Burnout

What is Burnout? | Types of Burnout | Common Signs & Symptoms of Burnout | Stages of Burnout | Causes & Risk Factors of Burnout | Dealing with Burnout | FAQ

Burnout is defined as the combination of physical, mental, and/or emotional exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress [1]. Burnout occurs when one is overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and perceives themselves to be unable to keep up with life’s demands.

This happens when you overwork yourself, resulting in a compromise of one’s health and personal life. This can be a result of the volume of work assigned to you, or a personal prioritisation of work-life balance, or both. Most often, constant working takes a toll on the individual’s physical, mental, and emotional health [2].  

This occurs when you feel that your role does not challenge or tap into your level of skill, expertise, and passion. It could be that your situation does not provide learning opportunities or have room for further growth. This state can be mentally and emotionally tiring, as people tend to struggle with a deep sense of dissatisfaction, thus a loss of motivation with one’s job or life. This culminates in a perception of self to be under-valued, under-appreciated, or misjudged. Over time, this may lead to a loss of interest in your job, cynicism, and avoidance of responsibilities [2].

This often happens when individuals feel that expectations of what is expected of them exceed their skill level, experience and knowledge. Most often, this can be managed with training, mentoring, and assurance of the space to fail and learn. However, stress levels and persistent feelings of inadequacy, coupled with a lack of proper support can take a toll on a person’s mental health and result in a loss of enthusiasm for their job, prompting them to ‘give up’. This form of burnout is closely associated with imposter syndrome, a psychological pattern in which you doubt your skills, talents, or accomplishments [2].

While burnout is not a diagnosable psychological disorder, it is a widely recognized mental health concern given its severe implications on one’s well-being and life outcomes. Burnout happens gradually due to a build-up of various stressors. Signs and symptoms can be subtle at first but if unaddressed, the negative effects of burnout can spill over into every area of life — including home, work, and social life. Burnout can also cause long-term impacts on one’s health, thus burntout individuals become more prone to illnesses like colds and the flu.

Physical signs and symptoms include:

• Overwhelming fatigue 
• Recurring headaches
• Tense muscles
• Falling sick often

Emotional signs and symptoms include [3]:

• Loss of motivation
• Sense of ineffectiveness and failure 
• An increasingly cynical and negative mindset

Behavioural signs include:

• Social isolation: Individuals experiencing burnout view their jobs as increasingly stressful and frustrating. They may grow cynical about their working conditions and the people they work with. They may also emotionally distance themselves and begin to feel numb about their work.
• Reduced performance: Burnout mainly affects everyday tasks at work — or in the home when someone’s main job involves caring for family members. Individuals with burnout feel negative about tasks. They have difficulty concentrating and often lack creativity.
• Taking out your frustrations on others.

Burnout, if unaddressed, can escalate into mental health conditions, such as depression [4].

Burnout does not occur overnight, but is a gradual process that generally follows these 12 stages [5]: 

1. 1. Excessive drive/ambition. This is common for people starting a new job or undertaking a novel task.  Too much ambition can be a risk factor for burnout.
   2. Pushing yourself to work excessively hard.
   3. Neglecting an individual’s own needs. Examples include sacrificing self-care like sleep, exercise, and eating well.
   4. Displacement of conflict. Instead of recognising one’s personal part to play in the levels of tiredness one is facing, individuals tend to push blame on external factors such as the company’s management, demands of the job, or poor support from colleagues.
   5. No time for non-work needs. Work becomes a top priority as opposed to time with family and friends. Social invitations to parties, movies and dinner dates start to feel burdensome, instead of enjoyable.
   6. Denial. Mounting impatience with those around you. Instead of taking responsibility for your behaviours, you blame others, seeing them as incompetent, lazy, and overbearing.
   7. Withdrawal. You begin to withdraw from family and friends. Social invitations to parties, movies and dinner dates start to feel burdensome, instead of enjoyable.
   8. Behavioural changes. Those on the road to burnout may become more aggressive and snap at loved ones for no reason.
   9. Depersonalisation. Feeling detached from your life and your ability to control your life.
   10. Inner emptiness or anxiety. Feeling empty or anxious. You may turn to thrill-seeking behaviours to cope with this emotion, such as substance use, gambling, or overeating. These behaviours are often centric around escapism or cathartic motivations.
   11. Depression. Life loses its meaning and you begin to feel hopeless.
   12. Mental or physical collapse. At the final stage of burnout, individuals might be struggling with prolonged seasons of anxiety, depression, or other mental health concerns. The persistent neglect of physical needs for sleep, food, and nutrition can also lead to compromised immune systems or illnesses. At this stage, professional help — medical or mental health-wise — is often necessary.

Individuals who are facing increasing levels of burnout tend to become more resentful, jaded, and irritable due to the focus on the perceived contributing role that others have towards their situation. This perspective might also cause them to be more calculative in terms of balance in workload or effort spent on tasks, which is often a drastic change from their attitudes in the past, especially for those with large ambitions and who are highly driven. 

Burnout often stems from one’s job. But anyone who feels overworked and undervalued is at risk of experiencing burnout [6]:

Work-related causes of burnout include:

• Feeling like you have little or no control over your work.
• Lack of recognition or reward for good work.
• Unclear or overly demanding job expectations.
• Doing work that’s monotonous or unchallenging.
• Working in a chaotic or high-pressure environment.

Lifestyle causes of burnout include:

• Lack of work-life balance.
• Lack of close, supportive relationships.
• Taking on too many responsibilities, without enough support from others.
• Insufficient sleep.

Personality traits that can contribute to burnout include:

• A need to achieve perfect results or optimal outcomes.
• Pessimistic view of yourself and the world.
• The need to be in control; reluctance to delegate to others.
• High-achieving, Type A personality (usually characterised as individuals who are highly achievement-oriented, dominant, and with aggressive temperament).

1. Connect with other people
   1. Social contact is a natural antidote to stress, and talking face to face with a good listener is one of the fastest ways to calm your nervous system and relieve stress.
   2. During stressful times, it is important to reach out for help. If asking for assistance feels difficult, consider developing a self-care “check-in” with close friends and family members so that you can take care of each other during trying times [7].
2. Evaluate your priorities
   1. Set boundaries. Prevent overextending yourself by rejecting requests on your time. Saying “no” to things you are not ready or do not have the capacity to take up allows you to say “yes” to more important commitments.
   2. Set aside relaxation time. Relaxation techniques such as yoga, meditation, and deep breathing activate the body’s relaxation response, a state of restfulness that is the opposite of the stress response.
3. Make time for exercise
   1. Exercise is proven to be a powerful tool that has a multitude of benefits on both one’s mental and physical health. Mentally, it helps individuals by alleviating anxiety levels,  negative moods, and depression while increasing levels of self-esteem; physically, it decreases blood pressure and increases perceive energy levels and mental alertness [8].