The mental health consequences of burnout are getting alarmingly widespread. reported that over three quarters of people suffer from burnout mental health, while thousands seem unable to distinguish between standard stress and something tragic. The Guardian explores the symptoms of burnout mental health with an extract from personal experience exhaustion, numbness and feeling like an “emotional ‘fry up’” despite external appearances of a manageable workload. For many workers, burnout mental health concerns are now deeply ingrained with the routine functioning of daily life.
According to recent surveys over half of all American workers have experienced burnout and 1/3 of British adults experienced severe stress or pressure within the year. Burnout mental health symptoms are more complex than tiredness; experts list three major symptoms, exhausted, depersonalization or emotional disconnection with people, feeling cynical, irritable or incapable of caring; and poor efficacy, or a reduction in productivity and feelings of competence, that is often accompanied by shame or guilt. Suffers burnout mental health condition, the chances are they will be “doing less and hating yourself more” for doing so.
Burnout is not a stand-alone diagnosable mental health disorder by the World Health Organization; however, symptoms similar to those associated with burnout and mental health frequently overlap with anxiety or depression. While people with burnout may not experience the same depth of despair in the same way as those with a diagnosable major depression, they often report persistent frustration and adrenaline rush, sleep disturbances, and physical complaints such as headaches or tightness in the chest. With insufficient support, this burnout mental health stressor can develop into fullblown mental illness or stress related somatic disease.
An interviewee of the piece counters these convenient assumptions by take-downs of common misconceptions about burnout. The mental health problems caused by burnout aren’t a simple symptom of laziness. Instead, they are evidence of a dysfunctional and unjust system: unrealistic work pressures, lack of control and dehumanising management and corporate culture equating worth with productivity. Individual coping mechanisms, theoretically, aren’t enough solutions should be on the structural and individual levels.
Some practical tips here, such as referring to burnout as mental health symptoms instead of only struggling or upset, requesting accommodations or R&R, and returning to your most meaningful and joyful activities to help preserve your humanity. Employers need to take burnout very seriously and do their part. They need to check in on workloads, offer mental health resources, and foster a psychologically safe environment. For all quietly pondering, “Is it just me?” this coverage reminds you that if you‘re exhausted, indifferent, and diminished, you‘re not alone; burnout mental health help is valid and deserved.
Source: The Guardian – Over 75% of people suffer from burnout
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