How to Beat Burnout
6/22/202653 min
If you feel emotionally exhausted, cynical about your work, or like you’re no longer enjoying parts of the job you used to, you may be experiencing burnout.
In this episode of Office Hours, I explain what burnout is, how psychologists define it, and what the research shows about its effects on the brain and body. We discuss the workplace conditions most likely to cause burnout, why some occupations experience it more than others, and the self-reinforcing cycle that makes even meaningful work feel draining.
I also share five things employers can do to protect their employees from burnout and three practical ways individuals can create healthier boundaries between work and life so that each supports, rather than undermines, the other.
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Where to find Arthur Brooks:
• Website: https://arthurbrooks.com/
• In-person Retreats: https://retreats.arthurbrooks.com/
• Newsletter: https://www.arthurbrooks.com/newsletter
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• Email: officehours@arthurbrooks.com
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Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(04:45) The origins of burnout
(06:44) Herbert Freudenberger’s definition of burnout
(07:25) What the research shows about burnout today
(10:59) The three signs of burnout and Arthur’s experience
(16:40) The physiology of burnout
(20:14) The 7 causes of burnout
(30:29) The occupations with the most burnout
(35:10) Five things employers can do to safeguard against burnout
(38:10) #1 way to fight burnout: Create space
(40:54) #2 way to fight burnout: Work only in defined hours
(42:23) #3 way to fight burnout: Work on your spiritual/philosophical life
(44:15) Why remote work is not the answer to burnout
(45:35) Recap: 3 ways to fight burnout
(47:58) Q&A: Coping with being a full-time caregiver
(50:01) Q&A: Adapting protocols to your life
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Referenced:
• The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness: themeaningofyourlife.com
• Meaning Membership: https://hub.arthurbrooks.com/the-meaning-membership
• Arthur’s newsletter: https://www.arthurbrooks.com/newsletter
• The Happiness Scale: https://learn.arthurbrooks.com/the-happiness-scale
• The Pursuit of Happiness with Arthur Brooks: https://www.thefp.com/s/the-pursuit-of-happiness-with-arthur
• The Brothers Karamazov: https://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Karamazov-Fyodor-Dostoevsky/dp/0374528373
• Poor mental health costs UK employers £51 billion a year for employees: https://www.deloitte.com/uk/en/about/press-room/poor-mental-health-costs-uk-employers-51-billion-a-year-for-employees.html
• Beyond Burnout: https://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/H0669W-PDF-ENG
• Burnout Test: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/tests/career/burnout-at-work
• ...References continued at: https://www.arthurbrooks.com/office-hours
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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 10:00
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Arthur Brooks· Host0:13
Hey, what's your PIN?
Speaker 30:14
Mm-hmm. Two five three eight.
Speaker 10:16
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Arthur Brooks· Host0:29
When I was a CEO, I was an executive, um, I never worked less than eighty hours a week. It was a great job. I truly believed in the mission of the organization. I was an enthusiast for it, but I was burning out by the end of ten years. From the early parts of the coronavirus epidemic to the direct aftermath, there's a, a, a pretty big increase from about half the population to almost two-thirds of the population that are showing some signs of burning out. When you're feeling like a desiccated husk of a human being and everything feels like an insurmountable task, despite the fact that at one point you were really good at your job. Where ordinary work is extraordinarily hard. It's hard to see how you can ever make things better. You just wanna give up, quit, run away. You're fantasizing about just walking off the job. You don't have to live this way. Spoiler alert in this episode, you don't have to be overwhelmed. [gentle music] Hey, everybody. Welcome to Office Hours. I'm Arthur Brooks. This is my podcast about how all of