This issue is about early warning signs of burnout.
Welcome to Read Before Burning, a monthly newsletter by Dr Ben J. Searle. Come here for simple but informative coverage of burnout-related concepts, research findings, and actionable advice – all firmly grounded in science.
Who am I? After earning a PhD in psychology, I spent 20 years in academia studying stress, burnout, and related issues – until I burned out. I now write, consult, and talk about burnout, psychosocial hazard management, and development of psychological measures for use in organisations.
Early Warning Signs
This month’s feature is based on the research project I conducted this year, Experiences of Burnout 2025, which investigated early warning signs of burnout. Click here to get the preliminary report.
Why Look for Early Warning Signs?
Severe burnout can have debilitating physical and psychological effects that can last for many years. It can also damage relationships, end careers, and cause long-term financial hardship. But many people don’t realise they’re burning out until the symptoms before severe.
Late recognition of burnout has several SAD consequences:
Severe Symptoms Seem Shameful
Severe burnout symptoms can be judged harshly. Persistent mental fatigue, frequent memory failures, low confidence in one’s abilities, and being easily overwhelmed can all be perceived as a lack of capability. Disinterest in work, disconnection from co-workers, cynicism about the organisation, and difficulty controlling feelings of frustration can all be perceived as a lack of professionalism. If people already experience these symptoms when they realise something is wrong, they may be uncomfortable telling others or seeking help.
Acute Ailments Are Awful (and legally Actionable)
If burnout is recognised too late, there may be little or no time for remedial action before the condition becomes debilitating. We should all see how unacceptable this is. But as there are always some employers for whom this needs to be said, I’ll add that if workplace psychosocial hazards played a role in a debilitating condition, there are usually grounds for expensive compensation claims.
Delayed Detection Doubles Difficulty
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the earlier a problem is detected, the easier, quicker, and cheaper it is to deal with effectively. This is true of everything from work project complications to difficulties in personal relationships, and it applies just as well to burnout. By the time burnout symptoms become severe, simpler recovery treatments (e.g., long periods of leave) may have little impact. More powerful interventions (e.g., work accommodations and systemic workplace changes) are likely to be necessary, and even these may only help the affected worker if they are handled promptly and effectively by the organisation.
It should be pretty clear that we need to alert for early warning signs of burnout.
What Are The Early Warning Signs?
The Experiences of Burnout 2025 study identified these 13 early warning signs of burnout:
- Loss of enthusiasm for work
- Intrusive thoughts about work
- Difficulty relaxing
- Feeling unappreciated
- Difficulty concentrating while working
- Loss of confidence in one’s capabilities
- Annoyance about having to learn new things
- Craving more time alone
- Neglecting one’s health
- Loss of enthusiasm for previously enjoyed activities
- Resentment about performing tasks
- Mental exhaustion at work
- Difficulty calming down
To interpret these in the context of existing models of burnout symptoms, I analysed participants’ current experiences of burnout symptoms, and wound up sorting the early warning signs into categories as shown below:
The early warning signs correspond with the three conventionally accepted symptoms of burnout: exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy (see RBB issue #01).
The signs also correspond with two symptom categories that have emerged in more recent models of burnout symptoms:
- Emotional dysregulation, such as becoming more easily upset, more likely to overreact, and more prone to negative moods; and
- Cognitive impairment, such as difficulties with attention and memory, without necessarily losing capacity to perform skilled tasks.
Other signs (and the data collected about them) led me to include two new categories:
- Difficulty relaxing. It is not difficult to explain why this might be a meaningful early warning sign. When the stress response is active, systems responsible for rest and relaxation are disrupted. Burnout is caused by chronic stress, so we should expect it to involve diminished capacity for relaxation.
- Intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts about work may indicate difficulty relaxing, or it may indicate diminished capacity for regulating thoughts and emotions. Or it may be a direct consequence of work pressures that contribute to burnout (see RBB issue #05).
The seven categories don’t just represent the relatively mild early warning signs identified in the present study, they also encompass more severe burnout symptoms.
How Can We Use Early Warning Signs?
Not all participants experienced all of the warning signs, or they experienced them later in the burnout process. It was also common for people to experience, relatively early in their burnout, a few of the more severe symptoms that were generally reported as occurring late. This provides us with even more information for identifying burnout, as I demonstrate below:
Approaches like this may alert people to their risk of burning out before more symptoms become severe.
However, the responsibility needn’t rest on the individual. Employer responsibilities apply to workplaces, systems, and observable hazards and their consequences. Until now, a challenge with burnout (as it is usually described) is that it can be invisible to observers. But some of the early warning signs could be used as observable indicators, as shown below:
Observable lead indicators of burnout have great potential value to organisations. The sooner burnout cases are identified, the sooner those workers can be supported, offered relief and accommodations, and more extensive action can be taken while there is still goodwill on all sides. This also allows an early investigation into the psychosocial hazards that are affecting employee heath so that these can be addressed before more people are harmed. Early identification means less risk, less complication, less compensation, and less chance of burnout contagion.
References
Gavelin, H. M., Domellöf, M. E., Åström, E., Nelson, A., Launder, N. H., Neely, A. S., & Lampit, A. (2022). Cognitive function in clinical burnout: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Work & Stress, 36(1), 86-104.
Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (1997). The Truth About Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress and What to Do About It. John Wiley & Sons.
Schaufeli, W. B., Desart, S., & De Witte, H. (2020). Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT): Development, validity, and reliability. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(24), 9495.
Tavella, G., Hadzi-Pavlovic, D., & Parker, G. (2021). Burnout: Redefining its key symptoms. Psychiatry Research, 302, 114023.
News
These and other study findings are available in the first of two preliminary reports I’m publishing from the Experiences of Burnout 2025 study. Click here to access the report.
Also stay tuned: I’m about to launch the next batch of episodes of my podcast, Mind on the Job.
Monthly Updates
Burnout symptom status: Moderate but diminishing.
Secret burnout book query status: Please reach out if you have publishing connections!
Podcast status: Launched, with more coming soon!
Number of radio/podcast/webinar sessions recorded in the past month: Ten (seven as a guest).
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Till Next Time…
Stay well until my next newsletter drops!
(c) 2025 Ben J. Searle