October 1, 2021
What psychological research suggests about how to recognize and overcome it
Candice Roquemore Bonner, PsyD, a clinical psychology resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, knows the parenting-while-working juggle well. She moved to Boston with her two children to begin her residency in June 2020, functioning solo until her husband could join them. Managing her burgeoning career and her family’s well-being—all during a global pandemic—often left her own self-interest neglected. As a result, she said perpetual exhaustion and high-level irritability became part of her daily routine.
“I’ve been a working student and parent for 5 years, so it’s been a constant juggling act,” Roquemore Bonner said. “But this year elevated my sense of burnout because there was simply no escape.”
The United States has mostly lifted pandemic restrictions (and reinstated some to protect against the COVID-19 Delta variant). Birthday parties are in full swing, youth sports are back, and families are rushing from one activity to the next. While this may be the light at the end of the tunnel people had been eagerly anticipating, parents never had a chance to recover from pandemic burnout before bursting into this new Delta variant phase—which only heightens their risk for issues going forward.
Burnout, a syndrome characterized by “emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and a decrease in self-fulfillment,” is a result of chronic exposure to emotionally draining environments (Rionda, I. S., et al., International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Vol. 18, No. 9, 2021).
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