Let’s be real for a moment: Being a person can be exhausting. As humans, we carry a lot on our shoulders and don’t always give our bodies and minds the rest they need to recharge. If you’re constantly spinning your wheels and feel like each day is a race against the clock to get as much checked off your to-do list as possible, you’re bound to reach your limits at some point.
Tired of feeling beyond tired? We get it – burnout sucks! Get matched with a therapist near you today!
10 Warning Signs of Burnout
1. You Can’t Get Out of Bed in the Morning
Everyone has those mornings where they can’t stop hitting the snooze button. However, feeling fatigued from the moment you wake up is a major warning sign of burnout.
2. You Can’t Sleep at Night
On the flip side, burnout can cause insomnia. You might find yourself playing through the endless list of tasks that need to get done instead of sleeping.
Sleep and mental health are closely linked. Burnout makes it hard for the mind to rest, even when it’s time to be sleeping. This easily turns into a cycle that not only disrupts rest, but also amplifies feelings of anxiety and overwhelm, creating a loop that’s difficult to break without addressing the root causes. Difficulty falling asleep, inability to stay asleep, nightmares, and ruminating worry about work are all symptoms and could be pointing to burnout.
3. You Feel Irritable All the Time
Burnout can leave you restless, heated, and constantly on the verge of exploding. This irritability will likely follow you from work to home, which can have a negative effect on your relationships.
Irritability and burnout can lead to cynicism because they often create a sense of emotional depletion, frustration, and disillusionment. Cynicism is just a self-protective response, where you might begin to distance yourself emotionally to avoid further disappointment or stress.
4. You Can’t Focus or Stay Productive
No matter how hard you try, you just can’t stay focused. A task that would normally take you 30 minutes can stretch to hours because you can’t find the motivation to begin or quickly get off task. Or maybe work keeps falling through the cracks. Missing a deadline or two might not be a big deal. But if you’re consistently struggling to get your work done and can’t seem to make any of your deadlines, burnout might be to blame.
5. You Hate Your Job (Even If You Loved It)
If you dread going to work each day, that’s a major red flag that you’re feeling burned out. On one hand, it’s possible that you work in a toxic environment and that your energy is best spent elsewhere. However, you can get burnout working at a place you love. Even if you have the best coworkers and landed your dream job, burnout can make every workday feel like a challenge.
6. You Feel Like a Failure
Burnout and shame are close friends. If you feel unsuccessful and underappreciated at work, that can lead you to feeling burned out in the first place. You might feel ashamed that you can’t just “get it together” and do your work.
Over time, your struggle or this perception of failure can snowball, and as tasks pile up, you might start to feel like you’re falling behind, and that feeling of struggling to meet expectations only fuels the cycle of burnout. The cycle leads to decreased motivation and increasing feelings of shame.
7. You Avoid People
Avoiding toxic friendships is one thing, but burnout is different and can lead to self-isolation. You might feel too overwhelmed to socialize with your coworkers during the day and you might even feel too exhausted to spend time with your friends or family outside of work.
This can be especially true if you’re in a type of job that demands interaction with people for the majority of time you’re working. When you’re feeling this way, you might start to notice symptoms of dissociation, emotional detachment, or depression.
8. You Can’t Get the Creative Juices Flowing
Feeling like you’re in a permanent state of writer’s block? Burnout can make you feel like all your creative juices have suddenly gone dry, and not even the normal walk around the block or cup of tea can get you back in the groove.
9. You Keep Getting Headaches or Muscle Pain
Burnout can take a toll on your physical health, making you more susceptible to sickness. It’s also common for stress to cause chronic headaches or muscle pain.
The body’s response to prolonged stress involves the release of hormones like cortisol, which, in turn, can disrupt the normal functioning of the digestive system and lead to issues like IBS, nauseousness, stomach ulcers, constipation, or acid reflux. It’s fascinating how our body is all connected: even mental issues can lead to physical problems.
10. Your Appetite Is Low
Are you skipping breakfast most days or notice that you just don’t feel hungry when lunch comes around? Burnout can cause your appetite to take a dip and you might even start to unintentionally lose weight.
How Common is Burnout?
Burnout is incredibly common, and the COVID-19 pandemic definitely didn’t help the issue. In SHRM’s 2024 Employee Mental Health Research Series, 44% of survey respondents claimed they experienced burnout in the previous year. And from the different age groups surveyed, millennials topped the charts every time in feeling the most burned out.
Common Causes of Burnout
- Too much work
- Too many work hours
- Lack of work-life balance
- Lack of control
- Lack of reward
- Unfair treatment or expectations
- Toxic work environment
While burnout is not a medical condition, it can be closely linked to mental health conditions, such as depression, anxiety, or stress. It’s been recognized as an “occupational phenomenon” by the World Health Organization (WHO) and is described as being caused by “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”
The Link Between Stress and Burnout
While workplace stress is one of the most common causes of burnout, it’s not the only cause. If every day feels stressful, it’s likely that a bad case of burnout is around the corner – whether you’re a working professional, college student, a stay-at-home parent, or you’re stressed by the politics of the day.
If stress is feeling overwhelmed and having too much energy or emotion, then burnout is the opposite. It’s feeling unmotivated, detached, and empty. The transition from stress to burnout doesn’t happen overnight. You might not realize that you’ve crossed that threshold until you’re deep in it.
How Long Does It Take to Recover from Burnout?
The personal recovery time from burnout can vary significantly depending on the severity of the burnout. If you’re experiencing mild burnout, just a few key changes in your role might help mitigate the symptoms quickly.
For those experiencing moderate burnout, it might take weeks or months of changes and utilizing coping skills before you’re noticing yourself go back to normal.
When it comes to more severe cases of burnout, consider this your sign to make some big changes and perhaps even seek professional help in order to find recovery. Of course, there are a variety of factors involved that may affect the level of changes or time necessary to recover from burnout:
Duration of Stressful Work Conditions
How long someone has been dealing with stress at work plays a big role in how long it will take to recover from burnout. The longer you’re exposed to stress and in a state of hyperarousal (fight or flight mode), the more it wears on both your body and mind, making the burnout symptoms stronger and the recovery process take longer. Recognizing and addressing the source of the stress early on can significantly shorten the recovery period and help prevent burnout from becoming a long-term issue.
Degree of Trauma Experienced
If you’ve been through a lot of traumatic experiences, whether at work or in personal life, that kind of emotional and psychological weight can make burnout much harder to bounce back from. The more intense or frequent the trauma, the deeper it can affect your mental health and overall well-being. It doesn’t just drain your energy, but it can create lasting feelings of fear, helplessness, or disillusionment. Extra support like therapy or trauma-informed care might be necessary to help you heal.
Level of Support
If you have a strong support system, whether it’s friends, family, coworkers, or a therapist, you’ll likely heal faster because you have people to lean on, talk to, and help you through the tough times. Having someone to listen or offer practical help can take some of the pressure off and remind you that you’re not alone in this. On the other hand, if you’re dealing with burnout in isolation, without much support, it can take much longer to recover.
Level of Resilience and Grit
If you’re someone who tends to bounce back quickly from challenges and can push through tough situations, you might find that your recovery takes less time. Resilience helps you adapt and find ways to cope with stress, so even though burnout might hit hard, you’re able to muster the strength to start healing sooner. If you’re someone who struggles with bouncing back or feels defeated by setbacks, it might take longer to recover.
How To Recover From Burnout for Good
Recovering from burnout and preventing it from coming back involves more than taking an impromptu vacation or adding a self-care routine to your checklist. While a stressful work environment is a major part of what causes burnout, your attitudes about work, your perceptions about yourself, and the way you relate with others all play roles.
The good news is that you can fight chronic stress at work and in other aspects of your life. By finding balance and learning a few essential skills, you can find satisfaction and peace. You can finally feel like you have the energy and capacity to not only get through the workday but to also spend quality time with your loved ones and pursue things you enjoy.
Here are a few key ways to establish a healthy relationship with your work and recover from a bad case of burnout:
Talk it out
Feeling burned out can be a scary feeling. If burnout is affecting your work performance, you might even fear that you’ll lose your job. Some people have a tendency to internalize their stress, but staying silent can make you feel alone and helpless. Venting to someone you trust and admitting out loud that you can’t do it all can feel like a huge weight off your shoulders.
Identify the Root Cause
While stress is what leads to burnout, you need to identify what is causing your dissatisfaction and stress at work. Are you taking on more than you can handle? Are you balancing work with a tumultuous relationship or mental health issue? Do you feel unrecognized for your achievements or feel isolated from your coworkers? Take time to self-reflect and pin down what factors might be triggering burnout.
Set Firm Boundaries
Your time is precious, and you need to divvy it up smartly. If you say yes to everything that people ask you to do, you’ll either fail in doing everything you promised or end up burned out at the end of it all. It’s okay to say no and be picky about what you add to your schedule, and setting personal and professional boundaries can help you in your recovery.
Check-in on Yourself Often
If you’re always on the go, you might get so lost in day-to-day activities that you don’t realize you are burned out until it hits you in full force. Make a point to self-evaluate your mental health and look for the warning signs that you need to reset.
Rediscover Your Hobbies
Make time for things you enjoy in your weekly schedule. Not every minute of your day needs to be spent on completing a task or getting something done. High achievers tend to get caught in loops of always working. Whether that’s putting hours in at your job or getting through the piles of laundry that accumulated over the week.
When To See a Therapist for Burnout
Burnout sucks, and it can last a long time. You might feel like you’ve done everything you can to beat it, but no matter how hard you try, you just can’t get your vigor and motivation back. Therapy for stress and burnout can make a big difference in helping you reclaim your life. Your therapist can help you identify the root cause of your burnout and work with you on effective ways to minimize stress and find a healthy balance in your work life.
Is burnout stealing your productivity? Get matched with a local provider today!
