Way Beyond Tired....What Is IT?

In a perfect world there would be ample time to accomplish all of our daily responsibilities as well as sufficient amounts of energy left to engage with our friends and family, exercise, relax, and retire at a decent hour, waking up refreshed and ready for a brand new day. We would be paid well, valued for our contribution and have the autonomy to express our creativity within our chosen professions.

If your reaction after reading this description was laced with cynicism you are not alone. The Baby Boomers as a generation have striven to accomplish this goal and have expected that the amount of effort they expended to that end would reap those well-deserved rewards. Unfortunately, elements out of their control economically, politically, and culturally thrust many into a position that severely compromised their best-laid plans.

Does this scenario more accurately reflect your life experience? You hit the ground running after hitting the “snooze” button far too many times, grab a travel mug, fill it with coffee, skip breakfast, jump into your car and face the morning commute, conference calling while driving and arriving late to your first appointment because of traffic delays. Your desk resembles your home office- piles of papers that have some relevance, but you are not certain to what, and as you rush to your next meeting, you make a vow to “clean that up” next week. You then rush off to a luncheon meeting, combining business and a meal (bonus!) then work four plus additional hours and hit the commute home.

Once you arrive home, your kids need to be chauffeured to their activities, dinner needs to be either prepared or picked up, they need help with their homework, and oh yes, then depending upon the day of the week, you run to the gym and hit the treadmill while watching CNN or catching up with your reading. If you forgot to remove your Bluetooth, you rationalize that at least you can listen to your voicemails that you had no time to check during the day.

After the kids are settled in, there is laundry, bookkeeping, the family pets, checking in with mom and dad, and next thing you know, it’s three am and you are on the couch, the television is urging you purchase the latest fitness equipment and you decide to stumble off to bed, knowing that your ill-fated alarm will sound in a few short hours….and ugh, it’s only Tuesday!

We have become masters of multi-tasking, delaying vacations, minimizing the need for self-care, and expecting to have the stamina to continue that pace indefinitely. We were not wired to perform like hamsters on a wheel, yet we often attribute success with being able to meet or exceed this expectation. Realistically what occurs is a systematic multi-system shut down characterized initially by fatigue and ultimately exhaustion – mental, physical and emotional.

Mental exhaustion can be exhibited by reduced capacity to focus, learn and retain novel information, recall important as well as insignificant facts, names, and places, increasing difficulty with mental computations, decreased problem solving skills, waning creativity, indecisiveness and procrastination. Ultimately, it can manifest into “why bother?”

Physical symptoms include initial subtle changes such as higher resting heart rate, elevated blood pressure, and perhaps reduced or increased appetite, libido, and need for sleep. As the fatigue progresses it can manifest as increased risk for a cardiovascular event, joint pain, migraines, and gastrointestinal problems that have no identifiable organic etiology. At this point, increased absence from work and more frequent doctors visits are common as is chronic tardiness.

Emotional fatigue is frequently observed by a marked difference in the capacity to feel and display empathy towards even those who matter the most, increased social isolation, lack of motivation, and diminished frustration tolerance. As the fatigue transitions into exhaustion, there may be feelings of helplessness, depression, increased anxiety, inappropriate anger outbursts, cynicism and sarcasm. There may also be an increase in suicidal ideation, or a stated desire “just not to wake up” (aka passive suicidality). Unhealthy coping mechanisms such as drinking, increased prescription consumption, gambling, promiscuity, and illegal drug use may be utilized as an “escape” or to “numb out.”


What I have just described are characteristics of burnout. It runs rampant across many professions. Compassionate burnout has been specifically identified as a phenomenon of the helping professions - physicians, nurses, mental health professionals, first responders, clergy, and anyone who provides vital human services. It needs to be expanded to all caregivers, from stay at home parents to adult children caring for their declining parents as well as those caring for spouses and children who suffer from major physical and/or mental illnesses.

In the business world, burnout is not reserved for the C-suite executive who must make significant and often highly impactful decisions that have far reaching effects. It filters down to mid-level managers, direct reports and line staff. The common denominator in burnout is a lack of perceived control over your environment. With the multi-tiered demands of life, the reality is that we are all potentially susceptible.

Burnout has been identified as mental weakness, flippantly as a symptom of menopause, and occasionally the justification for a spontaneous purchase of a convertible sports car. Equally erroneous is the thought that a two-week vacation will cure it.

What is the solution? One is that we as a society decide to recognize burnout as a normal human phenomenon. Normalization could lead to the possibility for earlier intervention because of a heightened awareness of symptoms contributing to this condition. Education directed toward at-risk professions needs to be incorporated in continuing education services as well as elevated to a topic that is addressed at corporate retreats. Human resource departments and managers need training in identifying employees whose performance declines, whose attitudes deteriorate, and who have increased absences or chronic tardiness. Developing relationships with direct reports so that there is awareness of increased demands in other areas of their lives could also serve as early intervention and help prevent the increased costs incurred from absences and disability claims.

As individuals, we need a good dose of honesty with ourselves regarding our limits. If you don’t know where or how to go about learning this, seek professional consultation. Get into therapy with a licensed professional. Utilizing denial, rationalizations, and excuses only reinforces the archaic notion of “burnout=weakness.” The ultimate goal is balance. As you take steps towards that goal, add one cluster of healthy behaviors at a time, like exercise and diet improvements. Do not attempt to change every area in a month’s time. The likelihood of sustaining sweeping changes, especially when already feeling some level of fatigue is a set-up for failure.

Solicit an accountability partner, this not only deflates the solitary burden that accompanies burnout, but provides a social and hopefully an emotional connection. Schedule regular mini-vacations rather than delaying them for a grand event; try limiting the number of activities that your children are engaged in that require your assistance as either a coach or chauffeur. If poled, children would prefer fewer activities rather than a “crabby” parent!

If you are a caregiver, seek out regularly scheduled respite care, hire a dog walker, and engage in some activity that gives you a feeling of satisfaction and renewal. These strategies begin only after burnout is conceptualized as a function of an excessive drain on a finite resource rather than a stigma attached to the weak. Get off the hamster wheel… your well-being and longevity depends on it!