First off, let’s define burnout. Burnout is a psychological condition, much like depression. It is usually a result of prolonged stress which leads to diminishing interest in the things that you normally do as well as feeling exhausted all the time. However, if you are a caregiver, it’s quite hard to distinguish psychological exhaustion from real physical exhaustion and more often than not, you find yourself too busy to even care.

Being always on the go doesn’t help either, but be forewarned that no matter how you love what you are doing, working too hard will always lead to burnouts. Also, bear in mind that burnouts are quite a silent killer – that you are most likely to find yourself experiencing meltdowns before you even realize that you are indeed burned out.

Experts say that, of course, there are telltale signs of burnouts, you just have to spot it ahead of time so you’ll avoid meltdowns and be able to allow yourself a little breathing room. Below are some of the signs you might want to observe to know if you are indeed burnt out:

• Your drag yourself out of bed every single morning. Like you don’t want to ever leave your bed anymore and just sleep your day away. Most likely, you’ve burned out because you spent the night thinking of the things you need to do the next day, or you’ve reached your maximum physical energy limit and was too tired when you hit the bed last night! The only solution you have for this is to set a reasonable – but strict – time for your caregiving duties and like you would in an office, you leave your “work” behind as you prepare for sleep. Of course, there could be emergencies in the middle of the night but surely emergencies don’t happen every single night so you can still relax most nights right?
• You can’t keep track of your things. Your stuff is a mess and you can’t even remember where and when you last saw your mobile phone. This is because you run back and forth to do errands for your senior that you barely have time to recover. This, of course, causes you to burn out. To combat this, allow yourself 15 minutes every morning to prepare for the work ahead, like warming up before a workout routine.
• You unintentionally skip meals. Actually, it’s more like losing track of time? If you are too busy to even remember your last and next meal then you are definitely burning yourself out.
• You just can’t seem to finish a task. or you are longing for your tasks to end. or you’re always starting something new when you aren’t even finished with your other tasks. A lot is going on and it is definitely bad for you as the pressure of completing all your tasks in record time can be quite tiring.
• You experience foggy mind. A lot. This is actually a bad sign as it only means your mind cannot take it anymore and threatening to shut down.