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You are here in the sub-theme Symptoms and Signs of Burnouts. You can find general information on this topic under Burnout . The symptoms of burnout are very diverse and often vary greatly from person to person.
Physical symptoms include blood pressure fluctuation, impotence, sleep disturbance, loss of appetite, palpitations, tinnitus, headache, frequent flu-like infections, indigestion and back pain. The psychological symptoms of burnout can be divided into three categories: Further symptoms on the psychological level are feelings of guilt, distrust, mood swings, nervous tics and tension. The patients isolate themselves more and more socially, lose interest in hobbies and leisure activities and tend to become hyperactive.
In some cases, an increased consumption of alcohol, tobacco, coffee or even drugs can be observed. The danger of addiction increases massively. All these symptoms can, but need not, occur.
Burnout syndrome often shows parallels to boreout syndrome. “Bore” means “to be bored” in English. Accordingly, the syndrome describes the underchallenge and dissatisfaction at the workplace.
This condition also has symptoms such as emotional exhaustion and reduced performance. – Emotional exhaustion (fatigue): Those affected suffer from lack of drive, weakness, tiredness, senselessness, resignation, fear and listlessness. They lose the ability to recover and identify with their job.
These symptoms go as far as cognitive limitations such as lack of concentration, forgetfulness and loss of performance. – Experiencing failure:Despite excessive effort, those affected perceive their performance as inadequate or poor. The resulting difference between the requirement and the performance rendered is attributed to personal uselessness.
Thus the feeling of success is absent and leads to the second symptom. – Depersonalisation:This is the loss of the sense of personality. Those affected perceive themselves or persons or objects in their environment as changed, strange and unreal.
This leads to increasing indifference and the work becomes a purely impersonal routine. In general, an emerging burn-out syndrome can be divided into different phases of development, which are accompanied by different symptoms. Initial phase: In the initial phase, people with burn-out show high commitment, great ambition, often unrealistically high expectations of themselves and the situation to be overcome, and strong enthusiasm.
“to burn out” means “to burn out” and a saying says: “Only those who have burned out once can burn out! That’s what it really seems to be. People who are unmotivated and listless from the beginning or show disinterest are never at risk of burn-out.
The first signs of fatigue such as exhaustion, increasing headaches, irritability and tiredness are ignored or played down, recovery phases are not allowed. The same applies to frustration and increasing disappointment when it gradually becomes clear that the high expectations cannot be met. These facts are also suppressed or ignored.
Private needs are more and more pushed into the background until the neglect is hardly noticeable to the person concerned. Reduced commitment, emotional withdrawal: This phase is characterised by an increasingly negative attitude towards the workplace or employer and colleagues. A newly emerging cynicism is often observed.
The affected person no longer identifies with his work and withdraws more and more. Often only “service by the book” is performed and the person affected hardly contributes any ideas and suggestions of his own. Advanced phase, social withdrawal: The physical symptoms already mentioned reach their peak in this phase.
Those affected suffer from apathy, loss of concentration, feelings of fear and helplessness, massive disinterest. A strong defensive attitude against criticism develops and the affected person can only cope with his work, if at all, with the greatest effort. Social retreat is defined here as the avoidance of social contacts, often in combination with an exaggerated attachment to a certain person.
Emotional, mental and physical life is becoming increasingly flattened. The person usually loses performance and engagement / interest in all areas of life. In the final stage of the burn-out syndrome, the sufferer experiences massive feelings of desperation and helplessness, which can increase to depression. Often a dominating feeling of senselessness develops, which can sometimes even lead to self-destructive behaviour or even suicide.
