Am I Burnt Out? How To Tell If I'm In Burnout.

What are the Symptoms of Burnout?

Here are the three categories of symptoms of burnout (according to the World Health Organisation's definition):

1. physical or emotion exhaustion or depletion;

2. increased disengagement from your work (feeling cynical about it, caring less, or zoning out); 

3. feeling less effective or being self critical of your abilities.

All of these are accompanied by signs of an overwhelmed nervous system such as sleep difficulties, anxiety, depressed mood, frustration, brain fog, becoming withdrawn. Read more about what burnout actually feels like in this post.

How To Quickly Assess for Burnout

This is a quick assessment tool that has been shown to give valid and reliable results when compared with the more detailed assessment tool (like the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI)). 

🚩A score 3 or over indicates burnout 🚩

The Assessment Question: Overall, based on your definition of burnout, how would you rate your level of burnout?

Rating Scale:

1 = I enjoy my work. I have no symptoms of burnout

2 = Occasionally I am under stress, and I don't always have as much energy as I once did, but I don't feel burnout out

3 = I am definitely burning out and have one or more symptoms of burnout, such as physical and emotional exhaustions.

4 = The symptoms of burnout that I'm experiencing won't go away. I think about frustration at work a lot.

5 = I feel completely burnout out and often wonder if I can go on. I am at the point where I may need some changes or may need to seek some sort of help.

Other assessment measures

Some people find it helpful to read and fill in the longer assessment tools as they highlight the different symptoms more fully. If you relate to this then here are the places you can access these types of measures:

• The Masclach Burnout Inventory: this is the original burnout measure for workplace burnout. You can access this here for a small fee. There are now specialist versions for students, educators and medical staff available on there too.

• The Copenhagan Burnout Inventory: a free measure available by searching Google, so a good longer alternative to the MBI if you don't have funds to pay for that.

• The Parental Burnout Measure: available here (scroll to the end of the article). This measure helps to highlight how burnout feels in parenting.

What Should I Do If I Scored a 3 or More?

Level 1: Self-help options:

Reading:

Burnout: How To Manage Your Nervous System Before It Manages You by Dr Claire Plumbly - this explains how the persistent demands of life grind us down and psychological tools to manage this. It's available as an audio book as well as paperback and kindle. It's a good option if you want to learn more but aren't sure you need therapy.

Podcasts:

Everyday Burnout Conversations with Flic Taylor: broad, relatable conversations for anyone who is burnout.

Pause, Purpose Play with Michaela Thomas: aimed at women with ADHD

Fried with Cait Donovan: indepth exploration of the different layers contributing to burnout and tips for management.

You Are Not A Frog with Dr Rachel Morris: For burnt out health professionals

Self-help course:

Our Rewire Your Anxious Brain Kit is a short video-course with a workbook to help you understand how recent stress and your past experiences have resulted in strong anxiety.  It gives you a tool for coping with this.

Level 2: professional options:

Reach out to people who are in a position to help. This might be a manager or partner for practical help (many people in burnout have masked it for so long that they haven't let on to anyone that they're struggling). But also consider Occupational Health and making an appointment with your GP or self-referring to therapy. For therapy with the NHS you can contact your local talk-therapies service or get in touch with us so we can match you with a member of our therapy team if you would like to pursue this through a private practice. Link to our contact page to make an enquiry is here.

What Next:

👉Not sure what burnout feels like? Read this: What Does Burnout Feel Like?

👉Visit our Burnout Therapy Definitive Guide for more articles.

👉Download our 7 Step Roadmap Out of Burnout here.

👉Book a call with a member of our team to discuss how therapy could help you.

Reference:

Using a single item to measure burnout in primary care: a psychometric evaluation. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 2015. Dolan et al.