At some point in our careers many of us will experience work-related stress that leaves us struggling to cope. But how do we know when we’re experiencing burnout and what can we do about it?
Burnout is more than a general feeling of malaise that a bit of yoga, a meditation app or a week in the sun will fix. Its three key symptoms are: overwhelming exhaustion; feelings of cynicism and detachment leading to a sense of ineffectiveness; and a sense of lack of accomplishment at work. This is not just a feeling of dissatisfaction. It is a prolonged response to chronic stress that can lead to being signed off sick, as well as high blood pressure and even depression.
In an essay that went viral early in 2019, BuzzFeed writer Anne Helen Petersen explains how she and fellow millennials became “generation burnout”. She describes it as an unavoidable condition: since childhood we have been taught to “optimise” every part of our lives in order to be successful.