A person experienced a burnout around 2 years ago that began with heightened focus and stress at work while suppressing negative emotions and physical symptoms. Over time, their memory got worse and they became sick if taking more than 2 days off. It took over a year to recover, going through stages of acceptance, understanding the causes, and slowly implementing new work habits to prevent recurrence like limiting hours and taking regular breaks. Key lessons were that our bodies need rest to heal, it's important to say no and avoid constant stress, and we must experience our emotions to process situations rather than suppressing them.

1. Me and my burnout

2. Me
• Fin Kingma
• Burnout, +/- 2 years ago
SPACEMAP 2

3. Content
• What is a burnout?
• How did it happen? / How could I have known?
• The journey
• Key learning points
3Tuesday, November 13, 2018 Me and my burnout

4. What is a burnout?

5. Stress state
• Heightened focus
• All “non-important systems” are
suppressed
5
Experience stress
create more
adrenaline +
cortisol
•in amygdala (emotion)
•in Hyppocampus
(memory, processing)
Add energy
Heightened focus
+ non-vital parts
suppressed
Tuesday, November 13, 2018 Me and my burnout

7. Healthy levels

8. DANGER

9. How did it happen for me?
Shouldn’t agile prevent these things?

10. My recipe for disaster
• Focus on positivity: always say yes! Even if they don’t ask
• This stress hormone thing is awesome, let’s always work at
150%!
• Suppressing migraine and ‘emotional annoyances’
• Being active in the evenings as well (gaming, surfing, social
stuff)
10Tuesday, November 13, 2018 Me and my burnout

12. How could I have known?
What were the original symptoms

13. I should have known…
• Whenever I took more than 2 day off, I got sick
• My memory got worse (I forgot a lot of appointments, and
everything my friends told me, I immediately forgot)
• I automatically suppressed any negative emotion (even pain)
13Tuesday, November 13, 2018 Me and my burnout

14. The journey
Because you don’t want to try this at home

15. Day 1
• Black out on Friday
• Rest for the weekend
15Tuesday, November 13, 2018 Me and my burnout

16. Week 1
• Went back to work on Monday
• Symptoms now x 10
• Sleeping a lot
16Tuesday, November 13, 2018 Me and my burnout

17. Week 2
• Appointments with doctors
• Still sleeping a lot
17Tuesday, November 13, 2018 Me and my burnout

18. Week 3
• Doctors advise: “no big deal, you can probably get back to work
after 2 weeks. Just go outside more often”
• Occasionally going outside for a walk (in solitude)
18Tuesday, November 13, 2018 Me and my burnout

19. Week 4
• Bookstore, too many stimuli
• I finally admitted this was serious, this would take a long time
• Stage 1: acceptance
19Tuesday, November 13, 2018 Me and my burnout

20. Month 2+3
• Reducing cortisol levels
• During the next few months I hit rock bottom:
• Reading, television, meeting with friends all gave too much stimuli for
my brain. Basically anything fun was off limits
• Due to my migraine attacks, sleeping was difficult
• All I did during these days was meditating, doing breathing exercises
and seeing coaches to help me out of this situation (unfortunately a day
has 24 hours  )
20Tuesday, November 13, 2018 Me and my burnout

21. Month 4-6
• Start analyzing symptoms (who am I? Why did this happen to
me?)
• I can watch tv and read books for 2 hours a day
• Meeting up with peers with similar experiences (max 2 hours a
day)
• Write guidelines: How to never experience this again
• Stage 2: understanding my burnout
21Tuesday, November 13, 2018 Me and my burnout

22. Month 7-10
• Implement changes in my way of working (to make sure I won’t
experience this again)
• Explain the changes I made to my supervisors, get agreement
on them
• Slowly scale up the amount of hours I work (doing internal work)
• Occasionally meeting up with friends and reading books
• Stage 3: implementing changes
22Tuesday, November 13, 2018 Me and my burnout

23. Month 11-12
• Start working for clients (who know about my situation)
• Scale up my hours to the desired 40 hours
• Stage 3: implementing changes
23Tuesday, November 13, 2018 Me and my burnout

24. Key learning points

25. Our body needs us to relax
• Given time, our bodies can heal from almost any wound or
illness
• In our stress state (working at 150%), our bodies cannot heal
any wound or illness
• Meditation and breathing exercise can be used to get back to a
calm state, allowing our bodies to heal ourselves
• Storytime: food poisoning in the car
25Tuesday, November 13, 2018 Me and my burnout

26. Saying no is also actionable
• I learned that ‘no’ can help people as well
• Often its better for both parties if you just say no
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27. Being successful isn’t about climbing the career
ladder
• The career ladder is created by people who want to control us
• Being successful is about understanding what you want out of
life and achieving just that!
• Climbing too fast forces your body into stress state
• For me: living a romantic life
27Tuesday, November 13, 2018 Me and my burnout

28. Experience your emotions
• Experiencing an emotion is your bodies way of dealing and
processing a situation
• Learn to embrace an emotion as an opportunity (your body is
finally healthy enough to deal with something, after a stress
state)
• Suppressing an emotion prevents you from dealing with the
situation behind it
• After experiencing, decide if you want to act upon these
emotions
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29. Questions?
Or witty remarks