Burnout Signs and Symptoms

Workplace stress

Handling a job with a lot of stress and a lot of responsibilities can be a difficult situation. There are those that struggle with the demands, even if they took the job with a lot of passion and vigor at first. There are those who believe that they are trying hard enough but still can’t meet the demands.

And then there becomes a moment when it all hits, that slowing down of the movements of the body. The fatigue. The difficulty in concentrating. The lack of motivate. The lack of enthusiasm. Then slowly a dispirited attitude, when the person does not want to come to work anymore. Or they do but they can’t muster the energy for the job.

These are all signs of burnout, which afflicts millions of people every day in America. Burnout is a serious affliction which threatens a person’s ability to work and make money, for themselves or their family. Burnout can take many shapes and many forms. But in it lies the simple premise: The demands of the job have taken a toll on the person.

There are many occupations in which people suffer from burnout. Likely, it is most of them. Burnout afflicts people in fields as far reaching as medical research, lawyers, police officers, chefs, cooks, heavy volume writers, graphic designs, and much more. Any time more responsibilities are added on, burnout is a more likely possibility.

There are occupations in which burnout is more likely to affect the individuals in the occupations than individuals in other occupations. These are jobs with high work hours, high degrees of responsibilities, and less work life balance. Among these are doctors and physicians, lawyers and judges, top executives and CEOs of companies, and more.

There are some statistics about the rate of burnout within the medical profession, particularly of physicians. These statistics have been taken from numerous sources, including one major lifestyle survey that takes statistics about the burnout symptoms, among other issues, of physicians.

These statistics cover burnout among physicians overall, the burnout difference between older and younger physicians, divorce rates among physicians, the lack of work life balance among physicians, and more. There are many symptoms of burnout and according to one statistic nearly half of all physicians experience at least one.

  • A recent study reported that 45.8% of physicians are considered to be experiencing at least one symptom of burnout.
  • There is currently a 35.2% overall burnout rate among U.S. physicians.
  • Physicians aged 35 and under have a burnout rate of 44%.
  • A recent study showed that medical students report a rate of depression that’s 15% to 30% higher than the general population by a significant margin.
  • Studies show that physicians are almost twice as likely as the general U.S. population to report being dissatisfied with their work-life balance.
  • According to a Medscape Physician Lifestyle Survey published in January 2017, emergency doctors suffer the highest rates of burnout of all medical professionals, with 59% agreeing they felt burned out.
  • According to a Medscape Physician Lifestyle Survey, female physicians rated themselves higher on the physician burnout scale at 55% compared to male physicians rating themselves at 45%.
  • Physicians have a 10% to 20% higher divorce rate than the general population.

Physicians experience burnout at a high rate, even compared to other professions in the United States. The long hours, the responsibilities of caring for patients, the responsibilities in making decisions about the course of treatment for their patients, working with nurses and other staffs, and more all contribute to burnout.

When it comes to burnout, as one of the statistics above suggests, there are signs of emotional exhaustion. Some of these signs may present in physical ways, including slowness of movement, a dulled affect, or even a slowed and toneless voice when speaking. Other signs of emotional exhaustion include crying at work or getting angry.

Two signs of emotional exhaustion are that the person is having trouble keeping composure and they are having demonstrable emotional outbursts. Signs of emotional exhaustion are worth intervening if they have begun to impact a person’s job performance.

There are terms that go along with burnout and burnout symptoms. They include workplace anger, workplace stress, signs of job burnout, stress job, stress burnout symptoms, signs of physical exhaustion, recovering from severe burnout, managing anger in the workplace, life burnout, and more.

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