According to the American Institute of Stress, nearly 83% of United States workers experience work-related stress across the country. This stress causes approximately 1 million employees to miss work every day and can lead to drops in productivity. If left untreated, it can even lead to symptoms of depression and anxiety.

This is why it’s vital that you recognize how you are feeling and take time to protect your mental health with self-care. Self-care is an important tool to help manage symptoms of burnout and regain physical, spiritual, mental and emotional balance.

Use these tips from Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) to manage symptoms of burnout with self-care.

1. Recognize how you’re feeling. It’s important to recognize if you are feeling overly stressed and it is impacting your life at work or home. It may be helpful to ask yourself questions such as “Do I find it hard to concentrate?” and “Have my sleep habits changed?” A “yes” may indicate that it’s a good time to focus on self-care.
2. Understand your wellness domains. SAMHSA’s Eight Dimensions of Wellness recommends a broad approach for things people can do to help them feel better and live longer. These areas include social wellness, environmental wellness, intellectual wellness, physical wellness, emotional wellness, spiritual wellness, financial wellness, and occupational wellness.
3. Create a self-care plan. The plan you create should address and include activities in each of the wellness domains that you would like to focus on. You may find that you have things for one domain, a few, or all of them. Create this plan using your computer, your smart phone, pen and paper, or any other tools.
4. Talk to someone you trust. It’s important to identify people in your life that you can talk to when feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or sad. This may be a family member, friend, colleague or mental health professional.

Remember that everybody’s self-care plan and ways of addressing burnout will be different. It’s important to find what works for you. Use these additional tips from MHFA to care for yourself while practicing physical distancing and #BeTheDifference for yourself every day.

You can also bring MHFA at Work to your workplace. The skills-based training can help you and your colleagues learn about common mental illnesses, how to support someone who is struggling, and how to take care of your own mental health.