The World Health Organization (WHO) has brought light to a major health issue impacting people the world over – burnout. In it’s newest edition of the WHO International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD), burnout is listed as a health concern under the category of “Problems Associated with Employment or Unemployment”.
The ICD is used by Medical Doctors around the world for diagnoses and medical billing, as well as by researchers studying the prevalence and impacts of diagnoses on individual health and community health.
The diagnosis of burnout has three specific criteria:
- Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion
- Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings negativity and cynicism towards one’s job
- Reduced professional efficiency
In this diagnosis, burnout applies only to work-related experiences, and not other areas of a person’s life (which we know can contribute to, or cause burnout as well).
The WHO considers burnout to be the result of “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed”.
In my work, I talk a lot about the hormonal aspects of stress – especially how the adrenal hormones adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol impact our ability to manage stress. In burnout, most often our cortisol production has been exhaustion by constant demands for more and more and more – to the point where our brain downregulates the cortisol production to protect us from the harmful effects of excessive cortisol.
I’ve included a downloadable PDF where you can look at the symptoms of burnout, and it’s parallel, overdrive. Most people experience overdrive acutely during times of stress, and if that stress continues, they move into burnout.
If you have questions about burnout, and supporting your hormones through stress, book a free 15 minute consultation. We can talk about how to develop a strategy that can help you to overcome your stress, and prevent or reverse burnout and give you back your energy and passion for your work.
Select Resources:
World Health Organization: https://icd.who.int/browse11/l-m/en#/http://id.who.int/icd/entity/129180281
