mental health

What is Burn-Out Syndrome?

  • Have you been feeling tired lately?

  • Has the thought of going into or facing work* filled you with dread? (*Work = any occupational pursuits, including unpaid activities, like being a parent, carer, or student.)

  • Are you losing your empathy? Getting cynical and overly pessimistic about work-related things?

  • Do new demands on you feel overwhelming and make you avoidant, irritable, angry, or resentful (i.e., the fight or flight reponse)?

  • Are you struggling to get things done? Is everything taking longer to do? Are you half doing things or cutting corners, and underperforming?

You might be burnt out.

In 2019, the World Health Organisation broadened their description of burn-out to a ‘syndrome’. Burn-out Syndrome in the ICD-11 was defined as:

  • Feelings of exhaustion or depletion of energy;

  • Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feeling pessimistic, negative, or cynical in relation to one’s job; and

  • Reduced professional productivity or efficiency.

Put simply, burn out is when the demands on you keep outweighing the time, energy, and other resources you have to meet those demands, so you become physically and mentally depleted. Everything starts to shut down…

I like to think of it as your brain and body closing for business, effectively saying to the world, people, and work/life, “Nope. Can’t.”

So how do you recover from burn out?

The research is still emerging, but our current thinking is to:

1) Reduce the demands on you, and

2) Find ways to restore good physical and mental wellbeing and energy.

1) Reducing the Demands:

  • Reducing the demands can be tough to do.

  • You can start small with the 4 Ds: What can you Drop, Delegate, Delay, or Do right now?

  • Or you can start bigger: How can you restructure your day, week, or life to give you a better balance? Can you talk to your boss or HR to reduce your workload, redefine roles and responsibilities, or get more support? For students, can you ask for extensions, cut back on your subject load?

  • Can you ask for outside help? From friends, family? Or health professionals?

  • Can you outsource things in your life, to free up your time and energy?

  • Or do you have to completely rethink your job? Look elsewhere? Major change is sometimes required.

2) Restoring Good Physical and Mental Wellbeing and Energy:

  • Physical wellbeing: what is and isn’t working well in the physical domain of your life? Should you see your GP for a full health check, including blood test? How is your sleep, your diet, exercise, and your alcohol and drug consumption going? What is your pace like throughout the day? Are you rushing everywhere and never slowing down or stopping? Or are you too inactive, oversleeping and barely moving each day? What can you work on, improve or change, to give you more energy and wellbeing?

  • Social wellbeing: how are your relationships going? Are you doing too much socialising or not enough? Or are you not doing the right amount and type of socialising? Are there certain people you could connect more with, feel renewed by, and others you could interact with less in your life (stressful relationships that exhaust you)? Can you work on some relationships and improve things? Or implement healthier boundaries in relationships that take your energy or pose more demands for you?

  • Spiritual wellbeing: this doesn’t mean religious; this just refers to ‘the YOU in your life’. What brings you joy? What passions, hobbies, and interests do you have? What makes you feel good, connected, in tune? What gives you that feeling of flow, where you are so immersed in something wonderful and you lose a sense of time? What piques your interest and helps grow or makes you feel on track as a person in your life? If nothing much is happening in this domain in your life, now is a great time to change that!

  • Mental health patterns: how are your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours going? Are you caught in any negative, self-defeating or destructing cycles? Are you spending too long on your phone, ‘doom-scrolling’? Are you staying up late to get more ‘me time’ and then not sleeping enough, waking tired, and then repeating it all again? Are you stuck in some negative thought cycles? Avoiding things that might otherwise be great for you? What could you change here?

Recovery typically involves good self-care and good boundaries. These aren’t always easy, but your health and wellbeing matters.

The latest literature on Burn-out Syndrome suggests that it can take weeks, months, even YEARS to recover from! Making changes sooner than later matters. And seeking professional help is worthwhile.

Renae Kurth, Director/Clinical Psychologist

Mind & Body Psychology acknowledges the Jagerra and Turrbal peoples as the first inhabitants and traditional custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work. We pay our respects to the Elders, past and present, and are committed to honouring all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ cultural and spiritual connections to the land, waters, and seas, and acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded.

The Director of Mind & Body Psychology contributes 3% of her salary to: Pay the Rent (Aborignal Grassroots Intiative), IndigenousX (Indigenous owned media outlet), the Westerman Jilya Indigenous Scholarship (scholarships to support the training of more Indigenous psychologists), and Bush Heritage (a not-for-profit that purchases land and partners with traditional owners to restore and protect Country).