When a holiday stops fixing it
Stress and burnout
Burnout is not ordinary tiredness. Tiredness responds to rest. Burnout survives a fortnight in the sun and is waiting for you at the airport.
How to tell the difference
Stress is over-engagement: too much to do, wound up, running hot. Burnout is what comes after — disengagement, flatness, and a specific cynicism about work you used to care about.
Burnout is usually described as having three parts, and most people recognise all three:
- Exhaustion that sleep does not fix.
- Cynicism and distance — you have stopped caring about things you used to care about, and you find that unnerving rather than restful.
- A sense of ineffectiveness — working longer hours and producing less, which drives the hours up further.
The World Health Organization classifies burnout as an occupational phenomenon rather than a medical condition — which matters, because it locates the cause in the relationship with work rather than in a defect in you.
Why the usual advice does not work
Sleep more, exercise, practise mindfulness, take a break. All sensible. None of it addresses the fact that you have a workload designed for two people, or a manager who contacts you at ten at night, or a job that has drifted a long way from anything you value.
Self-care applied to a structurally impossible situation just adds another task to a list you already cannot finish — and then makes it your fault when it does not work.
What we actually do
- Separate what is workload from what is you. Both usually contribute; conflating them is what makes people feel personally defective about a structural problem.
- Look at the boundaries honestly. Not "learn to say no" as a slogan — the specific conversation, with the specific person, and what it will actually cost.
- Examine the drivers. Perfectionism, being the reliable one, the fear of being found out. These are usually why the boundaries are not there.
- Work out what you value. A lot of burnout is the gap between what you spend your days doing and what you would say matters.
- Recover deliberately. Rest that actually restores, which for most people is not scrolling on the sofa.
- Face the bigger question if it is there. Sometimes the honest answer is that the job has to change. That is discussable here without me pushing you either way.
Burnout and drinking. The glass or three to switch off after work is one of the most common patterns I see, and it is usually where the drinking that eventually becomes a problem begins. If that is familiar, it is worth looking at both together.
Sessions run mondays, thursdays and fridays, 9am to 5pm. If taking an hour out of a working day is itself part of the problem, online sessions remove the travel and make a lunchtime slot workable.
Related
Common questions
Is burnout a medical diagnosis?
Not in the UK. The World Health Organization describes it as an occupational phenomenon rather than a medical condition. That does not make it less real, and depression can develop alongside it, which is worth watching for.
Will therapy help if my job is genuinely the problem?
Partly. Therapy cannot reduce your workload. What it can do is help you see the situation clearly, hold boundaries you have not been able to hold, and make a considered decision about staying or going rather than an exhausted one.
Can I have a session during the working day?
Yes — daytime appointments are what I offer, and online sessions make a lunchtime slot practical if leaving the office is difficult.
Should I be signed off work?
That is a decision for your GP. Time off can create the space to recover, but on its own it rarely changes the conditions you go back to.
Talk it through first
The first step is a short phone call. No commitment, no pressure — just a conversation about what is going on and whether I am the right person to help.
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