Status: 🌳
Published on 25 June 2022 by Janis Strods
I went through a nasty burnout in June 2020 after an intense period of work and stress, triggered by the onset of the pandemic. One of my coping mechanisms was to research all I could on what I was experiencing and how to make it stop, and talking this through with a therapist. Here is a summary of what I’ve learnt on:
Although it is not a medical condition, burnout is classified by the WHO as an occupational phenomenon, and can lead to mental illness if left unaddressed. The burnout syndrome generally manifests as a combination of 3 feelings: exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy.
Exhaustion is an individual experience of feeling depleted and tired, both physically and psychologically.
I feel so tired, even after a weekend.
Cynicism is an interpersonal experience of disassociating yourself from your work and colleagues. It leads to not caring about your job, feeling that it is pointless, and treating your customers and colleagues callously them.
My colleagues are good for nothing, and my customers suck. My work has no point.
Inefficacy is a self-worth related experience that includes a sense of failure, incompetence, and “no future”.
I am bad at my job and will never be good enough for it.
Burnout will likely combine all three experiences, but the experience might vary. The three experiences can also occur separately (without burnout) and can also be addressed separately. For instance, a person that still feels positively about their job and feels competent, can feel overwhelmed with their workload and might need rest, while a person that feels great about their job and is energetic, can actually be ineffective and need more guidance.
Finally, the symptoms of burnout overlap with depression, so it is definitely worthwhile reaching out to a therapist. One imperfect rule of thumb of telling these apart is that burnout tends to be job-specific (i.e. you are cynical about your work and colleagues, but still enjoy your hobbies and friends), while depression affects your whole experience.
The six causes of burnout proposed by Maslach are failures in managing workload, sense of control, rewards, fairness, values, and community.
Overwork without rest for an extended period of time is one of the most frequent causes of burnout. Intense periods of work are not damaging per se, if recuperation is allowed (i.e. you can crunch for a bit, if you rest afterwards). Extended periods of work that are not interrupted by mental and physical rest are problematic, so breaks mid-workday and weekends are key times to unwind.
Two aspects of workload that could be particularly treated as red flags are emotionally taxing work (e.g. pretending to be happy in customer-facing work) and role conflicts (feeling that one’s role should be different than others expect it to be — e.g. feeling that you should be working on a large project while everyone else expects you to react to small things).
Control mismatch occurs when a person feels they are not able to influence the conditions of their work or access the resources necessary to do it well. This is particularly strong in cases where there are conflicting aspects of one’s role that seem to be pulling in different directions (e.g. demands from the team, demands from the leadership, demands from the customers) and cases of role ambiguity when it is unclear what a person should be doing. On the other hand, having authority (or at least some input) on what you’re doing helps maintain a sense of control.
Fairness and respect in an organisation are necessary to prevent burnout. Inequity in workload, pay, cheating or favouritism are all linked with disengagement at work. Race / sex / other characteristic based discrimination can stimulate burnout. Decision making should be fair, respectful, and well-argumented, allowing people to voice their opinions ahead of important decisions that affect themselves.
Insufficient financial, institutional, or social reward for their work leaves people much more prone to burnout. Linked to fairness, rewards that get allocated to some people but not to others despite their effort and quality of work, may cause resentment. If rewards are lacking in general — if “a good day is when nothing bad happens” or if working well / working poorly are treated the same way — that can also increase a sense that it is not worth trying / cynicism about the workplace.
Asking people to do something that they stand against can increase the likelihood of burnout, while employees who share the vision and goals of a company have the opposite effect. Negative examples might include asking people to lie / not tell the truth in their interactions with customers or paying lip service to values that are not embedded in practice (e.g. talking about equality in an inequitable workplace). Mismatch between an individual’s personal goals and values (e.g. wanting to experiment in a risk averse workplace) can also exacerbate disengagement and burnout.
Having quality social interactions at work can help prevent burnout. In particular, support and care from your supervisor / manager is vital. On the other hand, lack of relationships or chronic and unresolved conflict in the workplace increases the risk of disengagement and burnout.
The best ways to deal with burnout are through rest and leading an overall healthy lifestyle. However, the most important part of managing burnout is preventing it from striking again.
To begin with, take some time off work and rest. To make the most of it, consider these four elements.
Burnout (and overall job-related stress) recovery works better if you are leading a healthy lifestyle. Physical exercise, sleep, and a healthy diet are a good way to put yourself in a good place for being productive and enjoying your work.
This, of course, is easier said than done, as intense periods of work often lead people to drop exercise and good sleep patterns just when they need their healthy habits most. This “recovery paradox” can be tough to breach, but noticing it early through a mindful approach to one’s work could be a way to circumvent that.
Prevention is the most important activity to avoid recurring burnout. Even if you’ve taken time to recover, the symptoms of burnout can reemerge rapidly, if their causes are still present.
The actions necessary for prevention will vary, depending on the causes. For instance, breaks during the workday and the working week might mitigate workload causes, while clarifying expectations and a clear prioritisation process with your team might improve your sense of control.
If your existing workplace cannot eliminate or at least seriously mitigate the causes of your burnout, it might be time to consider if you want to head elsewhere.