哈喽大家五一劳动节快乐！今天是开心地出去玩了一天，还是待在房间享受自己的小天地呢？既然是劳动节，我们今天就来看一篇关于劳（工）动（作）的文章，看大家能不能和笔者感情共鸣。

How to avoid burnout and thrive at work

如何避免工作倦怠并在工作中成长？

当我们面对慢性压力时，仅仅依靠瑜伽和专注力时无法解决的。

At some point in our careers many of us will experience work-related stress that leaves us struggling to cope. But how do we know when we’re experiencing burnout and what can we do about it?

不可数名词，表示“（因拼命工作导致的）精疲力竭”，英文解释为“the feeling of always being tired because you have been working too hard”举个🌰：

Many of the teachers are suffering from burnout.

许多老师劳累过度。

Burnout is more than a general feeling of malaise that a bit of yoga, a meditation app or a week in the sun will fix. Its three key symptoms are: overwhelming exhaustion; feelings of cynicism and detachment leading to a sense of ineffectiveness; and a sense of lack of accomplishment at work. This is not just a feeling of dissatisfaction. It is a prolonged response to chronic stress that can lead to being signed off sick, as well as high blood pressure and even depression.

不可数名词，表示“不安; 不适”，英文解释为“Malaise is a state in which people feel dissatisfied or unhappy but feel unable to change, usually because they do not know what is wrong.”举个🌰：

He complained of depression, headaches, and malaise. 

他说他有情绪低落、头痛和不安的症状。

不可数名词，表示“人皆自私论; 愤世嫉俗论”，英文解释为“Cynicism is the belief that people always act selfishly.”举个🌰：

I found Ben's cynicism wearing at times. 

我觉得本的愤世嫉俗论有时让人烦。

不可数名词，表示“冷静，超然，客观”，英文解释为“the state of not reacting to or being involved in something in an emotional way”举个🌰：

He felt a sense of detachment from what was happening around him.

他对周围发生的一切有一种超然的感觉。

该短语有多重意思，此处表示“（医生）给某人开病假条”，英文解释为“if a doctor signs someone off, he or she gives them a note saying that they are ill and not able to work”举个🌰：

For the last month, she has been signed off sick from work.

上个月她请了一个月病假，没有上班。

In an essay that went viral early in 2019, BuzzFeed writer Anne Helen Petersen explains how she and fellow millennials became “generation burnout”. She describes it as an unavoidable condition: since childhood we have been taught to “optimise” every part of our lives in order to be successful.

She writes, “We’re deeply in debt, working more hours and more jobs for less pay and less security, struggling to achieve the same standards of living as our parents, operating in psychological and physical precariousness, all while being told that if we just work harder, meritocracy will prevail, and we’ll begin thriving.”

表示“精英管理制度；贤能社会“——A meritocracy is a society or social system in which people get status or rewards because of what they achieve, rather than because of their wealth or social status.

Millennials are under acute pressure. They face a challenging economic climate and difficult job market, which is forcing many to become “generation rent” or “generation live at home”. Not only are you meant to have an amazing job and personal brand, you’re meant to actively promote it at every opportunity via social media, thus fuelling the constant comparison and competition online. We have an insatiable thirst to succeed; we want it all and when we do get it, we’re still looking for more — we’re always working.

表示“无法满足的; 贪得无厌的”，英文解释为“If someone has an insatiable desire for something, they want as much of it as they can possibly get.”举个🌰：

A section of the reading public has an insatiable appetite for dirty stories about the famous. 

阅读大众中有一部分人对名人的风流韵事的欲望总是无法满足。

Add to this a relentlessly online and always-available workplace, and you have the perfect conditions for burnout.

Dani Nicholls, 24, a freelance digital creative consultant, made the decision to leave her role at a tech start-up after experiencing severe burnout that left her “completely exhausted and ill”.

She says, “I reached the point of complete burnout last Christmas, I was depressed; I couldn’t stop crying”. Office perks that seemed attractive — such as free coffee and yoga sessions — were part of an office culture that glorified 14-hour work days. Ms Nicholls would answer emails and WhatsApp messages at weekends and across different time zones.

表示“（工资以外的）额外收入（待遇）、津贴”，英文解释为“something that you get legally from your work in addition to your wages, such as goods, meals, or a car”举个🌰：

I only eat here because it’s free – one of the perks of the job.

我在这里吃饭只是因为不用花钱——这份工作的额外好处之一。

表示“美化”，英文解释为“To glorify something means to praise it or make it seem good or special, usually when it is not.”举个🌰：

This magazine in no way glorifies gangs. 

本杂志决不美化各种犯罪团伙。

“I realised it was time for me to leave when the chief executive was messaging me on Christmas Eve after I expressed I was ill and I had booked it off. I was not meant to be working and I was sick and they wouldn’t stop badgering me to jump on conference calls.”

表示“病休”——to take a period of absence from work due to illness.

表示“纠缠”，英文解释为“If you badger someone, you repeatedly tell them to do something or repeatedly ask them questions.”举个🌰：

They kept phoning and writing, badgering me to go back. 

他们不断打电话、写信，缠着要我回去。

Millennials might identify burnout — and be willing to talk about it — but it is a phenomenon that affects millions of people of all ages. According to a UK-wide survey in 2018 by the Mental Health Foundation, almost three quarters of more than 4,500 adults surveyed (74 per cent) had at some point over the past year felt so stressed they were “overwhelmed or unable to cope”.

Michael Leiter, professor of organisational psychology at Deakin University in Australia, studies burnout. He says: “The prime cause of burnout is a mismatch of how people want to work and the actual conditions of work. This mismatch can concern workload, your autonomy, the reward and or recognition system, the way you interact with other people, or the quality of justice or fairness at work. A mismatch on core values — doing a job about which you’re indifferent or even hostile contributes to burnout.”

此处作动词，表示“（活动、情况、规则等）对…有影响；与…相关”，英文解释为“if an activity, situation, rule etc concerns you, it affects you or involves you”举个🌰：

The tax changes will concern large corporations rather than small businesses.

税收变化影响到的将是大公司，而不是小企业。

People who regularly have to navigate hostile and alienating environments are at high risk of burnout. In my book Slay In Your Lane, I explored why so many young black women experience the impact of race-related stress in the workplace. Having to work twice as hard as their white counterparts, not being compensated fairly, and not being able to be themselves at work all contribute to chronic stress and could easily lead to burnout.

可作及物或不及物动词，表示“理解，应付（困难复杂的情况）”，英文解释为“to understand or deal with something complicated”举个🌰：

A solicitor will help you navigate the complex legal system.

会有一位律师来帮助你应对错综复杂的司法制度。

I am currently trying to navigate through a whole stack of information on the subject.

我目前正在设法整理有关这个问题的一大堆信息。

Professor Leiter advises taking steps to stay ahead of burnout. “Prevention beats cure hands down. Prevention takes a lot less effort and has much better chances of success than cure,” he says.

“There is a limit to what ‘self-care’ can do as some jobs and some combinations of job-with-life-situation can be nearly impossible to maintain. Certainly, living a healthy life with fitness, food, sleep and relationships will serve anyone well no matter what they aspire to. It may be that the extra edge of a healthy lifestyle is just what you need to make a job manageable. But I doubt you can count on that. I think improving the job situation and how it fits with your life needs to be part of the equation.”

表示“（须综合考虑的）影响因素；（多种因素的）综合体”，英文解释为“the set of different facts, ideas, or people that all affect a situation and must be considered together”举个🌰：

The tourist industry forms a crucial part of the region’s economic equation.

旅游业构成该地区经济总量中至关重要的一部分。

Burnout isn’t just a reaction to a bad job — you can love your job and still experience it. It’s often how we have to do our work that triggers burnout.

Bruce Daisley, Twitter’s vice-president for Europe, is author of The Joy of Work and host of the workplace culture podcast Eat Sleep Work Repeat. I asked him for advice on avoiding burnout, and he cited the need for a greater separation between our work and personal lives: “The more that we can create a separation between what we’re trying to do in our work time and going home and reinvigorating ourselves, the better. Don’t email at weekends, it is one of the quickest ways that kills our creativity and reduces our energy levels”.

One small step in this separation, Mr Daisley says, is to “reclaim lunch breaks. The simple act of taking a break improves our judgment and energy as we tackle the afternoon.”

Research has shown the importance of carving out alone time and switching off from technology, which is usually not possible at work. Taking regular assigned breaks to do something away from our various (work and personal) notifications, even if it’s just 30 minutes a day, makes a huge difference. For me, swimming for an hour allows me to get back to work feeling recharged and inspired.

表示“凭自身努力获得”，英文解释为“If you carve out a niche or a career, you succeed in getting the position or the career that you want by your own efforts.”举个🌰：

Vick carved out his niche as the fastest quarterback in American football. 

维克凭借自身努力成为了足球队中最快的四分卫。

Burnout is a warning that your current working patterns or environment are bad for you. It is often hard to ask for help, but change is vital: if you are feeling apathetic and ineffective, then your colleagues have probably already noticed.

The writer is co-author of ‘Slay in Your Lane: The Black Girl Bible’

来源：FT中文网

- END -

「持续行动第五年，LR是怎么做到的？」