Signs, Symptoms and 12 Stages of Burnout
I’ve had multiple firsthand experiences with burnout, and have seen a lot in my work as a burnout researcher and burnout coach. Through it all, I’ve come to see burnout as something sinister; something that’s easy to miss when it’s easier to course correct, and hard to miss when it’s harder to stop it from crashing down.
It’s like a Carbon Monoxide leak: odorless, colorless, and avoiding detection as it gradually builds up to toxic levels. The early signs are quite subtle: not feeling rested after a weekend, snapping at your partner, zoning out during a Zoom call. It’s easy to convince yourself it’s just one rough week.
Until it’s not just one week, but a month, or two or six, and at some point you suddenly realize how much pressure has been building up inside.
“I’m way past my limits. I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
So what exactly is burnout, and how do you know if you’re in it?
Common signs and symptoms of burnout
The official research on Burnout spans back to the year 1974, when the psychologist Dr. Herbert Freudenberger popularized the term, “Burnout,” in a research paper.
In Dr. Freudenberger’s words:
“Burnout is a wearing down and wearing out of energy... It is a feeling state which is accompanied by an overload of stress, and which eventually impacts on one’s motivations, attitudes, and behavior.”
When the thousands of people I’ve asked describe what their own encounters with burnout felt like, they say things like:
“A complete collapse of your day-to-day.”
“A complete lack of motivation paired with a high level of anxiety.”
“Stress to the point that it impacts daily and executive functioning — memory, sleep, hygiene, physical health, emotional regulation, cognitive processing.”
The reality is that burnout is a very complex problem, that has unique causes and context for everyone in which it shows up.
That said, there are some common patterns cited by people who experience burnout, such as:
Mental fatigue, brain fog, or physical clumsiness
Cynical thinking and becoming (especially uncharacteristically) irritable
Depression, apathy, and emotional numbness
Having difficulty either falling asleep or getting up
Intense anxiety about the future
Headaches, migraines, or persistent sickness
Difficulty focusing or holding motivation
Issues with creative or critical thinking
Social withdrawal or antisocial behavior
Not feeling “normal,” or feeling like a shell of your old self
It’s important to know that these signs can be symptoms of many different issues, not only burnout. That’s part of the reason why burnout is not actually recognized as an official illness or condition in the medical world, like depression or generalized anxiety disorder are.
It’s also essential to know that, even if you can count off one or all of these signs, they’re not in and of themselves a diagnosis of burnout, nor are they a determination that you are past the point of no return.
Particularly if you have felt overwhelmed by tasks or work and you can identify that some of these symptoms have been present for more than a few weeks, they may be signs that you might want to better inform yourself about burnout and the effects of chronic stress, and they may point to something that something in your work and lifestyle are out of sync.
The 12 Stages of Burnout
Beyond coining the term years ago, Dr. Freudenberger also gave us another helpful tool in better understanding burnout, which remains one of the most comprehensive maps of how burnout evolves: 12 progressively arranged stages of burnout.
Stage 1: The Compulsion to Prove Yourself
In Freudenberger’s model, burnout’s roots lie in self-esteem-connected obsession to prove yourself to yourself or others, even if it comes at the expense of your inner self and needs.
Stage 2: Working Harder
If you are pulled to double down on working with fewer breaks and resist delegating or hold a perfectionist standard of work, the stages continue. In stage 2, you may harbor a deep set of insecurities that work solves, or a fear of not being “enough.”
Stage 3: Neglecting Needs
If work makes you feel like there’s no time for rest, breaks, real meals, social plans, sleep, or other healthy needs of yours, the stages continue.
Stage 4: Displacement of Conflicts
Stage 4 marks the point when you become conscious (or someone else makes you conscious) of the rising toll that working so hard or so long is taking. If your reaction to this awareness is dismissive or defensive in favor of your work or tasks, then you are likely passing through stage 4.
Stage 5: Revision of Values
Once you have consciously committed to setting aside the conflicts blocking more work, you are also likely to deprioritize other, previously valued aspects of your life such as traveling, friends, family, dating, or fun. You may feel a fear of losing your sacrifice, investment, or future reward by slowing down, and working may even take on a twisted sense of survival: so long as you keep working, everything will be fine.
Stage 6: Denial of Emerging Problems
The midway point is an inflection point, where things get much more slippery, and your powers of rational, logical thought become dimmed due to the effects of unabated, rising stress. You may do even less outside of work, as anything outside of your familiar work routines may feel too exhausting to engage with.
Stage 7: Withdrawal
In order to save your energy for working (or to avoid the judgment of others), you may withdraw further from your networks and isolate yourself outside of work. If you are a high-functioning person, you might still maintain a semblance of “looking normal” to others by saving your energy for bursts of performance at work, only to zone out or collapse in an exhausted heap when no one is looking or when in private.
Stage 8: Odd Behavioral Changes
The continuing effects of chronic stress can also make you prone to behave erratically, or out of character. You might end a meaningful relationship, or spend an excessive amount of money on something, or generally make people who know you well even more worried about your wellbeing.
Stage 9: Depersonalization
At stage 9, you begin to dissociate from work, and even life in general. You may become apathetic, emotionless, listless, demotivated, and generally checked out. You might operate robotically, or as as though you’re on some strange version of autopilot.
Stage 10: Inner Emptiness
At stage 10, you might feel a bottomless, hollow shell, which no amount of work – or even things you used to take pleasure in – or can fill up for long. You might chase sensations just to feel something, only to return to a general blankness, or numbness of feeling.
Stage 11: Depression
At stage 11, you experience at least some similarities with the clinical issue of depression. It may show up as hopelessness, despair, or incurable fatigue. It might feel like it takes everything you’ve got left just to get out of bed, let alone take out the trash or brush your teeth.
Stage 12: Burnout Syndrome
The final stage is a risk of a full mental breakdown or physical collapse. There are serious health risks associated with burnout syndrome and the immune and cardiovascular complications it can bring.
What Now?
If you saw yourself in any of these stages—know this: burnout is reversible. Depending on your stage and situation, it may be a journey back to health (my research roughly estimates burnout recovery from a deeper stage to take anywhere from a few months to a few years) – but at any stage, there is a path forward.
So what can you do?
If you’re in a later stage (particularly stage 10 or later), please take the risk of burnout seriously and look for professional help from a coach or therapist.
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You can also continue learning about the psychology and science behind burnout with this free copy PDF copy of my book: Why You're Wired for Burnout and Quarter-Life Crisis.