931892 and sending a simple hi. This is an effective, easy and safe way to gain information and clear all the misconceptions and myths regarding this pandemic, and the virus itself!

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• Also read: Facebook suggests everybody to take social distancing seriously

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This feature will also provide answers to frequently asked questions about this virus. The Facebook-owned messaging app has launched a Coronavirus Information Center to help you stay up to date with the latest official health information.

It is one of the best steps taken by these social media infotainment sites to help share reliable information and bust the myths and all falsified claims regarding the vicious COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. People need to become more responsible in sharing news too because it is very easy to spread misinformation and propaganda nowadays through these media. This global pandemic is not a joke, as it has now infected more than 265,000 people and killed more than 11,000 globally.

Be vigilant and stay safe everyone! That is the need of the hour.



Read next: Google launches website and tools dedicated to COVID-19

Facebook suggests its users to take social distancing measures responsibly

Because of amid rise in the cases of COVID-19, the Facebook has announced to provide information about coronavirus to its users in USA and Europe that would come in their news feed by setting up coronavirus information center to encourage them to distance themselves socially. The CEO, Mark Zuckerberg said that the main aim to start the service is to ask people to take social distancing seriously.

The information will be provided 24 hours long to around the world by collaborating with known authorities of the world. The CEO said that information center has been set up by collaborating with World Health Organization (WHO) and General Dental Council (GDC). Besides, it was announced by Zuckerberg that the software, communication enterprise and workplace will be provided to the government and emergency center for free for 12 months.

Mr. Zuckerberg further said that the use of Facebook and voice messages of WhatsApp has been increased a lot during coronavirus pandemic and the company is trying to use its infrastructure to support public health and people.

The pandemic coronavirus has brought massive destruction in shares and stock market. The shares of social media plunged more than 33 percent in 2020. Earlier in March, the company stop taking ads and the end of last month- 27th February, the company cancelled F8 Annual Software Developers Conference.

Recently, Facebook asked its workers to work for the social media and company from home. Besides, it is announced to give bonus of $1000 to its 45,000 employees who work as full-time. Moreover, the company will begin $100 million program to assist struggling businesses who suffered because of the pandemic.

Currently, more than 277,000 people are suffering from COVID-19, and 91,981 have been recovered, while more than 11,400 are died because of it, as Worldometers reported.



Read next: Google’s New Doodle Honors Ignaz Semmelweis, the Father of Infection Control