Protect employees from chronic stress

Clinical burnout: prolonged exhaustion, mental distance, and persistent negative feelings

Burnout isn’t just stress—it’s a pervasive feeling of exhaustion that can start in the workplace and seep into everyday life. It causes feelings of dread and cynicism about work tasks. On top of emotional distress, there can be physical symptoms and a tendency towards addictive behavior.

Self-care can't fix burnout on its own

Steps such as exercise, breathing, mindful eating, and spending time with friends, can help alleviate the fight-or-flight mode response of the body to alleviate stress, but they don't fix the stressors causing the burnout. To address those, workplaces may need to consider how to better manage workloads and duties.

How burnout alters your brain

Stress is a normal part of everyday life, and it’s not necessarily all bad. But chronic stress—the kind that leads to burnout—can change the size and functioning of parts of your brain. It can alter the ability to make new brain cells and memories and even potentially modify your DNA.

Burnout became a serious area of study in the 1970s

Psychology professor Christina Maslach developed the first tool to assess the presence of burnout, focusing on six contributing factors within workplaces: an overwhelming workload, a lack of control over one’s work, insufficient reward for one’s efforts, interpersonal conflict, a sense of unfairness, and a mismatch between individual and organizational values.

Workplace overload has spawned the industry of 'burnout coaches'

Chronic stress and burnout aren't just leading to mental-health crises. They're also the foundation of a new career type: burnout coach. These aren't necessarily licensed therapists, but often people who have been through the burnout cycle and received certification as coaches. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

One-third of early- and mid-career workers have considered quitting due to stress

In 2024, around half of all full-time employees polled by the National Alliance on Mental Illness reported experiencing burnout at their jobs. Around a third of all employees ages 18 to 49 had considered quitting their jobs due to workplace stress.

Modern workplaces were engineered for efficiency, not work-life balance

Modern work organization traces back to 19th-century scientific management, an approach that optimized output by viewing workers as machine components. That logic still persists today and contributes to burnout, stress, and disengagement. Researchers propose a "circular work" model that combines effort with recovery, learning, and renewal, suggesting productivity and well-being should align rather than compete.

Recognizing the 12 steps of workplace burnout

Psychologists Herbert Freudenberger and Gail North created a 12-stage model to explain the path to burnout. It begins with employees feeling the drive to prove themselves in the workplace, leading to overwork and neglecting of one's needs, and ends with depersonalization and depression.

What employers can do about parental stress

The US Surgeon General recently released a formal warning deeming parental stress a public health issue. The advisory also included recommendations for how employers can mitigate the issue. Employers can help their employees access child care, for instance, or provide flexible working hours. To find out more about what the Surgeon General prescribes, read more here.

Links between long-term caregiving and chronic stress

This Cleveland Clinic overview suggests that around 60% of people caring for family or loved ones with health conditions will experience burnout. Caregivers prepare meals, help with transportation, administer medications, and perform daily tasks for others, all while managing their own lives. This guide may help readers overcome the guilt or frustration of long-term caregiving to seek alternative options.

Overwork contributes to thousands of worker deaths

Can work really kill you? The World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization have estimated that long work hours contribute to thousands of death from strokes and heart attacks each year. This BBC article argues that the culture of overwork and burnout is leading to a public health crisis in desperate need of solutions.

The WHO defines burnout as an occupational phenomenon

While it’s not a medical condition, the World Health Organization defines burnout as an occupational phenomenon in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), and considers it separate from general stress.

Reported rates of burnout by occupation

Burnout is often considered a disorder of caregivers, with teachers, doctors, nurses, and social workers reporting high levels of burnout. Among K-12 education professionals, 44% reported experiencing burnout in 2022.

Completing the stress cycle to avoid burnout

Emily and Amelia Nagoski cowrote the book "Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle." In this podcast, they discuss their own experiences with burnout, how emotional and mental stress wreak havoc within the body, and societal barriers that intensify burnout.

How artificial intelligence, which detects patterns, can identify burnout

Researchers are training AI to detect stress-related symptoms, helping physicians and other medical workers recognize and reduce stress from overwork and potentially avoid burnout.

Managing an employee with a terminal illness

Managing an employee with a terminal illness might be a reality at some point, requiring a balance of compassion and strategic action. This article provides tips for best practices on managing the situation, such as adapting the work environment to the employee's needs (think: giving them flexible hours or the option to work remotely), involving them in decisions about any adjustments to their role, and more. Find out other things to consider here.

The career risk of being a people-pleaser

While people-pleasers tend to be kind and thoughtful, researchers say they are at risk of burnout at work because they are unable to set boundaries and disregard their own feelings when asked to complete a task. Read this brief, helpful article on the signs of people-pleasing and how to overcome the tendency.

Hustle culture is what happens when the belief that working extremely hard will put people on the path to success becomes the norm in a workplace or other group

From pulling all-nighters at the office to never taking a weekend off, hustle culture has been known to lead to employee burnout. The Worklife with Adam Grant podcast explains hustle culture and its effects in depth in this episode.

How stress affects every organ in the body

If you are a visual learner, this resource is for you. Not only does this article from the World Economic Forum outline the causes of modern stress along with helpful strategies, but they have created an approachable infographic to show exactly how stress manifests throughout our different bodily systems. Pair this visual guide with our other resources to gain a deep knowledge of stress and the human body.

The traits that make a strong and resilient leader

Developing psychological flexibility, or an ability to adapt during change and stressful situations, can help leaders manage pressure while maintaining their wellbeing. A leader who can embrace discomfort and navigate hard times can earn greater respect, increase team satisfaction, manage distress effectively, and stay focused on priorities. Read this article for a further understanding on how to develop and sharpen this skill.

Listen to how medical error affected an emergency physician's approach

Emergency physician Dr. Sarah Gray discusses her worst medical error, what she learned from it, and how medical error and the culture around it lead to physician burnout. In addition to lawsuits, medical errors can lead to guilt, shame, anxiety, and fears of embarrassment, so this podcast discusses how sharing such errors and teaching about them can improve care.

States are creating legislation to try to better protect their healthcare workers

State lawmakers and hospitals are scrambling to protect the nurses, doctors, and other healthcare workers that are increasingly experiencing workplace violence. Dozens of states have passed laws or are working on bills that aim to curb hospital and clinic violence by requiring detailed violence prevention plans from employers, increasing legal penalties for those who attack healthcare workers, or taking steps like requiring hospitals to have a law enforcement officer—not just a security officer—on-site.

How to prepare your finances for a layoff

Getting laid off is often unexpected—but that doesn't mean you can't plan for the worst, financially speaking. This article provides a few key tips on how and when to get your finances in order if you're worried about being laid off, such as looking into the cost of replacing employer-sponsored benefits like healthcare. Read more here.

Pros and cons of pay transparency

While the benefits of pay transparency may seem plentiful to some, there are a few less obvious downsides. For instance, some argue companies that implement pay transparency could end up hiring fewer people or pitting employees against each other. For a full list of perceived pros and cons of pay transparency, click here.

There's no specific anti-inflammatory diet, but certain foods increase the chance of inflammation

Research suggests humans can reduce inflammation by limiting foods that are already known to be unhealthy for the human body—because they alter gut bacteria and stress the immune system—such as highly-processed foods, deep fried foods, sugary drinks, trans fats, red meats, and foods made with white flour. Foods that help the body include fatty fish such as salmon, legumes, fruits, and vegetables.

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

Firework or sparkler burns, even if they cover a relatively small area of skin, can significantly affect our range of motion.

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.

Doctors differentiate between a phobia and fear by asking patients whether their fear interferes with their day-to-day activities.

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.

Cultural norms about how to handle the bodies of loved ones in communities in West Africa have hampered Ebola responses.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

How fusion—which releases energy when two lighter atoms combine to form a heavier atom—differs from fission

Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley' is infamous for having some of the highest industrial pollution, toxic air emissions, and cancer risks in the US.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

Astronauts have repaired genetic damage in space using CRISPR—a molecular tool that can make precise changes to DNA and is used in single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses.

The boiling temperature of water decreases with increasing elevation because the molecules need less energy to overcome the lower atmospheric pressure associated with thinner air.

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

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Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

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Despite being favored by 87% of Americans, Congress does not have term limits.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.