Women with a personal drive to do their absolute best as they navigate the balancing act of work and family demands are struggling with compassion fatigue.

UNITED KINGDOM, August 3, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Compassion fatigue happens when you spend too much time looking after others and not enough time taking care of yourself.

It's what happens when those that work in caring professions (teaching, midwifery, nursing, care workers, social workers and health visitors) feel uncared for. When they are exhausted to the point they longer feel empathy toward those who are struggling.

At its most extreme, those that suffer compassion fatigue start to feel helpless and unable, or worse still unwilling to help those in need.

Compassion fatigue doesn't stop at those in caring professions, it can affect anyone with a compassionate nature that is exposed to suffering.

Compassion fatigue can happen to anyone who has a compassionate personality. Especially, if they're the type of person who regularly feels duty-bound, actively taking on the thoughts, feelings and emotions of others.
Compassionate people are often quick to berate themselves and can become their own harshest critics. Their internal dialogue is often unkind and unsupportive. They can tend to feel out of control mainly because they are spending too much time focused on resolving things for others - even when they've not been asked to!

Compassion fatigue occurs for two reasons:
1) When people feel out of control of their lives
2) When people are faced with prolonged personal conflict
The last 18-months has definitely been a time where we've all experienced situations beyond our control and prolonged personal conflict.

Signs of compassion fatigue are; feeling less empathetic, feeling unsupported at work, feeling like life is not making any sense, feeling unable to offer help and support to others, feeling full of dread when it comes to going to work and feeling cynical, angry, irritable and agitated around others.

Symptoms may look like this; headaches, fatigue, heartburn, IBS, unexplained pain, avoidance and unwanted habits and behaviors such as emotional eating, online gambling, and alcohol misuse.

If you feel you're slipping into compassion fatigue with the stresses that have come with living through a global pandemic, there are a few things you can do…
1) Don't wait to be saved! Save yourself first, you'll have heard the recorded message on the aeroplane when you hit turbulence and the oxygen masks come on. It goes something like "Put your own mask on first before attempting to help the person next to you" Well, this applies here too.
2) Look after your basic needs, I know it's obvious but it's still often forgotten, exercise, nutrition, water and sleep.
3) Have boundaries in your relationships and learn how to say NO to things that aren't right for you.
4) When you leave work, make sure you switch off from it. Whether you're working from home or going out to work. It's important to switch off and enjoy your family time.
5) Remember how resilient you are and start utilizing those skills, it'll be your emotional resilience that gets you through this period of life.

Sarah, Founder of The Emotional Health Coach Academy and creator of Flourish, a self-coaching audio course aimed at overwhelmed and exhausted professionals who want to reclaim their inner brilliance so they can go from feeling fatigued to flourishing in 6 weeks or less. Having worked in private practice as an Emotional Health Coach for over a decade Sarah can see clearly how the demands of day-to-day life can have a negative effect on our health and wellbeing. She mainly works with professional women with a personal drive to do their absolute best as they navigate the balancing act of work and family demands.

Dealing with day-to-day stresses of life can cause even the most health-focused, driven, dedicated and passionate professional to become fatigued.

Sometimes those feelings of fatigue can become so strong that life becomes a struggle. It's hard to recognize yourself, your passion and drive can easily get lost under the need to survive another day, leaving us feeling not good enough.

Sarah Brent
Emotional Health Coach Academy
hello@sarahbrent.co.uk