Signs and Symptoms of Burnout

Burnout is a special type of stress in which a person becomes physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted from the seemingly insurmountable pressures faced at work or in their home life. It can negatively affect your motivation, energy levels and mental well-being. "Job burnout is a response to work stress that leaves you feeling powerless, hopeless, fatigued, drained and frustrated," says Dr. Audrey L. Canaff, UC Foundation Assistant Professor in the Counseling Program at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. "But since job burnout is not an overnight occurrence, it's important to recognize its early signs and to act before the problem becomes truly serious." Learn to recognize the physical, emotional and behavioral symptoms of burnout.

Physical Signs

• Chronic stress can actually manifest itself physically in many ways. Headaches, insomnia, muscle aches and lethargy are some common physical symptoms of burnout. According to Career Builder, burnout also can lead to migraines, gastrointestinal problems, loss of appetite and lowered immunity to sickness and disease. If you get sick easily, have trouble dragging yourself out of bed in the morning, experience unexplained muscles aches and pains or suffer from frequent headaches, it may be your body's response to chronic stress.

Behavioral Signs

• Reaching the point of burnout can greatly affect the way you behave and react to others in social situations. You may begin to withdraw from your daily tasks or blame others for your feelings of frustration. You also may begin coping with your stress in unhealthy ways. "One danger of reaching emotional exhaustion is that some people may turn to unhealthy outlets such as alcohol, drugs or other forms of addiction," says Greg Jantz, Ph.D., director of The Center for Counseling & Health Resources in Edmonds, Washington. "Another problem is that if you don't get help, you start making poor decisions at work." These decisions include procrastinating or ignoring responsibilities, arriving late and leaving early or skipping work altogether.

Mental and Emotional Signs

• Burnout from chronic stress may affect your emotional well-being more than anything else. The short-term mental effects of burnout include reduced ability to focus and concentrate, memory loss and decreased creativity. Over time, burnout can eventually lead to increasingly overbearing feelings of sadness, failure, isolation and self-doubt. People suffering from burnout experience loss of motivation, detachment, depersonalization and an increasingly negative outlook on their work and home life.