Personal exhaustion
Low energy, poor sleep quality, and the feeling that even rest is not restorative. Often shows up as headaches, irritability, or immune dips.
Burnout essentials
What Is Burnout? Definition, Symptoms, and Recovery Steps
Burnout is a state of prolonged, work-related exhaustion that drains energy, dampens efficacy, and erodes empathy. It builds when chronic demands outpace recovery and support, leaving you tired, detached, and unable to recharge.
Three dimensions of burnout
Research consistently points to three intertwined drivers of burnout. Understanding the differences helps you decide where to intervene first.
Workload & environment
Chronic high demands, unresolved conflict, low control, or unclear expectations. Workdays feel like they never end and accomplishments feel hollow.
Client or people strain
Compassion fatigue or emotional numbness toward patients, customers, students, or colleagues when contact never pauses.
How burnout differs from depression
Burnout and depression can overlap—fatigue, low motivation, and sleep issues are common in both. The key difference is scope: burnout is anchored to chronic work or caregiving demands, while depression affects mood and function across every domain of life.
Burnout signals
- Exhaustion lifts when workload lightens or you take restorative breaks.
- Irritability is aimed at work or people demands.
- Self-worth is intact outside of work.
Depression signals
- Low mood or disinterest in everything, even hobbies and relationships.
- Changes in appetite, sleep, or movement that persist.
- Feelings of worthlessness or hopelessness.
If you are uncertain which applies, talk with a clinician. They can screen for depression, anxiety, and other health considerations while you work on workload adjustments.
Compassion fatigue and caregiver burnout
People in healthcare, education, and support roles often move from empathy to emotional numbness when exposure to distress is constant. Watch for these patterns:
- Emotional exhaustion after client sessions, even when caseloads seem manageable.
- Detachment or frustration toward people you normally care about.
- Difficulty recharging during time off because you anticipate the next day’s demands.
Building structured decompression—peer debriefs, reflective journaling, and boundary rituals—helps protect empathy. You can also rotate high-intensity duties and add supervision to spread the load.
A manager’s quick guide
- Surface early signs. Ask about workload, clarity, and recovery in one-on-ones; keep notes and revisit trends.
- Remove friction first. Reprioritise projects, clarify decision rights, and set focus blocks before offering resilience tips.
- Create team recovery norms. Encouraging breaks, using meeting-free windows, and rotating on-call duties stabilises energy levels.
- Map professional support. Partner with HR or occupational health for employees needing extended leave, therapy, or medical review.
Measure your current burnout level
Use the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory to see your personal, work, and client strain and get guidance on next steps.
Keep learning
Round out your understanding with these guides and articles designed for individuals, managers, and teams.
Copenhagen Burnout Inventory guide
Deep dive into CBI scoring, normative data, and how each scale ties to specific interventions.
Read more
Deep dive
Burnout assessment tools compared
Review the major burnout instruments (CBI, MBI, BAT, OLBI) and understand when to use each one.
Read more
Comparison
Articles on burnout
Explore practical breakdowns of compassion fatigue, manager guidance, and recovery habits.
Read more
Articles
Evidence-based guidance from our team
The About Burnout editorial team synthesises peer-reviewed research on stress and recovery into practical advice. We cite the studies we rely on and invite independent clinicians to review updates.
Last reviewed for accuracy
May 1, 2024
About Burnout Editorial Team
Writers & researchers focused on occupational wellbeing
Cross-disciplinary team that translates peer-reviewed burnout research into accessible guidance for individuals and organisations.
Includes experience in organisational psychology, employee wellbeing programmes, evidence synthesis, and workload design.
About Burnout Research & Insights
Data and literature review contributors
Responsible for maintaining the burnout assessment, reviewing validation studies, and curating emerging evidence on job demands and recovery.
Monitors Copenhagen Burnout Inventory research, stress and resilience studies, and job demands-resources frameworks.
External clinical review
We are actively recruiting licensed clinicians with stress and occupational health expertise to review new content. Reach out via editor@about-burnout.com if you are interested in contributing.
Independent clinicians we collaborate with
Key studies referenced
- Kristensen TS, Borritz M, Villadsen E, Christensen KB (2005). The Copenhagen Burnout Inventory: A new tool for the assessment of burnout. — Work & Stress, 19(3), 192–207 View study
- Milfont TL, Denny S, Ameratunga S, Robinson E (2008). Burnout and wellbeing among New Zealand secondary school teachers. — Work, 30(4), 357–367
- Schaufeli WB, Bakker AB (2004). Job demands, job resources, and their relationship with burnout and engagement. — Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25(3), 293–315