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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday May 30 2019, @05:39AM   Printer-friendly
from the running-on-empty dept.

Burnout is now an Official Medical Diagnosis, Says the World Health Organization:

If you feel chronically exhausted or frustrated with your work, keep making small mistakes or feel stuck in a cycle of unproductiveness, you may want to take a trip to your doctor. Even if it isn't burnout, it's worth getting checked out.

Why does burnout happen?

Burnout occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally and mentally depleted and unable to keep up with constant demands at work. As stress continues to mount, you may feel hopeless, disinterested and resentful when it comes to your work life.

According to the American Institute of Stress, Americans now work longer and harder than before: In one generation, the number of hours worked increased by 8% to an average of 47 hours per week.

Some other startling statistics from the Institute of Stress:

  • 25% of workers have felt like screaming or shouting because of job stress
  • Nearly 50% of workers say they need help learning how to manage stress
  • More than a third of workers (35%) say they feel their jobs harm their physical or emotional health

And from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health:

  • 40% of workers report their job as being very or extremely stressful
  • 75% of employees believe on-the-job stress is much higher than it was a generation ago
  • Workers associate job stress with health issues more than they associate financial or family problems with health issues

As for what to do about it? There are no hard-and-fast rules, but the suggestions basically amount to separating from activities that lead to "immediate reaction required". Only check your e-mail in the morning, at lunch, and at the end of the day. Log out of chat applications whenever possible. Reduce the amount of time spent on social media. Go for a walk without your cellphone or media device.

In a nutshell: take back control of your life.


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 30 2019, @11:01AM (5 children)

    This is why nobody with any intellectual honesty takes the WHO seriously. It's blindingly obvious how desperately they're trying to create an aura of usefulness around themselves, even at the expense of looking like dishonest dipshits.

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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by takyon on Thursday May 30 2019, @11:30AM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday May 30 2019, @11:30AM (#849248) Journal

    You sound like you have gaming disorder! Put down the controller!

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday May 30 2019, @04:00PM (3 children)

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Thursday May 30 2019, @04:00PM (#849316) Journal

    Gee, recognizing conditions which might be attached to pathologies and revising the diagnostic criteria so that conditions can be uniquely classified such that specific treatment plans can be devised for them. That sure does sound like an useless thing for medicine, huh? Though I will acknowledge that this sounds like it should belong more to DSM rather than ICD.

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    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 31 2019, @12:22AM (2 children)

      Declaring every last mental and physical state outside the absolute norm an illness you mean?

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      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by urza9814 on Friday May 31 2019, @02:59PM (1 child)

        by urza9814 (3954) on Friday May 31 2019, @02:59PM (#849812) Journal

        "Burnout" is a phenomenon that has been discussed for *decades*; it's about time someone started trying to define the term.

        I don't disagree that they tend to over-diagnose sometimes, but I don't think this is such a situation. They haven't really recommended any treatment, other than the common sense of "If that hurts, maybe stop doing it." I don't see them recommending prescriptions and drugs; from TFS it sounds like they aren't even suggesting to see a doctor; just take some time off. Same damn thing all of my HR/managers have been saying since I first started working.

        Basically, giving a formal definition to any position outside of "normal" isn't necessarily bad; it lets you discuss these things with a bit more precision, which may let you deal with them more effectively. The problem comes if they try to force everyone into some uniform standard of "normal". I don't see them doing that here, at least not yet.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday June 01 2019, @08:59PM

          Sure, it's a phenomenon. It's not an illness though any more than needing to take a shit every so often is though.

          Basically, giving a formal definition to any position outside of "normal" isn't necessarily bad...

          Sure, that's why we have names for them. That's not what they're doing though. They're classifying them as illnesses/disorders/etc... That is a problem because it puts retarded shit like burnout on the same footing as cancer. If you don't see how I mean that: your insurance will pay for both (assuming the local medical folks follow the WHO lead) even though one is flat out idiotic to treat as a medical condition. I'm pretty sure you can see some big downsides to that if you give it half a minute of thought.

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