Burnout: Causes, Symptoms, Stages, and Practical Solutions

What Is Burnout? Defining the State of Exhaustion

Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged or excessive stress. It’s an escalating process, not a sudden event, where you feel drained, often unmotivated about your job or life, and can feel overwhelmed or resentful of demands. Unlike regular stress, which can sometimes be motivating, burnout can make simple tasks challenging and can interfere with work, relationships, and overall wellbeing.

The Difference Between Stress and Burnout

Stress and burnout are often confused, but they are not the same. Stress is characterized by over-engagement—you feel urgency, heightened awareness, and an emotional drain. Burnout, however, is characterized by disengagement—you feel disconnected, detachment, and emotional exhaustion, which can be accompanied by a sense of overwhelm. Both can include increased reactivity. Ultimately a chronically stressed state leads to burnout and the line between one and the other is not always a bright line as burnout typically comes on over a period of time.

Burnout vs. Depression: Understanding the Distinctions

While the symptoms of burnout and depression can overlap, they have different roots. Burnout primarily begins as context-specific and relates to difficulties in a particular role or part of life. The physical exhaustion from burnout, however, and the sense of overwhelm can spill over into other areas of life. Depression is mood-specific and typically impacts all areas of life from the beginning, often including persistent feelings of sadness and worthlessness that are tied to the person as whole rather than a specific area of their life. While severe burnout can lead to depression, they require different approaches for recovery.

Are You on the Road to Burnout? Self-Assessment

If you are questioning your current level of exhaustion, consider the following questions to help assess your risk of burnout:

Do you often feel physically and mentally drained after a day of work?
Do you feel a deep sense of cynicism or lack of motivation about your job or your achievements or a specific role you play (this may include your role as a parent or caregiver)?
Have you noticed a significant drop in your productivity or effectiveness?
Are you using food, alcohol, or other coping mechanisms to manage your stress?
Do you find it difficult to enjoy activities that used to bring you pleasure?
Do you find tasks that you used to be able to do with ease more overwhelming?
Are you procrastinating more often? Cancelling plans? Avoiding making commitments?

Signs and Symptoms of Burnout: Recognizing the Warning Signs

Recognizing the warning signs is the first step toward recovery. Symptoms can manifest across physical, emotional, and behavioral categories.

Physical Signs and Symptoms of Burnout

Persistent fatigue and low energy, even after sleep.
Frequent headaches or body aches.
Changes in appetite or sleep habits (insomnia or oversleeping).
Lowered immunity, leading to more frequent illness.

Emotional Signs and Symptoms of Burnout

Lack of motivation and negative outlook, particularly towards a particular role you play (work, caregiver, parent).
Feeling of failure and self-doubt.
Detachment, feeling disconnected from things you used to engage with easily.
Loss of enjoyment in life.
Irritability with people you care about.
Feelings of overwhelm about basic tasks.

Behavioral Signs and Symptoms of Burnout

Procrastination and taking longer to complete tasks.
Withdrawing from responsibilities or social contact.
Using food, drugs, or alcohol to cope.
Lashing out at others or withdrawing completely.

Stages of Burnout: The Progression of Exhaustion

Burnout is a gradual process. Understanding the stages can help you intervene before the condition becomes severe. While models vary, a common progression includes:

Honeymoon Phase: High commitment to new role, often with high satisfaction, and initial stress.
Onset of Stress: Awareness of stress, but a drive to "work harder." Early signs of physical strain.
Chronic Stress: Symptoms become more persistent. Productivity decreases, and negative thought patterns begin.
Burnout: Critical stage where all symptoms are present. Feelings of exhaustion, overwhelm and failure become more difficult to cover up. Physical symptoms begin to interfere with function.
Habitual Burnout: The symptoms of burnout become so ingrained that a person may not even realize they are burned out anymore.

Causes of Burnout: Unpacking the Triggers

Burnout is often a complex interaction between work environment, lifestyle choices, and personality traits. One misconception about burnout is that it is caused by overworking. While there is an element of truth in this, it is really more often caused by our relationship to the work we’re engaged in. What are our thoughts and beliefs about ourselves in relation to that work? How do those beliefs drive our behavior and stress response?

Work-Related Causes of Burnout (High Workload, Lack of Control)

Remember that “work” for many people is not only a job one is paid to do, but also often includes a role as a caregiver as well.

Excessive Workload: Being consistently overworked without adequate time for recovery. Remember that “work” here can include the home environment for caregivers.
Lack of Control: Having little to no say in decisions that affect your role (e.g., scheduling, workload).
Unfair Treatment: Feeling like you are being treated unjustly at work.
Dysfunctional Relational Dynamics: Difficult or toxic relationships in the stressful role.

Lifestyle Causes of Burnout (Sleep, Social Life, and Self-Care)

Lack of Rest: Insufficient sleep or poor sleep quality.
Limited Social Support: Feeling isolated or lacking a strong support system.
Neglect of Personal Needs: Skipping exercise, healthy meals, or enjoyable hobbies.

Personality Traits Can Contribute to Burnout (Perfectionism, Type A)

Certain personality traits can increase vulnerability to burnout:

Perfectionism: A drive to achieve flawless results, leading to overworking.
Type A Personality: Highly competitive, ambitious, and aggressively involved in a continuous struggle to achieve more in less time.
High Need for Control: Struggling to delegate or accept less-than-perfect outcomes.

How to Deal with Burnout: Practical Recovery Strategies

Recovery from burnout requires a holistic approach, focusing on rest, re-evaluation of beliefs and hidden rules, and setting protective boundaries, physically and emotionally nourishing yourself toward healing. Rest alone will not solve the problem, which is really caused in large part by how one relates to the work they are engaged in. Recovery has three main components:

Exploring beliefs and emotions that led to chronic overworking and stress response
Re-wiring the nervous system to a state of balance
Physical repair, which may take the form of lifestyle changes and physical support of herbs or hormones to speed recovery.

Setting Boundaries and Improving Time Management

One aspect of recovery is to establish clear boundaries that allow for time and space for self care and mental emotional breaks. This will be challenging to do without doing the work of exploring the beliefs and emotions that prevented self care sooner. There is a reason you didn’t do this sooner and understanding that is important.

"Shutting Down" Work: Making a firm commitment to log off and not check work email after a certain time.
Prioritization: Learning to say "no" to non-essential tasks to manage workload.
Schedule Rest and Nourishment: Intentionally blocking time for breaks, exercise, and social activities, treating them as non-negotiable appointments.

The Role of Professional Therapy and Counseling

For many, full recovery requires professional help. A therapist or counselor can provide valuable tools:

Developing Coping Skills: Learning effective, healthy ways to manage stress and anxiety.
Identifying Root Causes: Working through the underlying issues that led to burnout.
Nervous System Rebalancing: Learning to recognize the signals your body is sending about when it is in a stressed state and how to signal to your body and mind that you are in fact safe. This can begin to break the cycle of burnout.

If you are struggling, please consider reaching out to a professional or scheduling a consultation. At Graceful Mind Institute NP PS, we have walked many people out of burnout into a new phase of life with more peace and clarity than they have ever had before.

Frequently Asked Questions About Burnout

Can You Fully Recover from Burnout?

Yes, full recovery is possible, but it is not quick. It requires time, commitment to lifestyle changes, and often professional support. Recovery is about making sustainable changes to prevent a recurrence, not just resting for a short period. Many people make the mistake of thinking all they need is a break, but a break without addressing the underlying beliefs and patterns that led to burnout won’t lead to recovery.

When Should I Seek Medical Help?

It is time to seek medical or professional mental health help when:

Symptoms significantly impair your ability to function in daily life.
You experience suicidal thoughts or intense feelings of hopelessness.
Physical symptoms, such as severe insomnia or chronic pain, persist despite your best efforts to rest.
You have tried making some changes, but aren’t seeing improvement after several weeks.
You are unsure where to start with your recovery.

Dr. Westaway, who has treated many patients with symptoms of burnout, has found that the patients who recover the fastest and the most completely do some of the following:

They fully commit to recovery
They address the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of burnout.
They use herbs and vitamins to support their physical recovery while working on uncovering hidden beliefs, healing emotional and spiritual patterns, and making lifestyle shifts that support wellbeing.
They seek consistent support.

You don’t have to do this alone and having someone in your corner who understands burnout and knows the path out can be such a gift. Dr. Westaway would be honored to walk that path with you.