Health and Psychology

One of my students was asking me how many hours a week I'm working.  I think the question stemmed from the fact that I'm seen at school between 8 and 12 hours a day four days a week and the students know it's not my primary job.  So I've been working about 90 hours a week.  The student asked if I was worried about burn out.  Nope, not at all.

Burn out comes from not only doing too much, but doing things that aren't replenishing.  I have some work that pays my mortgage.  It's not teaching.  It's not supervision.  It's not rewarding.  I spend two days a week 8 hours a day  doing that and it's frankly two days a week too much.  It's boring and feels useless.  If I spend 12 hours a day doing that work I will burn out.  If I spend three days doing it I start to feel exhausted and get crabby.  So I spend a lot of time doing something else to replenish myself.

Early on Sunday morning, I go into my office in Santa Clarita.  It's a new building with an atrium and a waterfall.  I go there to write reports, to think and just to relax.  It's similar to gardening.  If I spend a couple of hours a week gardening it makes me feel better.  Those things aren't "jobs."  They aren't work at all.  They certainly aren't stressful.

There are times when psychotherapy isn't work and sometimes when it is.  I started doing psychotherapy with other children my age when I was in grade school.  No one called it  job.  It was called "talking."  As I got older I found out that there was a career field doing what I've done my entire life.  So I started reading psychology and psychotherapy text books when I was in middle school. Eventually I made it a career.

Burnout comes from doing work that's unrewarding, mindless, numbing, and you feel unappreciated.  I try to do as little mindnumbing work as possible in my life.  Fortunately I really enjoy my career.  I do teaching, supervision, testing, and evaluation.  The work is varied.  I have enough time left over from work to enjoy my home life and my garden.  If you are worried that nothing is enjoyable in your life, put in some time to watch the bunnies.