It isn’t a stretch to say that universally, people are feeling burned out these days. Whether it’s because of ongoing COVID-19 ramifications (the top cause today) or good old-fashioned job stress, the majority of burnout cases have one thing in common – high-intensity emotions.
According to Yale lecturer, Emma Seppälä, any kind of high-intensity emotion – be it fear, joy, rage, or anything in between these feelings – can lead to sheer exhaustion after a certain point.
And while these emotions are completely justified in today’s tumultuous world, it’s also apparent that the range of extreme emotions one can feel in an ordinary day is widening, making burnout all the more inevitable.
What Seppälä says many people don’t know is that those positive, high-intensity emotions, while contributing to burnout in their own way, lead to a feeling of “crashing” after elation rather than the soul-sucking despair one often tends to feel after experiencing a wave of negative emotions.
The exhaustion one experiences may feel different depending on the emotions inspiring it, but the outcome is often the same – a complete and total depletion that “taxes the body.”
Seppälä also points out that some people experience emotions in a more acute fashion than others, with “15-20% of people” being classified as “highly sensitive.” People who fit into this category may be more susceptible to exhaustion from high-intensity emotions.
The past few years have been extremely emotionally polarizing, with things like social media, social justice movements, elections, and, yes, pandemics jeopardizing the otherwise-calm natures of many across the world.
Burnout isn’t surprising in a world in which one can see every public thought each member of their family has had in the last decade, nor is high-intensity emotions becoming more present a shock.
Seppälä posits that the solution to living in such a world is emotional balance, which entails making intentional time for calm, low-key activities to counteract some of the more stressful ones you may encounter from day to day. Staying off of social media, setting boundaries with friends and family, and participating in the news cycle during the day rather than before bed are all good examples of ways to minimize your stress throughout the week.
It’s a stressful world we live in, and if this last year and a half has taught us anything, it’s only going to get more stressful. Emotional balance, where possible, is perhaps the best solution to an otherwise ubiquitous problem.
Jack Lloyd has a BA in Creative Writing from Forest Grove's Pacific University; he spends his writing days using his degree to pursue semicolons, freelance writing and editing, oxford commas, and enough coffee to kill a bear. His infatuation with rain is matched only by his dry sense of humor.
