5 signs you’re not just tired, you’re burnt out
by Gina LaRose, LPC-S, LMFT
“Burnout” is a term we use pretty loosely these days to describe feelings of stress, exhaustion, and overwhelm. We feel the overwhelming need to take a break. All of those can be symptoms of burnout, of course. However, real, clinical burnout can go beyond the building sense of overwhelm into a chronic condition in which people can find themselves lost in a cycle of trying to meet external demands without the internal coping ability. In short, we can lose our ability to even know what we need to take care of ourselves or how to do it. In this article, I will describe 5 signs of burnout and what you can do to break any patterns that may be worsening this situation.
1. You are sweating ALL of the small stuff
You are used to managing and juggling a lot, but even small tasks or decisions are feeling overwhelming, draining, or making you irritable. Your ability to categorize and prioritize problems feels jumbled, and you end up feeling like everything is a problem to be solved. Big problems feel big and small problems feel big. Why? Your window of tolerance has become flooded due to the amount of chronic stress you are experiencing. Because you are on overdrive, you are like an emotionally sunburnt person who keeps going back outside without SPF.
2. You feel more irritable than usual
You’re snapping at your spouse, snapping at your kids, maybe isolating yourself from people and things you used to enjoy. This is partly because you don’t have the time or energy and partly because you don’t feel like yourself. Your patience has run thin, and crankiness is a constant state these days. When we are pouring more into everyone else besides ourselves, we begin to resent that. Resentment makes us cranky. When you add in sleep deprivation, anxiety, or other health factors (likely untreated because you don’t have the time), it can be hard to tell what’s burnout and what’s something else that could be contributing to your irritability. Thus, burnout becomes a chicken-and-egg situation.
3. Your brain has no off switch
Your endless to-do list keeps your mind going all the time. Always taking care of or worrying about others makes it hard to focus on yourself. This means that when (IF) you have some free time, instead of doing something to meet your own needs, you end up mindlessly doomscrolling or losing track of time, feeling unproductive, or, conversely, running yourself so ragged that you need time to recover. You are in a constant fight-or-flight state, and your nervous system needs to reboot.
4. Rest isn’t restful
Your chronic experience of burnout has gone beyond what a mani/pedi can provide. Not taking time for yourself feels like a downside, but so does trying to carve out time for yourself because you are worried about what awaits you when you return. In extreme cases, a complete lifestyle or career shift may need to be made to encourage more time for you to meet your needs so real restoration of mind, body, and spirit can occur.
5. You feel disconnected
You are so used to taking care of others’ needs that you forget how to take care of your own. Perhaps you have forgotten what taking care of yourself looks like or how to carve out the space for yourself to matter, too. All of this leaves you feeling not only potentially disconnected from others but from yourself, too. This isolation can lead to more feelings of burnout because the social and emotional supports we use to ground ourselves are missing, or we feel like we can’t access them due to our sense of overwhelm.
So what can we do about it? The first step is realizing it’s a problem. By identifying burnout’s place in your life, you can see the web it creates to keep you feeling like you’re last on the totem pole and unsure of what to do about it. Once you have noticed the patterned ways in which burnout keeps you stuck, you can try to figure out what to do about it. This might look like intentional conversations with those you trust to help you get the supports you need to decrease burnout and create some space to focus on yourself. If this feels tricky, a good therapist can help you through this process. Once you can get some support, you can begin to identify and attempt to meet your own needs in a healthy way. In some intense cases, you may need to take some drastic steps, but the reward of getting your needs met can be worth it.
These are just 5 signs to identify potential feelings of burnout, but there are many more signs and symptoms that can signal burnout. For more info on this topic, I recommend Burnout by Amelia Nagosky & Fierce Self-Compassion for Women by Kristin Neff.
Disclaimer: This website and anything on it are not designed or intended to be considered therapeutic treatment.
