The Big Burnout

Long hours, low pay and a lack of appreciation — among other things — can make for a stressful workplace and lead to burnout. It’s something we should all be concerned about, because over half of the workforce reports feeling it

By Dr Dean Burnett. Photographs by Getty Images and Alamy

Burnout is mentioned a lot these days. But what is it, exactly? A disease? A disorder? A driving based video game? Actually, it’s none of these things (well, there is a video game but that’s not what we’re discussing here).

Burnout is the phenomenon where an individual’s health (physical and mental) and functionality suffers due to them experiencing excessive stress for extended periods, specifically from their job. As such, it’s officially classed as an ‘occupational phenomenon’ (see ‘What is burnout?’, p41).

There are those who may scoff at this. After all, hard work never hurt anyone, right? It’s character building! You’ve got to work hard if you want to succeed. You don’t get something for nothing, etc. Overall, there are many societal factors and assumptions that can, and do, lead people to assume that constant hard work only has positive outcomes.

The data tells a very different story, however. The reason burnout is mentioned so often is because surveys (conducted in the US) reveal that, pre-pandemic, 43 per cent of workers reported experiencing some form of burnout. Nearly half of the entire workforce.

Alarmingly, yet predictably, the pandemic’s made things worse. The same studies conducted post-2020 reveal that 52 per cent of employees, a 9 per cent increase, now report experiencing it. So burnout now affects over half the workforce. Particularly younger employees, who have many more working years ahead of them; those closer to retirement, in more senior positions, with more savings, report less burnout. But even they’re feeling the pinch of the pandemic.

Why, though? Given everything we’re led to believe about the benefits of hard work, why is burnout such a problem?

STRESS AND ITS IMPACT ON HEALTH

A persistent cause of poor health in modern, developed-world humans, is stress. While we’re all familiar with stress, its long-term effects are more profound than most realise, leading to many health problems.

Stress is part of our body and brain’s defence system. It’s essentially a precursor, a build-up stage, to the more potent, but shorter lived, fight-or-flight response. When we encounter things that we perceive as threats (or potential threats), we experience stress. Which has health consequences, often due to the constant presence in our systems of stress chemicals, such as cortisol.

Physically, stress negatively affects our blood pressure, respiration, weight, immune system and more. Mentally, stress can negatively affect our focus, memory, mood and cognition. Stress is also believed to be a key factor in the onset of both depression and anxiety.

It’s well established that burnout causes genuine physical illness, increased feelings of hopelessness or despair, irritability, impatience, and damages relationships with family, friends and co-workers. Burnout can even lead to problems with executive functioning (our ability to think and self-regulate), attention, and memory. Overall, burnout mirrors the consequences of excessive stress. It’s not just severe exhaustion (although that’s a key part of it). However, burnout is specifically a consequence of stress induced by someone’s work, their job (see ‘What does burnout do to us?’, p42).

So, what’s so special about work stress?

Much modern adult stress comes via the workplace. Psychologically speaking, there are many things about work that reliably trigger stress in the brain, things that we’re less likely to encounter outside of work.

For instance, the human brain likes a sense of control, of autonomy. When we feel we have control over things that affect us, we tend to feel better, more reassured. Most jobs involve adhering to a strict schedule, however, or taking instructions from someone more senior. And in big organizations, it’s often hard to understand the logic or rationale of the things you’re being made to do. This loss of autonomy is a reliable cause of stress. As is uncertainty, a constant issue when you don’t understand why you’re being made to do what you’re doing.