Burnout and Anxiety in the Workplace

Jennifer (host) 

 All right, so we’ve talked a lot about anxiety before, but how can chronic anxiety lead to burnout?

Dr. Rachel Hopkins

Yeah, I think the two can be really, really kind of interrelated with one another. Actually a little, you know, chicken or the egg kind of particularly on managed anxiety can, can really lead to putting us in a state of chronic stress and burnout is.

A chronic state of distress, physical, emotional, mental distress. And similarly, burnout can really increase our vulnerability to anxiety symptoms. So when we’re burned out, we’re more vulnerable to anything really. And so certainly that would include anxiety symptoms. If it’s something that you have like pretty well managed or under wrapped, but then you’re in this chronic state of.

Stress, those symptoms might kind of re. Show themselves. Um, or you might have a hard time coping with those symptoms in the same way that you would if you weren’t in a state of burnout. 

Jennifer

I’ve heard mostly burnout about burnout. About burnout and being talked about in the context of stress and stressful work situations or just.

Working long hours or tough deadlines, or just a lot of responsibility and pressure, but I haven’t really heard a whole lot of anxiety leading to burnout. But what you’re saying makes sense, and it also kind of sounds like, like basically everything can lead to burnout.

Dr. Hopkins

Yeah, I think burnout can exist, you know, no matter what your occupation is or if you’re in school or.

Even if you’re, even if you’re doing something that you really enjoy, you can still get burned out doing that thing. And certainly like stress and burnout are, are more on like a spectrum with one another, whereas anxiety, you know, we’re kind of talking more about. A mental health diagnosis. Burnout isn’t an an official DSM diagnosis per se, but it, it can be pretty pervasive, particularly depending on your context and the environment that you’re in, you know, cultural expectations, those kinds of things.

Jennifer

So if it’s not a, an official diagnosis, then like how do you identify that it is burnout?

Dr. Hopkins

Yeah, well, it’s a little subjective and there is overlap, so symptoms of anxiety. Disorders can certainly overlap with symptoms of burnout. Um, I worked with a physical therapist and coach who sent me this great article, and I think it was titled something like Stress is Stress, meaning the Body can’t necessarily differentiate between like Work related Burnout and.

Biologically originated anxiety, like it just knows that it’s in a state of stress, whether that’s physical, mental, emotional, or otherwise. And so there is a lot of overlap. And then some of it will come down to function, like how is it showing up in your life? How are those symptoms? Showing up in your life, and certainly our diagnostic system isn’t perfect.

So it’s just because burnout maybe isn’t listed with diagnostic criteria in a big book doesn’t mean that it’s not like a real phenomenon that people experience.

Jennifer

So what are the physical and emotional signs of burnout as they relate to anxiety or even just burnout in general?

Dr. Hopkins

Well, burnout can definitely present for people in, in a pretty persistent state of fatigue, either mental fatigue, physical fatigue.

At the same time, it can affect. Sleep. Either like sleeping too much or not being able to sleep because your mind is racing or overthinking things. It can certainly manifest in other physical problems and these can range on a pretty significant. Spectrum, but things like headaches or muscle tension, GI distress or stomach issues, and then emotionally and cognitively as well.

So emotionally, it’s very common for people who are feeling burned out to feel irritable, numb, hopeless, and like there’s nothing that can be done or kind of what’s the point here? And, and similarly cognitively kind of that existential dread, lack of purpose, feeling overwhelmed by things that wouldn’t typically overwhelm you, and then.

What that, you know, tends to result in for people is also coping less effectively. So not setting, uh, boundaries or saying no to things when you are at or approaching a personal limit, or not asking for help or delegating tasks to others or stories about yourself that are really unhelpful. Like, I’m not doing enough.

I need to do more. And then behaviors that are. Associated with that as well. So it can be this kind of self perpetuating cycle too.

Jennifer

I don’t know why, when you said stories about yourself that are unhelpful. I just, I just imagine like a, like a staff meeting or someone’s like telling a very irrelevant story about themself and everyone’s like, what’s this guy’s deal?

But that’s not what you mean. They’re self stories or tell, there’re stories you tell oneself.

Dr. Hopkins

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that’s such, that’s like, so my language that I use like talking with clients.  Probably should just said like, what’s the thought that’s showing up for you?

But hopefully people can get it.

Jennifer

I think it’s okay. So you’ve mentioned anxiety and stress, things that are contributing to burnout, but what about things like perfectionism or fear of failure? And I know that in past episodes we’ve talked about how those are. Things that are under the umbrella of anxiety, but they seem to have their, their own special flavor.

Dr. Hopkins

Yeah, absolutely. Well, for some people it might be a sign of burnout, like if those kind of perfectionistic tendencies or feel fear of failure. Aren’t, aren’t like very present for you. Typically, they could be a sign if they are starting to bubble up or take up lots of time that you either are burned out or are approaching burnout.

But similarly, uh, similarly to how we were kind of talking about anxiety, if you have those perfectionistic tendencies or, or really a hard time with failure making mis. Stakes, it can contribute to burnout as well. Perfectionism, as we’ve talked about before, makes it hard to do things in a good enough way.

It makes it hard to delegate or trust other people. You know, in a sort of positive context, we might describe somebody who’s a perfectionist as going above and beyond, or always going that extra mile, but when people are doing that in. Kind of an automatic or, or maybe even a slightly more compulsive kind of way.

It can really become problematic over time in terms of not taking care of yourself, not, um, being able to recognize when you need to take a break from something, when you need to ask for help or support, and then just kind of in. Increasing that overall sense of stress, physical and mental fatigue, having it be more persistent, last longer, harder to recover from.

And same with fear of failure. It can be really paralyzing for people. And you know, if you’re running on an empty battery or an empty gas tank, you might be able to run on fumes for a little while, but it’s certainly not gonna be sustainable long term.

Jennifer

Got it. So it almost sounds like burnout, since it’s not a diagnosis officially, it’s almost sounds like that’s a symptom of one of these other diagnoses.

Dr. Hopkins

Potentially. Yeah. Potentially.

Jennifer

Okay. And how would someone be able to differentiate between normal stress and early burnout symptoms.

Dr. Hopkins

They really exist along the spectrum with one another. So a lot of the differences have to do with the intensity of those symptoms.

Am I a little tired or am I utterly exhausted? The duration of those symptoms, like do I feel that way directly in response to a specific event, but then it goes away? Or am I like feeling this way pretty persistently and it’s not really remitting over time. And also impact on overall wellbeing.

So even if I’m experiencing some stress, am I still able to cope and manage the things that are important to me on a day to day? Or is it getting in the way of my job performance, how I’m showing up with my family and friends if I’m able to engage in my hobbies and interests and things and leisure activities, things I like to do.

Those kinds of things. So stress tends to be more temporary, burnout, longer lasting, and it can absolutely affect our ability to cope, even if it’s a, it can be a similar emotional experience.

Jennifer

It almost sounds like if it’s stress, you can take a vacation and come back feeling refreshed. If it’s burnout, you take a vacation and you come back and you are right back where you started from, like it didn’t do anything for you. 

Dr. Hopkins

Yeah, I think that’s a, a really good way to think about it, especially ’cause stress is, is more short term or in response to a specific thing. So when that thing is over, the emotional experience is also over.

Jennifer

Got it. Okay. What types of things can professionals do to proactively address these early signs of burnout?

Dr. Hopkins

Yeah, well, I’ve done this before and I’ve done this with some of my colleagues before as well, but setting what I like to call as a burnout, awareness and prevention plan. So we’ve kind of talked about it on this spectrum, and you can kind of think about it if it’s not too cheesy for you.

You can think about it a little like a stoplight. It’s like, what? You know, green, yellow, or red? How intense is it? What are the things that you can pay attention to? What are the types of thoughts that you have when you’re, if you’re in the green zone, you’re like feeling pretty good, you’re not really burned out.

Yellow is like, maybe you’re approaching and red is like, I’m way over the line. Mm-hmm. Um, noticing like, what are the different thoughts? You would have in each of those states. What do your actions tend to look like in each of those states? What is your body physiologically tend to feel like in each of those states and what, you know, feelings are really common in each of those states for you?

So that would be more like the awareness part and then the action plan. Is, what do you do if you are in each of those states to address burnout? So there are still things that you can do proactively, even if you’re kind of in a green zone. Like if you know, you know, I’ve been working from home for a really long time, and I know if I just even open my front door step outside, regardless of what the weather’s like for just a tiny mini break, that goes a long way for me.

That’s not gonna be sufficient if I’m in the. Red zone, kind of like you were saying, like, I might need, need a more sustained vacation. I might need to go to therapy, or I might need to really get some support from my spouse or my friends. So how you respond is also different in those areas. Whether it can be a little bit more proactive or whether it’s something that is more in response to feeling burned out.

Jennifer

Well, first of all, a stoplight metaphor is never cheesy. Oh, yeah. Yes. Totally works. And it almost sounds like that people are, are designating thoughts and feelings for that stoplight based on experiences that they’ve had. So is that to say that to some extent everyone’s kind of been through burnout before?

Dr. Hopkins

Sure. Yeah. It’d be hard to me, it would be hard for me to imagine somebody who hasn’t been somewhere on the spectrum of burnout before it. Yeah. I do think a lot of it is about increasing that self-awareness of what it looks like, sounds like, feels like when you are in these, in these different states and.

If you either haven’t had those experiences or don’t feel super aware of those experiences, I’m sure that you could notice common things that you see in other people. Even though there would of course be some individual differences, you could probably make some educated guesses and then it can be a working document.

You could, you know, update it as you have experiences potentially.

Jennifer

So what types of thoughts would be going through a person’s head as it relates to work and the workplace and their job in each of these? In the green light, yellow light and red light, would you say? Mm-hmm. Just examples. 

Dr. Hopkins

Let’s see, if I were to think about some green examples, so feeling pretty good, not really burned out, I would probably be working, thinking about work in a pretty fond way. I’d be thinking about the parts of my job or my day-to-day that I really enjoy. I might be thinking about what would feel meaningful, like how would I want to grow or do I have a new interest in my area of work?

Or is there a new project that I want to work on or a new kind of a new area that I wanna delve into or explore? If I were in a yellow zone, well, I guess yellow and red could be similar. Depends on the person. For a lot of people, there are thoughts about blaming. Others. And then thoughts about blaming themselves.

So a lot more harsh, self-critical, like, I have to do everything around here. I can’t rely on other people, or I’m failing at everything. I can’t handle this. Or, what am I even doing in this job or career? What’s the point of what I’m doing on a day-to-day basis? And so imagine it would be. Maybe for a person they notice like more of those thoughts in one versus the other.

And that could be the distinction or it could be the intensity of those thoughts like, oh, I’m not doing so great right now, versus like, I’m failing at everything would be kind of differing degrees, maybe yellow or red degrees of a similar type of thought.

Jennifer

Okay. That makes sense. So those are all of the awareness ones.

What you do if you find yourself in each category, like a follow up plan? And does that include the green light too?

Dr. Hopkins

Yeah, totally. And again, it will look different for different people because different things lead to burnout. Or satisfaction for different people.

But certainly I think about like that skillful response or what you can do if you’re in the green zone, you can think about it as more preventative care or proactive care. So I might be able to make it through my day without taking a break. I can work all the way through, but if I take that mini break every hour, I know it will help prevent.

Burnout for me longer term or, you know, at our, at our center, we start a lot of our meetings with mindfulness exercises or a little bit of a check-in or a kind of pause or break. And so if I were to incorporate something like that, or people sometimes incorporate daily meditation into their morning or evening routine, some of these things that can be kinda proactive or preventative in nature.

Whereas the things that you would do in a yellow or red zone, um, as you were saying, you might need like more of a sustained break. It could be even include environmental support, so like. Reduced workload or workplace accommodations. I know lots of places have like days that you can use for sick leave or mental health leave.

So like taking a full day is a, is a kind of a bigger step or a different step than taking a mini break throughout your day, for example.

Jennifer

It sounds like you’re saying at that point. If the vacation’s not cut in it, and for whatever reason you’ve blown past the green and and yellow light, you’re, you’re in the red, and let’s say you’re considering therapy, but for whatever reason it’s not working out.

What are some other options for you at that point?

Dr. Hopkins

Other options outside of therapy?

Jennifer

Yeah, when you’ve reached that red zone of burnout.

Dr. Hopkins

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So I think if you have a trusted, caring person in your life, you know, one of the best antidotes to anything that we are inclined to feel like shame or guilt or embarrassment over is to talk to a trusted person about it. And if you think about it like you’re, you’re kind of impaired. If you’re in a burnout state, you’re not able to access the cognitive or emotional resources that you otherwise would be. And so whether that’s a. Professional or a trusted support person. Tagging somebody in and getting some support can help with coping more effectively.

They might be able to brainstorm problem solving with you, remind you of things that you’ve done in the past that have worked for you, that you know they’re in your mind somewhere, but they’re just very hard to access when you’re in extreme in an extremely. Burned out state. The good news and why I like when people make a plan is because you’re sort of accessing wisdom from yourself from a different time, from a different state of time.

So you might know like, Hey, when I’m feeling really burned out at work. I feel really numb and disconnected from other people. So I know even though it’s the last thing I want to do, ’cause I don’t have the energy to do it, I really need to make an effort to connect with other people. So I need to ask somebody to go walk and get coffee with me or something like that.

And so if you’re not able to access it in a moment, asking for help with that is really helpful. But if you have a plan, you can, you can also access that help through your former wise self.

Jennifer

Got it. What are some other practices that a person can do regardless of being in the green, yellow, or red stage that could help reduce the, either the risk or the impact of burnout?

Dr. Hopkins

Yeah, we were kind of talking earlier about. Some of those unhelpful thoughts or internal stories about ourselves that come up, they, they tend to be really harsh or self-critical stories and ones that aren’t always the most helpful. And there’s a lot of research out there in the world of self-compassion and the positive effects.

Self-compassion can have on burnout and on changing those stories or the way that we talk to ourselves. I always like, when I talk about it with people, I think about it like, who was the best, you know, boss or coach or teacher you ever had? What were, what were their qualities? What were they like? How did they talk to you?

Similarly, like what was the worst boss or coach or teacher you ever had? What were they like and how did they talk to you? And without fail, people always describe that worst experience as somebody who’s really harsh, really self-critical, and it’s pretty just unhelpful in actually getting the best out of you.

Whereas like a really helpful coach tends to balance that warmth and compassion with. Also holding you to high expectations. So I think the biggest myth about self-compassion is it’s like complacency or it’s being soft or you know, something like that. But most of us are lucky enough to have had at least one experience where somebody’s really gotten the best performance out of us.

And a big part of that is talking in a kind and compassionate way. And in a way that’s really caring, not just like, oh yeah, whatever. Don’t go to work, or Oh yeah, whatever. Just lay in bed all day. Mm-hmm. But like, come on, get up, go for a walk. I know you’re gonna feel better once you go for this walk, and I know you can do it right now.

Jennifer

Hmm. I guess in, in some people’s minds I could see thinking that the type of motivation they need looks more like a drill sergeant.

Dr. Hopkins

Yes, exactly.

Jennifer

So maybe they’ve never had a super kind, compassionate coach, but it sounds like even for those people, doing your best to just… I mean, what’s the worst that can happen?

You’re super burnt out and you just try self-compassion for a day that sounds like you could give it a shot.

Dr. Hopkins

I strongly encourage people to do an experiment. It’ll probably take more than a day just to set expectations realistically, but I encourage all my clients to, to run the experiment.

Usually they’ve been running this, the experiment of like being harsh, uh, or very self-critical for a while already, and they know it’s not really working long term for them. Mm-hmm. So I do encourage ’em to try out the experiment of really talking yourself in this way. And there are some explicit self.

Compassion practices, so it’s not just saying nice things to yourself. I think that’s really important as well. It’s a component of self-compassion, but it’s not the only piece. And so yeah, try it out. Run the experiment, get the data for yourself.

Jennifer

Love it. Love it. Well, thank you so much. I think that brings us to the end of today’s episode on Burnout in the Workplace.

Thank you, Dr. Rachel Hopkins for joining us, and we will see you all next time.