It will not surprise anyone to hear that a lack of sleep is a foundational element to many forms of burnout. When we don’t get enough sleep, nothing works as it should. Our bodies don’t have the energy they need. Our minds can’t come up with clear ways forward.
This isn’t just intuition. In a 2012 study published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, researcher Marie Söderström and colleagues at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute tracked hundreds of working adults over two years and found that insufficient sleep predicted who would later develop clinical burnout. The relationship works both ways — sleep deprivation depletes the body’s energy reserves and activates its central stress-response system, both of which fuel burnout, and burnout, in turn, disrupts sleep further. It’s a vicious circle, and sleep is one of the clearest points of entry to break it.
The whole “eight hours” rule may very well be a myth. Some people might regularly need nine. Others might only need six. Everyone is different. But what is near-universal is that none of us can live a healthy, balanced, sustainable life unless we regularly get enough sleep, whatever “enough” means to each of us.
Similarly, but perhaps less appreciated, water is perhaps equally important, not just to our physical health, but to our daily energy. Even mild dehydration — as little as 1 to 2 percent of body water lost, which most adults experience at some point most weeks without realizing it — has been shown to worsen mood, dull concentration, and increase fatigue. If you are feeling down, drained, despondent, you can go to therapy. For many of us, that is a great call. But also try simply drinking more water every day than seems reasonable.
Get more sleep. Drink more water. Move your body more. Go outside more. Eat whole, green foods as much as possible. All of these things will help you establish life rhythms that supply you with energy, rather than draining it from you. You’ve heard this all before.
What might be new is transforming these from “nice-to-haves” when there’s time to your new #1 job. Most of us have our paid jobs. Those usually get top billing. We work them into our schedule first (usually way oversubscribed to begin with) and then try to fit everything else into an overcrowded calendar. Sleep, exercise, good food, etc. are the first on the chopping block.
Flip the script. Try earnestly making sleep your top job. Do whatever you must to get the sleep you need. Then do whatever you must to move your body and get outside every day, or whatever feels most vital to your well-being. Then fill in your paid work around that. Let yourself be as willing to do without every seemingly crucial work task just as much as you have let go of sleep in the past.
