Managing Wellbeing and Burnout - Insights from The Outdoor Connection 2024
How do you manage your own wellbeing and avoid (or recover from) burnout? In this series of articles, we’re sharing key takeaways from some of the sessions at The Outdoor Connection 2024. This time we have some useful tricks to help you manage pressure, stress, and burnout.
The Outdoor Connection is an All The Elements x YHA Outdoor Citizens partnership event, supported by YHA England and Wales, Natural England and Sport England. It brings together community groups, organisations, system partners and brands, working to support access to nature and the outdoors to share experiences, learn from each other and develop new skills.
One of the sessions in our 2024 event was ‘Managing Wellbeing and Burnout’. This session addressed the particular stressors the All The Elements community might feel because of the nature of the work we do, before sharing ways to identify and lessen stress and burnout.
This article is to help you recognise and prevent burnout, but if you or someone you know needs immediate support, advice or professional help, you can find resources and speak to people via:
CALM offers an immediate online check-in and signposting to the most appropriate support (click ‘Get Help’)
MIND offers urgent help, including a helpline, crisis resources and emergency advice.
Find resources for work related stress on the NHS website
The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy can help you find professional support
Meet The Expert:
Kikelomo Grace Agunbiade (she/her) is a qualified science teacher, with a post-grad certificate in outdoor environmental & sustainability education. She provides consultancy on Race & Equality to schools and is currently re-training to become a barrister.
The Nature of The Work
One of the things Kike addressed early in the session was how activism and community work can have specific pressures. It is important to recognise the stressors that might be unique to your community and experience, which you’ll likely be coming across in and outside of your group role.
This is especially true being a leader trying to support others to access the outdoors. “For a lot of people working in the third sector in the charity space, in the not-for-profit space, we think about being driven by trying to make a difference,” Kike says, “often because we feel very compassionate, empathetic towards others, and we want to try and help people. And that gives us lots of satisfaction… But when that is your every day all of the time… it's a giving that can create its own type of fatigue.”
Take some time to think about where's that balance of getting work that gives you real satisfaction, and when does that also create fatigue for you?
Identify Burnout
In order to help lessen and manage burnout, it’s important to acknowledge and recognise what adds stress and pressure. Kike shared some models for helping to understand what can lead to burnout and how to recognise it.
The Pressure Performance Curve
The Pressure Performance Curve is a graph looking at the relationship between how much pressure you are under and how well you are performing in your work or role. Shaped like a curve, it suggests there is a sweet-spot where the amount of pressure is comfortable, or stretches your comfort zone a bit, can lead to productivity and good performance. Kike says that “if you don’t have enough pressure, if there’s no need to do anything, you can actually become quite bored. That can be a not very nice place to be.” Similarly, if you have too much pressure, it can lead to strain and burnout.
The Pressure Performance Curve can be a good resource to refer to in your teams or work, as it can open up conversations about how much pressure you are under, and when that pressure is getting too much.
The Stress Container Model
The Stress Container model is used a lot in mental health first-aid, and it can help you understand what puts pressure on us and adds to stress. It also looks at some ways to address our stress levels. Things that can cause stress include family, money, trauma, health, work and much more. The Stress Container Model suggests that there are helpful coping methods - such as keeping active, speaking to people about our worries, or making time for hobbies - and unhelpful coping methods for stress - such as drinking to excess and overworking.
Mental Health First Aid England has an interactive tool that is useful for explaining the idea.
Methods to Lessen Stress
Five Ways to Wellbeing
Five Ways To Wellbeing is a report from the New Economics Foundation published in 2008 that reviewed more than 400 scientific papers, and identified key things that, if done regularly, can improve personal wellbeing:
Connect to others - such as through events like our online socials, or connecting with other members of the All The Elements community directly.
Keep Active
Take Notice
Give
Keep Learning
Find out more about the Five Ways to Wellbeing on the New Economics Foundation website.
The Prioritisation Matrix
The last model Kike shared was the idea of a Prioritisation Matrix. This can be a really useful way of tackling a heavy workload and prioritising tasks based on two factors – how important a task is and how urgent it is. If something is:
Urgent and Important - Do It Now
Urgent but not Important - You can delegate it to someone else
Important but not Urgent - Schedule a time to do it
Not Important and not Urgent - Don’t do it (and tell people you’re not!)
Other Things That Can Help
Kike also shared some general things we can focus on to help with stress, including:
Sleep Hygiene - be sure to get enough sleep, go to bed and get up on a regular schedule.
Spending time in blue spaces (near water) and green spaces (with grass, plants, trees etc.) has been proven to be beneficial to mental health. Do this away from your group or work context as well. “Particularly if you are doing work on a voluntary basis and you're not being paid for it” Kike says “because that resentment, over time, can make what was your joy, something that you were enthusiastic about, become something that you don't want to do anymore. It can actually put you off the sport or the activity or the place that you fell in love with or the thing that you fell in love with.”
Nutrition can be something that is neglected when we are stressed, but making sure we are eating a balanced diet can physically help us.
Think about what works for you, and speak to others about what works for them.
Further Resources:
Burnout does not have to be an inevitability. Knowing what can lead to burnout and recognising the signs can help you avoid reaching that stage. However, because of the nature of our work, we know that burnout is something many people in the All The Elements community have experienced, are experiencing or might experience in the future.
We hope this article can be one resource to help, and below are some further resources if you want to learn more or need more support:
‘Green and blue spaces and mental health: new evidence and perspectives for action’ is the report from WHO that shows how important nature can be for mental health.
Read the full ‘Five ways to wellbeing’ report from New Economics Foundation
Black Minds Matter UK is a charity connecting Black individuals and families with free therapy by qualified and accredited Black therapists.
MHFA England - offers Mental Health First Aid training online and in person. You can book a course directly via their website.
NCVO offers support for small charities and voluntary organisations, and has guidance on a wide range of topics, from governance to finance. They have a helpdesk for charity related support.
ACVEO is a charity CEO membership organisation. It offers support to CEOs including a crisis service.
NHS Mental Health has links for urgent support, plus a range of tips, specific information about how to lift our mood or ease our anxiety and self-help CBT techniques
Real Self-Care by Pooja Lakshmin, MD is a book exploring what a real practice of caring for yourself could--and should--look like. Using case studies, clinical research, and compassion, Lakshmin provides actionable strategies for real and sustainable change and solace, helping readers set boundaries and move past guilt, treat themselves with compassion, get closer to themselves, and assert their power.
‘Self Care Laid Bare’ is an episode of the podcast Code Switch that shares a convesation with Pooja Lakshmin.
Radical Rest by Evie Muir. Through a Black Feminist, abolitionist and nature-allied lens, Evie Muir takes us on a journey of regeneration that reimagines what a world of true rest – radical rest – would look like, how that would feel. (Evie is an ATE community member. This book will be released in July 2024.)
CALM (click ‘Get Help’)
Find resources for work related stress on the NHS website
The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy can help you find professional support
