Burnout bites: What is burnout? Here's how to spot the signs and symptoms
The working world is facing a burnout crisis. According to a recent Gallup study of 7,500 full-time employees, 23% reported feeling burned out at work very often or always, while 44% reported feeling burned out sometimes. This means that around two-thirds of full-time employees experience burnout on the job.
Having only been recognised as a medical syndrome by the World Health Organisation in 2019, burnout is a relatively new term for most people. So what is it, where did it come from, what are its symptoms, and what is the difference between burnout, normal stress and depression?
What is burnout?
Burnout is defined as a state of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion caused by prolonged and frequent workplace stress. First coined by Herbert Freudenberg in 1970 and later elaborated by Christina Maslach, burnout can manifest itself in many ways, including a lack of interest, cynicism and reduced personal accomplishment in a job. To put it simply, if you feel exhausted, start to dislike your job and perform badly as a result, you are showing signs of burnout.
Although a term originally used to define workplace issues, in today’s fast-paced world, it could just as easily be applied to a stay at home parent as it could a career-driven individual. However when starting a new job, it is characterised by a slow decent from excitement, motivation and satisfaction to disengagement, indifference and exhaustion.
Psychologist Christina Maslach described the unique progression as follows:
You start to feel stressed and chronically fatigued as a result of excessive work demands.
You become detached and cynical towards your job, with a lack of interest, enthusiasm or concern.
You start to doubt your ability to perform a task well, with little desire to and reduced feelings of accomplishment and attainment as a result.
Is burnout real?
Burnout can often be overlooked by doctors or passed off by friends and family as a temporary issue that will pass. The biggest issue is that it is hard to diagnose as it often shares similar symptoms with other disorders. Depression, anxiety and even natural exhaustion often get touted as the explanation. Let’s take a brief look at the difference below:
Natural exhaustion is perfectly normal as we all get tired from time to time, but if we get enough rest we usually feel recovered. Prolonged and persistent exhaustion is where the line starts to blur and indicates more severe signs of burnout.
We know that burnout goes hand in hand with a depressive state of mind. However, depression does not necessarily cause burnout. Depression and anxiety can be caused and sustained by many things including genetics, biology or even past trauma. The key to notice is when we talk about burnout, we are simply talking about a state of workplace depletion out of which depression and anxiety can occur.
How to know if you’re stressed or burnt out?
Stress is a massive influence and contributor to burnout, so it is easy to get confused. Simply put, stress is a perfectly healthy and normal biological process that serves a very important role: keeping you alive. It produces hormones like cortisol in the adrenal glands to help get you away from the perceived danger.
This can show up in the body as a sense of urgency and hyperactivity. However, chronic and unrelenting stress when left unchecked does results in burnout, of which the symptoms are more closely linked to lethargy, a lack of engagement and hopelessness. If you feel better after a good amount of sleep then you are most likely not suffering from burnout.
The key distinction here is the fact that we can recover from occasional stressors, whereas burnout is the result of chronic stress and takes a lot longer to deal with.
Signs and Symptoms of burnout:
We all have days when we feel low, run down, disengaged, or unmotivated. For most of us a weekend of rest is enough to give us back that pep in our step. However, if you feel the below signs and symptoms consistently then you could be suffering from burnout.
Emotional signs and symptoms of burnout:
Irrational anger: To start you might feel increasingly frustrated with people or your organisation, which then progresses to intense bitterness, anger and resentment, and ultimately leads to a lack of care at work.
Depression: In the early stages you might feel down or low occasionally, but in the later stages you develop a sense of incompetence, uselessness and helplessness which affects your ability to perform. Your self value and worth goes down and you develop a sense of meaningless, dread and numbness combined with feelings of failure.
Anxiety: In the beginning you might experience occasional tension, doubt, worry and nervousness when faced with new challenges or projects. In later stages of burnout the anxiety can become so bad it stops you from being able to perform and carry out normal tasks. Your sense of accomplishment goes down and you feel you're always behind.
Physical signs and symptoms of burnout:
Constant fatigue: You might start off with low energy levels a few days a week, but later down the line you move through your week constantly tired and feeling physically drained every day. No amount of sleep seems to help.
Increased illness: Your natural immunity gets depleted resulting in more colds, sore throats, coughs, headaches and illnesses.
Changes in appetite: In the beginning you might miss a few meals and feel less hungry, but then later down the line your appetite disappears altogether resulting in extreme weight loss.
Trouble sleeping: In the early stages some nights are better than others for no apparent reasons, but in the later stages you have constant insomnia and restlessness while still feeling exhausted.
Physical symptoms: These are varied and can progress from bad digestion to chronic stomach problems, IBS, shortness of breath, chest pain, aching body and dizziness.
Behavioural signs and symptoms of burnout:
Procrastination: Avoidance in what you have to do because your confidence and motivation has gone. You feel no sense of drive and excitement any more.
Relationship problems: You feel so depleted you have no regard or empathy for other people, and take out your frustrations on them. Other people's plights become just another burden and you are no longer able to offer them emotional support.
Social avoidance: Isolating yourself from others and the outside world because you feel it takes too much effort, and you no longer care or what to engage.
Addictive coping mechanisms: You start to rely on drugs, alcohol, food or other practices to cope. You want to drown out the numbness.
Absenteeism: You no longer care enough to show up, you miss deadlines and have lower commitment to your relationships or work.
The earlier you recognise your stress the quicker your recovery will be - try our burnout assessment to take the first step on your journey to chill 🤗
To understand just how burnout happens, check out our article “Burnout bites: What is burnout? Here’s how to spot the signs and symptoms”
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Sasha is a writer, musician and health nerd based in the UK. When not working or journaling she can be found wandering the local farmer's market, reading in a cosy cafe or cooking for the people she loves. Favourite combination: A cup of jasmine tea, burning Palo Santo and the early hours of the morning.
