An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
My passion for teaching about self-care comes from my personal experience with burnout and compassion fatigue. As explained in previous posts, those come from different causes, one from overwork, the other from secondary exposure to trauma.
I believe that earlier intervention could have prevented burnout all together and could have lessened the toll that compassion fatigue would have on my day-to-day life. In my mind, I think of burnout like the flu. If I could have avoided other infected people, or had gotten rest at the outset, or was taking care of myself better in general, I would either not get the flu, or get it less intensely (at least, ideally.) Also, once you come down with a bad flu, you are out of commission and sort of have to let it run its course.
I think of compassion fatigue as breaking your arm in a roller skating accident. It came out of nowhere and therefore there wasn't true prevention as there was with the flu (I mean, except for just not rollerblading or not being in a compassion related field). Maybe wearing elbow pads could prevent it-- but maybe not. It depends on the fall. You could technically ignore the break, but that would make it far worse in the long run.
In both of these instances there is an element of prevention. The flu/burnout it is getting rest when you feel symptoms coming on. Broken arm/ compassion fatigue is putting safeguards in place (like elbow pads). A lot of time these prevention techniques will stop the issue from getting to the point where it dramatically interrupts your life like it did mine.
Prevention techniques might not always work, but they are the best first line of defense, and require far less money, time, change to daily life, doctors visits and such than the alternative. The goal should be to monitor your own well-being and get the input of trusted friends so that you can catch if there is an issue developing before it gets to the point where you have to stop what you are doing.
Prevention is the best medicine. That, laughter and sleep. I prescribe all three.