Going to work, taking care of the children, shopping, participating in a physical activity… Our daily lives are often busy and hectic. It is therefore not always easy to find time to breathe and it is possible to feel overworked: emotional overload can then occur. "The latter is characterized by a feeling of overflow. We do not’is better able to perform simple and usual tasks such as playing with his children or going to dinner ", explains Charlotte Wils, coach-psychopractor and co-author of Affective charge (ed. Larousse).
Affective charge brings together all of our emotions. When overloaded, a person may experience fatigue, loss of appetite, lack of zest for life, anxiety, irritability, and sleep disturbances. This phenomenon can lead to emotional burnout which is the combination of mental load and emotional load.
Emotional overload: what are the causes?
Several factors can lead to emotional overload. Charlotte Wils explains that the triggers for this feeling of overwork can be:
- overwork
- the arrival of a child
- a change of job
- the wish to accomplish several tasks at the same time
- the lack of time to rest
- investment in various professional and / or personal projects
Emotional burnout: how s’get out ?
There are several solutions to get out of this permanent state of overwork. First tip: take the time to breathe and breathe. You can go for a walk in nature or practice a sport outside. Charlotte Wils also recommends stopping all intellectual activities for a while in order to establish a connection with her body and nature.
"Some people decide to start coloring, d’other s’take care of a plant or an animal to get better. The most important thing is to do things slowly and to s’give a real break. During the day, you can switch off your phone and social networks to take a breather and really look at the environment around you ", emphasizes the specialist.
How to prevent emotional overload?
It is necessary to delegate certain tasks in order to slow down the pace. Depending on the nature of the obligations, you can hand them over to your colleagues at work or to your spouse at home. Charlotte Wils also recommends giving up certain activities in favor of quality over quantity.
"A feeling is a message that gives us information. It is therefore important to carry out internalization work in order to understand what she wants to tell us ", she explains. You can also use nonviolent communication to exteriorize your emotions to a person. In particular, you can tell him "when you say that sentence or that word, I'm hurt " or "it hurts me when you act this way ". The goal is to separate the person from their actions.
It is also important to pay attention to your relationships to prevent the risk of emotional overload. "We s’sometimes gets used to harmful relationships. We must then do a real job of observation. At the end of a meeting, ask yourself this question: 'Does this m’Was it good to see this person? '", indicates the coach-psychopractor. The environment, relationships, work and place of life are essential factors that can positively or negatively impact the emotional load. It is therefore better to preserve them in order to avoid emotional overload or even emotional burnout.
Thanks to Charlotte Wils, coach-psychopractor and co-author of La charge affective (Larousse ed.)
Read also :
⋙ Burnout while working from home: advice from a psychologist to avoid it
⋙ Mental load, professional stress: how to fight against these "new stresses"
⋙ "Have you thought about?", The Instagram account to better understand the mental load