Spot the signs of burnout syndrome 2:22
(CNN) --
Whether it's caring for children, parents, co-workers or our community, many people feel utterly burned out by all the extra caregiving tasks that have been thrust upon us as the The pandemic has disrupted daily life for the past two years.
Prioritizing the needs of others, once again, may seem like the worst way to relieve burnout.
But what's called "caring for one another" is actually the key to well-being, explains Jamil Zaki, associate professor of psychology at Stanford University and author of "The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World."
Although helpful, self-care isn't the only ingredient for happiness and peace of mind, said "The War for Kindness" author Jamil Zaki.
How could caring for others help heal the exhaustion we feel?
Zaki shared the counterintuitive, science-based truth.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
CNN: Can caring for others really be more satisfying and sustainable than caring for ourselves?
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Jamil Zaki:
What's interesting about this question is how retrograde our intuition tends to be on this topic.
One of the most optimistic, uplifting, and reliable findings in social psychology in the last 10 or 15 years is that helping others provides a fast track to improving our own well-being.
Spending money on other people makes you happier than spending money on yourself.
Helping someone overcome their stress reduces your own.
Spending time helping other people makes you feel like you have more time for yourself.
Here's a less inspiring but equally reliable finding: People don't know these truths.
If you ask people what makes them happy, they say that they prefer to spend money on themselves.
When people feel short of time or stressed, they are less willing to help others, even though helping others would actually alleviate these problems.
Because of these perceptions, we often employ poor strategies to seek our own well-being, instead of listening to the evidence.
CNN: Are you suggesting that self-care and time for oneself is not good for us?
Zaki: Not
at all.
But by themselves, they don't seem to be the source of happiness, well-being, and peace that people sometimes think they are.
When we feel lonely or stressed, our mind can convince us to surround ourselves and think only of ourselves.
This can be a completely counterproductive strategy.
The lonelier a person was in a given year, the more self-focused they were that year, according to a 10-year longitudinal study.
But the more someone focused on themselves in a given year, the more lonely they became the following year.
What is the formula to reduce loneliness and increase happiness?
This is a huge problem in our culture because of the hyper-individualistic narrative that we are taught.
The pressure to reach and meet our own goals, and then prove to ourselves that we are happy by buying elite consumer goods, drives people right into this spiral.
If you have the misconception that the best way to find happiness is to buy a bunch of stuff, it's really not your fault.
Unfortunately, what you have been told is often wrong.
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CNN: How can we reframe how we think about caring for others so that our efforts benefit us rather than exhaust us?
Zaki:
Actually, the benefits don't come from the act of helping itself, but from how we interpret it.
If we focus on the burden or responsibility, rather than the difference we're making, or why we care about someone enough to help them in the first place, the effort tends to wear us down.
If instead we focus on the benefit of our care or how we are nurturing our connection with the person we are helping, that very act can uplift, calm, and reinvigorate us.
Cellist Jodi Beder performs a daily concert in her driveway in Mount Rainier, Maryland, on March 30, 2020. Beder started the performances to help her neighbors cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Intention and concentration also help.
Go from your perspective to theirs and focus on what is happening to them.
Forging that connection can relativize our own stress and make us feel more secure than we are.
CNN: You write about the healing power of stepping out of our own little narratives. What are the best ways to get that global perspective?
Zaki:
Connecting with others is often hampered by our incessant self-talk, which is amplified when we're stressed.
Stress can trap us like plastic wrap, closing us in on ourselves.
One way to break through the envelope is to enlarge the vision of our own life.
This is called "release from bondage".
If we can rise to 3,000 meters, we can ask ourselves: what is the panorama of my life?
How do I want it to be?
Then we can zoom out even further into the bigger picture of my family, my culture, our civilization, our universe.
Caring for others can help us connect, pulling us out of the quicksand of self, the trap our minds sometimes become.
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CNN: How is self-compassion related to empathy?
Zaki:
Unlike self-care, like taking a bubble bath, relaxing with Netflix, or other activities that disconnect us from what is causing our suffering, self-compassion involves facing our suffering and acknowledging that we are in a difficult time.
The key is to be kind to ourselves through our suffering, treating ourselves as we would treat someone we love.
The worst thing to do is what Buddhism calls shooting a second arrow by adding shame or feeling bad about feeling bad.
Once we have self-compassion, we can connect with other people who need us.
The basis of empathy in adolescence is safe relationships at home, according to a study
CNN: What is the impact of suffering on empathy?
Zaki:
There's a lot of evidence that when people experience trauma, they become kinder, at least for a while, and especially toward people facing similar circumstances.
People who have experienced an assault, chronic illness, or other really serious struggles tend to want to change and help other people.
For example, many veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) become counselors to other veterans with PTSD.
Peer counseling is also very common for people who have experienced addiction.
CNN: Why is it so essential to change your perspective?
Zaki: We tend to psychologically bind ourselves by focusing on ourselves.
A lot of my work is helping people see that knot and untie it.
This time, with work, school, and social support systems disrupted, is stressful.
But remembering our highest priorities, and how each action does or does not match those priorities, can help.
If people are asked to list the 20 things that matter most to them in life, the first ones almost always have to do with being there for others, particularly those we care about.
Community, connection and kindness are perennial values that are at the top of priorities.
We have chosen to have families and live in community for a reason.
Family and community are not always going to make us happy at all times, but they are still the most important thing for us.
Remembering that can give us back a sense of autonomy over our care.
Getting involved in helping others, whether by volunteering at a community soup kitchen or through a self-help group, is an effective way to improve your own well-being, research has shown.
CNN: How have concepts of self-care and caring for others changed over time?
Zaki:
The earliest self-care models were rooted in the community.
In the 1960s, for example, the Black Panther Party established community-based self-care in the form of mutual aid efforts toward preventive medicine, exercise, and nutrition to offset the marginalization that left many black Americans without access. to high-quality health care.
Mutual aid has not been lost today.
During the pandemic, community organizations have sprung up around the world to help the most vulnerable.
The pandemic took away his business, but he managed to reinvent himself by helping others
It is important to realize that in the self-care story, the self is not always an individual person;
it can be a community.
-- Jessica DuLong is a Brooklyn-based journalist, book contributor, writing coach, and author of "Saved at the Seawall: Stories from the September 11 Boat Lift" and "My River Chronicles: Rediscovering the Work that Built America."
Exhaustion