Atlanta’s ThreeBestRated Award-winning Psychologist, Dr. Rebecca Johnson Osei, gives tips to overcome burn-out stress induced by WFH

The COVID-19 pandemic has extensively afflicted the routine modalities and functioning of the IT firms and other industries around the world. Almost 90% of the IT workforce has been working from home (WFH), confined to their residential spaces. Working at a time of distress is always uncertain and chaotic. It has severely affected the mental health of the employees working from home. Several news articles flooded the internet concerning the struggles they face due to elongated hours of working at home and various other factors causing work-induced burnout stress and other psychological issues.

“Burn out occurs when we are taking on a lot at once and don’t have an outlet to either get support or process the stress and difficulties that come up.”, says Dr. Rebecca Johnson Osei, Psy.D., ABPP. Dr. Johnson Osei is a 2020 Three Best Rated® Award-winning psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. She gives a few tips to overcome the burnout stress caused due to working from home during the time of the COVID-19 crisis:

• Make sure you have someone you can talk to. You don’t even actually have to talk about work or stress with them, you may want to talk about something completely unrelated, but having that social outlet, having someone that you feel is there for you and listening to you, goes a very long way.

• Establish clear time boundaries for when you are “at work” and when you are “at home” and do your best to protect them. Feeling like we can never put our phone or computer down because we need to be constantly “on” for work can be exhausting and does not allow us space to relax and decompress.

• Define your workspace: wherever you plan to do your work from home, define that location as your “office” and stick with it, be it a true home office, a guest room, or a corner of your dining room table. Having a defined workspace can further allow you to mentally compartmentalize when you are “at work” versus when you are “at home” and allow you to literally get away from your home office when you need to.

• Be mindful of the contributing factors to your current stress. While working from home always comes with particular challenges, working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic brings its own unique set of stressors. You are likely worried about the health of you and your family and may have additional financial concerns and greater parenting responsibilities. Make sure you take time to examine these concerns and determine where you can make changes to decrease your stress. Then consciously choose not to linger on the aspects which you cannot change. It may also mean limiting the amount of news you consume related to issues that are particularly stressful to you.

• Take time for self-care. The more you can do to decrease your baseline stress level, the easier it will be to not only manage your daily tasks but the better equipped you will be to cope with additional concerns that come up. Self-care includes doing all of the above, as well as making sure you are taking time for regular meals, setting aside enough time for showers/baths/other forms of physical self-care, getting enough sleep, and taking time each day to remember to breathe and ground yourself.

Dr. Johnson Osei’s tips are a simple guide to everyone who is looking for pieces of advice to manage their stress and would be very effective in maintaining good mental health during these uncertain times.

About DR. REBECCA JOHNSON OSEI, PSY.D., ABPP

Dr. Johnson Osei is a renowned psychologist, licensed therapist, and life coach in Atlanta, GA. She is the founder and CEO of Concierge Psychology. She started Concierge Psychology to provide flexible and customized therapy addressing everything that concerns her patients. Dr. Johnson Osei prides herself on providing the highest level of service and mental health care possible throughout her practice. She feels honoured to be listed as one of the ThreeBestRated Psychologists for four years in a row. In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, she has been rendering telepsychology services and utilizes technology to provide virtual visits online.

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