Burnout in Cyber Security Professionals: What it is and How to Prevent

Studies have shown that burnout affects 84% of working millennial. Burnout is not just some unpleasant thing that happens to you at work one day that you forget about the next day. Burnouts can take weeks and even months to recover from. Almost 50% of the people who have experienced burnout have left their jobs because of it. Read the complete article below to know what burnout is, how it happens and how you can prevent it.

According to psychology, burnout is a state of physical and mental exhaustion that happens when you have been under stress for a long time, or you overwork yourself to the point of breakdown. People who work in professions that deal with a lot of pressure, deadlines, stress, conflict and politics could feel this way more frequently than others. Even those who are not happy with their work and want to quit the job but are not able to can experience burnout more often than others. If you are working as a CEH i.e. a Certified Ethical Hacker, or a cyber incident handler, then this could be a common experience for you. But there are ways that you can deal with it and prevent it from happening again.

Burnout in Cyber Security Professionals: What it is and How to Prevent

Burnout does not just happen to working professionals, it also happens to students. If you are learning something as technical as ethical hacking online, and then you could be a frequent victim of this. Make sure that you have incorporated self-care in your day and allowed some time for recreation and entertainment in your routine that you can enjoy without guilt. Below are suggested a few things you can do to fix this problem and make sure that your work/study makes your life easier and not harder at the end of the day.

The first thing you could do is identify what causes burnout in your situation. When you recognize the root of the problem, you can go ahead and solve it the right way. For example, the reason could be that you are doing the work of two people or that you’re not happy with your department or that you’re not able to reach your work/study deadlines or that you are stressed about your relations with your batchmates or colleagues. The more you narrow down your problem, the easier it will be for you to address it efficiently.

The second thing you can do in such a situation is that instead of panicking or spiralling down into a negative hole, you could admit to yourself that you are indeed having a burn out and let yourself relax and rest to overcome it. The worst thing you could do is to overwork yourself again in order to catch up with the pending work lectures and backlogs that resulted due to the burnout. Make sure that you are giving yourself enough time to recoup from this and revitalize your energy for a fresh start.

Some other common methods of avoiding burnout are organizing your life, setting goals, exercising regularly, meditating and finding out your ‘why’ or your purpose for working or studying. Once again, remember to go back to the reasons that are causing the episodes in the first place and then address them accordingly. You can take help from the Internet to know more about this issue or talk to someone who has experienced it as well to get some perspective and helpful guidance. Burnout is a very common sight in today’s highly competitive, stressful and fast-paced world. We should not make the mistake of taking it lightly as a work-related or study-related incident. These unpleasant episodes can have a negative impact on our personal lives and can hamper our overall well-being if not addressed properly.