What is burnout?

Defining burnout isn’t as simple as you might think, because the way the word is used in everyday discussion and the clinical definition of it are different.  The World Health Organisation (WHO), defines burnout as “…a syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterised by three dimensions: 

1. Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion

2. Increased mental distance from one's job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job

3. Reduced professional efficacy

Burn-out refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life."

This WHO definition certainly lays out something quite familiar to many high-performing professionals, but as all of life has sped up, our understanding of “what is burnout” has changed and been expanded to encompass many other areas.    

From experience and a few years of scanning burnout headlines, I know that today burnout is applicable to everything: Dating burnout.  Parenting burnout. Pregnancy burnout. Student burnout.  Answering-emails-out-of-hours burnout.  Caregiver burnout.  Vacation burnout. Kids and tweens burnout.  Entrepreneur burnout.  Wellbeing/selfcare burnout.  Creative burnout.  Social burnout.  Neurodivergent burnout.  Climate burnout.  Quiet burnout.  Fauxducitivity burnout.  The list goes on - whoever you are, whatever you do, however you occupy your thoughts, the message is, you could suffer from burnout. 

Stop for a moment, put aside your scepticism and think about what this actually means.  Everyone is feeling burned out, for multiple reasons.  And the statistics bear this out. 

91% of adults in the UK experienced high or extreme levels of pressure or stress at some point in the past year. From the same source - one in five workers (20%) needed to take time off due to poor mental health caused by pressure or stress in the past year. 82% of employees in the tech industry feel close to burnout. Reports of burnout among British workers increased by 48% to record levels in the past year.

So if we return to the question posed at the beginning of this article – what is burnout- how might we redefine it? 

At Depth & the City, we’ve worked with many clients on the brink of or in burnout.  We’ve observed three main “tells” of modern burnout – firstly, the individual has a feeling of not recognising themselves, and may even have had feedback from family and friends saying they’ve changed, for the worse.  This is because there’s very little joy in their existence.  Secondly is physical tiredness, particularly in the venue (most often work) where the burnout is centred.  Despite often doing their best with diet, sleep and exercise, our clients often find themselves utterly sapped.  Finally, while not universal, we do find a lot of our clients are addicted to their phones, sucking in content almost nonstop.  It’s an unconscious looking for dopamine, for relief, for something novel.  So when we pull those three tells together, we answer the question of “what is burnout” by thinking of it as an inability- mentally, emotionally, or physically- to engage with all or critical parts of life, both characterised by and leading to a loss of motivation, agency and pleasure.

The good news is that burnout is not inevitable. Learn to spot the signs early and make meaningful changes.  Reach out for a free introductory chat to see how we can support you.

Photo by Kinga Howard on Unsplash