Motherhood can be hard, but these 5 warning signs show it’s more than the usual stress, it’s burnout. Here’s what you can do about it.
I was starting to get a little jaded.
Sitting in my 5th doctor’s office, I meticulously laid out my worsening symptoms and waited for the inevitable that comes after I explain I’m a stay at home mom.
“And how many kids do you have?”
I meet his stare as I unapologetically inform him I’ve got 5 kids, 2 with medical and special needs. Then I hold my breath, hoping this time, the doctor will give me the benefit of the doubt to dig a little deeper. Alas…
The eyebrows went up. The eyes shutter and a polite smile appears. To him, the case was closed with an obvious reason for my health problems: I was just a tired mom.
Can I tell you how disheartening and frustrating it was to have those worries downplayed and invalidated over and over again.
Have you also felt that?
Well, let me tell you, you’re not overreacting…
You know your symptoms are not normal. You know the difference between “tired mom” and “something’s wrong”. Things are getting worse and it’s scaring you.
You’re not alone.
This post is going to help you recognize if the warning signs you’re experiencing are more than the normal day-to-day stress of caring for a busy family…and tell you what to do about it so you can wake up enthusiastic and go to bed satisfied after a great day.
How do I know if it’s stress or burnout?
It can be easy to underestimate the effects of burnout. But that’s not going to work for long. Burnout and stress, while having similar symptoms, are very different conditions.
Stress comes and goes with outside factors, like planning a big event for your kid’s school, having a family emergency, even the not-so-small task of getting everyone out the door to make it to church on time.
Stress can be a positive help (no, really!) – it lights a fire under you and intensifies your focus to get a job done on time, and done well. Once the task is completed, the stress is freed with that last checkmark on your list.
While you may look back and remember the event, you don’t feel the same emotions or physiological triggers that come from stress, such as:
- tense muscles
- headaches
- poor sleep
- brain fog
- faster heartbeat
- heightened emotions
- weakened immune system
- butterflies in the stomach
However, burnout…that’s more of a concern.
Burnout is internal and can happen whether it’s a season of rush or rest.
Unlike stress, there’s no break from burnout. It keeps spiralling out of control, having deeper emotional and physical consequences, until you crash, affecting those around you.
Burnout is a slow, destructive mental, emotional, and physical collapse.
Signs of mom burnout
The physical signs of burnout can be similar to stress so how can you tell the difference? By looking inward and assessing your energy, mood, sense of purpose, and levels of mercy as a mom.
Consider the warning signs in this infographic before I explain what I mean.
These signs are substantial compared to the normal stress from an event or singular crisis you’re dealing with.
You can see how they affect your family more than when you are a bit more impatient or snappy because you feel like you’re herding cats out the door or you’re heading to the emergency room.
You don’t want this to get any worse, right?
So let’s take a look at what these warning signs can look like on a typical day as a busy mom. The Maslach Burnout Inventory, after more than 35 years of research, summarizes signs of burnout as dimensions of exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy.
What does that mean for you? In the next section, I’ll break down how the warning signs above translate into mom burnout based on Maslach’s research.
What does burnout mean for my family?
1st dimension: Cynicism (aka Mood & capacity for Mercy)
You know when one of your kids drops something by accident and you lose it…and later on, say “why did I blow up like that?”…well, in this case, you can’t simmer down.
You don’t have the resources left for controlling your temper and calming yourself down. Your kids feel like they’re walking on eggshells from the moment they get up.
Your automatic response is to punish rather than to understand and teach a better way of behaviour. That’s when you go to bed feeling guilty and discouraged, and the negative self-talk can start in, making the cycle worse the next day. And the next.
You can’t stay where you are. You’ll need to take action to ease the guilt, anger, and discouragement that can come from these moments. (Keep reading, I have resources coming to help).
2nd dimension: Exhaustion (aka Energy, Health, & Feeling Numb)
In my personal experience, this is the most downplayed symptom of mom burnout. Yes, moms are tired. No, not to this degree, darn it!
I feel like we’re capable of knowing what’s the norm and what’s scary tired, right? If you’re tired after a demanding day and a poor sleep the night before, that can be a pretty good explanation.
But if you go to bed with nothing left and wake up feeling like you’ve been run over by a truck…and this is happening chronically no matter the quality of sleep, you know there’s something else going on.
Your health is being affected in little and now bigger ways.
You don’t have the energy to make your kid’s more complex favourite meals, date nights with your spouse feel daunting, you start to hole away socially because it’s too costly energy-wise.
You stop playing, laughing, and connecting with your family.
Which isn’t how we want to look back on these years, I know.
3rd Dimension: Inefficacy (aka Sense of Purpose)
When you compare your life right now in burnout-mode to those on Instagram or in magazines, it’s going to affect your expectations, grace with yourself, as well as the belief that you can take small steps to get out of this darkness and into a brighter life.
I find this inefficacy to be the most dangerous dimension of burnout: it’s losing hope in your purpose as a mom.
“The house will just get messy as soon as I turn around”…so you don’t clean it.
“Those moms on Pinterest have it all together”…so you stop planning and taking steps to achieve your goals because…it’s not gonna happen anyway.
“The kids won’t like the healthy meal I should make for supper”…so you cave and get pizza.
This warning sign scares me when I see it. Moms have lost their vision and fire to fight for what they want for themselves and their families.
Are you close to giving up too? Please, mama, fight for a bit longer. It will be so worth it when you’ve overcome this season of burnout.
How did I get here?
There can be a boatload of reasons you might find yourself in survival mode, inadequate self-care being just one example.
If your reason stems from a lack of self-care, then there’s good news: you can easily start nurturing yourself back to holistic health.
In my Soul-Care Sunday Masterclass, I cover 5 areas of need for self-care that are usually unfulfilled in the case of mom burnout.
- Spiritual: if your soul feels like an empty well, there’s a need for growing your relationship with God, and deepening your prayer life
- Emotional: when you’re drained, you lose your creativity, curiosity, and joy in your daily life
- Physical: you tend to skip exercise, healthy eating, and proper rest when you’re overtired
- Social: it can be harder to stay compassionate and patient with your loved ones
- Organizational: when brain fog and overwhelm takes over, you forget things and lose sight of effective systems to stay on top of managing your home
What do I do now?
I can’t stand posts that list trouble areas and then leave you there. Have no fear, I won’t do that to you.
You can see the warning signs in your own life. You know something has to change. And fast.
So, what baby steps can you take now to make steady improvements in your life?
- Catch my Soul-Care Sunday Masterclass to rediscover your energy for the week
- Choose one area of self-care to work on for the next few days: pick one small enjoyable activity each time.
- Make a survival-mode plan for the week: a minimum viable template for cleaning, meal prep, family connection, prayer, like the one in this post.
- Be transparent with your family: let them know (in an age-appropriate way) what you’re feeling and some concrete ways they can help you.
- Get help: talk to your spouse or a trusted friend, pastor, or therapist. Don’t give up after the first, second, or even fifth doctor doesn’t believe you. Be tenacious fighting for a better life.
This season of burnout won’t last forever if you start taking steps now to acknowledge where you’re at and fight for healing. You can do this, mama!
Resources
- Davis, Paula. “9 Warning Signs of Burnout.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 27 Mar. 2015, www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/pressure-proof/201503/9-warning-signs-burnout.
- Paula Davis-Laack (PDL) & Davis Laack Stress & Resilience Institute LLC (DLSRI). “Is It Stress or Is It Burnout?” 2020.
- Leiter, M. P., & Maslach, C. “A mediation model of job burnout.” In A.-S. G. Antoniou & C. L. Cooper (Eds.), New horizons in management. Research companion to organizational health psychology (p. 544–564). Edward Elgar Publishing. 2005, https://doi.org/10.4337/9781845423308.00046
read more:
- Stuck in Survival Mode? Try this One Thing to Get to Friday
- 8 Rules to Thrive in Isolation
- 14 Cleaning Hacks for the Ridiculously Busy Mom
- How to Create an Effective Schedule
Thank you so much for this! Feeling stress and anxiety not knowing what it was and now to find I’m not alone and now that I know what it is I can work on how to make it better! Thank you so much for this post!! You do not know the amount of relief I feel now to have found this! God Bless You!
I’m so glad you found it helpful. I know there’s always a significant drop in my stress levels once I can name the problem and think of the first step. I’ll say a prayer for you & your family 🙂