What is Burnout?
The term was first coined in 1974 by Herbert Freudenberger, in his book, “Burnout: The High Cost of High Achievement”. He described it as
the extinction of motivation or incentive, especially where one's devotion to a cause or relationship fails to produce the desired results.
In 2019, it was formally recognised as an occupational phenomenon by the World Health Organisation, specifically as
A syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.
It’s important to say it’s not classified as a medical condition.
This syndrome is characterised by three dimensions:
feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and
reduced professional efficacy.
Causes of Workplace Stress
There are many causes of workplace stress. These can include:
Time Pressure
Lack of Communication/Support
Lack of Role Clarity
Unmanageable Workload (lack of Autonomy and Control)
Monotony
Unfair Treatment (including Bullying)
Misalignment with personal Values
Symptoms of Burning Out
The journey to burnout has many symptoms. Here are some examples as per the WHO dimensions listed above.
Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion
Chronic Fatigue
Forgetfulness
Impaired concentration and attention
Insomnia
Physical Symptoms (headache, stomach problems)
Increased Illnesses
Loss of Appetite
Anxiety
Anger
Depression
Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job
Loss of Enjoyment
Pessimism
Isolation
Detachment
Reduced professional efficacy
Apathy and Hopelessness
Irritability
Lack of Productivity
Poor Performance
Poor quality
Four Quick Questions to ask yourself
These four questions will give you good insight.
How do I feel when I wake up? Am I feeling refreshed and excited about the day ahead? Or something else?
How well am I managing to switch off when I leave work? Can I get on with my evening without thinking about work? Or am I being distracted by email notifications from a late-working colleague? Or ruminating about the day’s events, what didn’t get done, or what needs to be done tomorrow?
How are my relationships with the people closest to me? Am I becoming irritable? Or withdrawn?
How quickly am I falling asleep, and do I stay asleep all night? Or am I struggling to fall asleep naturally, or waking up worrying about things?
How to avoid Burnout
The main way to avoid burnout happening is to reduce the amount of stress, or the impact of that stress, in your life.
The first thing to say is that, in many ways, stress is a useful signal, if you listen to it. It’s saying ‘you need to change something’.
Make sure you are regularly getting enough good quality sleep. Some people try to get by with reduced sleep during the week, and catch up at the weekend, but this is not as good as consistently getting 7-8 hours sleep each day. Not least because if you spend your weekend sleeping you will then miss out on other aspects of work life balance.
If you are drinking (or using any other substances) to cope with your stress, you need to understand that it may well be keeping you in the stress by taking just enough pain away to remove the perceived need for you to do something about it. It will also interfere with your sleep and make you groggy in the morning. And possibly increase your anxiety. Consider cutting down or stopping to see whether it has actually been making things worse.
How’s your diet? Are you working long hours and surviving on takeaways? What do you need to do to begin to fix that?
If you’re suffering from a racing brain that can’t switch off, try learning to meditate on a regular basis. There are apps out there that guide you through the process. Try them.
Exercise is a great way of dealing with stress. If you’ve been too busy to exercise start to make time for it. If you’ve been hunched over a laptop your shoulders and neck will probably be tense. This will bring headaches. Learn how to set things up so that you aren’t straining your neck. Learn stretches and exercises that can undo the damage. And make sure you’re doing them.
You need to learn to switch off from work. Take the time to learn how to use the well-being features on your phone to limit access to specific apps and silence notifications after a certain time. Set boundaries around when you’ll reply to emails and instant messages, and stick to them. Write your to-do list for the following day before you go home in the evening.
Make sure you’re taking your annual leave entitlement. If you’re carrying forward or cashing in days at the end of the year then this is an important signal. If you don’t feel able to take your annual leave, then you need to talk to your line manager. Likewise, if you’re regularly working overtime, consider not taking it all as paid - take some time off in lieu.
Don’t neglect hobbies. They can bring us much satisfaction but can be the first thing to be abandoned when we get busy.
Take time to reflect on your job and the results you’re getting. If you’re not finding fulfilment, the chances are this will cause significant stress. As will a mismatch between your personal values and those of your organisation. Perhaps you have stopped growing. Or you’re simply bored.
Symptoms of having Burned Out
If Stress can be a useful signal that you need to take action, Burnout is the body’s way of saying “nope” and keeping you out of harm’s way. You will be so physically and mentally exhausted you probably can’t get out of bed. And if you do get out of bed, you won’t be able to focus or get anything done.
The stress that leads up to burnout is often filled with much negative internal chatter about what’s happening (or not happening), pessimism, what’s going wrong and blaming ourselves and others.
When burnout is reached, that often falls away and is replaced with total numbness and silence.
Other Consequences of Unmanaged Chronic Stress
Burnout is just one consequence. Other consequences can include:
Addiction
High Blood Pressure
Heart Disease
Stroke
Type 2 Diabetes
Cancer
Depression
If you are at risk of burnout or experiencing chronic stress, please pay attention to the warning signs and get professional help if needed.
How to Recover from Burnout
If you’ve burned out, you first need to get sufficient rest. This might be a week or two on holiday (provided you’re not checking emails, taking calls or partying all night) but it might take much longer.
Talk to your GP (to check whether there’s anything else going on) and then talk to your employer.
Only after getting sufficient rest can you begin to explore the sources of your stress (at work and home) and begin to work out what you can do to reduce or eliminate them, or change your response to them.
You might be able to do this on your own. But it might be helpful to ask someone else to help you explore. They don’t need to be a qualified professional (and ideally won’t be giving you advice). Rather, they will be listening, asking good questions to help you clarify your understanding and what you’d like to do about it.
You might need to learn some new skills to enable you to do your job more effectively, or to change the way you respond to things or people that are currently causing you stress.
You might need to change your workload, role, manager, organisation or career
And you need to pay attention to all the ‘self-care’ tasks from earlier.
How to help someone who is burning out
If you know someone who is burning out (or in danger of burning out), you can help them.
Firstly, you can help them assess their level of stress and understand where it’s coming from. How much of it is from work? And how much from outside work? Though characterised as a workplace phenomenon, in my experience burnout can come from a “perfect storm” of different sources of stress which would normally be manageable on their own, but becomes overwhelming when they coincide with other sources of stress. For example, if you’re caring for an elderly relative you might well manage until they need to go into hospital. Imagine what would happen if you had an unannounced audit inspection team arrive at the same time. And then your manager goes on sick leave.
Now find out how long has this stress been going on? A few days? Weeks? Months? Or even longer? How long will it go on for, as things currently stand? Another few days? Or much longer?
For each of the sources of stress, help them explore what could be done to eliminate or reduce that stress? And if nothing can be done, can they change their response to that stress?
Might you be contributing to that stress? And if you are, is there anything you can do about that? Are you burning out too? Or would you burn out if you had to take on extra work to ease theirs?
How can you help them develop good self-care practices, such as sleep, diet, exercise, work-life balance?
Can you encourage them to say ‘no’ or ‘not now’?
How you might be burning someone out at work
Creating Stress
Are you creating stress for other people? Is there too much work? Too little work? Is it boring or monotonous? Do they know what they should be doing, and how they should be doing it? Do they have the skills and tools they need to do their job?
Is the job aligned with their personal values? Have the organisational values changed (perhaps because of a restructure or merger or acquisition)?
How are you supporting them? Are you micromanaging them? Or giving them too little support? Last minute surprises? Lack of communication? Any feedback? Are you helping them grow?
Is there any bullying or unfairness happening? Would you know if there was?
Reducing the Sources and impacts of Stress
Are you helping people eliminate sources of stress, or learn healthier ways to respond to stress?
What about work-life balance? Do you have a culture of presenteeism and overtime? Are people expected to work extra hours over a long period of time?
Do you require your people to take all of their holiday allowance? If they are able to cash it in, or carry it over to the next year are you absolutely sure there’s a good reason if they do so? They might be saving for a long special holiday, but they might also not be taking their holiday because they need the money, or because they worry about getting too far behind or a reputation for slacking if they take time off.
Do you have clear boundaries about communication while they’re on holiday? Do you disable email and messaging access whilst people are away to save them from the distraction or temptation? Do you try and reduce the number of emails you send people whilst they’re away so that they don’t come back to an overwhelming inbox?
How about holiday cover? Are the people who are covering for people on holiday at risk of burning out? Are you at risk of burning out because you’re having to pick up the pieces for everyone else?
Keeping them trapped in stress
If someone is experiencing stress, are you keeping them trapped in it? It could be that they are staying in the role because of the level of rewards, status or benefits associated with it. This will make it very hard for them to change role or organisation or, perhaps, ask for help.
Are they able to talk safely about how they’re feeling? If you have a culture of low psychological safety, the chances are that they won’t talk to you. Or anyone else at work. What facilities do they have to talk to someone who can offer a safe environment of listening? Or do they have to take it home with them?
Summary
Burnout is the consequence of long-term unsuccessfully managed workplace stress. It can stop people from performing at their best, if not prevent them from working altogether.
It doesn’t necessarily need professional help to fix it, but it does need people to take responsibility for their own wellbeing and that of any people they manage.
Learning how to eliminate or respond differently stress and ensuring that self-care is a priority are the keys to remaining happy, healthy and productive in the workplace.
