Many women feel tremendous pressure to be perfect and excel in all areas of their life. However, being a great mum, keeping the house and your appearance how you want it and having a highly successful career all at the same time is exhausting. Even the most dynamic woman will run the risk of burning out if they try to sustain that level of being the very best at everything. People will say ‘take it easy and stop being such a perfectionist’, but we know that usually isn’t an option. Fortunately, it is possible to do it all - if you practice self-care.

What Women Do

It’s a fact that women do more unpaid work than men even when they also have full time and demanding jobs. Not only is this physically taxing, there is also the emotional labour to consider, resulting in stress and anxiety. The Mental Health Foundation reported that women are twice as likely to suffer anxiety as men and the added emotional load is a likely cause.

Put all this physical exertion, emotional stress and worry together and it can lead to burnout.

What is Burnout?

There is more to burnout than just being exhausted or feeling very stressed. People experiencing burnout can feel incredibly drained and suffer physical symptoms, but they also feel very demotivated, struggle to concentrate and lose their creativity. It isn’t just a high work load and stress which causes it though. Feeling unsupported and unappreciated can be big contributors to burnout as can feelings of being treated unfairly. Although people generally experience burnout through their jobs, it can also happen through family life.

Burn out signs include becoming withdrawn from family and friends, getting into bad habits like drinking too much, not eating properly and not getting enough sleep. A general feeling of dissatisfaction with things is another symptom of burnout as is being continually preoccupied with work or other things that need doing. 

The Role of Self Care

Women who dedicate so much of their time to caring for their family and/or working extremely hard in their profession can end up sacrificing their own needs. Adding a little self-care into your life can stave off burnout. People think self-care needs to involve large amounts of time and being selfish but that is not the case.

Self-care starts with just being aware of your own wellbeing and accepting that it’s important to keep you performing at your best. That leads to a willingness to dedicate small amounts of time and brain space to looking after yourself. What constitutes really effective self-care will be different for everyone but the important part is taking time out, even if it’s only 10 to 15 minutes a day, to do something that allows you to totally relax and let go. Some things people do to relax for a short time are:

• Meditation 

• Yoga

• Breathing exercises

• Reading

• Gardening

• Chatting to a good friend you can totally relax with

• Walking or running

• Crafting

Basically, anything you can do that stops your mind worrying about various things and gets you away from the demands put upon you will be very beneficial in supporting your mental health and preventing burn out.

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The Float Spa in Hove offers classes and services which are absolutely ideal for preventing burnout. Our yoga class timetable is packed from the early morning until the evening with yoga classes to maximise mental and physical wellbeing. Floatation therapy allows you to relax completely for an hour while floating free from the ravages of gravity.  

Other services include a variety of massage types, complementary therapies and an infrared sauna to help relaxation and detoxing. 

www.thefloatspa.co.uk