Over 75% of people suffer from burnout — what you need to know

Once, after surviving yet another round of redundancies in a former job, I turned off the lights in my room and lay face-down on the bed, unable to move. Rather than feeling relief at having escaped the axe, I was exhausted and numb. Fatigue, apathy and hopelessness are all textbook signs of burnout.

Christina Maslach, the psychology professor who first studied the syndrome, says it isn’t a disease but a response to chronic job stressors. Exhaustion is only one symptom: depersonalisation, or emotional detachment and cynicism, and a drop in productivity or perceived competence are equally central.

In healthcare that can show as compassion fatigue; elsewhere it may appear as irritability or difficulty caring about colleagues, Claudia Hammond and coach Anna K Schaffner explain. Burnout is not a personal failing. Prof Gail Kinman notes it is often the way an organisation is managed and the support people receive that drives it, with intense workloads, long hours and lack of agency playing a large role.

burnout, exhaustion, depersonalisation, cynicism, compassion fatigue, workplace stress, redundancies, reduced productivity, christina maslach, gail kinman