Burnout is the normal stress in your life gone bad. It is a feeling of chronic cognitive, physical, and/or emotional exhaustion. The body moves into an energy conservation mode, linked to having too much cortisol (stress hormones). It requires special skills to recover from.
Herbert Freudenberger (the psychologist who coined the term in the 1970s) outlined twelve stages of burnout that people often go through if it’s not addressed.
This is all about excessive drive or ambition, having expectations that are unrealistically high, or feeling like an impostor.
In order to try and meet these high expectations and prove yourself, you keep working more.
Basic needs like sleep, exercise, nutrition, and social relationships all get pushed aside as work takes over.
You feel panicky and on edge; stress levels are blamed on colleagues, bosses, the expectations of the industry…
You shift focus again and make work even more core to your identity.
You avoid taking responsibility, which would be emotionally painful, so choose to say nothing’s wrong.
You start to avoid or dread social interaction; you stop responding to messages; you become less present and less involved.