Burnout is now an official medical diagnosis, according to the International Classification of Diseases handbook (ICD-11). Per the ICD-11 handbook, someone can be diagnosed with it if they’re lacking energy or exhausted, distancing themselves mentally from their job or feeling negative about their job, or not producing quality work.

However, before your doctor diagnoses you, they should consider other possible disorders, as well. It also can only be diagnosed for work-related reasons and not other life-related reasons.

As funeral directors, you have one of the most stressful jobs out there. You have a lot on your plates from funeral planning and consoling grieving families to event planning and running a business. That’s why you may be more at risk of developing burnout.

Let’s further discuss burnout and ways funeral directors can prevent it.

What Is Burnout?

Burnout develops when someone has overwhelming job-related stress. It can affect you mentally and physically, potentially leading to other problems if not addressed. It also may start out as compassion fatigue, physical and emotional exhaustion that caregivers like funeral directors may experience. Compassion fatigue often happens quickly, while burnout slowly develops over time.

Ways Funeral Directors Can Prevent Burnout

The main ways to prevent burnout are through exercise, healthy eating, relaxation, and doing what makes you happy. Below are a few ideas:

• Go for a walk or run.
• Take a class at your local gym.
• Find some new healthy recipes to try.
• Sign up for a cooking class.
• Read a book.
• Treat yourself to a spa day.
• Spend time with family and friends.
• Do one of your favorite hobbies.

For even more self-care tips, download our free self-care eBook and check out issue 11 of The Meaningful Funeral — which is all about self-care for funeral directors!

How Frazer Can Help

Here at Frazer, we design our funeral home websites and other features with funeral directors in mind. We know you have stressful jobs, so we want to help make things simpler wherever we can. Our goal is to provide you with the tools to make your jobs less stressful and quicker and easier without sacrificing quality.

For example, our websites integrate with the top funeral answering services, data management software, and our Tribute Center personalization suite. These integrations eliminate duplicate and tedious tasks that can cause funeral directors unnecessary added stress. This is just one of the many ways we work to make funeral directors’ jobs a little less stressful.