The WHO defines burnout as an occupational phenomenon

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.

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.

Key symptoms of burnout can be both mental and physical

Burnout can be accompanied by several symptoms, including low energy and chronic fatigue, trouble concentrating, difficulty sleeping, and depression. It may even manifest physically as musculoskeletal pain, headaches, stomach and intestinal pain, and more. More intense cases have been linked to cardiovascular and mental health disorders.

The term 'burnout' in academia dates back to 1974

Psychologist Herbert Freudenberger introduced the term to describe the mental and emotional fatigue he witnessed among volunteers at a free clinic in New York. It was widely popularized in a 1976 article by Berkeley professor Christina Maslach.

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.)

About half of physicians report feeling burned out

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. Reported rates from emergency care workers is about 60%, the highest in the field.

Burnout is often considered a disorder of caregivers, with teachers, doctors, nurses, and social workers reporting high levels of burnout.

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.

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.

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.

What happens to your brain when you burn out?

You've probably heard of burnout, also known as the feeling of exhaustion that happens after a long period of being overwhelmed or stressed. It's often associated with work and careers, but other parts of life, like parenting, can cause burnout, too. Scientists are figuring out what happens, biochemically speaking, in the brain when burnout hits—and spoiler alert, it includes a neurotransmitter called glutamate. Watch this video to learn more.

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.

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.

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.

Is workaholism real?

Though work addiction is not officially recognized as a medical condition, it mirrors many patterns of other behavioral disorders. This exploration from BBC News examines the issue through Workaholics Anonymous, with a special focus on firsthand accounts from support group members.

Prolonged stress impairs the prefrontal cortex

Burnout isn't just a feeling—it physically affects the brain. Prolonged stress impairs regions of the brain responsible for decision-making, emotional control, memory, and more. It can also lead to chemical imbalances, like reduced dopamine and norepinephrine levels, that worsen these effects.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Easy resets for stress reduction

Individual solutions for burnout, often called “self-care,” can be helpful for managing stress. Harvard researcher Aditi Nerurkar’s 2024 book The Five Resets details a road map for burnout recovery. In this interview she suggests, among other tactics, gaining focus on what matters the most in one’s life, taking breaks from both work and the internet, and making time for practices that strengthen the mind-body connection.

Mental health is much more than the absence of mental illness

It's a state of well-being that allows individuals to cope with daily stressors, realize their abilities, learn and work effectively, and contribute to their overall community. Inextricably linked to physical health, modern science indicates that mental health is a central component of our overarching ability to function and enjoy life.

Too little stress can be as problematic for our health as too much stress, because mild or moderate stress—followed by recovery—helps make us resilient.

Stress is a response to external triggers, while anxiety is persistent and internal

When distinguishing the two, stress is a reaction to identifiable situations like deadlines or conflicts, and its symptoms fade when the stressor is gone. However, anxiety may jump from one worry to another over time without any apparent cause.

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.

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.

A framework for the various potential causes of insomnia

Insomnia typically occurs in people dealing with life stressors and physical or mental health conditions, though the exact cause continues to elude researchers. Generally, the factors can be broken down into external (such as stress, medication, etc.) or internal (neurological) factors.

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.

How do anxiety and stress differ?

This article explains that though “stress” and “anxiety” are often used interchangeably, there are distinct differences between the two. Stress is defined as the body's response to an external trigger and can be classified as acute or chronic. Anxiety, however, tends to be triggered internally by excessive thoughts and judgement. Whereas stress disappears when the trigger is gone, anxiety tends to stick around. If left unchecked, both can escalate into more severe mental health conditions.

Losing the kids to video games

An estimated 60 million people suffer from internet gaming disorder worldwide, a category created by the World Health Organization in 2018 to help communities support individuals plagued by pathological play. As the world's most-played game of all...

Chronic stress affects nearly all parts of the body

Stress is our body’s internal mechanism to deal with changes in our internal balance. As such, the stress response affects nearly every organ system through a cascade of both fast and slow hormonal changes. While short-term stress can be adaptive, long-term stress may cause serious health issues.

Mental health symptoms may manifest differently across cultures

Mental health, like physical health, is imbued with values, beliefs, and traditions. Symptoms of distress are not universal and may differ based on racial, ethnic, and cultural contexts. Because mental health may be stigmatized or communities may have varying belief systems about causes of mental health challenges and how to fix them, it may affect how symptoms manifest. Chest pain, for example, may be a sign of mental distress—not the need for a doctor.

Addiction is defined as chronic compulsive drug use despite adverse consequences

This resource from the National Institute on Drug Abuse provides a comprehensive look at addiction as a complex brain disorder. It explores why people initially take addictive substances and how continued use alters the brain’s reward system.

Having five of nine key symptoms constitutes a major depression

Before professional standards were adopted, practitioners used varying criteria to diagnose mental health disorders. By the 1970s, more objective lists were organized, culminating in this list of polythetic criteria—a list of symptoms where no single criterion is required, but a minimum number must be present.

A quick technical overview of insomnia

Insomnia is one of the world's most common sleep disorders. Characterized by difficulties falling and staying asleep, long-term struggles with insomnia can prelude or contribute to health difficulties. Treatments range from sleep hygiene management and relaxation therapy, and medication, including antidepressants and melatonin.

Stress evolved as a survival mechanism to keep humans alive

Stress activates the “fight-or-flight” response when we face threats. It’s triggered by the hypothalamus, which signals the release of adrenaline and cortisol, heightening awareness and energy. While acute stress helps in short bursts, chronic stress—persistent over time—can harm both physical and mental health, leading to conditions like hypertension, anxiety, or depression.

The overlooked physical causes of insomnia

Persistent lack of sleep is dangerous for anyone, but women are especially unlikely to have their symptoms taken seriously. This article highlights the physical causes of insomnia—a condition often written off as solely psychological—and the importance of early diagnosis. The writer, Courtney Maum, was diagnosed with an anterior nasal valve collapse as the source of her insomnia.

Based on its varied symptoms, scientists think that long COVID-19 is not a single disease, but rather a group of different conditions triggered by COVID-19 infection.

Stress and the brain

While an acute stress response is a normal bodily function, the effects of chronic stress can be extremely damaging to the human body. This is particularly true with regard to the brain. This article explores the effects of stress on the human brain, including how chronic stress may lead to psychological conditions such as depression and memory loss.

Misophonia is a neurological disorder where sounds trigger strong emotions

The phenomenon is characterized by decreased tolerance to specific sounds, such as heavy breathing, pen clicking, and water dripping, which trigger a fight-or-flight response. The resulting emotions, which can range from irritation and disgust to anxiety and fear, can be overwhelming and uncontrollable.

Fear (and stress) can be contagious via pheromones secreted by the body

While seeing someone else in a panicked state may induce a stress response, researchers have found stress can be literally contagious—chemicals contained in sweat and other secretions can trigger stress hormone release in others. Theories suggest this feature is an evolutionary adaptation to protect groups from danger.

How did the pandemic affect mental health?

Read this research brief to learn more about why heightened mental health and substance use concerns persist three years after the outbreak of COVID-19. According to a recent survey, the vast majority of American adults view the nation as facing a...

The positives of feeling stressed

Worrying about past events and upcoming challenges is not a pleasant experience, but a reasonable amount of stress can bring a lot of good into our lives. In this episode of "The Happiness Lab" with Dr. Laurie Santos, two psychology experts offer tips for resetting one's relationship with stress. Listen and learn how to make stress a positive tool rather than a debilitating emotion.

Drug tolerance and withdrawals are consequences of overloading dopamine circuits

Addictive substances or behaviors will typically flood our brains with more dopamine than usual. In response to the overstimulation, our brains will decrease the number of available dopamine receptors. This results in the need for more stimulus for the same response (tolerance) and a rise in negative feelings when the stimulus is absent (withdrawal).

Why does the body have a stress response?

When encountering a stressful situation, the human body typically goes into what is known as "fight-or-flight" mode. Because it evolved as a survival mechanism, the biochemical response enables people and other mammals to react quickly to life-threatening situations. The carefully orchestrated yet near-instantaneous sequence of hormonal changes and physiological responses helps someone to fight the threat off or flee to safety.

Prolonged Grief Disorder has certain recognizable risk factors

This official diagnosis is characterized by intense, daily symptoms of grief a year after the loss of a loved one among adults and faster—around at least six months—for kids and teens. Factors that put people at increased risk of this disorder include being single, attachment anxiety, violent or unnatural death, low education, low income, and multiple losses, among others.

Health problems are being misdiagnosed as perimenopause symptoms

Symptoms of menopause and perimenopause (the premenopause period) can be varied enough that clinicians dismiss them in patients in their mid-30s and onward as just a symptom of hormone level change. In this story, a woman's itching was dismissed as a hormonal change, but after two years and 11 separate doctor consultations, was diagnosed as cancer. (Some users may experience a paywall.)