Burnout is a state of emotional and physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It can have a significant impact on an individual’s quality of life, as they start to lose interest in the things that they would ordinarily enjoy, or that would give them pleasure. The good news is that with support, people can recover well from burnout and get back to doing what is important to them.
Burnout occurs when an individual feels overwhelmed and drained emotionally. It affects people both psychologically and physically, as they can end up feeling completely exhausted. It often stems from people having a number of demands upon them, which they feel they can not meet.
As the stress builds and continues over a period of time, they start to lose interest in certain aspects of their life. For example, if their burnout is being caused by work stress, they may begin to feel a lack of interest and motivation at their workplace.
Many people think that burnout is a result of experiencing lots of stress, but it isn’t quite the same. People who are very stressed often believe they would feel better if the pressure on them eased.
When people are burnt out, they often don’t have much hope for a positive change. They may feel a sense of emptiness, as though they are beyond caring, and may have little motivation or drive. They’re in a cycle of negative emotions and withdrawal that can be hard to break out of.
Although burnout is sometimes caused by a specific area of life such as work, the impact of burnout tends to spill over into every area of life. It can affect home life and social life, and can certainly have a negative impact on overall health.
It can cause changes to our immune system and people experiencing burnout might find that they are more susceptible to illnesses such as colds, or flu. It can also take a long time for them to shake off their symptoms and get better.
There are many different symptoms of burnout, some that affect our emotional state and others that affect how we feel physically. If you are experiencing burnout, you will likely notice some symptoms from both areas.
There are a number of different factors that can contribute to burnout, sometimes these are specific to one domain in life (for example, work), or sometimes they span across multiple domains in life. Below are some of the most common factors that can lead to burnout.
We spend a great deal of our adult lives at work and therefore it is no surprise that difficulties in the workplace are one of the leading causes of burnout. This type of burnout can result from a number of different factors, but common causes include:
There are also some specific careers that are highly associated with burnout – in particular, nurses or teachers tend to be at a higher risk of experiencing burnout.
Work-related burnout can have a knock-on impact on your lifestyle, which can then feed into the negative cycle and essentially make things worse.
However, burnout can stem from lifestyle factors alone. Specific lifestyle factors that can increase the risk of burnout include being a carer or being a parent. Having a caring role can mean that you have less time for self-care as you prioritise someone else’s needs.
Carers and parents also tend to report more sleep difficulties, which can have a big impact on mental health. In fact, research has found that insomnia is significantly associated with burnout.
There are also a number of personal factors that can contribute to our risk of developing burnout. For example, people with certain personality traits, such as extraversion and neuroticism, are more likely to experience burnout. It is also more common in people with perfectionist tendencies.
People who have certain conditions can be more susceptible to burnout – including those with ADHD or Autism. This can be a result of trying to navigate day-to-day life with their condition. For example, autistic burnout can be a consequence of trying to camouflage or mask certain features of autism or trying to suppress certain behaviours.
If you think you are experiencing burnout, then it is very important that you reach out for some support. Burnout tends to be a negative cycle, and you have the best chance of making a quicker recovery if you catch it fairly early on in the cycle.
If left untreated, it is likely that the effects of burnout will spill over into every area of life. Burnout also impacts our bodies physically, and trying to push on despite burnout generally exacerbates this further and leads to more physical damage.
The good news is that there are a number of psychological therapies that have been proven to help people recover from burnout. A qualified psychologist will work closely with you to fully understand the individual factors that have caused your burnout, and will then be able to tailor your therapy to your individual needs.
Professional support not only provides a good understanding of burnout but will combine this with teaching different evidence-based strategies that are designed to improve your symptoms and help you move forward with your life.
CBT can help people develop an understanding of the different factors that have contributed to their burnout, and the different factors that could be maintaining it.
People can learn different ways of doing things, for example communicating better at work or being more assertive. This can then help them to step outside of the negative cycle of burnout and feel as though they are taking back some control.
CBT also helps people to learn how to tackle negative thoughts or beliefs that may be contributing to their burnout and teaches them skills that can help reduce some of the symptoms.
Cognitive Behavioural TherapyACT teaches people to change their relationship with their thoughts and feelings so that they do not dominate their decision-making or lead them to make decisions that ultimately are unhelpful in the long term.
ACT also uses mindfulness to help people stay grounded in the present moment and to allow them to observe their thoughts and emotions rather than getting caught up in them.
ACT helps you reconnect with values, which may have become lost within the noise of whatever factors are causing burnout. It also helps people to work out how to take steps towards these values.
Acceptance & Commitment TherapyCFT helps people to understand how their brains work when it comes to emotions, and supports people to be more compassionate and caring towards themselves.
Burnout can also be associated with feelings of shame or guilt and sometimes people can get into a cycle of self-criticism. CFT can help people to cope with these emotions and thoughts in a more self-compassionate way.
Compassion Focused TherapyAt Turning Tides, our team of Psychologists are highly trained and have many years of experience working with common mental health conditions, such as burnout.
Our therapists are all fully qualified in using a range of different approaches that can help manage burnout and are able to integrate aspects of different approaches to ensure your sessions meet your individual needs.
Our psychologists help you pin point why you’re experiencing burnout, exploring some of the different factors that have brought you to where you are today. Based on these individual factors, they will teach you strategies to effectively manage and recover from burnout and allow you to move forward in your life.
We offer regular face-to-face appointments at our modern and comfortable clinic in Hoult’s Yard, Newcastle or we can offer online therapy via Zoom if you live further afield or have a preference for online sessions.
We have tried to keep our pricing as simple as possible. We charge £120 for a 60-minute appointment, regardless of whether this is an assessment or therapy session. Our fees are the same for face-to-face appointments and online appointments as you will receive the same high standard of care from our psychologists, regardless of how it is delivered.
A psychologist will then be in touch to arrange a free 15-minute no-obligation call, where we can discuss your requirements in more detail and you can get a feel for whether Turning Tides is the right psychology practice for you.
If we’re not right for you, we’ll try and signpost you to somewhere that is.
Please note – Turning Tides is not a crisis service, and if you feel you need urgent support or are experiencing a mental health crisis then it is important that you contact your GP if they are available, or attend A&E.