By Phil Parker, stress expert & founder of The Lightning Process 

Burnout in the workplace is on the rise and with workers undergoing increasing pressures in the current culture of doing more with less,Phil Parker, the author, health visionary and founder of The Lightning Process and one of the world’s leading experts of stress and burnout has shared his expertise on burnout, the telltale signs and how businesses could help to prevent it from happening.

According to the Labour Force Survey, in 2015/2016 stress accounted for 37% of all work related ill health cases and 45% of all working days lost due to ill health, with the main work factors cited as causing work related stress, depression or anxiety being workload pressures, including tight deadlines, too much responsibility and a lack of managerial support.

Phil’s hugely successful, game-changing P4 programme, which is adapted from The Lightning Process, has been going into businesses across the UK and helping business leaders implement pre-emptive processes in the workplace to prevent burnout amongst their workforce.

Phil Parker said “Business can still do a lot to prevent burnout, it’s not too late to nip it in the bud.There are ways to build resilience and peak performance, with huge benefits to businesses who look after staff mental wellbeing. Approaching the problem pre-emptively will hugely future-proof against lost productivity in the corporate world.Preventative support still needs more investment by businesses, not just for the direct benefit of middle management, but for the C-suite also.” 

Mark O’Connor, Former CEO Documedia PLC & Strategic Change Consultant experienced life-changing results after suffering from burnout and exhaustion “I’ve found Phil Parker’s approach to peak performance and business success to be insightful, practical and powerful in changing one’s business.”

Stress, Burnout and Causes: 

Stress is a completely natural response to any threat and produces a very particular set of changes in our body.  This means a body responds in a very similar way to getting sunburnt, drinking too much, interviews, exams and traumatic events.  It switches on a particular part of the nervous system and produces adrenaline, which makes us think, run and act fast, and increase our heart and breathing rates as well as blood pressure.

But the longer we stay stressed, don’t sleep enough or eat properly, then the more likely it is that stress will grow, and possibly even spiral.  Luckily the body has a good system for reducing stress quickly, called the parasympathetic nervous system, which we can learn to switch on whenever we need to calm down. 

Although our body thrives on short bursts of stress and activity, it also gets depleted by long term or repetitive exposure to stresses. This is because stress and pressure switch on certain hormone systems that powerfully change how our body works. This is fine in the short term, but in the long term, stress has a damaging effect on a number of body systems including our digestion, sleep, reproductive and immune system and even our ability to think clearly.

Burnout – The Telltale Signs

Burnout is increasingly common, fuelled by longer hours, tighter deadlines, smaller budgets and ‘always on’ communication that reduces real downtime.

As burnout can lead to poor performance, long term illness, ulcers, chronic pain, failed relationships, depression, reliance on alcohol and other drugs. Many people just about keep it together and don’t discuss their sleep, digestion, health or mental health issues at work, and so the warning signs go unnoticed, often disguised by over-the-counter pills, prescribed or illicit drugs or a stiff upper lip. But unfortunately the body can only take so much, and if the situation is not resolved, it will eventually crumble and breakdown. Here are the telltale signs:

• Poor sleep
• Unsettled digestion
• Heart racing and high blood pressure
• Constantly thinking about work when at home
• Being snappy, irritable, moody
• Never having enough time for work deadlines, projects, family or one’s self
• Poor concentration
• Little social interaction

The P4 Programme & what can businesses can do to prevent burnout:

Phil Parker says “Forward thinking businesses can create environments where they recognise the value of a healthy and happy workforce, and the cost of sickness and churning staff. They can encourage a climate of it being ok and important to take breaks and ask for support and, they can also find ways to reduce some of the pressure. Businesses should increase useful support and training programmes so that their workforce can continue to work together healthily and successfully from the boardoom down.”

 Phil Parker’s P4 programme combines the latest innovations in NLP, coaching and neuroscience and is

 based on the globally successful Lightning Process, which celebrated its 18^th anniversary last month.It provides effective and rapid solutions for burnout and pre-burnout to enhance performance in today’s high pressure environments. P4 teaches the secrets of how to recognise when they are operating in a less than useful way, and to then instead instantly switch into their best self, activating great decision-making, sharp levels of clarity, a powerful ability to motivate themselves and others, as well as excellence in communication.

About Phil Parker:

Phil Parker is an internationally renowned health visionary, humanitarian, PHD researcher, therapist, lecturer and author who founded The Lightning Process in 1999, 18 years ago. Phil has been lecturing in NLP, Self-hypnosis and Hypnosis, Life Coaching and Osteopathy, at both Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels, since the late 1980s. He is the Principal of the Phil Parker Training Institute, where he researches and designs programmes and trains students.  People from all over the world and all walks of life, including actors, celebrities, leaders in business and sports personalities have flocked to the Lightning Process, a high percentage of them have successfully overcome their issues, thereby transforming their lives.  Over 20,000 people around the world have had their lives transformed by The Lightning Process – it has been beneficial for persistent health conditions such as insomnia, chronic fatigue syndrome, acute pain as well as mental health related conditions such as depression, anxiety, panic attacks, PTSD, phobias, OCD, eating disorders, even addictions, and draws upon osteopathy, life coaching and NLP.