Symptoms and Signs of Burnout

I was at a group meeting some time ago and everyone was casually sharing their ‘busyness’ stories.

One guy who was in his late twenties mentioned he felt he ‘could do almost anything,’ regarding workload, and at times felt ‘indestructible.’ He said he could survive on four or five hours sleep for months. The company was sponsoring him through his studies, so we was working fulltime and studying hard, but enjoying the present opportunities.

With one person after another sharing their particular story of burn out or approaching it, I wondered if this younger guy was picking up the cues. I think the bravado he showed was demonstrative of his age and stage.

Many late 20’s and early 30’s people are yet to learn what will inevitably hit them--that the body and mind do have their limitations. And it can happen with older people too, it’s just that they’ve tended to learn it the hard way, already.

Symptoms and Signs

Medically speaking, symptoms are warnings we alone can notice, whereas signs are warnings that others can see in us. A symptom is a headache; a sign is heavy breathing--the former can’t readily be seen by others, whilst the latter can. Symptoms are generally subjective whilst signs are objective in nature.

Concerning burnout, symptoms ordinarily come before the signs--they’re ‘very early warnings’ whereas signs are warnings often just before the crunch hits.

What are the warning symptoms and signs of burnout? When I suffered signs of burnout three and a half years ago I couldn’t physically get my mind to cooperate with my body. I was actually playing a game of table tennis and I couldn’t hit the ball all of a sudden--such a simple thing!

Ever since that day, whenever I approach true personal overload, my mind will freeze--for anything from a few minutes to a few hours.

The only antidote for me personally, when I get like this, is to ‘get creative’ again. I need to walk in the park or read something reflective; basically, I am required to reduce the demands on my mind.

Burnout manifests itself in very many different ways, but almost always there’s noticeable fatigue, again, either physically, mentally or both. It tends to affect us emotionally as well.

The precursor might be symptoms of depression and fatigue evident to others (i.e. signs) via sick leave from work, or crying, frustration, resentment, irritability, anger, tiredness, and a range more of indicators.

The sad thing is there are a lot of symptoms that the body and mind will provide to give us ‘early detection’ clues, but in our fast-paced lifestyle we rarely heed the warnings.

[Look out for ‘Part 2’, titled Burnout – What to Do about It.]

The truth is approaching burnout is actually a very good thing, something indeed to be thankful for. The article Burnout – What to Do about It will discuss some of the psychological and physiological issues and what to do about them.

Copyright © 2008, S. J. Wickham. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.