What Burnout Feels Life

Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. I think most of us have felt this. It’s that feeling when you just can’t take on one more thing. You’re disinterested and cold. You have absolutely no emotional bandwidth and are walking around the world with dark colored glasses on.

Have you experienced burnout before?

Burnout is real and it’s dangerous. It impacts us emotionally, physically, and behaviorally. Many of the signs creep in very slowly.

We think that if we can just control life a little bit more, everything will get better. So we push away the signs and pray that some self care will work. Let’s look at the three different categories of burnout symptoms.

Signs That You’re Experiencing Burnout

  • Physical symptoms. These symptoms can also be associated with other types of illness, so I recommend consulting with a physician if you have these signs as well. Women are notoriously misdiagnosed and a lot of things are pushed off as “just stress.”

    • Feeling tired and drained most of the time

    • Lowered immunity, frequent illnesses

    • Frequent headaches

    • Muscle pain

    • Change in appetite

    • Change in sleep habits

  •  Emotional symptoms

    • Sense of failure and self-doubt

    • Feeling helpless, trapped, and defeated

    • Detachment, feeling alone in the world

    • Loss of motivation

    • Increasingly cynical and negative outlook

    • Decreased satisfaction and sense of accomplishment

  •  Behavioral changes

    • Withdrawing from responsibilities

    • Isolating yourself from others

    • Procrastinating, taking longer to get things done

    • Using food, drugs, or alcohol to cope

    • Taking out your frustrations on others

    • Skipping work or coming in late and leaving early

You don’t need to have all of these signs for it to be “real burnout.”

If you are experiencing these symptoms and they start to impact you in a negative way, your body is trying to tell you something.

If you think you’re experiencing burnout, you may want to check out Whitney’s Press Pause: How To Put The Breaks on Burnout Course.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

  • What is burnout

  • Signs of burnout

  • Why women are experiencing burnout more

  • How we get stuck in the stress cycle

  • The difference between stressors and stress

  • How to get unstuck and end the stress cycle

  • The types of women that usually get burnt out

  • How chronic stress impacts the body

  • How to prevent burnout

  • What employers need to do to prevent burnout

  • How to practice real self care

You can get the course, here.

Whitney Goodman