On Burnout
Originally posted on 22 March 2021 on GetRevue
Hello friend, happy to see you here once again!
Last week we dove into the topic of overly-productive culture and its lasting effects on us. In this week’s issue, we will continue our exploration of a byproduct of overwork called burnout. The expectations we have towards ourselves to produce and share more carries the burden of burnout and all its corresponding risks. But to prevent ourselves from burnout syndrome, first, we have to understand what it is and what causes it. Let’s get to it.
Defining Burnout
’d assume you’re well aware of what burnout is. I’d even go a step further and imagine that you’ve experienced it yourself, knowing how difficult it is to live up to the expectations of the age we’re living. If you’ve ever felt emotional, physical and mental exhaustion primarily caused by stress at work — you’ve probably experienced burnout.
Felt like you’re procrastinating more often? Felt overwhelmingly exhausted? Felt disengagement towards your tasks or emotional bluntness? I’ve got news for you — most likely, it’s that usual suspect.
While these negative traits are seen in low moods such as melancholy or depression, the difference with burnout — is that its syndrome provoked by chronic work-related stress.
That doesn’t mean there are no relationships between depression and burnout, though. In a study that compared depressive symptoms in burned-out workers and clinically depressed patients, there were no significant differences found in both groups. In fact, the similarities in the exhaustion dimension overlapped one-to-one.
Interestingly enough, there has been evidence that while there are similarities, people affected by burnout should not be treated with antidepressants. The endocrine response to burnout is far different from those of depressive symptoms, meaning that we should seek the difference between burnout and depression to improve our emotional state effectively.
To sum this up, I’d use the quote from Liu and van Liew:
“The term burnout is used so frequently that it has lost much of its original meaning. As originally used, burnout meant a mild degree of stress-induced unhappiness. The solutions ranged from a vacation to a sabbatical. Ultimately, it was used to describe everything from fatigue to major depression and now seems to have become an alternative word for depression, but with a less profound significance”.
With time we’ve overused the term “burnout” as a definition to numerous low mood ending up with a blurred, unclear meaning. Hopefully, with everything you currently read, I managed to clarify the usual symptoms of burnout. If that were the case, I’d gladly suggest going through the six domains of burnout that would solidify our understanding of this syndrome.
The Six Domains Of Burnout
In the past two decades of research, scientists have identified several organisational risk factors that lead to burnout. The exciting thing about these studies is that they were conducted in various countries and across many occupants. Yet, the critical domains of burnout stayed the same.
Workload
When we have a balanced workload, we could work efficiently for long periods without a break. This has been the case for me — I used to work Saturday and Sundays out of two factors — I enjoyed my work, and I enjoyed getting some extra payments on the weekends. When we get overloaded by work, our capacity to meet the job demand is slowly depleted. Hence, when we’re exposed to overworking for a long time, our productivity decreases tremendously, and we end up anxious and chronically tired.
Control
The feeling of having control and autonomy over our work is something we should always aim to cherish. When we can make decisions that affect our work and do our best job, we are destined to have long-lasting job engagement. When the control over our work is taken away — for example, we’re not allowed to have ownership or cannot influence decisions in our domain; we’re destined to burnout. Exercise professional autonomy is crucial for one’s proper working state — if we’re constantly micro-managed and controlled, burnout is ensured.
Reward
The domain of reward is a truly spectacular one. In it, we can observe how insufficient recognition and reward increases people’s vulnerability to burnout. Lack of credit devaluates the time spent working, and it makes people feel inefficient and underqualified. In contrast, when a reward is shown in financial, institutional or social support, both sides benefit greatly. A better bond between job and person gets grown.
Community
The community domain can be summarised as the ongoing relationships between employees in a team. Suppose these relationships are characterised by a lack of trust and support or unresolved or ongoing conflicts. In that case, there are increased risks of burnout for all. On the contrary, when the job-related contacts are working well, there is support and understanding between employees. Especially there’s a practical methodology for resolving conflict. In that case, people often increase their job engagement and build better bonds with their colleagues and workplace. A great way to ensure the listed positives is to have a solid and well-thought-out company culture.
Fairness
The domain of fairness is the domain of equity and social justice. If a person is treated fairly at their job place, they’re likely to stay respectful and honest towards their job and coworkers. Once respect gets removed from the picture, things get bitter real quick — acts of hostility, cynicism and anger at the workplace become prominent. Sadly, most of the time, such negative moods are contagious. Being mistreated or disrespected at work is one of the most common causes of burnout.
Value
The values of one’s job are the ideals and motivations that initially attracted them to start working. They are considered as the main thing that bonds us to our workplaces, which goes beyond the concept of the exchange of time for money. When there are conflicting values in our jobs, often, employees find themselves making a trade-off between the work they want to do and the work they have to do. If a dissonance like this continues for long, it could develop or deepen one’s burnout, and it could cause the “break up” between a worker and the workplace.
Summarising Burnout
If we aim to explain burnout in a concise matter, it would be a work-stress induced syndrome that leads to both emotional and physical distress. When boiled down, burnout is caused by a lack of fairness, respect and decency between humans at the workplace. Burnout could be prevented with proper employee screening, solid work processes and good company culture in place.
While the syndrome has many similarities with low moods like depression and melancholia, it’s triggered by different environments, and almost always, it has a different treatment. Things like days off, work-life balance improvement and cognitive therapy have been proven as effective treatments to burnout. And while I’m on the topic of this, the final piece of this saga will focus precisely on treating and preventing burnout. Backed with scientific data, hopefully, I’ll be able to share with you practical techniques for burnout management and prevention. Stay tuned! ✌️
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