Are We Experiencing a Burnout Epidemic?

'Burnout is everywhere,' reports the Washington Post.
'Caused in part by social media, the 24-hour news cycle and the pressure to check work email outside of office hours, it could hit you, too -- especially if you don't know how to nip it in the bud...'

A recent report from Harvard and Massachusetts medical organizations declared physician burnout a public health crisis. It pointed out the problem not only harms doctors but also patients. 'Burnout is associated with increasing medical errors,' the paper said... Ninety-five percent of human resource leaders say burnout is sabotaging workplace retention, often because of overly heavy workloads, one [2017] survey found. Poor management contributes to the burnout epidemic. 'Organizations typically reward employees who are putting in longer hours and replace workers who aren't taking on an increased workload, which is a systematic problem that causes burnout in the first place,' says Dan Schawbel, research director of Future Workplace, the firm that conducted the survey along with Kronos

Part of the difficulty of pinpointing true burnout may be because burnout is a nonmedical term -- at least in the United States. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders doesn't list it as an illness. But other countries including France, Denmark and Sweden, do recognize burnout syndrome and consider it to be a legitimate reason to take a sick day from work.... For those who suspect they might be on the road to burnout, there are practical tools to mitigate it. Among others: physical exercise, sleep and positive social connection (the real kind, not the Facebook kind).

The Post also ran a follow-up article which suggests that to fight burnout, companies need to set reasonable work hours -- and develop a culture encouraging breaks and vacations.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.