Issue 15 of Read Before Burning examines burnout brain, the cognitive capabilities that can be undermined by burnout.
Welcome to Read Before Burning, the monthly newsletter by organisational psychologist and stress expert 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 (and guaranteed AI-free).
Who am I? After earning a PhD in psychology, I spent 20 years in academia studying stress and burnout until I went through burnout myself. I now research, consult, and communicate about burnout.
I also do other consulting work, such as advising large and small organisations on how to improve their systems, policies, and processes of psychosocial risk management. Reach out if you think I might be able to help you!
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BURNOUT BRAIN
Most of my regular readers are familiar with the accepted notion of burnout: a phenomenon caused by chronic stress that manifests as a syndrome with three distinct features. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) describes those features as:
- “feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion”;
- “increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job”; and
- “reduced professional efficacy”.
These three symptoms (which I describe in more detail in RBB Issue #01) have been central to the definition and measurement of burnout for decades.
But what if I told you that some experts see this three-symptom model of burnout as incomplete? What if I told you there was growing evidence of aspects of the burnout experience beyond the three accepted symptoms? What if I told you that even subtle adjustments to our definition of burnout could have important implications for burnout prevention, early identification, and rehabilitation?
In this issue, I’m going to focus on just one extra symptom associated with burnout: a cluster of cognitive experiences that some people call burnout brain.
What is Burnout Brain?
Burnout brain often comes up in my conversations with burnout survivors (although not everyone calls it by that name). People talk about brain fog, trouble concentrating, or “zoning out” during conversations. They mention making mistakes they would normally never have made, like sending emails to the wrong people or forgetting to join critical meetings. They discuss finding it harder to make and stick to plans, or struggling to resume work on tasks after being interrupted.
Some people are sceptical about the merits of anecdotal experiences like these. Such experiences could be rare, or exaggerated. They might be negative self-perceptions caused by the core burnout symptom of low self-efficacy. I could counter by asserting that qualitative evidence is still evidence, and arguing about the value of listening to people with lived experience. But in the case of burnout brain I don’t need to do that, because the quantitative evidence happens to be strong.
Experimental studies have compared people experiencing burnout to people without burnout on several attention and memory tasks. (How many studies? Enough that a systematic review and meta-analysis of them could be compiled and published over four years ago.) People experiencing burnout tend to perform worse in such areas as:
- More frequent lapses in short-term memory (e.g., leaving keys in the lock after opening the door);
- Increased difficulty holding action intentions in short-term memory (e.g., remembering to make an urgent phone call as soon as you finish one task);
- Increased difficulty retrieving details from short-term memory (e.g., recalling what you were going to write in place of the sentence you just deleted); and
- Increased difficulty with executive functioning (e.g., planning, coordinating, organising, or resuming tasks after interruptions).
It’s important to point out two important caveats to these findings:
Firstly, people experiencing burnout don’t perform worse at everything! Many cognitive functions seemed unaffected by burnout. In particular, people experiencing burnout seemed just as capable at skill-based activities (ones that take time to learn). So someone with moderate or severe burnout may be performing most their work role with little to no change in performance.
Secondly, these changes seemed to be reversible. When people who had been experiencing burnout had had sufficient time and opportunity to recover, tests showed their performance was no longer different from people without burnout.
What are the Implications of Burnout Brain?
If you’re thinking, “I already knew burnout was bad, so what difference does this make?” then I hope you’re impressed that I anticipated your question and prepared a detailed answer.
Measurement
People use a variety of tools to assess levels of burnout. Better tools capture the core features of burnout with high validity and reliability. Worse tools fail to do so, and may not effectively differentiate burnout from other psychological conditions.
If “burnout brain” is such a common feature of burnout, it would make sense to include it in burnout measurement tools to allow more precise assessment and more effective differentiation from other conditions. More recent burnout measures such as the Burnout Assessment Tool and the Sydney Burnout Measure both include elements akin to “burnout brain”.
Awareness
As I’ve said before, many people don’t realise they are burning out until the symptoms are already severe. A model of burnout that incorporates more symptoms might help people to recognise burnout earlier (see RBB Issue #06 on early warning signs).
Why? To start with, lots of things can make us feel tired or unsure if we’re making a difference, and some of us have good reason to be cynical about our organisations. But when we start having attention and memory difficulties, that can be a powerful indication that something is genuinely wrong. Furthermore, the cognitive symptoms of burnout brain can be more observable than the internal experiences of exhaustion, detachment, and inefficacy. This means burnout brain could provide other people with opportunities to raise concerns and suggest action.
Risk management
It’s sad to say this, but we all know it’s true: there are plenty of executives who don’t care much about burnout. There is a certain kind of senior leader who sees burnout as a self-correcting problem, because when workers are pushed so hard that they burn out, they tend to leave the organisation.
There are a host of objections we can make to this perspective. There are moral and ethical reasons to try to prevent their employees from burning out. In many countries, organisations have legal responsibilities to prevent psychological injuries such as burnout. Evidence also tells us that as people start to burn out, their behaviours can negatively impact those around them. But the evidence for burnout brain provides us with another, simpler argument:
If you don’t manage your psychosocial risks and your workers start burning out, they could make more mistakes!
If you take a moment to think about what mistakes people could make, you’ll probably agree it’s safer NOT to let employees burn out.
Review, Rehabilitation, and Return to work
If the burnout brain phenomenon fades as people recover from burnout, this could be a factor to consider across several aspects of managing workplace health and safety.
If a worker who has always been capable starts showing an increase in errors or attention problems, don’t rush to criticise or put them on a performance plan. Instead, consider recommending them for a burnout assessment.
An independent assessment of cognitive functioning might also help identify if an employee should be taking leave to recover from burnout, or whether they are ready to return to work.
TLDR
There seems to be strong evidence linking burnout to diminished reliability of attention, memory, and some other cognitive functions, even though skilled capabilities tend to remain strong. Experts still debate whether these cognitive difficulties should be seen as a core feature of burnout or a consequence of the condition. Either way, “burnout brain” seems both real and important, so we shouldn’t ignore it!
References
Beck, J., Gerber, M., Brand, S., Pühse, U., & Holsboer-Trachsler, E. (2013). Executive function performance is reduced during occupational burnout but can recover to the level of healthy controls. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 47(11), 1824-1830.
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.
Oosterholt, B. G., Maes, J. H. R., Van der Linden, D., Verbraak, M. J. P. M., & Kompier, M. A. J. (2016). Getting better, but not well: A 1.5 year follow-up of cognitive performance and cortisol levels in clinical and non-Clinical burnout. Biological Psychology, 117, 89–99.
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. & Parker, G. (2020). A qualitative reexamination of the key features of burnout. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 208 (6), 452-458.
van Dam, A., Keijsers, G. P. J., Eling, P. A. T. M., & Becker, E. S. (2012). Impaired cognitive performance and responsiveness to reward in burnout patients: Two years later. Work & Stress, 26(4), 333–346.
World Health Organization (2021). International statistical classification of diseases and related health problems (11th ed.). https://icd.who.int/
News
Monthly Updates
- Burnout symptom status: Moderate, trending downwards.
- Psychosocial risk management projects that nearly kept me from getting out this newsletter: One.
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(c) 2026 Ben J. Searle