Burnout symptoms: signs you may be burning out at work
Burnout doesn’t always look like collapse.
You can still be turning up, answering emails and getting things done — while work is taking much more out of you than it used to.
The important thing to notice is often change: in your energy, your relationship with work and what it now costs you to keep functioning.
Key signs of burnout
You may notice that:
- you’re more exhausted and recover less between workdays
- you’re becoming detached, cynical or numb about work
- things that used to be manageable now take much more effort
- concentrating, making decisions or dealing with interruptions is harder
- work is taking most of your available energy
- there’s increasingly little left for life outside work.
You don’t need to experience all of these for something to be wrong.
What is burnout?
The World Health Organization describes burnout as an occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.
It has three broad features:
- Exhaustion — feeling depleted or chronically low on energy.
- Distance from work — becoming more detached, cynical or negative about your job.
- Reduced professional efficacy — feeling less effective at work.
Burnout isn’t classified as a medical condition, and there isn’t a simple test that can tell you whether you have it.
What are the symptoms of burnout?
Rather than trying to tick every box, look for changes from your usual capacity.
Your energy
You might:
- feel exhausted before the workday has really begun
- take longer to recover after work
- get through the week and crash on weekends
- use most of your energy just to keep working.
Your relationship with work
You might:
- dread work more often
- become increasingly cynical or detached
- feel emotionally numb
- become more irritable
- withdraw from colleagues or clients
- care less about things that used to matter to you.
Sometimes caring less doesn’t mean you’ve become uncaring.
Caring may simply have become expensive.
Your capacity
You might:
- struggle to concentrate or make decisions
- forget things you’d normally remember
- take longer to complete familiar tasks
- find interruptions harder to manage
- feel constantly behind.
Free guide
Want the short version you can keep?
Download the free Understanding Burnout guide — a 14-page plain-language guide to what burnout can feel like, why it develops, and what can help.
Get the free guideAm I burnt out or just tired?
There’s no perfect dividing line, but the pattern over time can tell you something.
| More ordinary tiredness | Burnout may look more like |
|---|---|
| Rest helps | Rest helps less, or only briefly |
| A busy period has an end | The demands seem relentless |
| You still feel connected to work | Dread, detachment or cynicism is growing |
| Your usual capacity returns | Things keep feeling harder |
Trajectory matters.
One awful week isn’t necessarily burnout. A pattern that continues or gets worse deserves more attention.
Can I be burnt out and still functioning?
Yes.
You may still be:
- meeting deadlines
- looking after clients
- answering emails
- appearing competent
- being the person everyone relies on.
Sometimes the output looks the same while the effort required to produce it keeps increasing.
Capacity and output are not the same thing.
What causes burnout?
Burnout develops in the context of chronic workplace stress.
Some jobs are demanding by nature. But the conditions in which that work is done can make those demands sustainable — or steadily harder to carry.
Burnout risk increases when people are repeatedly dealing with things such as:
- excessive workload or relentless pace
- inadequate staffing or resources
- long hours or insufficient recovery time
- little control over their work
- unclear or competing expectations
- poor support
- unfair workplace processes
- work that repeatedly conflicts with their values.
Individual factors can affect someone’s vulnerability to burnout. But burnout shouldn’t be reduced to a problem with their resilience, boundaries or self-care.
A demanding job and unhealthy working conditions aren’t the same thing.
If the conditions creating chronic workplace stress remain unchanged, teaching the worker to cope better doesn’t remove the problem.
What can I do next?
You don’t need to find the perfect label before deciding that something needs attention.
-
Want a clearer picture of what’s happening?
Use the Burnout Profile to look at the pattern more closely.
-
Wondering whether your working conditions are part of the problem?
-
Finding that work follows you home?
Prefer something you can keep and come back to? Download the free Understanding Burnout guide
If the changes are severe, persistent, affecting your ability to function, or could have another cause, speak with your GP or another appropriately qualified health professional.
If you need urgent support, see Support and crisis services.
Evidence and further reading
The main definition used on this page comes from the World Health Organization’s ICD-11 description of burnout as an occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.
Further reading:
- World Health Organization — Burn-out an “occupational phenomenon”: International Classification of Diseases
- World Health Organization — Mental health at work
- World Health Organization — Guidelines on mental health at work