Surmenage Or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

There are times when we collapse and carrying out everyday actions becomes almost impossible. It could be a surmenage. If we happen to suffer from chronic fatigue, or overmenage, we can feel overwhelmed. This is why it is important to recognize when it happens; only in this way can we adopt coping strategies.

What are the characteristics of chronic fatigue syndrome? How to deal with it? What is it about? We invite you to take a trip with us to try to answer these questions. Let’s start!

Surmenage: what is it about?

Have you ever heard your mind and body tell you to stop? You may suffer from overmenage, i.e. situations in which we reach the limit and do not know how to manage it.

Although this term is sometimes used to talk about stress, it is mostly about burnout syndrome in the workplace. Precisely for this reason it is also associated with the stress suffered by people in corporate positions of greater responsibility.

It’s a term that is being used more and more often, as one article suggests. It would be a word coined in France and then gradually spread to other parts of the world.

It can be easily confused with burnout syndrome since no official guidelines have yet been established to distinguish them. It is also a word that emerged rather informally.

Characteristics of the surmenage

It is possible to recognize surmenage through its main characteristics. Here are some of them:

• Impatience.
• Strong competitiveness.
• Mental exhaustion.
• Excessive effort at work.
• Thinking too much about the future.
• Feeling that everything must be perfect.
• Little flexibility or frustration tolerance.
• Feeling of being overworked.
• Progressive decrease of energy to do things.
• Insomnia.
• Physical exhaustion.
• Lack of motivation for previously enjoyable activities
• Mood changes. Mainly associated with: aggression, irritability and indifference towards others.
• Muscle and joint pains.
• Psychosomatic alterations.

Because of these symptoms, it can be difficult for the person to do their job properly or lead their life. For this reason, it is a state that must never be neglected, and it is necessary to know how to manage it to achieve greater well-being.

How to deal with the surmenage?

First of all, it must be recognized. We can all feel stressed, and this is normal, as it helps us to be alert and is an essential mechanism for our survival. On the other hand, our psychological musculature has a limit after which our mood begins to erode.

To recognize this we must be attentive to the signals sent by our environment, our body, associated with our results, etc. It is precisely these signs that will indicate that we are going through a moment of particular vulnerability.

We could try to put an end to the day, or to unplug, because if we continue to think about pending issues or go differently than we hoped, we can easily fall into ruminations that can harm us.

Beyond that, we may work on our emotional intelligence to gain greater confidence in our abilities. It is also important to be more optimistic. We can start by discarding negative thoughts and omens of the future that are not helping our mental health.

One of the reasons we reach the limit is excessive procrastination. To prevent overmenage, then, we could start being more productive by setting priorities and redirecting our concerns.

However, we must not neglect the other areas of our life. If we focus only on work, we will neglect other activities that favor our psychological balance.

Conclusions

Surmenage is a disorder that can happen to all of us. Staying away from them helps us lead a better existence.

As Jordi Cebrià-Andreu states in his article on burnout syndrome, overmenage can plunge us into extreme behaviors that alter our self-concept and block us in permanent dissonance.