1. How my introversion protects me from burnout

I used to think that being a very introverted person was a burden I was saddled with from birth, but I have come to appreciate it as a way my body forces me to protect myself. Introversion is defined thus; “Introversion is a personality trait that is characterized by a tendency to be inwardly oriented and to gather strength or energy from being alone rather than from the company of others. …”. This means that introverts gain energy from spending time alone and lose energy from spending time around people.

The way introversion affects me is that my body cannot handle as much social interaction as I might desire to do. Socializing with someone I do not know well, or being more than two people, will more or less drain my energy. Highly stressful situations, like unstructured group conversations or socializing in a noisy place, bleeds out my energy. I am usually completely drained after 30 minutes. Emotional stress highly affects me, and I usually cannot take it for more than a few days. Being hungry or having a lack of sleep also affects me in a major way; it stresses me out and often makes me weep. Unhealthy eating makes me drowsy after a few days. If enough of these things affect me, I get sick. I used to be sick after almost every weekend of partying. As early as last year, I attended a 5 day event. From the second day onwards, I started every morning by emptying my guts. On the third day, I was so sick that I had to sleep for most of the day. I was sick for a week after I came back home.

So how is all of that useful? It is useful, because it forces me to take care of my body. If I don’t eat well and healthy, sleep well, exercise, manage my socializing, and manage my emotional stress healthily, the backlash is almost immediate. For my body, the upside to this rapid deteroriation, is relatively rapid regeneration. I would never be able to work myself to a burnout, because my body would quit after 3 weeks. But then it would also be back in action after, at most, a month. Often when I am crying from hunger, I can just eat, and then I feel fine. And when I do take care of my body, I can work a lot. A lot. A few days ago, I left my home at 08.30 and I did not return until 21.00, and I was happy and energized when I came home. As I see it, I don’t pay a higher price for putting my body under pressure compared to other people, I just pay the price now, instead of later. Because I do think that when someone experiences burnout or gets sick from stress, that is because the consequences are delayed. And those consequences are awful. Burnout can literally change you brain for the worse. Compared to that I really prefer just getting the flu everytime I overwork myself to remind me to take care of myself.