Producer Aiga Juhņeviča on Burnout and Learning to Say "No"

Producer and entrepreneur Aiga Juhņeviča spoke in an interview with the Latvian news portal Delfi about her experience of burnout at work. Her story shows how prolonged overload and an inability to turn down new tasks can end in physical health problems.

Work that turned into a race

Juhņeviča completed studies in communication science, worked for a time at a production company, and in 2018 opened her own agency. She produces and directs audiovisual projects, including TV programmes, music videos and films. For the third season she has also served as manager of the improvisation theatre "Divas", and she works as a guest lecturer and lecturer too. She describes herself as a person without a single defining role.

She has always said yes to new opportunities and generated ideas herself, so over time more work piled up than could be combined with the rest of her life. During busy project periods, eating once a day, sleeping far less and living on coffee seemed normal to her. While such a routine was limited in time, she accepted it, but later there was no end in sight.

Signals from the body

Juhņeviča, who is 36, says she felt a physical and mental exhaustion for the first time that she had never known before. She recognised the first warning when a friend described her own gruelling work routine and Juhņeviča realised it matched her own life. Sleep problems followed: for several weeks she woke every night around four or five in the morning with a racing heart and a sense of stress.

In the autumn of last year she reached a state where continuing the same way was no longer possible. She reduced the number of projects and worked to fix her sleep and eating. In her words, without the health problems she would most likely not have stopped. She is now learning to say "no" and to remember that work is not the whole of life.