Understand the signs your body gives you when you’re burnout

Psychiatrist Jessi Gold of Washington University in St. Louis knows she’s on her way to burnout the moment she wakes up and feels instantly angry about what she finds in her email inbox, and doesn’t want to get out of bed.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that a healthcare professional who is trying to fight the rise of burnout can feel exhausted herself at times. After all, the phenomenon is now ubiquitous in our culture.

In a survey of 1,500 US workers in 2021, more than half said they felt exhausted as a result of the demands of their work, and a whopping 4.3 million Americans left their jobs in December, an event that came to be known as “the great layoff”.

When people think of burnout, mental and emotional symptoms such as feelings of helplessness and cynicism often surface. But burnout can also lead to physical symptoms, and experts say it can be smart to look for signs and take action when a person notices them.

Burnout, by its usual definition, isn’t a medical condition — it’s “a manifestation of chronic, persistent stress,” explained Lotte Dyrbye, a medical scientist who studies burnout at the Mayo Clinic. The World Health Organization (WHO) describes burnout as a work phenomenon characterized by feelings of exhaustion, cynicism and reduced effectiveness.

“The person starts to not function well, to miss deadlines, to feel frustrated, to maybe show irritation with colleagues,” said Jeanette Bennett, a researcher who studies the effects of stress on health at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. .

But stress can have wear and tear effects on the body, especially when it doesn’t ease off after a while — so it makes sense that it can cause physical symptoms, too, Bennett said.

When people are stressed, their bodies experience changes that include producing higher than normal levels of stress hormones like cortisol, adrenaline, epinephrine, and norepinephrine.

These changes in the body are beneficial in the short term – they provide the person with energy to overcome difficult situations – but over time they begin to harm the body.

Our bodies “were not designed for the kind of stressors we face today,” said Christina Maslach, a social psychologist at the University of California at Berkeley who has devoted her career to the study of burnout.

Here’s how to recognize burnout in your body and what to do about it.

what to watch

A common symptom of burnout is insomnia, Dyrbye said. When researchers in Italy surveyed the plight of frontline healthcare workers who were suffering from burnout at the first peak of the pandemic, they found that 55% reported having trouble falling asleep, and nearly 40% reported having nightmares.

Research indicates that chronic stress interferes with the complicated neurological and hormonal system that regulates sleep. It’s a vicious cycle, because not sleeping further disaligns the system. If you find yourself unable to sleep at night, that could be a sign that you’re suffering from burnout, Dyrbye said — and insomnia can exacerbate the problem.

Physical exhaustion is another common sign. Gould said that one of the key symptoms of his burnout was fatigue. “I found myself falling asleep every day after finishing work — and wondering what was wrong with me. What was wrong was burnout,” she said.

Changes in eating habits – eating more or less than usual – can also be a sign of burnout.

In the study of Italian healthcare workers, 56% of respondents reported changes in their eating habits. People may eat less because they’re too busy, or distracted, or they may start craving “that comforting food that we reach for when we need something that makes us feel better,” Bennett said.

Research has also indicated that stress hormones can affect appetite, causing people to feel less hungry than usual when they are very stressed, and hungrier when the stress is relieved.

Headaches and stomachaches can also be triggered by burnout, Gold said.

A study of people in Sweden who suffer from exhaustion disorder – a medical condition similar to burnout – found that 67% of them experienced nausea, gas or indigestion, and that 65% had headaches.

It’s also important to realize that burnout can develop alongside depression or anxiety, two conditions that can cause physical symptoms. Depression can cause muscle aches, stomachaches, sleep problems and changes in appetite. Anxiety has been linked to headaches, nausea and breathing difficulties.

What to do

If you’re experiencing physical symptoms that could be indicative of burnout, consider consulting your GP or a mental health professional to determine whether these symptoms are stress-driven or stem from other physical conditions, Dyrbye said. Don’t ignore the symptoms and assume they don’t matter.

“It’s really easy to disregard your own symptoms, especially in our culture where we’re taught to work hard,” Gold said.

If there is indeed burnout, the best solution is to address the root of the problem. Burnout is typically recognized when it’s caused by work, but chronic stress can have a variety of causes — financial problems, difficulties in relationships, and the burden that caring for others can place on someone, among other things.

Think about those “boulders in your shoe that you have to deal with all the time,” Maslach said, and look for creative ways to remove some of them, at least sometimes. Maybe you can ask your partner to help you more when putting the kids to bed, or ordering out on days when you’re especially busy, so you don’t have to worry about dinner too.

Despite the coverage of the issue in popular culture, burnout cannot be “fixed” through better health care, Maslach said. In fact, this implication only exacerbates the problem, because it places responsibility and blame on people who suffer from burnout and implies that they should do more to feel better, which is not the case, she said.

But even so, some lifestyle choices can make burnout less likely. Social support can help, for example, according to Gold. This could include talking to a therapist or getting together with friends (even if via Zoom). Another thing that can help is to tap into the mental health or fitness benefits your employer may offer. Getting more sleep is another thing that can be beneficial — so if you’re suffering from insomnia, talk to a doctor about possible treatments, suggested Bennett.

When burnout is caused by work-related issues, asking for better working conditions can be positive.

Maslach suggested talking to co-workers and offering the employer ideas that might help — such as creating quiet areas for breaks and personal phone conversations, adopting “no-meeting days” so workers have more time to focus, or ensure that there is always coffee in the room used for breaks.

Even small changes like these can reduce the risk of burnout a little, if they solve a problem people face every day. “It’s the chronic stressors at work that really drive people crazy after a while – they don’t have the equipment they need, they don’t have the things they need, they don’t have enough colleagues for the workload they face. “, said Maslach.

Taking time off work can also help, but it will likely only serve as a stopgap, Gold said. She likens this technique to trying to stop a ship from sinking by removing water from inside the hull with a bucket. “The ship will continue to sink, won’t it? You have to do more than just take the water out occasionally,” she said. But it is still important that the person has regular days off.

Ultimately, what you want to ensure is some freedom and autonomy in your job, Gold said. “Anything you can do to regain some measure of control can be really helpful,” she said. This could mean doing your least favorite thing at work right before a break, so you have some incentive to start the task and time to recover from it afterwards. Or try swapping a task that you don’t like with a colleague, and in return doing the task that he hates the most, but may not be that difficult for you.

Finally, while you may not want to add even more commitments to your schedule, try to set aside some time each day for something you love, Dyrbye said. In her research, she’s found that surgeons who make time for their hobbies — even just 15 to 20 minutes a day — are less likely to suffer from burnout than surgeons who don’t.

“You need to have something outside of work that helps you reduce stress, helps you focus and helps you relax,” she said.

_{Translation by Paulo Migliacci}