Zoom Fatigue: Symptoms, Causes, Coping Tips

Zoom Fatigue: Symptoms, Causes, Coping Tips

Steps should be taken to limit the number of Zoom meetings, as well as the number of participants to only those who are critical to the project, she added. “It gives your eyes a chance to relax by focusing farther away and kind of recalibrates them,” she said. In a 2014 research study, it was demonstrated that even delays of 1.2 seconds on technological systems made folks perceive that the responder was less friendly or not as focused on communication with them. Taneasha White is a Black, queer lover of words, inquisition, and community, and has used her role within both literary and organizational spaces to make room for folks who are often cast aside. You can find her work in Prism, Well + Good, Rewire News Group, Black Youth Project, them., and more. If you have any control over your scheduling, aim to figure out what works best for your schedule and for your mental health.

• When you know you’re going to be doing work-related tasks, ask yourself whether your boss or professor would be comfortable with your surroundings.
• “They feel more physically confined by the restricted freedom of movement, and they also feel more keenly that everybody is staring at them,” Fauville said.
• These VR programs can project your avatar into spaces, such as virtual conference rooms.
• Several factors are at play, including technological limitations.
• In fact, being too hard on yourself is likely to sink your morale further and make you work even slower.

However, during a video call, it becomes difficult to display natural body language. Looking off to a side, trying to read the time, or even taking notes can be interpreted as you not paying attention. This puts https://remotemode.net/blog/remote-work-burnout-fatigue-and-how-to-avoid-it/ a lot of pressure on individuals to behave a certain way – by sitting straight or focussing solely on the person who is talking, for example. Several factors are at play, including technological limitations.

Minimize Fatigue During the Meeting

Video conferences also do not capture all of one’s body language or its subtleties. These limitations leave a gap open for miscommunication and a lack of reassurance on both sides of the screen. Even a well-intentioned listener trying to detect microexpressions can end up having a longer or more intense eye stare, which can be read by the viewing person as hostility. We have five research-based tips that can help make video calls less exhausting. Avoid video if it is not needed — Research shows that when you’re on video, you tend to spend the most time gazing at your own face as well as other people’s faces and backgrounds. If there are any conversations you could have over a call, Slack or email, do that instead.

It’s one thing to stroll into a conference room when you’re already in the office, but having to suddenly prime yourself and your home for an unexpected team meeting is completely different. On top of the usual work-related stress, the pandemic has caused just about everyone’s mental health to take a dip. When people are on a video call, everyone’s attention is on the speaker. If you are the speaker, this can make you hyper-aware of how you are looking and can even cause you to worry about your appearance. You may become preoccupied with your “flaws” and may be concerned about these flaws becoming more apparent through the camera lens.

How to avoid Zoom fatigue

Beyond the essentials, you can also add extras that elevate your home office space. For instance, pedal bikes to promote physical activity or standing desks to help with alertness. Having nutritious snacks and a large water bottle within reach can encourage healthy habits and prevent detours, as well as make you feel physically better. Sturdy and spacious desks, ergonomic chairs, and computer monitors make a noticeable difference when working virtually. Setting up a professional workspace can draw a divider between the home space and office space, reinforce boundaries, and improve productivity.

• They may also benefit from perhaps years of routines related to self-care and de-stressing, reinforced by friends and family as well as co-workers.
• To stay within the camera’s range, people often limit their movement, rather than having the freedom to move about or stretch as they would in an in-person meeting.
• You can also hide everyone else’s video if you have a hard time making or keeping eye contact.
• While working in an office building, “[i]n order to get from one room to another, you had at least a few minutes of physical movement and a quick mental break,” she writes.
• Without the visual breaks we need to refocus, our brains grow fatigued.
• You’ll find yourself zoom calling with international remote teams during off hours, while before the pandemic an email would suffice.

Reduce stimuli on the screen by keeping your Zoom window on speaker view and closing all other programs and browser windows. It can also make you less effective in your work, as it affects your ability to focus on the tasks at hand. A sense of dread at the thought of carrying out simple tasks or lacking the energy to do them might be signs of motivational fatigue.

Set Up a Meeting Agenda

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This works to eliminate another barrier provided by Zoom that we don’t experience in face-to-face interactions. These problems come from organizations transposing their “office culture” norms of interaction to working from home. Virtual communication, collaboration, and relationships function very differently https://remotemode.net/ than those in-person. Separating office space from living space and cultivating a healthy work life balance is a key to sanity. When borders break down and your work from home hygiene gets lax, re-introduce boundaries. During on-hours, work exclusively in this space, and do not visit this area off the clock.

Having to manage your roommates or kids while working leads to higher anxiety levels as well. Attending back to back video calls leaves no opportunity for mental, physical, or visual breaks. As much as possible, make a conscious effort to schedule some kind of break during a day that’s populated by multiple video calls. Breaks are one of the biggest factors in decreasing Zoom Fatigue.