People Who've Experienced Burnout, What's A Warning Sign You Wish You'd Picked Up On Sooner?

It's no secret that work-related burnout has been on the rise since the start of the pandemic. But even though burnout is being talked about a lot, it can still be kinda tricky to spot when it's happening to you.

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According to Psychology Today, burnout occurs when prolonged stress leaves you feeling completely mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted. Burnout at work can make you feel hopeless, ineffective, cynical, and filled with dread before each shift begins. However, burnout isn't always obvious, as symptoms can creep up on you. You might not even realize how fried you've been feeling until you get completely depleted.

So if you've experienced burnout at work, we want to know if there were warning signs that you wish you'd paid more attention to.

Maybe you noticed a physical change, like an increase in migraines. While you used to get one or two migraines a month, as you got more and more burned out, you started having them several times a week. At first, your doctor recommended trying dietary changes, but ultimately you realized your headaches were being triggered by work stress.

Or perhaps you noticed a change in your energy level and pulled waaay back on your social life and hobbies during a particularly demanding period at work. You thought that doing less outside of work would give you more time to rest and recharge, but you only found yourself feeling more and more tired. Now, looking back, you can see that cutting back too much on the fun parts of life actually made you burn out faster.

Or maybe you noticed mood changes even outside of work, like becoming more and more angry about small things that you hardly ever noticed before. Before your burnout, getting cut off in traffic or forgetting your phone at home seemed like no big deal. But once you started feeling extra crispy, every little inconvenience began to really flip your rage switch.

Tell us about your personal warning signs of burnout in the comments or via this anonymous Google form and you could be featured in a BuzzFeed Community post.

And for more stories about work and money, check out the rest of our personal finance posts.