When I was a young lawyer, I used to find myself holed up in the office for longer than necessary, mutually sharing gripes and complaints and ‘war stories’ with coworkers about the day that had passed. Often, I was painfully aware of the irony of staying somewhere I wanted very much to leave even longer while doing something that made me feel worse. I wasn’t sure how to stop the cycle. I tried things like politely changing the subject or signaling that I needed to leave, but it didn’t work.

My partner would call about my lateness, and I didn’t see at the time how much the stress was sucking me in like quicksand, robbing me of my excess time and energy. I felt trapped. I didn’t have the skills I do now to effectively call out the behavior to my friends at work and do it in a way that felt aligned with my values of kindness and compassion.

For most people I work with, this is a crucial point. It’s not your fault. You are not bad or flawed because this is happening. It’s usually a problem of needing to learn how to do this stuff because no one ever taught you. You’re not the problem. It’s your process.

For some, venting and complaining are an outlet for their frustration. Yet there are rare circumstances where those behaviors don’t produce an unhealthy overall outlook. Negativity has been shown to be connected to external stressors more than internal dysregulation. Talking about external stressors becomes inherently reinforcing*. This strategy can trick your brain into releasing some dopamine because it’s like you are doing something instead of doing nothing.

*Geek alert: This type of reinforcement is negative reinforcement where engaging in a behavior (complaining) functions to reduce or eliminate an aversive stimulus (sucky work environment).

Feelings of frustration and overstimulation can also lead to emotional difficulties, resulting in a reduced capacity to regulate one’s emotional processes and physiological signs of increased sympathetic arousal and difficult emotions like anger, fear, shame, regret, and sadness. Maybe you find yourself snapping at coworkers quickly, having panic attacks out of nowhere, or crying at minor confrontations.

On the flip side, avoidance is another way our burnout manifests within our worldview. We can detach from the stress altogether, becoming distanced from our motivation. If we aren’t investing anything in it, we have nothing to lose, right? Giving up, opting out, or mentally checking out of the issue sometimes seems like the best way to deal, or sometimes it just happens subconsciously, but spoiler – it’s not.

Some workers, like healthcare workers, may find themselves with ‘compassion fatigue’, where the pain of attaching and caring for someone who may never be able to care for themselves or fully recover. Research shows that the process of compassion fatigue looks like an eventual decreased empathy, leading to decreased engagement. If you work in healthcare or education long enough, you inevitably learn that you can’t save every patient or student.

Feeling detached can create thoughts that sound like this:

● “Is what I’m doing worth all the sacrifices?”

● “Does what I do matter?”

● “What’s the point – is this all there is?”

● “Sometimes I just feel like I’m going through the motions.”

When thoughts like these become persistent, and you notice corresponding feelings of boredom or dread about work, it’s a sign that you’re becoming burned out. If you’re frequently experiencing the “Sunday Scaries,” when the thought of restarting the workweek occurs, something’s wrong – it may be time to check in to consider next steps, which could mean self-help or seeing a mental health professional.