Do you feel exhausted, empty, and incapable of coping with the demands of everyday life? Are you experiencing stomachaches, headaches, intestinal pains, or a lack of appetite? Maybe you’re having a difficult time coping with stress at the workplace? If this feels like what you’re going through, you might be at serious risk of suffering an occupational burnout.
“What is occupational burnout?”
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines occupational burnout as a syndrome accompanied by a group of co-occurring symptoms. If the sufferer fails to treat these symptoms, occupational burnouts lead to long-lasting and frequently unresolved anxiety related to work. In May 2019, WHO particularized burnouts as being exclusively work-related issues that conceivably stem from ineffective management of chronic occupational stress.
The result is an occupational syndrome marked by exhaustion, energy depletion, negative or cynical outlooks about work, a reduction in professional efficiency, and an increased mental distance from one’s work-related responsibilities. Even though WHO hasn’t classified occupational burnout as a medical condition, it seems to have a negative influence on an individual’s health, with many of them needing to contact health services for assistance.
Occupational Burnout: An Occupational Phenomenon
According to a May 2019 report published by WHO, occupational burnout is an occupational phenomenon as defined by the 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). Job-related stress is the main contributor to burnout, but a person’s lifestyle often adds to their overall stress level. In addition to that, certain personality traits and frames of mind, such as pessimism and perfectionism, have been known to play a significant factor in occupational burnout as well.
According to the American Institute of Stress, 46 percent of Americans suffer from work-related stress due to their workload. Another 28 percent of American workers feel stress because of the people they work with. Juggling work and a personal life constitute 20 percent of stress felt by the American workforce, while only six percent feel anxiety over the lack of work. The study further points out that, in most cases, it’s not the occupation that is the source of the stress but how the individual fits in with their working environment. Stress is a very personal thing and varies quite a bit from one person to the next.
Work-Related Stress for Americans Is Getting Worse Decade by Decade Says Study
Numerous studies have recently revealed a troubling trend showing work-related stress is on a significant rise. In an article published by Forbes, the number of American employees who voiced an occupational burnout has risen 20 percent over the past three decades. Many employees feel they have limited control while being bombarded by a lot of demands and responsibilities—not to mention feeling as if they’re “at a dead end.”
Some of the other findings include:
Sixteen percent of people who quit their jobs did so because they felt the stress levels were too high sixty-six percent of people admit to losing sleep due to feeling stressed at work. Seventy-six of American workers expressed that workplace stress had a negative impact on personal relationships
Enterprise Management Continuing the Cycle of Occupational Burnout
Another study published by smallbizgenius.net, workplace stress comprises a significant portion of America’s mental health crisis. As most people know, stress is handed down from upper management—many executives have to deal with their deadlines, strenuous workloads, company financial concerns, demanding stakeholders, among other stressful things. The stress these executives feel is then passed down to management, which is, in turn, passed down to those under them.
SmallBizGenius published the following statistics showing how bad things have gotten for both employees and employers in terms of workplace stress.
Work-related stress causes approximately 120,000 premature deaths and costs the healthcare system around $190 billion annually treating employees for depression caused by work-related stress costs $26 billion in treatment annually meager 43 percent of Americans feel their employers genuinely care about promoting a healthy work-life balance work-related stress issues cause around one million employees to miss work daily approximately $300 billion is lost by businesses in the United States annually due to work-related stress around 83 percent of employees in the United States suffer from stress related to their work or work environment
And if you’re wondering how other nations compare when it comes to occupational burnout, a poll conducted by Gallup, an American analytics and advisory company, revealed that the United States is among one of the most stressed-out work populations in the world. America is nearly tied with Greece, a nation that has had the world’s highest stress levels dating back to 2012.
If you feel extremely burned out by your job, it might be time for you to visit a specialist. Occupational burnout isn’t something that merely affects your income but your health as well.
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