Empathy Fatigue - it IS a thing

Do you sometimes feel like you’ve run out of empathy? Is your empathy feeling more like a burden or an obligation but you’re not feeling it? Could there be such a thing as ‘empathy burnout’?

So many of my clients tell me that all the disasters and painful events they see on screens daily can be just too much and they start to tune out. Many also tell me they feel this way in their personal or professional lives, when they have been empathising with others and their troubles all day or over a lengthy period, and now they feel numb. Does this resonate with you? Have you ever felt empathy for a long time but eventually you find yourself feeling 'done'?

Empathy fatigue is actually a thing, and it can impact our personal feelings of safety and even our mental health – never mind that at the end of the day we have less empathy remaining for our loved ones. Although sometimes conflated with compassion fatigue, (which is most common in people in the health-care or caring professions), the symptoms are the same and include exhaustion, irritability, feelings of numbness, withdrawal from connection or the ability to actively care, and often reduced levels of quality of work, study, or ability to focus. We are ALL subject to the experience if we don't take care.

Research has shown that it happens gradually (much like low-grade stress for those of you familiar with that term), and is exacerbated by emotional contagion – when the brain has mirrored the emotional state of others and has struggled to differentiate between the self and the other’s distress – over an extended period without the ability to emotionally self-regulate or sufficient time to recover. The resulting ‘burnout’ is defined as ‘chronic mental, emotional and physical exhaustion known as empathy fatigue.’

So, what to do? Well, here's a suggestion I know, from experience, really works:

First, create a habit of self-assessing: ask yourself what is going on in your day-to-day right now? Are you losing sleep? Becoming anxious generally? Do events you have no control over create personal stress, making you unable to think or talk about other things?

Next, if you answer ‘yes’ to any or all of these questions, it’s time to pace yourself; how much information are you taking in that is actually helpful to you and any advocacy you may be doing, and how much is draining and becoming harmful to you?

This could be a great moment to journal –without judgment– just to ground your self-observation and help you take onboard what you find.

Then, check in your body: are you having physical stress symptoms? It could be time to adopt some in-the-moment habits, for example take 30 seconds for some slow long exhales, and then slow your breath for a few moments. Pick something you regularly do anyway to anchor that habit of taking those breaths (such as whenever you walk through a certain doorway or have a drink of water).

Use this slow breath and tension release to create an internal emotional boundary, keeping you tuned in with empathy, but with a ‘switched on’ brain, minus your own internal stress-response.

Done regularly, this super-simple ‘checking in’ can make a huge difference. Once it has become a habit, you can begin applying it whenever you feel you are emotionally mirroring whoever you are with or when information on screens you are interacting with is draining you.

Prevention is of course the long-term solution, and requires the capacity that we all have to emotionally self-regulate and self-care in practical ways, ways that creates boundaries while maintaining healthy empathy, to become active abilities and skills.

If you recognise yourself and you’d like help with this, or more information, contact us for a free consultation, and together we can explore whether coaching or one of our programs or books could help you!