A Brief Look at Burnout
The Term Burnout is recognisable by a wide range of people. For individuals in high-stress careers, it is a constant threat. It is always there which makes it seem daunting. Leading many individuals to not admit that they may be experiencing burnout or even know what the signs might be. Here we are going to explore what burnout is and how to recognise the signs.
What is Burnout?
Burnout has been used for many years. It may surprise you how long it has been in use and when it was first described. The term was first used medically in 1970 by psychiatrist Herbert Freudenberger. He was using it in reference to a volunteer group working at a social facility that assisted drug addicts. When the volunteers first started working at the facility they were committed, enthusiastic and even somewhat idealistic about their roles. As time went on, Freudenberger noted that the volunteers began to experience an increase in exhaustion. Leading to a detached and cynical attitude. Their feelings towards the patients had become negative and their performance deteriorated.
Around the same time, Christina Maslach, a social psychologist, from California studied individuals in highly stressful jobs. After taking years to observe and understand people’s behaviour she formulated three key aspects of burnout:
Emotional exhaustion: occurs when someone is so emotionally drained that they cannot properly react empathetically towards others.
Depersonalisation: when a person begins to feel negative and have negative perceptions of family, colleagues, and patients/customers. Stemming from a stressful work environment. These negative feelings and perceptions are generally not present prior to starting work and ultimately lead to a change in behaviour.
Reduced personal accomplishment: characterised by a sense of a person’s own reduced professional competence. In the majority of cases, a person will overly criticise themselves and feel utterly incapable of their work or achieving their goals.
Blurred Lines
As this state of negativity continues, the lines between what is important and unimportant become blurred. The person will likely feel that they are being pulled into a whirlwind of uncontrollable emotions. One way of looking at this is to separate the lines between hot cognition and cold cognition. Hot cognition is when emotion is required to respond or react in a situation and can be fleeting. While cold cognition is slow and focuses on using logic along with perceived emotion to process information before reacting.
Hot cognition: emotional processing - aspects of language - empathy
Cold cognition: attention - memory and learning - executive function - psychomotor speed - aspects of language
People who become depressed due to burnout are known to have difficulty planning, recalling information and concentrating. This makes them prone to hot cognition responses. It can come off as abrupt or even harsh to others.
There are some questions you could ask yourself to gauge your cognitive functioning. For example:
Do you find it difficult to make decisions at work or in your private life?
Do you find it difficult to read and absorb information?
Do you frequently misplace things or lose track of what you are doing?
Do you have difficulty starting or completing familiar tasks?
Stages of Burnout
Often people suffering from burnout eventually succumb to exhaustion which causes depression. This is typically seen in the final stages of burnout, as described by Professor Matthias Burisch in the timeline of burnout.
Initial warning signs
Reduced commitment phase
Emotional reaction phase
Impaired cognitive skills phase
Flattening of emotional and social life phase
Psychosomatic reaction phase
Depression and desperation phase
In the initial stages of burnout, one can see an increased commitment to work through overtime and showing a lack of interest in doing other tasks or activities. Followed by experiencing exhaustion easily and other physical symptoms that tend to appear with stress. These include gastrointestinal issues, dry mouth, increased sweating, headaches, dizziness and sleep difficulties.
Once these disruptions set in people begin to outwardly show a decreased interest in others and focus more on their own gains. Such as getting work done at all costs. At this point, friends and family begin to cut the person off entirely or experience a deep concern for the person’s well-being. Soon enough emotional reactions play a large role in how the person interacts with the world and how they perceive themselves. This is noted as the person will react excessively and have negative thoughts about themselves that include intense pessimism and inferiority. The friends and family around this person may treat them with irritation and even hostility as they are unaware that the person is experiencing burnout. It simply comes across as a change in behaviour. This in turn fuels feelings of inferiority and sends the person down a negative spiral.
Once the spiral takes hold it is very difficult to get out. The negativity deepens and the person will start to experience a decline in cognitive function and a complete flattening of social life. In this way, they close off any potential for a helping hand out of the spiral and reinforce their own pessimism. Eventually experiences such as pleasure, joy, sadness and so on will fall away and the person will become numb to their surroundings. If left untreated it can lead to anhedonia. Characterised by listlessness, joylessness and even a loss of appetite. For some individuals sexuality and sexual desire are affected as well,
The last stage culminates in feelings of intense desperation and feeling lost inside one’s self. This can lead the person to feel as though there is no hope and allow for exhaustion-induced depression to take hold. When a person gets to this point they need assistance in so many ways and it can take years for total rehabilitation. Think of it like losing trust in a relationship. Sometimes you find a way forward but more often than not you cannot trust that individual again. Late-stage burnout is similar to that experience in that you have lost trust in yourself in an extremely personal way. You essentially need to rebuild yourself.