There are many emotional drains in life that can trigger negativity. These drains can be work-related, lifestyle issues, or personality traits.
No matter the cause, these emotional drains can wreak havoc on your life if you let them. It can affect all aspects of your life, including your professional life, relationships, and overall well-being.
It might lead to loss of motivation and constant fatigue, and there will be no sign of relief. Before it gets to this point, it’s important to figure out what causes the emotional drain.
Fifteen Emotional Drains That Can Trigger Negativity
Do you feel overly pressured by life? Avoid these fifteen things. They can impede your ability to be optimistic, which research proves can reduce your physical and mental well-being.
1. High-Pressure Jobs or Heavy Work Loads
Having a heavy workload also contributes to an emotional drain, and that could include schoolwork, too. Working long hours without time for relaxation or socialization can quickly lead to problems.
When you are required to constantly engage with your job, co-workers, or bosses, it can lead to burning out. It will cause you to feel like the work never ends, and you’ll never be able to have downtime. While this may sometimes be unavoidable, you have to have time for rest and recuperation.
2. Feeling Like You Have No Control Over Your Life
Autonomy is necessary for humans because it allows us to feel like we are in charge. When you don’t have the autonomy, however, it can lead to emotional strain.
This could happen when you lack resources to get things done because you’ll feel like getting things done is impossible. Another time this might happen is when you feel like you don’t get a say in decisions.
You may feel this way in the work environment if your boss calls at all hours, even on your days off. It will leave you feeling like you are always on call and unable to lead a life outside of work. This causes you to feel out of control because you have no say in your life.
Another example of experiencing this in the workplace is constantly changing priorities. It’ll leave you feeling like you can never get ahead, which causes serious burnout.
3. Despising Your Job or Not Getting Recognized
There could be many reasons why you hate your job. Sometimes it’s as easy to pinpoint as not being recognized for your hard work. Other times, it may be a little more difficult to figure out.
Think of the type of work you are doing. If it is monotonous or too easy, consider if either of those things is the issue. Sometimes you need to challenge yourself and try new things to avoid emotional drains.
When you feel unrecognized or like your work isn’t challenging you enough, consider your options. You could ask for a promotion or for a raise, or maybe even for extra vacation time. Figure out what would make your job worth it, and then ask for that.
Other reasons you may despise your job could include the following:
-unfair treatment of employees
-no say in your schedule or workload
-unclear or confusing expectations
-constant chaos
-bad attitudes of co-workers and superiors
-micromanagement from your boss
4. Having a Baby or Raising Children
Both the mother and father can experience burnout from parenthood or having a new baby. There are different types of burnout parents can experience, including emotional and physical exhaustion, frustration, or defeat. Plus, parents can experience a mixture of those emotions, making the situation even worse.
Once you figure out what the types of emotional drains you’re experiencing, you’ll be able to get control of them. Then, you can figure out a plan for making the situation easier instead of letting it become more negative.
5. Financial Problems or Potential Homelessness
Anyone would feel emotionally drained if they were facing homelessness. Any financial problems can cause an emotional drain, however. It can cause a loss of hope for the future, which will lead to unnecessary spending, making the situation worse.
Plus, calling companies to deal with your missed payments can cause an overwhelming amount of stress. This leads to avoiding the calls, furthering your financial troubles. Creating a budget can be stressful, but doing so can help with your emotional strain.
Buying stuff you can’t afford or making yourself feel better with retail therapy can cause burn out, as well. It’ll set you further behind in the future, and those fixes aren’t as easy to handle.
Getting ahead of your finances and avoiding excess spending can reverse these emotional drains. Then, you won’t have this negativity in your life, and you’ll be able to look forward to a better future.
6. Taking Care of a Loved One
When you are taking care of a loved one, it will be hard in all aspects. Oftentimes, caregivers become emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausted. This can lead to a negative attitude, which is detrimental to you and the person you’re caring for.
Usually, caregiver burnout happens when there is no one else to help out. Plus, if you are giving more help physically or financially, than you can handle, it’ll lead to emotional distress. If the situation isn’t improved, it can lead to stress, anxiety, depression, and fatigue.
7. Going Through a Divorce or Other Upsetting Life Event
Divorce and other upsetting events such as death often have the same emotional repercussions. The processes tend to be drawn out and demand much focus.
It is important to find something that takes your mind off the situation for a while in both situations. If you don’t, you will trigger negativity, and the situation will become even harder.
8. Suffering from a Chronic Illness
Being diagnosed with a chronic illness can be both a positive and a negative event. It is positive in the sense that you now have answers and can begin to understand your situation. On the other hand, it is negative because now you have to accept the situation.
Acceptance can be hard, and it is a process that takes time. You may experience anger, denial, depression, isolation, and grief during it. Sometimes, hopelessness and a feeling of being out of control will follow.
Suffering from a chronic illness means your life changes completely, so feeling emotionally drained is understandable. However, you have to find a way to get through it so that the negativity is minimized.
9. Dealing with Injuries That Interfere with Your Normal Life
When you are used to living your life a certain way, an injury can be devastating. It may force you to take a break from your work and spending time resting and healing. For some people, this is emotionally draining.
While resting, you will have more time to think and become bored or restless. After some time, it can lead to depression, stress, anxiety, and lowered self-esteem. Another common emotional drain is that you may feel hopeless and that you’ll never fully recover.
10. Lack of Balance Between Home and Work
As explained before, your work life can be a huge source of burnout and mental exhaustion. Those reasons were all different, however, because they were only related to work. Lacking balance between your home and work life can be a difficult source of negativity that is important to address.
You have to switch off work mode at the end of your day and focus on your home and personal life. If you can’t do this, you’ll bring work negativity back home, and it will impact your family and relationships.
Finding a way to leave your work at work (or at least on your desk) will allow you to enjoy life. You’ll be able to bond with your family and work on your hobbies. Both of these things are essential to living a fulfilling life.
11. Too Many Responsibilities Without Help
In all aspects of your life, you will become emotionally drained if you take on too much. When you realize you have too much on your plate, you should ask for help. Otherwise, more negativity will pile on, and you won’t be able to do anything productively.
If you don’t ask for help, you feel the need to be in control and figure out how to change that mindset. You have to delegate tasks and ask for help, or the emotional impact will worsen.
12. Not Having Supportive Relationships or People You are Close To
Personal relationships are important when it comes to your emotional well-being. Reach out to the people you care about and spend time with them. To establish supportive relationships, you have to spend time together and build trust.
Make sure to take the time to do this. Then, your emotional drains may reduce as you have something to look forward to. Knowing you have support can be life-changing, and it’s important if you want to live more positively.
13. Lack of Sleep
Research shows that if you aren’t getting enough sleep, your emotional well-being severely suffers. It can cause irritability, stress, anxiety, and depression. Make sure that you are getting enough sleep so that it doesn’t lead to negativity.
14. Need for Perfection
If you are always striving for perfection, you will become emotionally drained. You will feel like nothing you do is ever good enough, leading to negative self-talk. Eventually, it will cause depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem.
15. Pessimistic Thoughts
Have pessimistic or negative thoughts all the time can have a severe emotional impact on you. This will lead to further negativity in all aspects of your life.
While you may think the pessimistic thoughts aren’t affecting you, that is not the case. These thoughts will negatively impact your personal life and your professional life.
You may notice you are overly pessimistic if you first look for the negative things in all situations. It can also be the feeling of helplessness and having no hope for the future.
Final Thoughts on Emotional Drains That Can Trigger Negativity
By avoiding these emotional drains that can trigger negativity, you’ll be able to lead a more positive life. If you let the feelings continue, however, it might trigger negativity. Remember these emotional drains the next time you feel like you are struggling. If you can pinpoint what is draining you, you’ll be better able to get it under control.
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