Mar 21, 20235 min read

Part 1: What is Burnout?

Updated: Nov 24, 2023

woman lying on bed with hands over face — How much time are you spending just trying to recover from work stress?

Is burnout just workplace stress?

People often wonder if burnout is just the same work-related stress?

Basically, burnout is chronic work-related stress. So…

Burnout occurs when:

we've been working at a high level or in difficult circumstances

over an extended period of time, usually without sufficient recovery time

and the stress has not been well-managed

It’s fairly normal for people to go through periods of time at work when they feel, over-worked and tired or stressed and unhappy. Stress levels will tend to vary, and often a period that is experienced as unpleasantly stressful in work will settle down and leave us none the worse for the experience.

A certain level of stress can actually be experienced as a good thing – motivating and energising us and helping us rise to the challenge!

graph showing medium level of stress is helpful but high levels are detrimental. — There is an optimum level of stress where we are healthiest, happiest and most productive.

Where that optimal level of stress lies will vary for different individuals - what may make one person stressed could be experienced as boredom by someone else!

But too much stress over a prolonged period can start have serious effects on our health, energy levels, moods, productivity and cognitive function. Peak performance feels like an unachievable remnant of the past!

Stress starts to feel unpleasant when we feel like we don't have the resources to cope, whether that resource is time, support, knowledge, recovery time, etc.

Another difference between stress and burnout is the general effect on your emotions.

Arrows demonstrating that stress = heightened emotions and energy, but burnout is the opposite — How stress and burnout have opposite effects on energy and emotions.

Also, work still tends to feel meaningful when you are stressed.

When burned out work feels meaningless.

speech bubbles. Experiences of work-related stress and burnout — Have your thoughts and feelings around work changed dramatically?

So, if you feel emotionally exhausted to the point of not caring anymore and feel like you have nothing left to give, and feel you’re not as competent as you were, then you may be experiencing burnout.

I see this frequently in my counselling and coaching work. It is more often seen (but certainly not exclusively) in roles that are emotionally draining, such as in healthcare or when dealing with the general public.

So burnout's a real thing?

Yep, even though it seems to be a bit of a trendy buzzword at the moment, burnout is most definitely real!

And burnout has been around a long time, just under different names. So in the past we may have referred to it neurasthenia, exhaustion, a mid-life crisis or a nervous breakdown.

Some stats from the Global Workplace REport — work stress rates

Employee health and burnout has come to the fore following the additional pressures felt during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Burnout can have a significant effect on employees’ lives and also inflicts a massive cost on organisations, leading to more sick time and reduced efficiency.

This has led the World Health Organization (WHO) to recently include burnout in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). It describes it as a an ‘occupational phenomenon’ resulting from chronic stress that hasn’t been successfully managed.

Dimensions of Burnout

The WHO, and others, usually view burnout as being made up of 3 criteria:

Burnout = exhaustion, cynicism, reduced competence — Three commonly accepted criteria of burnout

And many Fortune 500 companies are recognising that their executives and employees may be at risk of burnout and are taking active steps to address this, including increasing paid time off or continuing pandemic benefits such as flexible work schedules and the ability to work from home or around family commitments.

I’m focusing on work-related burnout here, but it can also happen in other demanding areas of life, such as parenting or other carer roles, in students or in athletes.

I would also say that I see this often in people who have been in toxic, abusive relationships. In fact, it seems likely that burnout could happen in any circumstances in which you are under constant, unrelenting stress and feel unable to take care of your own needs sufficiently.

Is burnout different from depression?

Burnout is not currently seen as a medical condition or a diagnosis as such, but we know that you’re much more likely to experience burnout if you’re already struggling with depression or anxiety.

And the opposite is true too – you’re much more likely to suffer depression and anxiety if suffering burnout.

So, they’re not seen as the same thing, but often go together.

Some symptoms considered typical in burnout are also common in depression, such as: low mood, extreme fatigue and reduced performance. So, you can see how the two could be easily confused.

The key difference really is that in burnout the problems are most likely focussed on work alone. But in depression, the negative thoughts and feelings don’t just relate to work but creep into all areas of life. So, symptoms associated with depression but not typically with burnout include:

Low self-esteem
Hopelessness
Suicidal thoughts

I’d be interested to see, as research develops, just how many cases of burnout are associated with some degree of depression, as there is a large overlap between stress-related disorders and depression, generally.

And I think it does raise the question of whether we sometimes prefer to call it burnout

over depression due to the mental health stigma

that, sadly, is still alive and kicking?

It's especially harsh in this context that there is stigma around burning out when we know that, firstly, this tends to happen to the most dedicated workers and, also, that it is often caused or exacerbated by systems and issues in the workplace.

Please note: It's really important that, if you get professional help with work-related stress/burnout or depression, you work with someone qualified in diagnosing and treating depression and able to differentiate the difference between the two. This may mean, for example, looking beyond an executive coach and looking to a psychologist or suitably experienced mental health therapist.

This is especially important as different interventions may be called for, depending on how someone is presenting. For example, a substantial period of relative rest may be appropriate for someone with a 'pure' form of severe burnout. However this would not be recommended for someone with clinical depression, as further withdrawal could actually make them worse.

Unanswered questions about burnout

The term burnout was first used in the 70's. However, as psychological research goes, research into the details of burnout is still in it’s relative infancy (although it’s becoming a pretty hot topic).

That means that we still have unanswered questions, such as:

What is the role of culture? A disproportionate number of studies are based in the USA and we need to take care not to overgeneralise those results to different countries and very different cultures.

How do other personal factors such as gender, ethnicity, sexuality, class etc, interact to affect someone’s experience of burnout? These individual factors often play a role in psychological events so it's likely there are important issues to uncover here.

And there’s a need for more research which follows a workforce long term, to explore the development of burnout across time. Most research at the moment looks at a workforce or population at one point in time.

NEXT Part 2: Symptoms and Levels of Burnout

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