I think anyone who has experienced burnout of any severity sees the WHO definition as scoped from the employers point of view only and as a productivity issue. As a human though it extends to all aspects of life. I disagree with the assessment of the article too.
I’ve gone through burnout and mentored a few dozen people going through it. It’s nothing to do with relaxing, or is confined to work. It’s all encompassing, has strong parallels and likely includes depression and an anxiety disorder. It has more of a sense of the inability to initiate anything rather than the inability to do nothing. Everything feels too hard, you feel too old, you see no prosperous future, and you yearn to end everything - not suicide, but to quit work, quit life, and disappear. These sounds like the appropriate mental response to unrelenting and uneasing stress to which you see no way out of. Most people suffering burn out spend an awful lot of time simply doing nothing.
However myself and the folks I’ve worked with as a mentor at work on burnout share the trait we lose the ability to identify things we enjoy - video games, music, travel, etc, lose their redeeming value and they can’t identify what music they like any more or a game they want to play. When they relax, it’s spent ruminating. To that extent maybe the articles point is true.
For me the way out was vipassana meditation and Buddhism. It taught me to master my rumination, detach myself from the stress, and discover the value of simply being rather than being someone or something. I recommend it to most people but only one or two have actually tried it.
Wow, this sounds so relatable. I went through most of what you describe, especially it being a mix of depression and anxiety disorder and not being able to identify anything I would enjoy, low energy, not feeling like starting or doing anything. Just wanting to disappear, and feel nothing. I felt loneliness was part of my problem too. The covid situation made me much more isolated than I was admitting at first.
I also found a lot of help in meditation and developing and practicing mindfulness. Recognising thoughts and emotions as they arise and to not identify with them was a big eye opener and relief. Just letting thoughts be or talking about it with someone when I noticed a pattern really helped. I think part of it was also processing some buried away issues.
> Everything feels too hard, you feel too old, you see no prosperous future, and you yearn to end everything - not suicide, but to quit work, quit life, and disappear.
I thought it's not burn out, but just getting older and wiser :)
Very few people over say 40-45 year old are chipper and burst with energy and enthusiasm. On the contrary, most of them are in sort of "Aikido mode", when they try to deal with whatever threats and external demands come with minimum amount of energy expended. IMO, it's a combination of just having less energy at that age, and the acquired wisdom that most things that you could be doing, aren't really worth doing.
Burn out feels different than that. It’s more like you’re grinding your gears when shifting and things are slipping. It’s not that you’re not clubbing every night it’s that you can’t conceive of any music you want to listen to and when you listen to music it’s not compelling. This is very similar to depression, but it extends beyond that into anxiety. It’s like you burned your hand and flinch any time you get close to the stove - you hurt so much from what you’ve endured your entire being is flinching from further harm.
It’s maddening since I noticed burnout tends to happen at peak career, so added onto everything you are where you aspired to be, but can’t do it, even though you know you could if this weren’t holding you back. I think our career, with impostor syndrome creating huge stress early in the career, pressure to move up mid career, then burnout as you turn that corner. The stress and pressures never really let up, until you learn some way to understand them differently and relate to them in a way that doesn’t hurt you. For me learning to be myself, the inner self that’s simply aware and not striving or desiring, not restlessly unsatisfied with what I’ve not done or should have done differently, or worried about how X pan out, or what Y will say about something, etc etc. Simply trusting myself, my abilities, my passions, and being in each moment as it happens was what meditation taught me and it was what helped me through my burnout.
Sound advice, and yeah, I'm pretty sure burnout is built into the current landscape. I can't imagine it's intentional since I can't figure out how it would ever lead to greater profitability. W.R.T. most tech culture, I often tell other folks, you are the fuel or you are the fireman. Current structure and goals don't seem to really optimize for any other arrangement.
Only a few do, mostly because Buddhism has a lot of baggage being classified as a religion and being couched in mysticism in popular presentation, but everyone who does finds a lot of value. It’s value is proportional to how much you practice meditation and take it seriously - but not mystically. There’s no magic or life after death or eternal happiness, it’s a very practical guide to being a human being in the way humans actually are rather than how we are taught to live by our society, culture, and instinct.
My suggestion to most is to start with Gil as a teacher -
Regarding recovery I think most people do, but it does require dramatically changing your lifestyle in some way. You’re there mostly due to how you view life and your situation, as well as the situation. I think no one is ever the same and their limits in life are closer than before. You have to be more gentle with yourself, and more aware of yourself. A lot of vipassana meditation is learning to detach your “self,” or awareness from your thoughts and feelings and sensations and being able to observe them without becoming entangled in them. For instance I feel anxiety in my chest. By letting my thoughts and feelings be as they are but holding the tightness in my chest in awareness without judgement, the tightness eventually dissipates because it never really existed somatically. Concurrently my anxiety does as well, and I can then let the thoughts go as well as they’ve lost their power. It’s taken me two years but at this point I am fully engaged in my life, learning and loving more than I ever have all that life has to offer. I’ve got a great job at a late stage startup and switched from senior leadership roles to distinguished engineer roles.
Good luck man. Find friends too, friends are hard to engage with when burned out, but it is helpful.
It's interesting that you mention multivitamins. When I was burnt out I noticed that Vitamin B, D3 and zinc have a huge positive effect on my mood and energy level.
I’ve gone through burnout and mentored a few dozen people going through it. It’s nothing to do with relaxing, or is confined to work. It’s all encompassing, has strong parallels and likely includes depression and an anxiety disorder. It has more of a sense of the inability to initiate anything rather than the inability to do nothing. Everything feels too hard, you feel too old, you see no prosperous future, and you yearn to end everything - not suicide, but to quit work, quit life, and disappear. These sounds like the appropriate mental response to unrelenting and uneasing stress to which you see no way out of. Most people suffering burn out spend an awful lot of time simply doing nothing.
However myself and the folks I’ve worked with as a mentor at work on burnout share the trait we lose the ability to identify things we enjoy - video games, music, travel, etc, lose their redeeming value and they can’t identify what music they like any more or a game they want to play. When they relax, it’s spent ruminating. To that extent maybe the articles point is true.
For me the way out was vipassana meditation and Buddhism. It taught me to master my rumination, detach myself from the stress, and discover the value of simply being rather than being someone or something. I recommend it to most people but only one or two have actually tried it.