Workplace overload has spawned the industry of 'burnout coaches'

How burnout creep has spread across various areas of life

Burnout primarily refers to the feeling of being overwhelmed at work and is officially considered an occupational hazard, but colloquially people have started referring to other areas of burnout, including workouts or television shows.

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.

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.

Protect employees from chronic stress

Burnout doesn’t just affect employees’ health. It also increases turnover, reduces productivity, and leads to illness. What kinds of changes can employers make to reduce burnout in the workplace? This white paper encourages employers to modify their cultures to reduce burnout, including offering clear feedback and support, creating more flexible workplaces, and reducing unreasonable workloads.

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.

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.

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.

Surviving the crash: a personal story of burnout

Jennifer Moss founded a tech company, had a baby in the middle of the start-up process, and crashed after months of rising exhaustion and disconnection from a career she once felt passionate about. She shared her story of burnout and the techniques she used to turn her life around and repair her relationships in this piece.

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.

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.

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.

Are you burned out? Take this quiz

Have you ever wondered if what you’re experiencing is burnout, or just stress? This Psychology Today quiz may help you decide if you need to explore more mental health resources. You don’t have to create an account to take the quiz. Simply answer the questions and provide your ZIP code.

Some influencers are facing the dark side of being a public persona

From burnout to stalkers, a content creator’s life can quickly become complicated as their following grows. Women’s Health recently spoke with some creators about what they wish they’d known before they started their careers on social media.

Roughly 45% of clinicians in 2023 reported at least one symptom of burnout

With that kind of statistic as a backdrop, proponents of concierge medicine practices argue that concierge services could help keep doctors in medicine and thus help to address physician shortages.

Many dating app users are beginning to suffer from 'dating app burnout'

For younger generations, dating apps have become a primary avenue for creating romantic connections—leaving some users fatigued and contributing to increased feelings of loneliness.

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.

A guide to emotionally preparing to found a company

Founding a company comes with more than just logistical challenges—it's a daunting emotional task, too. In this article, a psychologist breaks down how first-time founders can prepare for the mental pressure of starting a company.

Why workers in Japan hire resignation experts

Many workers in Japan hire resignation experts to help them quit their jobs. That's partly because quitting is taboo in Japan. It's seen as "the ultimate form of disrespect" in that country, where job hopping is uncommon. Bosses sometimes attempt to force workers to stay when they resign, creating quite the market for resignation assistance firms. Read more in this article.

Couples therapy has seen a massive boom in recent years

70% of therapists offer couples counseling. Experts predict continuous growth in the field. With so many marriages ending in divorce, more couples are recognizing the potential for therapy to get them back on track. And parents are starting to see the impacts of divorce on their children and their own mental health.

WeWork held controversial ‘summer camp’ retreats for employees

Step inside one of WeWork’s “summer camp” retreats full of drugs, alcohol, and exorbitant company spending.

Researchers are studying roller coasters to improve mental health treatments

Scary rides stimulate our fight-or-flight response while simultaneously releasing feel-good endorphins like dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. Once we realize we're in a safe space, we can enjoy the ride and even feel confident and relieved by the accomplishment of overcoming a fearful feat.

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.

Several NFL teams incorporate yoga into their training

Although brawny football players might not seem like obvious yogis, many of the NFL’s athletes have taken to the practice for flexibility and mindfulness. Several teams, including the Los Angeles Chargers, Cleveland Browns, and Dallas Cowboys, make the practice a part of their conditioning routine.

The average pay for family office executives has soared

As the number of family offices grows, they’re battling for top talent with traditional financial institutions by bulking up pay and incentive packages.

'Move managers' help seniors downsize

The workers, many certified through the National Association of Senior & Specialty Move Managers, exist somewhere between a declutterer and a social worker.

Use this calculator to find the dollar value of your mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care for your children.

Learn how your body is, scientifically, like a firework with its own slow, controlled burn.

Telehealth demand for GLP-1s for weight loss is booming as consumers seek easier access.

The use of fungi to detoxify land and water—a process known as mycoremediation—has been used to clean up natural resources affected by the 2025 California wildfires.

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

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

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

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

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

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

US consumers collectively owe more than $1T to credit card companies—almost as much as they owe in auto loans.

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

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

Play the role of a student in a game where you try to navigate college and remain debt-free, selecting different income levels, high school experience, race, ethnicity, and more.

Hedge funds, the private investment firms that trade a wide swath of financial assets, make money by imposing steep fees on investors and from the fund's investment performance.

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

The power and influence of the American presidency have expanded significantly over time—far beyond what the founders envisioned.

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

Brandi Chastain, the star of the 1999 US victory over China in the 1999 Women's World Cup, was a last-second choice to take the penalty kick that sealed the victory.

How the most famous Ebola book, The Hot Zone, which sold 3.5 million copies and was translated into 30 languages, got aspects of the disease so wrong.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.