Burnout has, until recently, been seen as a loosely defined set of symptoms relating to the experience of being overwhelmed with stress in the workplace. It was first recognised by the American Psychologist, Herbert Freudenberger, in the 1970s and the World Health Organization (WHO) recognised it as a syndrome (a cluster of symptoms) resulting from chronic workplace stress in 2019. While it is not yet formally defined as a medical disorder, a recent study by Jang, Kim et al., which was published by the British Medical Journal in Occupational & Environmental Medicine, in 2025, entitled ‘Overwork and changes in brain structure: a pilot study’ found as follows:
‘Overwork may induce neuroadaptive changes that affect cognitive and emotional health.
Long working hours may alter the structure of the brain, particularly the areas associated with emotional regulation and executive function, such as working memory and problem solving.’
Ref: https://bmjgroup.com/long-working-hours-may-alter-brain-structure-preliminary-findings-suggest/
The study compared grey matter in people who were working persistently long hours (more than 52 hours per week) with those working less hours, using neuroimaging techniques. The brain areas involved in attention, working memory, language-related processing, planning, decision-making, integrating sensory feedback from the body, emotional processing, self-awareness and understanding social contexts were all affected by overworking.
While medical doctors tend to diagnose stress, anxiety, exhaustion or depression as a reason for being sick from work, psychologists and psychotherapists have explained burnout in terms of symptoms, causes and ways to promote recovery.
Symptoms
Poor performance in:
- Memory
- Attention to details, leading to more mistakes being made
- Concentration and being ‘present’ in the current experience
- Making decisions
- Making balanced judgements of situations
- Problem solving
- Time management
- Feeling connected with one’s emotions and physical sensations
- Being able to reflect on one’s behaviour and manage emotions
- Language and self-expression
There may be physical effects on:
- Sleep
- Energy levels – feeling persistently exhausted, drained and depleted
- Muscular tension, bodily pain and headaches
- Digestive problems, a loss of interest in eating or compulsive eating
- Immunity and capacity to fight infection
- Libido
- A slowing down of motivation and activity in the direction of inertia
Psychological effects:
- Lower motivation or motivation only in one area of life (e.g. work), with increasing difficulty in maintaining productivity
- Low mood and a sense of negativity, cynicism and hopelessness
- Feeling trapped and a lack of agency over life circumstances
- Procrastination of tasks due to a sense of overwhelm
- Loss of connection to others and feeling too drained/low in self-esteem/emotionally disconnected to maintain relationships, leading to withdrawal and detachment
- Feeling resentful of others and a sense of being a ‘victim’
- Low self-esteem and self-blame
- Resorting to substance abuse or excessive use of digital devices/online interactions to escape
- Obsessive thoughts/compulsive behaviours
- Decision paralysis
Thoughts and feelings:
- I’m overwhelmed, beyond my limit, overstretched, unable to keep up, I can’t see how I can go on like this.
- I’m running on empty, drained, exhausted, lacking energy. I’m hardly able to put one foot in front of the other.
- My social battery is at an all time low, I’m irritable with others and have no capacity for their issues.
- I feel hollowed out, numb, disconnected, shut down, spaced out, depersonalised, as if I’m running on automatic, as if life lost its colour. I can’t say how I feel.
- I feel demotivated, low, negative, as if nothing makes any difference. I can’t see forward. I’ve lost my sense of purpose and direction. Life feels meaningless and empty.
Causes
- Overwork in terms of long hours and little respite from the demands of work, with high responsibility and pressing deadlines
- Responsibilities beyond a person’s training or capabilities or which are greater than it is possible to complete in the time available, leaving the burden of a permanent carry-over of tasks from one day to the next
- A lack of boundaries in responsibilities and diffuse job roles
- A perception that the work, pay and conditions, or a relationship or situation, is fundamentally unfair, to the point of feeling used or abused
- A lack of practical or emotional support in one or more areas of life
- A lack of alignment in values with the tasks being carried out, in that they seem harmful or meaningless
- Feeling unseen, unrecognised or unappreciated by those who are benefiting from the work
- A lack of agency, autonomy and choices which lead to feeling trapped in a situation, unable to see a way out
- Workplace bullying and a negative, blame culture which leaves everyone hyperalert for threatening responses from others
- Lack of opportunity for rest, leisure or sleep
- Overwhelming stimulation (noisy environment, frequent interruptions, digital overload, contact with aggressive or distressed others, living with the impact of medical disorders or other physical stressors, multi-tasking)
- Emotional demands from caring for others in need, whether in work or home life. The demands of being tied to a person who is aggressive, manipulative, critical, has exacting expectations and lacks compassion.
Examples
J is a professional in marketing in his 40s, who has two children under 5 at home and a wife who is unable to work due to disability. His work place overloads him, deadlines are unrealistic and his voice is never heard in meetings, due to an aggressive boss who shouts, demands greater efforts and calls anyone who complains about the pace a ‘snowflake’. J takes work home and his wife complains that she has no help with the children’s bedtimes. Weekends are taken up with seeing her family, which J does not enjoy. He feels permanently exhausted, secretly resentful of everyone and is irritable, but outwardly compliant. Life offers no enjoyment at all and he cannot see forward. He is making mistakes and finds it hard to string a sentence together in meetings. He forgets the tasks his wife asks him to do and is unable to explain to her how he feels or what he wants as he knows she is struggling too. He is disconnected from his children and secretly finds their noisy play hard to bear. He spends time pointlessly scrolling on his phone and is aware that he’s wasting time. His sleep is disrupted and he lives with permanent neck and shoulder tension. J becomes increasingly disconnected from his family and less confident at work, culminating in him making an error which loses a client and his boss threatening him. J feels paralysed and unable to return to work.
S is a 52 year old who has always loved her job in teaching primary school children, as she wanted to make a difference. However, she is now entering the menopause and is struggling with the endless paperwork, the out of control behaviour of her class and a lack of social support outside of work. One of her colleagues is younger, more energetic and always comparing herself with other teachers. S dreads her questions and tries to avoid her. She heads into negative downward spirals of self-criticism in the evenings, while trying to get through her workload. On her weekends, she visits her elderly mother, who complains that S is not doing enough for her. She is struggling with over-eating and digestive problems, going blank on occasions in front of her class and is trying to move house due to noisy neighbours, but cannot motivate herself to take steps forward due to indecision. Her life feels empty and she appears wooden and disconnected to those around her. When two children start fighting and one gets hurt, she is unable to act and sits at her desk blankly watching them. When she writes the incident report later, she cannot remember the details of what happened and blames herself. The next day, a parent complains to the school and the head teacher starts an investigation. S feels so shut down and unable to function that she calls in sick.
R is studying for his PhD and is finding himself ever less interested in the research which once motivated him. He knows that he was lucky to receive funding, but can see that life in academia requires long hours to generate data and write papers, alongside preparing his thesis. He is always the junior in meetings and more senior staff claim the credit for his work, however his supervisor only ever points out what he has failed to do. The income is so low that he struggles to afford a room in a shared house and has limited social life. He finds himself blanking out in front of the computer screen at work, waking in the night and scrolling pointlessly online, disinterested in dating and worrying what will happen when his funding ends. His family members live in another country and assume that his life is good, so he doesn’t like to disappoint them. He finds himself increasingly seeing life and his work as pointless and procrastinating on everything. He loses track of time, forgets small tasks, struggles to reason things through and make decisions and begins to believe he is losing his mind. He feels like an android going through life without interest or emotions.
Z is a carer working nights in a nursing home. She has three children and also a daytime cleaning job. Her husband is out on the road and works long hours away from home. She fits her shifts around his work, but this means that they rarely spend time together. His mother babysits the children in school holidays, but criticises Z for the messy state of the house. She feels unappreciated by everyone and is exhausted from endless physical work and caring for others, without rest. She feels hopeless and trapped, without choices. She has taken to buying sedative medication over the internet to stop her snapping at the children, but is aware that it makes her feel worse. Life feels colourless, sapped of any meaning, and she is just putting one foot in front of the other, but neglecting her own needs completely. Her children and husband complain that she’s not listening and when her youngest child bursts into tears after a difficult day at school, she just stares at him. Z feels hollowed out and when she sees old photos of herself, cannot recognise the vivacious person she used to be.
Assessing the level of burnout
A tool for assessing burnout either at work or in life generally: The Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT) assesses four subscales (exhaustion, mental distancing and emotional and cognitive impairment), giving a green, orange or red outcome score. An online version is available at: https://psytests.org/stress/batBen-run.html
Assess and plan
- Recognise and acknowledge that the current balance between responsibilities and rest are adversely affecting your well-being and health in both the short and longer term.
- Assess your priorities and values: What matters most in terms of the health and material well-being of myself and those I’m responsible for? What is important in terms of my values and my life satisfaction?
- List your responsibilities and assess them one by one: Can I let this go? Can I delegate this to someone else who will carry out this to an acceptable standard, temporarily or long term? Is it worth investing in training someone else to do this?
- Are there aspects of tasks which can be re-organised to fit my life better in terms of timing? Look at your weekly schedule and see if it can be planned in ways which minimise task-switching, travel time and interruptions.
- Are there aspects of my current life I would like to cut out, but I’m avoiding discussing my wishes with others who may be adversely affected, because it will provoke a conflict or I will feel guilty or ashamed? How can I address that?
- What activities and changes of approach would support my recovery from burnout (see Steps to recovery below)?
- Plan and assign times for well-being tasks on your schedule. Set reminders via notifications, alarms, post-it notes or habits apps to alert you to the need to spend time on your recovery.
- Consider asking someone to be your accountability buddy, perhaps your partner, therapist, parent, close friend or an app which records and tracks tasks achieved.
- Set a date and time to review progress.
Steps to recovery
- Consider the need to seek professional help. A medical doctor will assess for underlying conditions, such as depression or generalised anxiety disorder, and may offer medication and/or therapy. An empathetic and compassionate therapist can support gentle in-depth exploration of the issues and finding ways forward and may draw on therapeutic approaches, such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
- Exercise in a way that suits you best. A plan to do something you enjoy for a reasonably short amount of time will be more successful than an ambitious plan. All exercise is beneficial, but exercise which involves bilateral movement supports the brain in processing emotions and thoughts, e.g. cycling, swimming, walking, dancing, running, drumming, climbing, etc.
- Connect with your body and sensory experiences, e.g. through yoga, stretching, tapping techniques, such as Emotional Freedom Technique, tai chi or guided body scanning techniques.
- Practice soothing rhythm breathing exercises to engage the parasympathetic nervous system and counteract fight or flight, e.g. The Power of Breath for Grounding | Deb Dana | Take a Moment Guided Meditation
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UMpLDGw0po
- Take care of your vagus nerve. Polyvagal theory suggests that specific exercises in breathing and in using your throat can counteract the tendency to shut down and dissociate. Humming and singing also activate the vagus nerve. E.g. Reclaim Feelings of Safety and Trust with Polyvagal Theory | Deb Dana
- Reclaim Feelings of Safety and Trust with Polyvagal Theory | Deb Dana #nervoussystem
- Plan for sleep. Sleep is crucial to counteract burnout. Keep your bed for sleeping, so that the mind associates ‘bed’ with ‘sleep’. Ensure that the environment is dark, quiet and at a suitably cool temperature. Set a wind-down period and routine, avoiding screen time and keeping stimulation to a minimum. Spend time to work through your concerns before bedtime and schedule necessary tasks for the next few days. Read, meditate, stretch, walk, spend time with a trusted other person or animal to promote a state of calm safeness before bedtime. If you find yourself awake longer than 10 minutes, get up and carry out calming activities before returning to bed.
- Monitor caffeine and other nervous system stimulants and depressants.
- Make time to rest with relaxing and satisfying ‘flow’ leisure activities, which engage the brain in immersive ways, such as manual or creative tasks.
- Connect with trusted others through talking, hugging, smiling and laughing together.
- Spend time in nature.
- Spend time alone to decompress and allow time to process events, situations and emotions.
- Get in touch with yourself through journaling, using questions, prompts and exercises drawn from self-help activities or self-reflection cards. Try to identify how you feel, locate your emotions physically and what you need to allow those emotions to move forward.
- Practise self-compassion using Compassion Focused Therapy exercises, e.g. Kristin Neff https://self-compassion.org/self-compassion-practices/). Focus on positivity and warm feelings through gratitude and loving kindness (Metta) exercises.
- Know yourself! Burnout is often associated with perfectionism and the drive to validate oneself through ‘getting it done and getting it right’ when the sense of self-worth relies too heavily on being seen to complete tasks, meet deadlines, care for others, while maintaining the highest standards of achievement. If this underpins an unrelenting drive to act, in order to avoid ‘being in the wrong’, it is the underlying motivation which needs addressing. Deep-rooted shame can fuel constant striving for diminishing sense of reward. Self-criticism fuels a sense of threat and the downward spiral of bournout. Ask yourself, ‘When am I good enough?’ Acknowledging human limitations and finding self-acceptance can be challenging and takes time and effort to work through.
- Assess your values, ‘What matters most in life?’, ‘What would I most miss if it were not present?’ Research (e.g. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.926328/full) indicates that people who are aligned with a purpose larger than themselves weather stress better. Meaning may come from a set of ideals, a philosophical approach to life, political stance, a faith or it could be from attachment to family, a community, a particular job or a vision of a specific motivating goal. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy exercises can help clarify values and priorities.
I have no time for any of that!
Be compassionate to yourself if your responsibilities seem overwhelming and there is no time for self-care. There are brief hacks which can release tension over the day:
- Stand tall, reach your arms up, lift your chin slightly and stand in a power stance. Breathe in deeply and breathe out slowly while raising yourself onto your toes.
- Ball your fists and squeeze your biceps alternately left to right, then tense the muscles in each thigh alternately. Training with weights releases tension.
- Shadow box. Dance to a favourite track (like no-one’s watching)! Walk around or hop from one foot to the other.
- Download a soothing rhythm breathing exercise, guided meditation, EFT tapping routine, set of affirmations or self-soothing video clip (such as Paul McKenna’s Havening technique https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiydCEAH4m8) onto your devices for regular use.
- Get outdoors somewhere green to stretch and walk. If this is impossible, research (e.g. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3699874/) shows that focusing on an image of a natural scene online is relaxing.
- Ask for a hug (from someone appropriate and trustworthy) or give yourself a firm hug and smile. If you feel comfortable doing so, smile at yourself in the mirror.
- Be mindfully present within your experience in the moment, noting your breathing, how your body feels and what you are seeing and hearing right now.
- Check in with your emotions: ‘What do I feel right now and where can I feel that in my body?’ ‘What feels most overwhelming right now?’, ‘What do I need right now/tomorrow/on the weekend?’
- Focus on a positive aspect of life e.g. note three aspects of life you are grateful for or situations that have gone well recently.
- Be compassionate to yourself. ‘What would you say to comfort a friend in this situation?’ Offer yourself empathy, e.g. ‘Today is feeling overwhelming/an uphill climb/stressful because …’ and then reassure yourself that ‘I accept myself as I am and am taking care of myself through this day.’
- Work with your standards, your need to achieve and get things right and on time. Balance what has yet to be achieved by noting what you have achieved.
- Decentre and take a larger perspective. ‘How will this day look in two years’ time?’ ‘How would I feel if I were watching myself as I am now on a screen, while sitting on a mountain top/in a forest/on an island/beach/spaceship? What empathy, compassion and advice would I offer myself?’
- Be your own guide: Use your calm, confident and compassionate voice to promote a feeling of safeness. Hum, sing, repeat a positive phrase out loud or talk yourself through what you want to do next with a soft, kind, caring and warm voice.
Going forward?
Burnout may take weeks, months or years to resolve, depending on the degree of severity and length of time the symptoms have been present, the individual’s underlying mental health, the available social and professional support, the degree to which alleviation of the stressors is possible and the self-care measures taken.
Progress is in small steps
Locus of Solace 