The great EXHAUSTION

Cooked. Shattered. Zapped. Zonked. Why are we all so tired?

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Several years of destructive weather, mounting hybrid workloads, shrinking job stability, housing insecurity and cost-of-living pressures, and it's little wonder so many of us feel like we haven't a lot left in the tank.

The stats confirm that "I'm so tired" is the catch-cry for a nation feeling weary. A survey by Massey Business School found 57 percent of employees fell into the high-risk category for burnout, more than double the previous number.

Globally things don't look so flash either. A Deloitte study that sampled 22,000 people across 44 countries found stress levels were rising for young people. More than half of Gen Z and Millennials reported they felt burned out, prompting a viral "quiet quitting" boom on social media. It begs the question: Has our hustle culture finally caught up with us?

The hidden cost

According to former GP Dr Amy Imms, "Being busy and feeling tired have been culturally normalised, and the pervasiveness of fatigue can reduce our ability to recognise burnout and take it seriously".

Exhaustion, she explains, can occur to wildly different degrees. It can be "a badge of honour reflecting hard work, dedication or an altruistic commitment to others". It can also describe someone who is "absolutely pushed to the end of their coping ability and on the brink of collapse".

Under the World Health Organisation (WHO) definition, burnout is a state of exhaustion resulting from chronic workplace stress. It's characterised by three key things: A feeling of depletion, cynicism and reduced professional effectiveness.