We can immediately see from her list that your work environment and culture are very important. Burnout is triggered predominantly by work stress, which usually correlates to a toxic work environment.

“Categorizing burnout as a disease was an attempt by the WHO to provide definitions for what is wrong with people, instead of what is wrong with companies,” states Maslach. There are things you can do to manage stress and become more resilient to it like Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. Nevertheless, organizations that focus on giving their employees the space to manage their work/life balance have a greater probability of maintaining an engaged and productive workforce. A​ recent article from Forbes​ reinforces the idea that organizations benefit from staying ahead of the burnout curve and “gain a distinct advantage over their competitors. Not only will employees be healthier and happier, but they will produce more, deliver better service to customers and clients, and reduce absenteeism.”

As a fitness and nutrition coach in San Francisco, almost all of the clients I work with have some level of burnout they are attempting to manage. There are weekly conversations about work stress, exhaustion, time pressure, the expectation to always be available, lack of autonomy, backstabbing or undermining events with colleagues or bosses, and misalignment of priorities throughout the vertical chain. It is clear that their physical and mental health is negatively affected by their work stress. Most if not all of the above burnout triggers are usually prevalent in my clients’ work experiences.

I have adjusted my coaching to deal with this reality. I come from a sports background full of high-intensity weightlifting, sprinting, plyometrics, and performance-oriented training. But this is not what my clients need, despite the fact that many of them really want it. Stress management is usually included in my coaching plans. I advise walking instead of sprinting, belly breathing instead of heart-pounding, mobility work to offset the hours seated at a desk every day, and light strength training to help build muscle.

Besides stress management, nutrition is a big priority since many clients have no time to prepare their own food or time to sit somewhere quietly and eat it. Alcohol is another challenge as weekday happy hours, networking events or client dinners are a regular occurrence, and abstaining from alcohol is difficult. By the end of the week when the exhaustion reaches its peak, many people choose to unwind by drinking alcohol. Consuming alcohol leads to poor sleep and poor health, which causes the cycle of exhaustion to continue the following week because you don’t get proper rest.

Health and Chronic Stress

Stress elicits the same hormonal response from our body whether it’s perceptible or not and whether it's physical or psychological in origin. Cortisol and adrenaline are released, raising blood pressure and heart rate and sending us into a “flight or fight” response. Humans are designed this way for survival, but when triggered chronically by modern stress it can cause health issues and lower cognitive abilities. According to the Mayo Clinic, the long-term activation of the stress response system and the overexposure to cortisol and other stress hormones that follow can disrupt almost all of your body’s processes. This puts you at increased risk of many health problems.

Some noteworthy effects of chronic stress include anxiety, depression, sleep issues, memory and concentration impairment, weight gain, heart disease, and digestive problems. When chronically stressed, the amygdala increases in size, making us more susceptible to fear and anxiety, and less prone to achieving flow. Our ability to pay attention, learn and recall short-term memories are all reduced when chronically stressed. This is not the outcome anyone wants as a result of their career choice and certainly, not the outcome any company wants for its employees.

Some level of stress is important for stimulating peak performance, but burnout and chronic stress occur when the pace is unsustainable and prolonged. Working hard is not the issue. Working hard constantly with no time or means to recover, however, can lead to major personal and professional issues down the road.

High Performance and Burnout

If you are intrinsically motivated, energized, and passionate about your work you are optimized for flow. On the other hand, if you are coping with burnout you are motivated by obligation, fear, and routine. You may not realize you are headed towards burnout or experiencing some symptoms already. If you live on autopilot, ​ you assume that everything is normal, and are unaware of how much energy and enthusiasm you’re missing out on.

In a Harvard Business Review article, an executive experiencing burnout shared that his feelings were muted so he could deal with the emotional pain of life. In order to sustain performance at a high level, many executives confess that they experience burnout. Thankfully, there are some simple interventions that help improve your mental health, physical health, and work performance.

One option is a concept called “oscillation.” Using high-level athletics as a model, athletes work hard, recover, gain an adaptation while recovering, and then work hard again. This type of oscillation between working hard and resting or adapting is not the paradigm for high-level business executives, but maybe it could help. This is precisely how the flow cycle works​ with its four phases. The struggle phase is a “work hard” phase, followed by the release phase, which is a form of recovery. Then you find your flow, which doesn’t feel stressful but is highly taxing to your neurochemistry, thus requiring the final phase of recovery. Even if you tap into flow regularly, you will burn out eventually if there isn’t adequate recovery. ​

Now that you understand burnout on a deeper level and the negative impacts on your personal and professional well-being, what’s the next step? Tune in next week for part two​ where I discuss individual strategies to address burnout and organizational strategies to prevent it.