How do you know when you are burning out?

If you think you are on the cusp of burnout, you are already IN the burnout. Burnout isn't like a moment that occurs that you can pin point. It sneaks up on you and by the time you are thinking of it you are already deep in it.

Everything you describe is a sign that you are burning out. Take a step back and find ways to improve the situation: short frequent breaks during the days, mini-vacations each week/month, EXERCISE OUTSIDE (walsk ,runs, bike, anything outside rain or shine), find a group of friends or family you ENJOY being around and spend more time talking and laughing with them.

You may not necessarily need to leave your job, but if it is REALLY tearing you down and you feel hopeless everytime you go to it, then NOW is the time to start looking for something else. Do not let all of this build up until you are at a breaking point and suddenly quit "out of the blue" because the pressure has built up too much. At that point it may be difficult to find a job and you might be so burnt out you literally don't have the motivation TO find a new job.

Good luck, find a way to heal yourself, and know that there are a lot of others out here who have gone through this and have begun to get through it - myself included.

What were the signs for me: No joy in life, even with hobbies or parts of works that were always pretty pleasant. Being snippy, dreading work days rather than having a neutral-to-slightly-positive take on them. (You don't have to always "like" work but I've found there's a real difference between dread and neutral).

When is it time to change jobs: When you really dislike the person you're becoming (irritable, unusually cynical) and don't want it to be permanent.

I got lucky in that (through higher-up corporate politics) I was accidentally(?) reassigned to something else much more joyful and fitting my skills quickly after I started noticing these signs, but it was absolutely a learning moment to see the shift in mindset and mood. This last comment may sound odd, but something I wish I did earlier was to start journaling as it's a great way to notice emotional patterns and to suss out things that have been bothering you but might not be vocalizing (as much as you need to).

For me a true sense of "I am burned out" is like a recession. You don't see it coming but you can look back 6 months and realize "oh shit I'm deep in very bad burnout".

For me it was a deep dissatisfaction with the work I was doing. This was caused by doing work that had no meaningful purpose, and also the people who were controlling what work I did were not giving me any autonomy or say in what was happening so I felt very powerless and my work was deeply unfulfilling.

It was multiple jobs where it was a bad fit, and I tried to force it and "make it work" because you have to get paid to live. For me burnout is a symptom of a sick society and unfortunately you can't just treat the individual its the societal conditions that cause the pain. The burnout and depression is a natural and reasonable reaction to the unpleasant experiences.

I would suggest changing jobs if you:

1. Lack friends / coworkers you can depend on 2. Feel like your work is not meaningfully contributing 3. Feel like your voice is not welcome or heard 4. Cannot find joy or happiness in tasks or hobbies you once enjoyed (outside of work) 5. Find yourself getting angry / snapping / losing temper over trivial non-important things either at work or at home.

A very simple test for workplace burnout: do you feel that 1) customers 2) colleagues are {malicious, idiots, ignorant, lazy, etc.}?

One of the simple models for burnout says that the 5 phases of burnout are: 1) honeymoon phase (just after joining, everything is rosy) 2) realistic phase (there are good and bad things) 3) we as a team are sensible but all these others are {ignorant, lazy, etc.} 4) I'm doing my best but most people are around me are { ... } 5) apathy (I don't care anymore)

Most people leave at phase 4, and the rule is that you can't really move backwards in this process without changing roles. (Possibly inside the same company, but you must change something in the environment.)

I realized I was burning out when I started yelling at my kids. Here's how I realized it and I quit the job although I loved it.

At the end of every day I started reflecting on it. I started looking for answers and realized once you hit your peak of stress level your mind can handle, you start to crack, show signs of strong negative emotions during meetings/discussions, you will show those emotions somewhere else (like in traffic, waiting for coffee, when your kids take time to get ready), you loose patience and your rational mind starts to break down.

I later learned from some of the self book on how to not end up like that. There is a book called "Essentialism by Greg McKeown", you probably know by the title. But honestly do yourself a favor, read it/listen and try to apply and see if it helps.

Quitting should be the last option unless you already have another plan instead do the minimal thing necessary to keep your job (just as it says in the book). Remember, it's ok to do just enough work as long as you enjoy doing that, nobody can force you to put extra effort(it's ok to say no). It's based on how much effort you can put without reaching your breaking limit. Know your limits. Use tools to increase that limit (that's a career growth .. sometimes slow growth.. sometimes fast growth)

Here are the signs that I had during my burnout: - Hoping to get sick to get a few days without having to cope with work

- Trouble sleeping

- Not being able to enjoy my holiday / weekend due to the thought of having to go back to work with an increased backlog

- Enhanced imposter syndrome

- Work productivity drop

- Complete lack of purpose in the daily work

All of the above built up very slowly and I didn't realize until things got overwhelming. The good news for me was that all of the above disappeared almost instantly when I switched jobs.

> lack of energy, stress, short temper, low immunity

These could be caused by MANY things. Please go see a professional.

One advice (that a good professional will also probably tell) is to exercise yourself.

If you're not yet, this could be as simple to solve as getting your body to move vigorously and regularly.

Cardio-vascular exercises are best. Get your heart rate high for a minimum of 2 hours per week total. Start with 10 minutes per day. Something from moderate to intense. The more intense you can get, the better.

Also go see a professional before starting any exercises. Especially if you have any special medical condition, like heart diseases.

When you don't spring out of bed excited to see what the work day brings you.

When you get into conflicts and arguments with coworkers over mundane crap like their voice tone.

When you yell at your significant other after the work day is done.

When you rationalize and justify being glued to a monitor for over 8 hours a day as normal, necessary and natural.

My one piece of advice is keep your job! Do much less work. But stay at it. Unemployed and burned out can be a dangerous trap that has long term consequences. Much better to barely be working while you sort yourself out. Stay on the horse.

Some commenters may need to think about distinguishing between burnout and actual medical depression.

You're burning out when you stop caring about something unfinished that you previously cared for and spent time on, and rationally should still. It can easily happen when your achievements aren't being recognized, valued and/or celebrated by you and others, and when you subconsciously feel that condition has no likely end in sight.

The inspiration and care needed to tackle hard work/problems requires tending to maintain. Cycles of achievement and recognition followed by deliberate reassessment so that the work continues to connect back to your inspiration.

>What are the signs that you're about to burn out?

Burnout is a float number not a binary.

Early burnout is just crashing after work. You might be mentally/physically/spiritually exhausted from whatever and you just cant go on. This early burnout feels normal but it's the warning zone. Time to do something. If not stress += 1 is going to happen.

Second stage is where you start doubting yourself. The things from the first stage exhausting you are now making you feel shame. Like did my skills drop or am I not good enough to fix that problem?

The third stage is about putting armor on. You need to defend against your detractors who are seeing you fail. They are commenting and putting you down. You need to defend yourself constantly. You're deeply burnout and aren't performing properly and people are noticing.

The final stage that is rock bottom. You're in crisis and falling apart. You're probably experiencing lots of health problems.

>What have you seen that was the precursor to it, what if anything did you or can you do to avoid it?

I figure everyone goes through it at least once. You totally can avoid it and get help. If you go looking for help and dont really need it... it's not a bad thing. So what's the risk in trying to get help?

>Right now I think I see a general lack of real energy, more stress from the recent economic impacts to our business, being more short tempered, getting sick more often (colds for instance).

You have to also realize that perhaps some of these things are just what's going on around you. Might be happening and just coincidentally looking like burnout.

In no particular order and YMMV. I'll add more as I think of them.

As people have mentioned, it can creep up on you and if you are worried about it you might already been burning...

* struggling making time for your hobbies/friends/non-work activities

* scared of your inbox

* sleeping longer

* Eating more (comfort eating), or eating less

* Exercising more and being harder on your body or exercising less frequently and struggling to find energy when you do exercise

* Taking more drugs, drinking more alcohol

* Being short with those who are close to you (snapping)

* Losing your desire for a long and happy life

Try to think about something you're really excited to do. If you can't think of anything, you're probably getting pretty close.

I recently went through this, and I’m a month into a sabbatical to recover.

Most of the answers here are resonating, but one other thing I noticed was a slide over in my baseline heart rate variability and resting heart rate.

My burnout was driven by an extremely high stress role/environment so this may not apply to everyone, but a few weeks after leaving, my resting heart rate plummeted and my HRV has been trending back up.

(I have seen my doctor, and they agreed that the factors were stress related as I was otherwise in good health).

I’ve found keeping an eye on these metrics useful as a high level indicator of overall stress, and it has been satisfying seeing them return to normal as I focus on self.

I'm not sure if it counts as burnout, but I've had my share of trying work situations, some of which pushed me into melancholy. Although the following may not apply to everyone, I believe it does in my case. My takeaways: unless it's your own firm, don't get too involved or emotionally immersed in your work; it's usually just a contract of labour for money. Also, I have a tendency to hold out hope that things will turn out okay in the end, even when most people have gone on. It never ends well, and I'm still trying to recognize when a change is necessary...

Needing more and more time to get less and less done. Constant preference for "short breaks", distractions and procrastination, instead of trying to focus on work. At this point you are already burnt out.

On changing jobs - Depends. If work isn't getting better *today*: ie, if they refuse to fire that toxic asshole, if they refuse to change that insane deadline -> if you have six months of savings, take a sabbatical for at least 3 of them. You are done starting now. No job is worth your mental health. You put in your two weeks starting now.

Make sure your next gig is calm @ 40 hours weeks. Do that for a year. Godspeed. Burnout sucks.

One tangible thing I've found is when I get the urge to call in sick to work just to avoid going, it's probably about that time to make a change.

- are you screaming/ranting in your car on the way home or when alone? <-- #1 sign I need to switch jobs.

- do you wake up and say "ugh I hate my job" every day?

- are you depressed (more than normal) or have feelings of hopelessness?

- has your activity level (errands, workouts) changed substantively, and is lack of time due to work devotion not the case?

- has the "spark of creativity" disappeared?

- sneaky structural sleep deprivation for work?

When you do way too much and feel exhausted and demoralized at the end of every day.

Or conversely when you don't do much at all and still end up feeling exhausted and demoralized at the end of every day.

Oh yay. Reading these comments made me realise I'm in full burnout.

Go me.

- taking sick days when healthy - procrastinating aka slacking - dreading the next meeting, starting your work day, working on a deliverable - frequently oversleeping - abusing substances - normal work seems harder than usual because of a lack of focus

Seek professional advice, talk to a psychologist, start therapy.

I see a lot of well intentioned advice here, but keep in mind that these are not professional therapists you are talking to here. Burnout can be different for everyone, just because you have some "symptoms" doesn't mean you are burnout.

I've been through a burnout once and I was not doing therapy, I felt helpless, took me years to feel like myself again. The second time I experienced the same symptoms I had professional help and was able to get my life back together relatively quickly thanks to that. It helped me so much, I'm so thankful for that.

I totally know when I'm burning out!

Low energy and meaningless procrastination is tell tell signs, also time spent on twitter or youtube is.

I became some kind of expert in managing my pre-burn out parts. I usually recognize that it is happening, and take a break for 1 day or 2. I also have an accountability buddy with whom we speak once a week and update each other on our projects. So talking to them also helps me to get out of that rut. Sometimes outside perspective helps.

But yeah my thing is: recognize it's happening, take a break (if you can), and talk to somebody who's not in your field.

When downtime is not beautiful, lovely, and freedom, but rather a liability.

5 months ago, I was depressed about my work and feeling like a failure. Both in career and life. I thought I was going through midlife crisis. And my inability to make FAANG money was the cause of my problems. I posted about it here [1].

My job was not bad, I worked 30 hours or so. Had excellent benefits. My team was great and my manager was super flexible. So I thought it cannot be work that was causing me feel depressed. But I decided that I need to get into FAANG and started studying LeetCode. Also my backup plan was to move into management in my current company. I worked longer hours, and studied late into night.

However, my happiness increased, I was motivated.

About a month ago, I gave my 2 weeks notice. I didn't get into FAANG or got FAANG salary but still got a decent bump in pay raise. More importantly, I cannot remember when was last time I felt this relaxed. My average HRV increased from 40ms to 100ms.

I realized that I was not going through midlife crisis but rather feeling burned out because in my cushy job, I had no actual freedom. We were doing checkmark driven development. I could not use my best judgement to do anything but most trivial things.

It wasn't the money that was the issue also. At my new job, I believe in company's overall mission. My last company is known for being backward and surviving by financial engineering. My new company is a smaller company, so it seems I can actually make important decisions.

And most importantly I feel I am in control of my career now. However, my default will be to leave after every 1 year, unless company and work convinces me to stay for another year.

And yes I realize that I am feeling excited because of my new job and may settle back into my low state. If that happen then I will focus on moving into management or different career.

But I guess to answer your question, work has a great influence on you. If you are not feeling good about it or life, then change work now! I say that because I almost thought about divorce because I thought my wife was giving me stress.

EDIT: Thank you, HN!

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29709273

weekends are depressing because monday is coming... social life feels like a chore. getting sick on off days and holidays.

my (unasked) advice: focus on what activities / people / places give you energy and leave you calm and relaxed. I think you did enough diagnosis.

best of luck!

Treat work as normal labor. Don’t expect joy from work. Try to be less involved. But still efficient, just the bare minimum. It’s just a contract after all. Invest the money you get from your labor in a stable social life. Healthy life style. Spend the free time you’re left with practicing your hobbies. It can still be coding. But something you’re excited about.

Started crying when no one saw me.

Also a friend telling me I always looked sad.

(I didn't realize it back then. Burning out was something that only happened to rich business guys back them and I only realized years later, maybe while drafted, what had happened.)

The golden rule of attention (or heiristic, mental model) to remember: once you consciously focus on something — you’ll find more and more of it just by the act of focusing.

If you anticipate burning out without really feeling it (just because you read fancy blog post about it) — you put more energy to this side of your system.

With such complicated things like human mind it’s better trust your unique intuitions and feelings rather than look for general rules or patterns. Or at least trust a professional capable of analyzing your specific circumstances and give personalized advice.

> When is it time to change jobs because of it?

It's always time.

If you weren't being paid, would you still go in there every day? The answer is clearly "no."

Therefore all of the other things companies and people tell themselves about how people like working there are really not true. Because no one values anything more than the money.

And if you aren't getting any benefit from the money, because the job is making you depressed, then you have lost the one thing that motivates you to go in there every day.

The only solution is to stop going.

They are many signs, but when you start asking this question, you are very likely already burning out.

I have a few burnout coworkers around me, the signs I've observed: - complaints about the system/process/workload, - always busy but no fruitful deliverables, - memory loss/slow reaction, - bad tempered, easy to become anger when hearing about different opinions, - worse immunity but not taking sick leave.

For me, the sign of burnout is when it becomes very hard to do anything and I find myself procrastinating. So I'd say procrastination is a sign of burn out on the horizon. What happens next is you force yourself to do things anyways, and eventually your brain just says "no" - and at that point you hit full on burn out, where your work productivity drops substantially.

> being more short tempered, getting sick more often (colds for instance).

Telltale signs that you're already burned out.

> When is it time to change jobs because of it?

What you could do instead is count your "fuck you money" and take some time off. Unless of course you don't have any, which is alone enough to cause burnout.

When you think about what happiness is, I think you maybe burning out or is already burned out.

When you don’t want to get out of bed in the morning and end up phoning in sick.

Watch out for depression.

I’d suggest taking a long break and a holiday somewhere which is not anywhere in your normal location. During which, I’d reevaluate your priorities.

Check out the Maslach Burnout Inventory.

The main symptoms include emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, low self-assessment of competence and success, low productivity, and cynicism.

Recovery may take over a year, though, so plan around that.

A lot of the symptoms described in this thread just sound like depression.

What’s the difference?

I really appreciate the thoughtful responses, what a great community this is

To me a telltale sign is we you just don’t give a fuck about your work anymore, even though you previously cared and maybe even enjoyed it.

Hm... I realized I was burned out when I scraped signage from my car with a kitchen rag ane baking soda. Wasn't even drunk.

If you have to ask, it's already happened.

How do you know when you are in love?