Zoom fatigue is a new phenomenon being reported by many professionals lately. There are several reasons for feeling especially exhausted and burned out after one too many Zoom conferences and a few easy ways to help you minimise the symptoms.
Why are you experiencing Zoom fatigue?
The reality of working from home has produced the need to find alternative ways to contact your colleagues and clients. Zoom calls have never been so ‘in’ as they are now! But alongside the convenience of this way of getting the job done, many workers have experienced unusually intense burnout, that’s been called ‘Zoom fatigue’. A recent Stanford study proved that women experience higher levels of Zoom fatigue than men.
There are several reasons you might be feeling tired from having Zoom chat after Zoom chat during the day.
First of all, online communication is different from in-person meetings due to its turn-based conversation model that we don’t normally follow in real life. A different conversation scenario forces our brain to work differently as well. Not surprisingly it gets tired quicker than ever!
Also, we’re just not used to seeing our face as much as we do during the video chats. Imagine walking around with a mirror and making sure your hair is perfect, your eyes are always focused on the other person and you’re looking composed and professional all the time. It’s like a second full-time job on top of the one you’re already doing.
How to beat Zoom fatigue
- Have less Zoom meetings. Well, that much is obvious! Especially because not every task, presentation or data analysis really requires a discussion. If you have a question / suggestion that can easily be made in written form, use emails instead. If your information needs to be delivered but won’t cause a heated conversation, you can record an audio or a video and upload the file online for your colleagues to listen to or watch. Allowing others to consume information at a convenient time and pace can actually increase everyone’s productivity and focus! If a Zoom meeting is a must, try to keep it under 45 minutes – that is how much talking, according to the experts, our brain can take without feeling exhausted. It helps when everyone agrees on an end time at the beginning of the meeting and then sticks to it.
- Get ready for your Zoom meeting in advance. Online communication tends to create more chaos than your average office meeting – one person might struggle with their internet connection, the other one has no idea how to access important information on Cloud without accidentally switching off the chat, the third one has connected to the call while on a morning run and can’t hear you properly. The smooth running of a Zoom conference will reduce your stress and anxiety, so it helps to check in with your colleagues in advance via a text or email, making sure everyone is in front of their laptops, has all the necessary files and information and knows how to navigate all the apps you’ll be using during the meeting.
- Turn off the camera. As we have already mentioned, we don’t walk around with mirrors, double-checking our appearance every second, but that’s exactly what we do when seeing our faces on screen. There is even such a thing as ‘mirror anxiety’ that happens when we see our reflections way too much. So, if you’re not a presenter but a listener today, turn off your camera. If it’s important for others to see your face, most call apps have an option to take that little square with your face off your own screen without turning off your camera, so your colleagues will still be able to see you! Otherwise, at least try to look directly into the camera rather than at the screen – that way you won’t stare at yourself all the time.
- Avoid video during your calls entirely. Remember those days when we used to pick up our phones whenever we needed to talk to a client? These days, many people treat video calls as a default option, whereas you don’t necessarily need to see the face of a person when discussing most of the tasks and questions. Even if you prefer to use Zoom rather than your phone, you can still treat your chat as a good ol’ phone call.
- Avoid multitasking. It’s easy to assume that you can ‘just quickly reply to an email’ or ‘book that appointment’ during a video conference. But research proves that trying to multitask contributes to feeling exhausted afterwards. So, before your next Zoom session, make sure you switch off all the apps that might distract you.
- Encourage people to use plain backgrounds. It might seem like such a small thing but when you’re having a Zoom meeting with, let’s say, five people at once, it’s five pictures on your screen showing you different rooms, different furniture, different pets, etc. Our brain tries to process all these visuals while also processing work-related information – not surprisingly, you’re feeling tired after such an active ‘thinking session’! Next time, encourage people to sit in front of plain walls if possible to avoid extra stimuli you don’t need.
