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.
Related Stories
'Gaming Disorder' Is a Now an Official Medical Condition, According to the WHO
Nearly anywhere you go, it's easy to find children and adults alike transfixed by their phones, and while texting and social media certainly claim a big part of that attention, increasingly it's gaming that's drawing us in.
At the World Health Organization's World Health Assembly on Saturday, member states officially recognized gaming addiction as a modern disease. Last year, the WHO voted to include gaming disorder as an official condition in the draft version of its latest International Classification of Diseases (ICD); the vote finalizes that decision. The WHO's ICD, currently in its 11th edition, serves as the international standard for diagnosing and treating health conditions.
According to Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesperson for the WHO, the move is "based on reviews of available evidence," and reflects general agreement among experts around the world that some people show a "pattern of gaming behavior characterized by impaired control," prioritizing gaming over other daily responsibilities, including attending school or work and keeping social appointments.
According to the WHO experts who analyzed studies on gaming behavior, people's use of gaming is different from their use of the internet, social media, online gambling and online shopping. There isn't sufficient data, they say, to indicate that people's reliance on those is a "behavioral addiction" the way gaming can be.
Previously: World Health Organization Will Recognize "Gaming Disorder"
World Health Organization Officially Lists "Gaming Disorder" in ICD
Why is There a 'Gaming Disorder' but No 'Smartphone Disorder?'
Related: Treatment Centers for Internet Addiction are Popping Up
Burnout is Now an Official Medical Diagnosis, Says the World Health Organization
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 30 2019, @06:22AM (1 child)
janrinok: Burned out.
Mighty Buzzard: Burned.
cmn12345: criminal record exposed.
mrpg: in transit, so not burned out, pending re-entry
Runaway1956: Dude so cool, never gonna give you up, never gonna let you pup, I love you! Never gonna flood too much, unless I do, to fuck you!
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 30 2019, @06:56AM
Strangely, MartyB, also known as bytram, continues apace with no signs of burnout or of political bias! The Person is a marvel, and a model for us all.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 30 2019, @06:35AM (11 children)
But then, wait for it
And I'm thinking "are all the workers and employees in the entire world such bum slackers like me, who can afford to waste time on Soylentnews and still get paid by their employer?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 30 2019, @06:41AM
They have The Burnout. You have The Internet Addiction. Here, take this pill: 💊
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Thursday May 30 2019, @07:01AM (6 children)
"Reduce the amount of time spent on social media."
Yes, I think this is a valid point. Not so much social media at work (which there shouldn't be much of), as in breaks, at home, in your free time. Social media takes attention - it is not relaxing. People need "off" time, time to be bored. With social media, they jump from the stress of their jobs to the stress of politics/gossip/whatever right back to the stress of their jobs - with no down-time in sight.
Just as an example: my wife and I have instituted one electronics-free evening a week. Have a nice dinner, watch the fireplace, take a walk - whatever. No phones, no TV, no computers. I went to play pool with younger son on Sunday, as we do periodically; we also have no phones while playing. Really be there with the other person. It makes a huge difference - recommended.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday May 30 2019, @01:52PM (5 children)
When "social media" means interacting on subjects with any degree of acrimony, absolutely. Social media, can, however, be relaxing if you're reading interesting and non-acrimonious content — generally this is only consistently found in fora that are hobby- or pursuit-specific. I'm very relaxed when I'm surfing a mineral images collection forum [flickr.com], for instance. Zero stress, notable and consistent levels of pleasure.
What? Absolutely not.
You were close on it when you noted that [some] social media is not relaxing; Getting away from that is what people need. Time to relax, to obtain a reflective state of mind or engage in pursuit of some non-stressing goal. That is not the same thing at all as being bored. Boredom is annoying; it is a state where one is not satisfied. That is not likely to be associated with relaxed or happy.
--
Sometimes people want to have full conversations
in the morning. It's okay to ignore those people.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday May 30 2019, @06:15PM (3 children)
Work can be quite "boring" depending on what kind of work you're doing. Having a break in the constant cycle of media consumption isn't a "time to be bored". Though, many people may see it as that. Having a break from work, societal pressures, and noise; is called fishing. Okay, maybe that's TMB's version. My version would be going to the park with my kid, playing table games with friends/family, gardening, or working on a hobby. Unfortunately, a lot of people having forgone hobbies for Facebook / Favorite Random Phone App.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday May 30 2019, @07:04PM (2 children)
My version is rock collecting, with my phone turned off.
--
I'm having people over to stare at their
phones later, if you want to come by.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday May 31 2019, @01:34AM (1 child)
Do you have any Indian sex stones?
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday June 01 2019, @09:00PM
For those not already aware: Indian sex stone = "a fucking rock".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday May 31 2019, @02:34PM
I agree with OP. I *need* boredom, otherwise I lose all motivation. It's been pretty constant throughout my life since early highschool at least -- gimme two or three days with *absolutely nothing* to do, and on day three or four I start building something or kick off a new coding project or whatever. Doing absolutely nothing has a certain appeal to it sometimes, and that has to wear off -- ie, boredom needs to fully set in -- before I can get back to being productive.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday May 30 2019, @08:03AM
> Reduce the amount of time spent on social media
I assumed that it was because many employees get hassle from their work via social media and friends (be it email, mobile phone, friendface, slack, etc)
(Score: 1, Troll) by DannyB on Thursday May 30 2019, @01:42PM (1 child)
What to do about it? Get Universal BASIC Income!!!
Nobody has to work. No stress, except for social media and gaming. Everyone happy. Social Utopia!
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 31 2019, @12:21AM
Universal BASIC income? GOTO utopia?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday May 30 2019, @06:49AM
According to them, there's no universally accepted definition [stress.org]. Some useful categories of what people self-report as producing stress in their lives, though.
(Score: 4, Informative) by darkfeline on Thursday May 30 2019, @07:02AM (5 children)
If burnout is just about not being able to manage your work, I recommend reading Getting Things Done by David Allen. I generally dislike self help books and productivity scams, but GTD is the real deal. It describe a meta-method for organizing the work you have to do so you feel in control. While the book gives a detailed example of implementing a GTD workflow, you can do GTD using whatever you want: paper, post it notes, text files, apps, etc.
GTD is comprised of a handful of "obvious" core principles, like gathering up mail, emails, "stuff", organizing them into desired outcomes, actionable steps, and reference material, and reviewing everything regularly, but it's really helpful to explicitly read about all of the principles and follow them intentionally. I have found it very useful as a software engineer for managing all of the projects, bugs, meetings, documents, and changing priorities that are part of normal software eng work.
Chances are, whatever workflow you have, is already a partial implementation of GTD: you're deciding on things to do and putting them on a list somewhere, possibly in your head and so forth. Even if your workflow works, I would still recommend reading GTD so you have an explicit awareness of all the parts of a working system that you can use to tune your workflow to accommodate changing demands.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by Farkus888 on Thursday May 30 2019, @12:14PM
I use a modified form of Agile to manage chores in my home, post its and all. It really helped with that aspect of stress that comes from knowing things need done and aren't getting done. More things get done now, the system is more than worth the effort. Now I'm happy at home but still burned out at work. I get projects done at work but work in an environment that is all stick and no carrot. The machine eating all of my rewards causes the same existential hopelessness as nothing getting done meaning no rewards to be had.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DavePolaschek on Thursday May 30 2019, @02:01PM (3 children)
The Checklist Manifesto [wikipedia.org] helped me a lot, and was simpler to grok than GTD. Basic idea is "make a list." And for me, the important bit is "once something is on the list, you don't have to think about it." And not having to think about eleventy-kabillion things helps keep stress (and thus burnout) at bay.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 30 2019, @02:17PM
I tried this several years ago. I failed at it. My list became so large that it took more time to manage than just doing the critical things that came up every day (purely reactionary). The list also got overwhelming and a bit depressing as it showed all the great things I couldn't do because the list was too large and there was no way to get through it all. I spoke to my manager about it and his response was that he was impressed by the ownership I showed and how I wanted to make things better. He also said my priorities were way off. I needed to do what others wanted me to do (and only that), and not build a better product so it didn't fail next week. He said to let it fail, and then respond to the requests to fix it at that point. He actually said to care LESS about everything, and do what management wanted, and look happy about it. I migrated into management shortly after that point in hopes of changing things from a higher level. But that is a story for another thread.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday May 30 2019, @07:30PM (1 child)
Good things don't come free. Making a list is just one of many core principles; that alone is not at all sufficient, as shown by the experience of the sibling AC post. Understanding all of the principles in GTD takes effort, much like learning any worthwhile skill or knowledge.
Just making a list often leads to stress and a feeling of being overwhelmed, like the sibling AC post. The next principle is making sure your list of tasks only contain actionable items with clear outcomes. Not "plan birthday party", but "Call bakery to ask for cake list and prices".
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday May 31 2019, @02:49PM
...And personally, that's precisely where I always hit the infinitely expanding list problem that sibling AC mentioned.
"Finish program X"...no that's too general, so I'll go to "Finish functions x, y, z and implement features a and b"...so then I work on function x, but I don't complete it, so it's "Finish tasks j, k and l in function x". But then j turns out to be more complicated than I thought...pretty soon "Finish program X" turns into "Complete task j1, j2, j3, j4, k, l then functions y, z and features a and b"...and then I've gotta go break down k, l, y, z, a and b......
I tend to work with nested lists instead. I have a list of programs I want to work on, then each program has a TODO file of features or bugfixes I'd like to implement, and if those features are contained in separate source files I might have another TODO list commented at the top of each file. So if I come back six months later, I can remember what I had been planning...but I don't have this huge imposing wall of tasks looming over me all the time. The main list isn't necessarily tasks that I'm going to complete soon, or even ever...it's merely a collection of options so I can narrow down what is most useful to do right now. I know I can't do everything that I'd like to, and I know tomorrow I might have an idea that's more useful than anything I have planned today.
(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.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Funny) by takyon on Thursday May 30 2019, @11:30AM
You sound like you have gaming disorder! Put down the controller!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday May 30 2019, @04:00PM (3 children)
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.
This sig for rent.
(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?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by urza9814 on Friday May 31 2019, @02:59PM (1 child)
"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.
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.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 30 2019, @01:27PM (1 child)
Burnout is a disorder but trannyism isn't. The medical community better work harder to police it's members and spokespeople if it wants to maintain any credibility at all.
(Score: 1, Troll) by bob_super on Thursday May 30 2019, @05:27PM
Give most people a couple million bucks, or a lot of drugs, and suddenly they won't have Burnout anymore.
Give a not-just-straight the same thing, they'll still be NJS.
A disorder you can cure is not the same thing as a not-like-my-intolerant-trollish-self condition, troll.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 30 2019, @02:11PM (3 children)
I fit the description given for a burned out worker. Yeah, it sucks and it's sucked for years. But it pays the bills and supports the family. As to the solutions, I've seen people put on "performance plans" for doing those things. You don't respond immediately to a person's question over email or on slack? You aren't responsive enough. Only check your email 3 times a day? Not only will you be seen as not responsive, you will lose the trust of those around you who need you to respond so they can respond, etc. And you also risk falling behind on information you need to do your job. If you are a leader, you will miss the opportunity to stop mistakes before they get big and take MORE of your time to fix. Log out of chat applications? Yeah, see the above.
The last three tech companies I worked for all relied heavily on people immediately responding and on them having the required information immediately. If you don't have a perfect memory, aren't tracking all the threads of discussion and can't respond quickly, you won't be valued. If you aren't valued, you won't get a raise and will likely get managed out. It's dog eat dog all the way to the bottom.
Until burn-out affects enough people that it impacts companies' bottom lines, nothing will change. And, currently, enough non-burned-out fresh people enter the market every day to keep that from happening.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday May 30 2019, @03:55PM (2 children)
By definition you aren't burned out until the symptoms are already affecting your output (workplace efficacy is being harmed). If part of your job duty is to be immediately available, obviously that remedy given won't work - they already cautioned that the solutions presented are only ideas and not automatic cure-alls. However, if you can't keep up then you're already on a downhill slide anyway.
(Not to mention that the diagnosis is general and shouldn't be taken as for tech companies only.)
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 30 2019, @05:12PM (1 child)
And his was complete burnout. Except as a consumer he hasn't touched a computer in 20 years for any sort of technical purposes. He spent a year or two not doing anything computer related at all (back when you could still do that.) Took a class or two involving computers with me, then... nothing.
Now he uses it for the basics, like email, web browsing, youtube, and online financials, but only the minimum required. I can't even get him to maintain his own computer anymore. It gets caked full of dust and never gets software updates unless I manually do them.
That is n example of what burnout does to you.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday May 30 2019, @06:19PM
That's an example of someone who's overwhelmed by technology. I wouldn't necessarily equate that with burnout.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday May 30 2019, @02:36PM
From TFS:
FWIW, I found this book [burnout-solutions.com] to be extremely useful. Also, much, much less expensive than therapy.
--
Do you ever go out, and while you're out,
think "this is exactly why I don't go out"?
(Score: 1) by sorpigal on Thursday May 30 2019, @09:01PM
Hank Green had something to say about burnout earlier this year. I found it insightful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKEzeJz8ys4 [youtube.com]