Cristina Martinucci | MY SPECIAL DOCTOR

Burnout

7 February 20246 January 2024 by Cristina Martinucci

There is a lot of talk about burnout, a highly topical phenomenon in the world of work, in companies, but also in other contexts.
The term “burnout” originated in the 1940s in aeronautical engineering, then since the 1970s has been used in psychiatry.
Burnout is not a disease, but a syndrome characterized by extreme fatigue, loss of interest, cynical attitude, decreased performance, and prolongation and chronification of a state of excessive stress.
Which people are at risk? Why are some people affected more than others?Some people are more vulnerable than others for personal reasons, because they are too demanding or too perfectionist, because they have low self-esteem or live in excessive competitiveness. Personalities therefore who have too much control, high professional expectations, and who, when subjected to environmental situations, such as the demand to produce more, become overwhelmed. They cannot say no, have migraines due to the load of thinking, have negative competitiveness, while they should review the management of their priorities.

The clinical picture of burnout, manifests itself at four levels
1. Significant stress: Physical and emotional exhaustion. Depersonalization, cynicism, and indifference. Dead-end feeling and self-loathing.
2. Affective symptoms:depression. Emotional literacy I don’t understand what anxiety means-
3. Cognitive symptoms:Feeling of failure. Loss of trust, guilt.
4. Physical symptoms:Headache, nausea, sleep disturbance. Chronic pain.

It is important, however, by going through a diagnosis, medical history, analysis, and clinical examination, to rule out all somatic causes before arriving at the point of talking about burnout syndrome.

Since this is a common issue that affects employers and employees, it would be helpful to understand what the risk factors are for specific workers so that a prevention system can be set up and the burnout patient does not feel guilty.
In fact, the affected person will experience very difficult times getting back into shape. But even when he returns to work, he will have to integrate again. He will have to deal with the awkwardness of colleagues and the prejudices of management. Because often, in such a situation, there is a lack of communication/information and support from the relevant people or bodies.
The burnout incident can happen to anyone, but it is possible to return to normal life and work with momentum and satisfaction.
The person who has gone through this experience will tend to protect themselves, inevitably focus, remain attentive to themselves, their body’s messages, and pay attention to their emotions (sadness, anger, fear, shame, etc.). She will also see them as important messages, learn to accept them, let them come, but at the same time manage them so that she is not completely invaded or driven by them.
We live in a world that is hyper-connected, we are hyper-stressed, sometimes we live at 100 per hour, never taking breaks, never recharging our batteries. We operate in automatic mode as if we were robots (non-stop).
It is up to us to interrupt this process and let go of what is too much for us. We cannot do everything perfectly!
It is very important to create a vacuum. Downloading the cortex is crucial. Being anchored in the present here and now will give intensity to your daily life.
Let’s pay attention to the words that put us under stress: must, should have, should have been…..
There is a need for a change of perspective, even in language !
In hindsight, letting go, balancing, and working on yourself through attentive and professional help allows us to find ourselves and live life with pleasure.

Anger, sometimes a bad counselor

7 February 20246 January 2024 by Cristina Martinucci

How do you feel when someone insults you, verbally attacks you, or looks at you with eyes full of disapproval, contempt? When you feel threatened, judged, unappreciated and unloved? An angry reaction is triggered in you. You feel like a fire burning inside you, and this immediately makes you react explosively, screaming loudly or looking for the most unpleasant words to hurt the person who, in your opinion, caused your suffering. Anger is an emotion that, like all emotions, has its reason for being. In fact, it originated as a derivative of the survival instinct. It activates, in the brain, chemicals to trigger the reactions necessary to physically defend ourselves from violence (escape, attack, etc.). However, if these substances remain in our bloodstream for too long, they will not only have a toxic function for our body but also activate disproportionate and impulsive reactions. The initial illusory satisfaction, resulting from our angry reaction and the adrenaline that is activated, turns into discomfort, guilt, and frustration at hurting someone and failing to respond differently. But we can get rid of these pervasive and unpleasant emotions!Therefore, it is important to recognize in advance the signs of rising anger, of this flame that feeds on resentment and grows larger and larger until it creates an ungovernable fire. Does this mean that it is better to keep quiet and keep the anger inside? Wouldn’t it be worse to repress everything? We can use nonviolent communication, in which we acknowledge the right to our anger, say clearly what we think and how we feel, but not necessarily using aggressive words, which are harmful to all parties involved. For example, instead of pointing the finger by saying “you,” the person who needs to express his or her opinion about an injustice suffered can say “I” by expressing how he or she has felt “…assaulted, abused, judged, insulted, humiliated …” If we ask the question, “Will you allow me to tell you something unpleasant?” the other person has the option to agree or disagree. If he agrees to listen to you, it means that his brain is already ready to receive information. Let us remember that we can always make choices. Indeed, we are responsible for our actions, our language, our behavior, our emotions; we have the power to choose what is beneficial or toxic in our lives. Instead, we are not responsible for how others react or the state they are in. If we acknowledge our anger, if we look it in the face without denying it, we are already on the right track. We can then learn to regulate these outbursts, to limit them as much as possible or to transform them in a positive way to avoid being completely overrun by them.

What if we rewrote our history!

5 February 20246 January 2024 by Cristina Martinucci

By Cristina Martinucci – Life Coach, NLP, Lausanne, Switzerland

We have had life experiences that have marked us as human beings. Our life consists of a series of magnificent experiences that have taught us a lot and even provided us with the keys to some doors to embark on the following adventures.

We rarely try to remember all the wonderful adventures that have enabled us to become the people we have become. On the contrary, we tend to get stuck in the negative experience, to remember especially the difficult experiences, which we did not want, did not like, and in the worst cases even traumatized us.

Some experiences have so moved us that the repetition of a painful experience frightens us. We drew hasty conclusions. By making certain decisions, we created beliefs, convictions in a certain situation that led us to behave in a certain way. Since then, we have not questioned them and behave in this way to protect ourselves, to avoid suffering and, as a result, we get results that sometimes prevent us from advancing and living life fully and from achieving the results we desire.

Our internal and mental systems are not always easy to understand. But when we are faced with the sometimes difficult reality that we are stuck in, do we not know consciously what is blocking and why do we always reproduce the same situations?

For example, “Why do I often attract bad partners who make me suffer?”, precarious jobs that I have to change all the time, difficult interpersonal relationships, “I can’t tolerate my colleagues anymore!”, a shortage of money, “My weekends are difficult,” loneliness, “Better to be alone than badly accompanied,” insecurity, “I can never sleep alone at home,” lack of confidence, “I’m afraid of public speaking.”

The thing I have learned and experienced on a daily basis, which has completely changed my outlook on life, is that we have the ability to choose and transform any situation we experience, at any time. I love the word “power”-the power is in us and no one else unless we authorize it ourselves.

We can continue to complain about something wrong or a decision made long ago. We can play the role of the victim by attracting again and again the same situations that lock us into a problem, into suffering or we can finally take responsibility by choosing to change our attitude. We become actors and transform our experience by doing something constructive with our baggage (complete positive and negative package). This will take us to another level of understanding, to integrate all the learning we can find in every experience and continue to live our lives fully in the best version of ourselves.

So we can change our life story, create the reality that we like and inspire us and make us dream of being like the people we admire around us, like our role models, our youngest children, our superheroes. Anything is possible !!! We just need to decide again which side we want to be on and from which point of view we want to see things.