Backlogged with Burnout

As college students, we are at the point in our lives where we are getting ready to move on into adulthood and out into the “real world”. A big piece, arguably the biggest piece, about this next phase of life is starting our careers in the workforce. We get to pick and choose what we want to do for the next 40 plus years of our lives. There is a lot of time, thinking, and preparation that goes into starting our careers with the hopes of being successful. Yet despite this, a problem that often arises in people's work careers is burnout. Burnout is when people have no motivation, energy, or desire to do their jobs (Vîrgă, 2019). It is a hard problem to face, however, there are some ways that we can limit the amount of burnout one might experience.

Suprisingingly, our attachment styles can have a significant impact on whether we experience burnout and/or the severity of it. A study done by Vîrgă et al. (2019) found strong correlations between attachment styles and workplace burnout. Virga and colleagues found that those with secure attachment styles had low rates of burnout as they were more capable of trusting others, and were happier to take on challenges and extra tasks. Individuals with insecure attachments struggled with higher rates of burnout due to letting anxiety about “unmet attachment needs” affect workplace concentration, disruptive job performance, and heightened the need to seek coworkes’ approval. More specifically, those with anxious attachment had an overall less energy, liveliness and physical strength when it came to handling stressful work situations, causing higher levels of burnout and lower workplace performance. Avoidant attachment is very similar to anxious, as they seem to struggle in the work setting but they wrestled with slow turnover and lower levels of organizational commitment. 

Since my friends and I have yet to enter the workforce, I decided to ask my dad what his thoughts were, specifically focusing on his years right after he graduated. My dad and mom were engaged prior to my dads graduation from medical school, so he already had an established attachment style when starting his job. My parents both have a secure attachment style with one another and have since they first started dating. 

“I think that since your mom and I had this secure sense to our relationship, it made the transition from school to work a lot easier. It was a godsend to be able to go home from working my 12 hour hospital shifts to someone that I knew loved me and cared about me. Being freshly out of school, I think if there were any issues with our relationship I would have not been able to handle both that and work. Which isn't to say that we didn't struggle from time to time, however our ability to smoothly handle any conflict made every aspect of my life a little easier.”

I asked my dad if he was ever worried about burnout in school or work and how he was able to cope with it. 

“There are forsure times when I don't want to go to work, or I just feel like life has me down. I mean even when I was still in school, undergrad even, I would go through what I’m assuming was burnout. It was hard and sucky and it made me question if I even wanted to go on and get my PhD. However, during those times I turned to your mom to help get me going again. We both have this understanding of each other and know the best ways to get us out of those funks. I think it is important to have people like that in your lives, and not just after college but during it too, that are going to be willing to help you out.”

Although Vîrgă and colleagues highlighted how our attachment styles can manifest at work and influence our burnout, interviewing my dad helps shed light on how a secure attachment to a romantic partner can make life a little easier. It can help soothe work stress, and decrease any additional stress at home. These secure attachment styles may help to keep work self cool and collected, but having a secure partner at home is the magic behind the scenes as they reduce burnout at work, and likely school as well!

Reference

Vîrgă, D., Schaufeli, W. B., Taris, T. W., van Beek, I., & Sulea, C. (2019). Attachment styles and employee performance: The mediating role of burnout. The Journal of Psychology, 153(4), 383–401. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.2018.1542375 

Risking It All For Love

During adolescence and young adulthood, people are psychologically developing at a fast rate. One of the biggest things this age group prioritizes is autonomy. Freedom from caregivers, experiencing life on their own, and being able to do whatever they please are typical desires in and around this time in life. With this sense of autonomy often comes risk-taking behaviors. Risk-taking is thought of to be a basic psychological developmental need associated with gaining autonomy (Morsünbül, 2009). 

    Not only are we looking to gain autonomy and take risks during this time period, but we are also starting to form close relationships with those around us. We are learning how to be in a relationship with other people, what kinds of people we want to be with, and also the ways in which we function best in relationships. This is often when we start to realize what kind of attachment style we have. Are we securely attached and find ourselves being confident and having healthy emotional regulation with our partners? Are we anxious attached and clingy and self-doubting? Are we avoidant attached and find ourselves withdrawing from relationships and hiding our feelings? Or are we fearful attached and really struggling with anxiety, self-esteem, and trying to avoid being in relationships? Out of these 4 attachment styles comes a lot of variation in the ways that people act both in and outside of their relationship. 

    So, what do risk-taking and attachment styles have to do with one another? Well, according to Ümit Morsünbül (2009), there is a strong correlation between types of attachment styles and risky behavior. People with secure attachment styles are less likely to engage in risk-taking behaviors than those in anxious or fearful attachments. Avoidant styles show less risky behavior than anxious and fearful attachment, but more than secure attachment. This is because individuals with positive attachments like secure attachments feel more comfortable and confident in their relationships and therefore do not feel the need to lash out and engage in risky activities. Individuals who have less positive self-view in their relationships, like anxious and fearful, are often uncomfortable in their relationships and have poor coping strategies.

    With a curiosity about wanting to see how this correlation between risk-taking and attachment styles held true in my life, I talked with one of my close friends, who we will call “Nate” for confidentiality reasons. Nate is the kind of guy that everyone knows as the “guy who gets around”. Nate never commits to a single relationship and would rather just bounce all around our friend group. He is also the one in our group that is always doing ridiculous things. From backflipping off tables at the bar to jumping in the fountains in Old Town, Nate is not one to shy away from danger. Knowing this I thought it would be interesting to talk to him about his attachment style. According to Nate, he doesn't like the idea of being in a serious relationship.

    I don’t want to have to rely on anyone to make me happy. I also don't want to have the pressures of being that for someone else. I wish I was the kind of person that would take it [dating] a little more seriously but it just seems like too big of a commitment for where I am right now. 

From listening to him talk, I would say that Nate has a fearful-avoidant type attachment style. He avoids commitment to serious relationships and seems to have a ton of anxiety about that commitment as well, and although his self-esteem might not seem too low when he is with our big group of friends, Nate tells me that he is worried that he wouldn't make a good partner. 

    I feel like I am not good in 1-on-1 relationships. I think I’m better in a group setting which is why I think that I am always doing silly things to make everyone happy. 

    Just like Morsünbül’s study found, Nate and his attachment style seem to maybe be a reason why he is okay with engaging in risky behaviors. His self-esteem in relationships is not very high and he has a tendency to want to avoid any form of real commitment.

    Being a little risky every now and then can be fun and exciting, but there comes a point when we cross a line over into dangerous behavior. So next time you find yourself taking one risk or many, think about the “why” behind it. Why are you doing it? What is fueling this behavior? Is it our fears? Do we have a person who we trust to talk about this kind of stuff? Whatever the reason is, more likely than not, your attachment style is related. 

Reference

Morsünbül, Ü. (2009). Attachment and Risk Taking: Are They Interrelated? World Academy of Science, Engineering, and Technology, 3, 630–634.

1,500 Miles

     Transitioning into college can be tricky and overwhelming for many students. Leaving home and moving away, making new friends, adjusting to new freedom, and several other reasons can make this time in our lives hard. For some individuals, it can be even more challenging when you are in a relationship. Many relationships that start in high school end up becoming long-distance ones, once partners go off to college. Maintaining these long-distance relationships can look different for different couples based on their attachment styles. Securely attached couples tend to be better off in long-distance relationships than in other attachment styles (Pistole et al., 2010).

My sister Makayla, for example, is in a long-distance relationship with her boyfriend Quincy. She goes to school in Texas and he goes to school in New York. That's just about 1,500 miles and a 23-hour car ride (without stops) away from one another. They have been doing long-distance for about 18 months now at this point and they have had their fair share of struggles. When asked about the challenges of being in a long-distance relationship, she replied with…

“Holy cow, I don’t even know where to start. For beginners, it's super sucky to not be able to physically see and hug him since he is literally 1,527 miles away from me, and yes I memorized that number. It is also annoying to only be able to talk over the phone or on facetime; it gets really old after so many times. The time difference also sucks and it is a lot harder to make time for one another when we both have different things going on in two different places.” 

Following up on that I gave her a mini-lesson on the attachment styles and she determined that she and Quincy were most similar to secure attachment. I then asked her if she thought her and Quincy’s understanding of one another and secure attachment made it easier to handle being apart from one another. 

“Oh for sure it does. My ability to trust him and for him to trust me makes life so much easier. We also are both super understanding of what each other needs and the struggle of not only being in college but also trying to manage long-distance. We have developed a great communication system between us and I think that has been a huge help alongside just trusting each other.”

This ability for securely attached relationships to do better in relationships like this is not uncommon. According to Pistole and colleagues (2010), individuals who have a secure attachment often have more confidence and motivation to in handling relationship problems. Individuals with other attachment styles, especially fearful attachment, are often seen using less conflict management behaviors to solve issues in long-distance relationships which tends to cause strain in relationships. 

But don't worry if you feel like you don't quite have a secure attachment. It does not mean that your long-distance relationship is doomed. There are a lot of ways to change your attachment style and to better understand it in general. In fact, there are several posts on this blog that have great advice, I would recommend checking them out. 

Makayla and Quincy are just one example of a successful long-distance relationship. Many things help make the distance more tolerable, and trusting one another, communicating with them, and being understanding are just a few ways to do so. So whether you are 100 miles or 1,527 miles away from your partner, having a secure attachment style can make doing long-distance just a little bit easier.

Reference

Pistole, M. C., Roberts, A., & Chapman, M. L. (2010). Attachment, relationship maintenance, and stress in long distance and geographically close romantic relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 27(4), 535–552. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407510363427