Burnout is a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion caused by chronic stress at work or in other areas of life. Burnout can affect your personality traits, which are the patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that make you unique.
The characteristics of burnout include three dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and low personal accomplishment. Emotional exhaustion is the most common characteristic presented and it presents itself as a reduction of mental energy.
It can lead to personal and professional dissatisfaction; social isolation; relationship problems; depression; substance abuse; and, in extreme cases, suicide. Therefore, it's important to learn how to prevent burnout and to seek professional attention if it occurs.
Neuroticism. Neuroticism is one of the “big five” higher-order personality traits in the study of psychology. If you dig into the definition, it makes sense that this trait correlates to higher rates of burnout.
Burnout reduces productivity and saps your energy, leaving you feeling increasingly helpless, hopeless, cynical, and resentful. Eventually, you may feel like you have nothing more to give. The negative effects of burnout spill over into every area of life—including your home, work, and social life.
It takes an average time of three months to a year to recover from burnout. How long your burnout lasts will depend on your level of emotional exhaustion and physical fatigue, as well as if you experience any relapses or periods of stagnant recovery.
Burnout doesn't go away on its own; rather, it will get worse unless you address the underlying issues causing it. If you ignore burnout, it will only cause you further harm down the line, so it's important that you begin recovery as soon as possible.
The findings also showed that Neuroticism was the only personality trait that was associated with all three dimensions of burnout.
INFJs make great friends since they're empathetic and loyal. However, the infamous “INFJ door slam” is a phenomenon when a person with this personality type shuts another person out.
Friends and family members may also notice behavioral changes. If left untreated, burnout can become a part of your everyday life and eventually lead to anxiety or depression. You can also begin to experience chronic mental and physical fatigue that prevents you from working.
Notably, employees reporting high levels of burnout are more likely to experience physical and psychological health problems, including sleep disturbances, headaches, and infections [36], as well as higher levels of depression, suicidal ideation, anxiety, and life dissatisfaction [37,38].
The burnout sufferers also had weaker connections between the amygdala and the medial prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain involved in executive function or the ability to stifle impulses, make long-term plans, and control our behavior in order to carry them out.
Those in the Millennial generation report the most burnout, with 84% having experienced burnout at their current job. Nearly half of millennials surveyed state they have left a job specifically because they experienced burnout.
Personality traits pertaining to the Big Five model, such as agreeableness in interpersonal interaction, emotional stability, extraversion and openness to experience, have also been shown to be inversely related to the presence of burnout in healthcare professionals [29,33,42,43,44].
A person experiencing relationship burnout may begin to feel disengaged or disconnected from their partner. Mutual activities they used to enjoy together will become boring, aggravating, or stressful. One may also start thinking about their partner less often to further distance themselves.
World Health Organization as a phenomenon caused by chronic stress at work, and cites four key indicating signs: Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; mental distancing from a job; feeling of negativity or cynicism towards professional duties; and a decrease in work efficacy.
A life coach has revealed that it can take up to three to five years of active recovery to bounce back from burnout, explaining that chronic stress changes the chemicals in the body.