Stress is a part of life, however there are times when that stress can cause other problems. Stress in the workplace causes about one million workers to miss work each day. Some professions see a higher rate of burnout symptoms that others, and one of those professions is physicians. Physicians see a 10 to 20 % higher divorce rate, which could be caused by burnout symptoms since research shows that almost half of all physicians are experiencing at least one sign of burnout.

Knowing what burnout symptoms are is just as important as knowing how to prevent them. Any job can see burnout symptoms, and job stress, exhaustion, workplace anger, and working stressful job can all contribute to burnout symptoms. There are usually different stages of burnout related to your job, read below to help you recognize the 5 stages of burnout so you can spot these stages.


Honeymoon Stage

This is the stage where most people start in their jobs. They are usually happy with their job and feel some form of satisfaction from it. Creativity and high energy usually couple this stage. The key to remaining in this stage is to develop coping strategies for when anger and frustration strike. Becoming adaptive in this stage will prolong it, and ward off burnout symptoms for quite some time.

Playing the Balancing Act

This is the stage where you inevitably realize that there are good days and there are some not so good days. Stress on the job has started to take it’s toll on you, but there are certain key factors that describe how well you are handling that stress. Working less efficiently and avoiding making more decisions at work, should be red flags that you are in stage 2 and exhibiting burnout symptoms.

Chronic Symptoms of Stage 3

This stage exhibits many of the same signs as stage 2, except the worker realizes that the balancing act is not working out so well. Some of the symptoms of stage 2 such as fatigue and loss of focus, become more chronic and start to happen more often. Along with these burnout symptoms physical illness and anger or depression is sometimes seen.

Crisis Stage

The crisis stage is pretty self explanatory. This is when the burnout symptoms experienced have become critical. The physical symptoms happen more frequently, frustrations from the work place follow you home, you start doubting yourself and double thinking many decisions.

Enmeshment Stage

This is the last stage with the most notable burnout symptoms that one can experience. By the time this stage hits, the symptoms described above have been embedded into your life day in and day out. For this reason many people are labeled as having a more serious physical or emotional problem. This is the last stage and burnout symptoms have pretty much gone ignored, making this stage harder to recover from.

Recognizing the symptoms of burnout in the workplace will make it easier to spot potential problems before they turn into major issues. Once you know what to look for you, you can correct any issues much more easily and with more success. Knowing the different stages of burnout symptoms lets you know that it is not too late to start fixing issues, before they turn into problems that can’t be fixed so easily.

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