Type of Burnout

You are working hard building your career. Now, you have successfully maintaining your job and enjoy a stable income. But you’re also tired, stressed, and feeling cynical about the future.

Could you be burned out? What exactly is burnout?

Burnout refers to a collection of different physical, emotional, and mental reactions that occur in response to prolonged stress and overworking. World Health Organization classified burnout as a syndrome that results from chronic workplace stress that’s not successfully managed.

Symptoms of Burnout:

· Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion

· Negativity or cynicism related your job

· Reduced professional efficacy

Signs of Burnout can be seen from both internal and external. Internal signs include emotional exhaustion, cynicism, feeling ineffective, feeling drained, and detachment from your work and your life. External signs include physical exhaustion, pain, insomnia, lowered immunity, and a change in diet.

Three Type of Burnout

1. Overload Burnout

With overload burnout, people work harder and ever-more frantically in search of success. They are willing to risk their health and personal life in pursuit of their ambition. They cope by complaining.

Linked to exhaustion, overload burnout is driven by the ambition to work harder to achieve success, frequently at the cost of personal life and even health — physically and mentally. It is typical for highly dedicated employees, who prefer to cope with stress by venting of emotions, the strategy that in the long term may lead to emotional exhaustion and depression. This burnout type would need to work on emotional regulation and psychological flexibility, and may find Acceptance and Commitment Therapy beneficial.

You keep on frantically working despite feeling overwhelmed and overloaded with work, overlooking your own needs in order to fulfill your work demands. People who suffered from overload burnout tend to works even harder, to the point of exhaustion, in search of success.

2. Under-challenge Burnout

This type of burnout is the opposite of overload burnout.

Under-challenge burnout is caused by the lack of opportunities for personal or professional growth, and is associated with cynicism and intermediate dedication to work. Signs of under-challenge burnout include not feeling appreciated, boredom, and a lack of personal development. You feel like your work is under challenged and doesn’t offer you opportunities to develop your abilities.

You find no passion or enjoyment in your work. Your work is monotonous and you feel boredom. Being unable to find any satisfaction in a job, you constantly find yourself in a lowered mood.

The usual coping strategies for under-challenge burnout are cognitive avoidance, venting of emotions and disengagement. In other word, you cope by distancing yourself from your job such as avoidance of responsibility.

3. Neglect Burnout

Neglect burnout results from feeling helpless at work. People may feel incompetent or unable to keep up with the demands of their job. These type of people tend to be passive and unmotivated.

It is strongly associated with inefficacy and disengagement at the workplace. This type of burnout may require behavioral activation and elimination of negative perceptions.