AP – When Amanda Claypool was 28, she left a government contracting job in Washington, DC, and moved back to her parents’ house in upstate New York while she figured out her next step. Then the pandemic struck, and her temporary return lasted longer than she’d planned.
Living with her parents for several months “helped give me more flexibility to pivot to a new career”, said Claypool, who is now a content creator in Asheville, North Carolina. Her parents covered her expenses related to food and housing. In return, she helped them de-clutter and sell about USD10,000 worth of vintage toys and collectibles online.
Claypool’s decision to return home is increasingly common. The Pew Research Center found that one quarter of United States (US) adults aged 25 to 34 lived with parents or other relatives in 2021 and that the portion of young adults who do so has steadily climbed over the past 50 years.
While moving back home can provide a financial safety net for young adults, it can also negatively affect their parents’ finances and stymie their own growth toward becoming financially independent. Here’s how to navigate inter-generational living so it benefits everyone involved.
COMMUNICATE EXPECTATIONS
Once you’ve decided to welcome an adult child home, then it’s time to set ground rules, said author of Your Turn: How to Be an Adult Julie Lythcott-Haims. Start with a candid conversation about what each party expects. “Get clear on, ‘You’re older now, things have changed. We are happy to support you, but let’s talk about what we expect in terms of day-to-day norms and behaviours,’” she said.
In many cases, she said, it makes sense to treat young adults like Airbnb guests: They will use the kitchen and a bedroom but do their own laundry and some household chores and pay some rent. Barring mental health challenges or another crisis, a young adult should be expected to pitch in financially, too.
PUT THE DETAILS IN WRITING
After you agree to the financial contribution of the adult child, Rodriguez said, put those details in writing. “It helps to have something to reference or to go back and amend,” she said.
Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Family studies at Concordia University, St Paul David Bredehoft suggested solidifying the ground rules into a formal contract. The document should spell out details such as who is doing laundry and paying for utilities and whether there are quiet hours or guests allowed. “Otherwise, it’s easy to slide into old roles,” he said.
TRACK EXPENSES
Accredited financial counsellor and founder of Life’s Jam, a coaching business based in Miami Rachael Bronstein said she encourages parents to track their expenses when they’re sharing a home. Sometimes, she said, they don’t realise how much of their money is going toward the extra food, utilities and subscriptions. “They probably need to go back to their adult children and say, ‘Hey, can we figure this out? I’m paying for a lot of stuff’,” she said.
If parents don’t prioritise their own savings and retirement, then they might need to turn to their adult children for financial help in the coming years.
NEW YORK (AP) – The multiverse-skipping sci-fi indie hit Everything Everywhere All at Once led nominations to the 95th Academy Awards as Hollywood heaped honours on big-screen spectacles like Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water a year after a streaming service won Best Picture for the first time.
Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan’s Everything Everywhere All at Once landed a leading 11 nominations on Tuesday, including nods for Michelle Yeoh and comeback kid Ke Huy Quan, the former child star of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Released back in March, the A24 film has proven an unlikely Oscar heavyweight against the expectations of even its makers. Yeoh became the first Asian actor nominated for best actress.
“Even just to be nominated means validation, love, from your peers,” said an “overwhelmed” Yeoh speaking by phone from London. “What it means for the rest of the Asians around the world, not just in America but globally, is to say we have a seat at the table. We finally have a seat at the table. We are being recognised and being seen.”
The 10 movies up for best picture are: Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Banshees of Inisherin, The Fabelmans, Tár, Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: The Way of Water, Elvis, All Quiet on the Western Front, Women Talking and Triangle of Sadness.
ABOVE & BELOW: Ram Charan and NT Rama Rao Jr in a scene from ‘RRR’; and Michelle Yeoh in a scene from ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’. PHOTOS: AP
FROM LEFT: Combination photos show Oscar nominees for Best Supporting Actress – Angela Bassett in ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’, Hong Chau in ‘The Whale’, Kerry Condon in ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’, Jamie Lee Curtis in ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’, and Stephanie Hsu in ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’FROM LEFT: Combination photos show Oscar nominees for the Best Supporting Actor category – Brendan Gleeson in ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’, Brian Tyree Henry in ‘Causeway’, Judd Hirsch in ‘The Fabelmans’, Barry Keoghan in ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’, and Ke Huy Quan in ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’
Nominations were announced on Tuesday from the academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California, by Riz Ahmed and Allison Williams. If last year’s Oscars were dominated by streaming – Apple TV+’s CODA won Best Picture and Netflix landed a leading 27 nominations – movies that drew moviegoers to multiplexes after two years of pandemic make up many of this year’s top contenders.
For the first time, two sequels – Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water – were nominated for Best Picture. The two films together account for some USD3.5 billion in box office. Tom Cruise missed out on an acting nomination, but Top Gun: Maverick – often credited with bringing many moviegoers back to theatres – walked away with seven nominations, including Best Sound, Best Visual Effects and Best Song for Lada Gaga’s Hold My Hand.
Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, made in the wake of Chadwick Boseman’s death, also scored five nominations, including the first acting nod for a performance in a Marvel movie: Angela Bassett, the likely favourite to win Best Supporting Actress.
Nine of the 10 Best-Picture nominees were theatrical releases – something cheered by Tár filmmaker Todd Field, nominated for direction and screenplay. Field noted the theatrical marketplace – especially the specialty business – is still in recovery mode.
“I hope that the faith and the enthusiasm that’s been paid for theatrical films continues,” Field said by phone on Tuesday from Los Angeles.
Going by earlier guild nominations, Martin McDonagh’s Ireland-set dark comedy The Banshees of Inisherin may be the stiffest competition for Everything Everywhere All at Once at the Oscars.
The Searchlight Pictures film landed nine nominations on Tuesday, including nods for McDonagh’s directing and screenplay, and a quartet of acting nominations: Colin Farrell for Best Actor, Kerry Condon for Best Supporting Actress and both Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan for Best Supporting actor.
Baz Luhrmann’s bedazzled biopic Elvis – another summer box-office hit, with USD287.3 million worldwide – came away with eight nominations, including a best actor nod for star Austin Butler and nominations for its costumes, sound and production design.
Though Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans struggled to catch on with audiences, the director’s autobiographical coming-of-age tale landed Spielberg his 20th Oscar nomination and ninth nod for Best-Director. John Williams, his longtime composer, extended his record for the most Oscar nominations for a living person, and, at 90, became the oldest nominee ever. Williams’ 53rd nominations trails only Walt Disney’s 59.
In the ultra-competitive best actress race, Fabelmans star Michelle Williams was nominated after being passed over by the Screen Actors Guild.
The other nominees for Best Actress are: Ana de Armas, Blonde; Cate Blanchett, Tár and Andrea Riseborough, who emerged as a late contender after a host of celebrities rallied around her performance as a West Texas mother in the little-seen To Leslie. Notably left out of the category were Viola Davis (Woman King) and Danielle Deadwyler (Till).
Only one streaming title broke into the Best Picture field: The German WWI film All Quiet on the Western Front. Though Netflix for the first time in years lacks a possible Best Picture frontrunner, All Quiet on the Western Front landed a better-than-expected nine nominations, including Best International Film and Best Adapted Screenplay. The streaming service also has the top animated film contender in Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, which was nominated for Best Animated Feature alongside Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, The Sea Beast and Turning Red.
Along with Butler and Farrell, the Best Actor nominees are: Brendan Fraser, hailed for his comeback performance as an overweight shut-in in The Whale, Bill Nighy for Living and, in a surprise for one of the most critically lauded films of the year, Paul Mescal, for Charlotte Wells’ father-daughter tale Aftersun.
Brian Tyree Henry landed his first Oscar nomination for his supporting turn in Causeway, in which he starred opposite Jennifer Lawrence. (Said Tyree in a statement: “To the random man in the elevator who saw me scream at the news, thank you for hugging me and not freaking out!!!!!!”) In the supporting actress category, two Everything Everywhere All at Once actors – Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu – were nominated along with Hong Chau (The Whale), Condon and Bassett.
Quan and Chau – both the children of Vietnam War refugees – and the California-born Hsu and the Malaysia-born Yeoh together make it the most acting nominations ever for Asian or Asian American actors. (Some count Merle Oberon, of Sri Lankan and Welsh heritage, the first Asian best actress nominee, in 1936, though she hid her ancestry).
For Quan, a much-loved face of the 1980s from Goonies and Temple of Doom, the nomination was a once-unfathomable pinnacle. After his acting opportunities dried up, Quan quit acting for years before being offered the part of Waymond. Speaking by phone from Los Angeles, Quan remembered having dreams as a child of attending the Academy Awards.
“It just seemed so far-fetched. Especially when I had to step away from acting for so many years, that dream seemed like it was dead,” Quan said. “My whole thing was: I just wanted a job.”
After the Best Director category saw back-to-back landmark wins for female filmmakers – Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) in 2021, Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog) last year – no women were nominated for Best Director. But in the Best Picture group, one of the up-for-grabs final slots went to Sarah Polley’s Women Talking, a parable of sexual assault and justice. Polley was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.
In the end, the Oscar push for the Indian action sensation RRR landed a sole nomination: Best Song for MM Keeravaani’s Naatu Naatu. The Palme d’Or-winning satire from Swedish director Ruben Östlund, Triangle of Sadness, scored three big nominations, for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
Along with All Quiet on the Western Front, the nominees for Best International Film are: Argentina, 1985 (Argentina); Close (Belgium); EO (Poland); and The Quiet Girl (a first for Ireland). The category has been criticised for allowing submissions to be chosen by each country’s government, a process that disadvantages filmmakers. Iranian director Jafar Panahi, whose No Bears was hailed as one of 2022’s best, was imprisoned earlier this year.
Current politics were also front and centre in the documentary category. Nominees include Navalny, an up-close portrait of the jailed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny; A House Made of Splinters, about a Ukrainian halfway house; and Laura Poitras’ All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, about Nan Goldin’s opioid activism. They were joined by the volcanologist romance Fire of Love and Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes, about three men’s efforts to save New Delhi’s pollution-ravaged birds of prey.
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences will surely celebrate a Best-Picture field populated with blockbusters; according to data firm Comscore, their collective domestic box office of USD1.574 billion is the most ever at the time of nominations.
Last year’s awards had been looking like a comeback edition before “the slap” came to define the ceremony.
In the aftermath, the academy banned Will Smith from attending for the next 10 years. Though he could have still been nominated, Smith’s performance as a runaway slave in Emancipation didn’t catch on with voters.
But larger concerns are swirling around the movie business. Last year saw flashes of triumphant resurrection for theatres, like the success of Top Gun: Maverick, but less stellar results for most dramas.
Partially due to an inconsistent stream of major releases, ticket sales for the year recovered only about 70 per cent of pre-pandemic business.
Stocks for streaming services, meanwhile have plunged as Wall Street looked to streaming services to earn profits, not just add subscribers.
Last year’s Oscar broadcast drew 16.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen, up from the record-low audience of 10.5 million for the pandemic-marred 2021 telecast. This year, ABC is bringing back Jimmy Kimmel to host the March 12 ceremony, one that will surely be seen as a return to the site of the slap.
In ushering the festivities for the Lunar Year of the Rabbit, Concept Computer General Manager Vincent Pao and family along with the management team celebrated the new year yesterday.
The celebration at Brilliance Hall, kicked off with the tossing of Yee Sang, a tradition that symbolises prosperity, wealth and fortune in life, career and business.
Members of the media were also invited to toss the Yee Sang.
Apart from celebrating the joyous occasion, the event also served as a medium to foster closer ties in exchanging experience, thoughts and talk about their business background.
Staff of Concepts Computer Sdn Bhd with local media personnel. PHOTO: MUIZ MATDANI
MANILA (AFP) – Two Philippine air force aviators were killed in a crash yesterday, while rescuers were searching for another plane that went missing the previous day with six people on board, authorities said.
During a training, the military’s SF260 Marchetti plane plummeted onto a rice paddy in Pilar town near Manila, killing the pilot and another aviator, Bataan province’s Police Chief Colonel Romell Velasco told AFP.
“It’s a total wreck. The wings were separated,” Velasco said after visiting the crash site.
“No one could survive this,” he said, adding that the bodies have been recovered.
An investigation to determine the cause of the “mishap” is under way, air force spokesperson Colonel Consuelo Castillo told reporters.
In June 2021, the military temporarily grounded its entire Black Hawk fleet after an S-70i helicopter crashed during a night-time training, killing all six on board.
In a separate incident in the country’s mountainous north, a Cessna plane carrying a pilot and five passengers failed to arrive at a remote airstrip on Tuesday, the Philippines’ civil aviation authority said.
The missing plane had taken off from Cauayan airport on a route that would have taken it across the Sierra Madre mountain range, said spokesperson for the industry regulator Eric Apolonio.
Air traffic controllers initiated a “communication search” after the plane did not respond half an hour after it was supposed to land, he said in a statement.
The search and rescue operation was temporarily halted by poor weather yesterday, he added.
TOKYO (AP) – Global shares were mixed yesterday after Wall Street indexes finished little changed as investors awaited earnings results from major global companies.
The United States (US) government will release economic growth data for the fourth quarter today. Economists expect the economy expanded at an annual pace of less than one per cent, down from 1.9 per cent in the third quarter, following a contraction in the first half of 2022. Investors will get more updates on personal spending and income on Friday.
France’s CAC 40 fell 0.2 per cent to 7,040.34. Germany’s DAX fell 0.2 per cent to 15,064.94. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.1 per cent to 7,762.45. The future for the S&P 500 was down 0.4 per cent and that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 0.3 per cent.
On Tuesday, the S&P 500 slipped less than 0.1 per cent and the Dow industrials rose 0.3 per cent. The Nasdaq composite fell 0.3 per cent while the Russell 2000 gave up 0.3 per cent.
Australia reported higher than expected inflation figures yesterday, setting off expectations for another interest rate hike. Consumer inflation rose 8.4 per cent in December, higher than the forecast of 7.6 per cent. It anchored expectations for another 25 basis-point raise from the Reserve Bank of Australia in February, said IG market analyst Yeap Jun Rong.
“It’s not the end of the world, but it is a little worrying that Aussie inflation hasn’t yet started to trend lower. We believe it will in the next few months,” said economist and co-founder at Wealthi Peter Esho.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 gained nearly 0.4 per cent to finish at 27,395.01. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.3 per cent to 7,468.30, while South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.4 per cent to 2,428.57.
A person looks at an electronic stock board showing Japan’s Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm in Tokyo, Japan. PHOTO: AP
The Sensex in Mumbai lost 1.2 per cent to 60,247.10. Major energy and mining conglomerate Adani group saw losses across its group companies after short-selling firm Hindenburg Research released a report including various allegations against the companies.
Flagship Adani Enterprises lost 1.5 per cent while six other major Adani companies logged losses of up to six per cent. The loss in market capitalisation amounted to more than USD7 billion, according to the newspaper Financial Times.
In a statement, the Adani group said it was “shocked” by the report.
“The report is a malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, baseless and discredited allegations that have been tested and rejected by India’s highest courts,” said the statement by the group’s chief financial officer Jugeshinder Singh.
Stocks have been volatile as investors try to get a better sense of how inflation is affecting the economy, the potential for a recession and whether the US Federal Reserve can ease up on its aggressive interest rate increases.
The Fed will announce its next rate increase on February 1 and traders expect a quarter-point raise, which would mark a softening of the central bank’s pace.
The US government will release gross domestic product data for the fourth-quarter today.
Economists expect growth of less than one per cent, down from 1.9 per cent in the third quarter, and a contraction during the first half of 2022. Investors will get more updates on personal spending and income tomorrow.
In energy trading, benchmark US crude gained USD0.18 to USD80.31 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It settled 1.8 per cent lower overnight. Brent crude, the international pricing standard, rose USD0.38 to USD86.51 a barrel.
In currency trading, the US dollar edged up to JPY130.27 from JPY130.18. The euro cost USD1.0890, inching up from USD1.0889.
MADRID (AP) – Prosecutors on Monday sought a 13-year prison sentence for a former leader of the Hells Angels in Europe who is accused of running a chapter of the motorcycle club linked with organised crime on the Spanish island of Mallorca.
German national Frank Hanebuth appeared in court alongside 49 alleged collaborators from numerous countries, at least 34 of whom agreed to a plea deal allowing them to pay fines instead of serving time. Hanebuth didn’t seek a deal.
Some of the defendants were of German, Greek, or British origin and needed an interpreter to follow the developments, which were conducted in Spanish. Three of the accused took part via video call from Germany.
Spanish prosecutors have charged Hanebuth with membership in a criminal organisation, money laundering and illegal possession of firearms. They are also asking the judge overseeing the trial to fine him USD4.5 million (EUR4.2 million) for the money laundering charge.
Frank Hanebuth at the National Court in San Fernando de Henares, Spain. PHOTO: AP
In addition to belonging to a criminal organisation, other defendants have been charged with running a prostitution ring and drug trafficking, and face up to 38 years in prison.
The Hells Angels conducted illegal activities in Mallorca from 2009 to 2013 under Hanebuth’s leadership, according to the criminal indictment.
Hanebuth appointed members who then carried out crimes including extortion, acquiring illegal firearms and robbery in popular tourist spots, prosecutors said.
They also moved into real estate on Mallorca and nearby island Ibiza, prosecutors said. The accused didn’t limit themselves to riding Harley-Davidsons.
One of Hanebuth’s fellow defendants was cited for driving a Bentley at 200-kph in a 120-kph speed zone. The Hells Angels in Europe are believed to have chosen Mallorca for their illegal activities because of the high presence of foreign residents.
AP – The NBA All-Star Game is on February 19. And nobody will know the All-Star rosters until that night. Not even the players themselves.
The team captains – probably LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers and either Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo or Brooklyn’s Kevin Durant – will make their picks in a live, televised pregame segment shortly before the game begins in Salt Lake City.
The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association announced the format change on early on Monday.
This will be the sixth time that the league has used the format where captains choose their teams, but in each of the first five instances the rosters were selected days before the game.
The captains and starters will be announced today.
James has been a captain in each of the first five years and, based on the results of voting released by the league late last week, is virtually certain to be one again this year. The leading vote-getter from both the Eastern and Western Conference earns the right to be a captain.
Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo is fouled by Detroit Pistons centre Jalen Duren. PHOTO: AP
Durant was the early leader among East players, then fell slightly behind Antetokounmpo in the most recent balloting.
James’ teams are 5-0 in All-Star games when he is a captain.
Durant has been a captain as the East’s voting leader in each of the past two years.
Antetokounmpo was in the previous two years, 2019 and 2020.
The top three frontcourt players and top two guards in each conference will be chosen as starters, with the leading overall vote-getters from each conference serving as captains and choosing their teams.
Fan voting counts for 50 per cent of the starters balloting, a media ballot counts for 25 per cent and the ballots turned in by NBA players for the other 25 per cent.
Reserves – chosen by NBA coaches, seven players from each conference – will be revealed on February 2.
MONTEREY PARK (AFP) – When an Asian man sprayed bullets around a dance studio full of Asian revellers in California, it sent shockwaves through the community.
When another Asian man attacked fellow Asian and Hispanic farmworkers in the same state two days later, that shock turned to disbelief.
“What is going on,” tweeted CNN correspondent Kyung Lah.
After Huu Can Tran, 72, was revealed as the suspect behind the massacre in Monterey Park last Saturday, an initial narrative of anti-Asian hate crime quickly gave way to a baffled groping for answers.
That was reinforced less than 48 hours later when Chunli Zhao was arrested on suspicion of multiple murders in the small rural community of Half Moon Bay.
For some Asian Americans, the sudden eruption of violence is a corruption of what they hold dear.
“Mass shootings are an American thing; it doesn’t happen in China, so that means Asians here have soaked up this Americanness,” Monterey Park resident Wynn Liaw told AFP.
People pay tribute to the victims of the mass shooting at a candlelight vigil in front of City Hall in Monterey Park, California. PHOTO: AFP
Despite perceptions, extreme gun violence carried out by Asians and Asian Americans is approximately proportionate to population size.
The non-partisan Violence Project says 6.4 per cent of mass shootings in the United States (US) between 1966 and 2020 were carried out by an ethnic Asian.
2020 census figures show around 7.2 per cent of the population of the US identified as Asian or mixed Asian.
But for many Asian Americans, it doesn’t feel like that.
“People moved here because it was a Chinese community. They were more comfortable, and also it was safer,” said Liaw, who arrived as a child with her family from Wuhan in 1982.
“I lost my sense of security since Saturday.”
Monterey Park is a home away from home for its largely Asian community, a proudly – or stubbornly – unintegrated corner of melting pot America.
Two thirds of the 60,000 people who live there are Asian; Mandarin is more commonly heard than English in shops and banks, and street signs are dominated by Chinese characters.
Wedged between Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley, it was marketed as a “Chinese Beverly Hills” by a local real estate magnate, attracting Hong Kongers and mainland Chinese.
“It is the first Asian ethnoburb: an ethnic enclave in the ‘burbs that thrives because it refuses to assimilate, instead unapologetically catering to its own immigrant community,” tweeted PhD candidate at Rice University Bianca Mabute-Louie.
“My grandparents never learned English yet thrived because of the ethnoburb.”
While the ethnoburb may have kept America out for the last few decades, the weekend’s mass shooting in Monterey Park brought America crashing in.
Specialist in Asian American history at the University of San Francisco Professor James Zarsadiaz said the events of the last few days had been profoundly disorienting for the community.
“I think for a lot of Asian Americans, what occurred, especially Monterey Park… was jarring and triggering (because) we assumed that the acts that were committed were anti-Asian in nature,” he told AFP.
“But these two perpetrators are of Asian origin, and so it feels as if these are anomalies.”
Zarsadiaz said an emphasis on respect and reverence, rather than confrontation, undergirded a broader Asian culture, which is sometimes expressed in the stereotype that “they don’t complain”.
The flipside is that difficult emotions tend to get bottled up.
“There’s just a cultural notion that you ‘deal with it’,” he said.
“The Asian American community hasn’t really talked in a very satisfying way (about) mental health,” he said.
As Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay pass into the lexicon of American tragedy, alongside Sandy Hook, Uvalde and countless other sites of carnage, Zarsadiaz said there was a glimmer of hope that it could be a turning point for the Asian American community.
There are “Asian Americans who see these moments as actually a marker of political advocacy and action. Because, you know, this is obviously now about gun violence.”
THE WASHINGTON POST – When Jacinda Ardern announced her decision to resign as New Zealand’s Prime Minister, she didn’t cite burnout as the reason. But she described it.
“I know what this job takes, and I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice,” she said. “It is that simple.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019 acknowledged burnout as an “occupational phenomenon”, but job or work burnout can still take a significant toll on your mental and physical health, and is closely linked with depression and anxiety.
Burnout is common among healthcare workers, medical students and caregivers. But it can also be experienced in other professions.
This week, Fall Out Boy guitarist Joe Trohman announced he is “stepping away” from the band for the sake of his mental health. And tennis star Naomi Osaka was at the top of her game in 2021 when she announced she needed a break from the sport.
Here’s what mental health experts have to say about burnout, how to identify it and how to cope.
Jacinda Ardern announced her decision to resign as New Zealand’s Prime Minister. PHOTO: AFPTennis star Naomi Osaka was at the top of her game in 2021 when she announced she needed a break from the sport. PHOTO: AP
WHAT IS BURNOUT?
Burnout “can mean many different things to many different people”, said Director of Research and Innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center and Chief medical officer of Sharecare, a digital health company Jud Brewer. “Burnout applies to anybody. So, really, it’s about when somebody is just functionally not up to the task anymore.”
According to the Maslach Burnout Inventory, a widely accepted diagnostic tool, burnout occurs when three factors are present at the same time: emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and a diminished sense of personal accomplishment.
Burnout is often described as feeling emotionally depleted by work and just not caring as much, feeling cynical or seeming callous, or distancing oneself from situations.
“So for example, physicians, they get a reputation for not being the most warm people,” said Brewer. “Some are great, and often when physicians are burnt out, they’re just kind of distancing themselves from their patients, and that kind of gets read as callousness.”
WHAT DOES BURNOUT FEEL LIKE?
Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences at University of California, San Francisco Elissa Epel said Ardern’s resignation speech offered a vivid description of burnout.
“I love her analogy to, ‘My tank is empty’. Burnout feels like your tank is beyond empty,” said Epel, the author of The Stress Prescription: Seven Days to More Joy and Ease. “You are actually suffering, because you’ve lost your energy. You’ve lost it physically. And you’ve also lost some of the motivation that has helped you fuel the tank for years or decades. So it’s very demoralising to feel burnout.”
Burnout isn’t defined by physical exhaustion or just being tired from long hours of work. But people with burnout often feel exhausted, Epel said.
“Feeling emotionally exhausted means you’re not feeling yourself,” she added. “You’re not in touch with your emotions anymore. And in fact, your emotions have become restricted and you feel numb, when you used to care so much.”
Burnout can lead to feeling overwhelmed. “We’re no longer able to feel specific emotions, and our body’s responding to that overwhelmed message that the mind is sending by keeping the stress response system on high alert, even when we sleep,” Epel said.
HOW DO I KNOW IF I AM REALLY BURNED OUT OR JUST WORKING HARD?
One way to know if you have burned out is simply to think about your job and gauge your reaction, Brewer said.
“What happens?” he said. A person can be less than enthusiastic about work and not be burned out. But if the reaction is “Oh, goodness. I dread this”, and a person is trying to avoid work, then those can be signs of burnout.
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BURNOUT, ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION?
While burnout is closely linked with anxiety and depression, there are distinct differences. Some people even refer to burnout as “work depression”, said Epel.
Some of the physical symptoms are the same, such as feeling fatigued, depleted of energy and irritable, sad or anxious.
“One might also develop a sense of hopelessness about their role and their efficacy and feel like things won’t ever change at work,” Epel said. “And so that’s a parallel to depressive thinking, where we feel hopelessness, and we don’t see any bright light or end to our misery in the future.”
Depression often centres on the self and feeling worthless or being self-critical, Epel said.
Burnout is centred on the “untenable chronic stress of work demands, whether it’s unpaid work at home, such as being a caregiver, or demands from your day job”, she said.
Epel said studies of surgical residents have identified high levels of suicidality and depression as a result of burnout.
“So chronic stress is, alone, harmful to our bodies and our emotional well-being,” she said.
“Burnout is a specific response to overwhelming chronic stress, typically from work. And depression is a more severe emotional response to chronic stress and burnout.”
WHAT CAN I DO TO COPE WITH BURNOUT? IS QUITTING OR RESIGNING THE ONLY OPTION?
The reasons behind burnout can be different for different people, Brewer said. As a result, it’s important for people to try to understand the root cause.
Lifestyle factors, such as a poor diet, lack of sleep and no time to exercise, can play a role in burnout. And mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression, should be considered.
Things over which people have less control, like long work hours, impossible deadlines and little time to recover and recuperate from work, can play a role in burnout, he said.
“It’s really looking to see, what is it that is leading to that burnout, and then getting at those root causes and seeing what someone can do,” Brewer said.
Focussing on healthy habits and treating someone for anxiety, for instance, could help.
“There are individual elements related to burnout and there are institutional elements,” he said.
While addressing individual issues can help, the overall problem won’t be solved if changes aren’t possible in the workplace.
“The most dramatic way to address burnout is to leave the workplace,” Epel said. “And it is unfortunate that people are often left with that as the only option, because as an individual, they cannot change the system and the structures in place that are creating a burnout culture.”
INDIVIDUAL MANAGERS, HOWEVER, CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
“I do think that managers at every level can change the environment to mitigate the burnout culture,” she said. “And part of it is managing daily schedules to make them flexible, to provide required breaks, to encourage a culture of well-being by modelling their own vulnerability to stress.”
ANN/THE STAR – A man is missing while his two friends managed to swim to safety after their boat capsized in waters near a resort off Karambunai near Kota Kinabalu (KK), Sabah yesterday morning.
A Fire and Rescue Department spokesman said they were notified of the incident at 6.07am.
“Our operations room received a report from the public about the boat capsizing near the Karambunai Nexus Resort,” the spokesman said when contacted.
A six-man team and an Emergency Medical Rescue Services unit were immediately dispatched to the area, he said.
“There were three people involved in the incident. Two managed to save themselves while the third man was still missing together with the boat,” the spokesman said.
He added, however, that the department had yet to get the exact details of the incident, including the names of the three people involved.
“We are still investigating at the scene,” he said.
In a separate incident, authorities suspended the search for a 61-year-old man who was reported to have gone missing at a commercial fishing pond in the interior Keningau district.
This was after people claimed to have seen Dailo Jair buying groceries last Sunday, two days after he was reported missing, at a store in Kampung Bunsit, some six kilometres from the site of his “disappearance”.
