Why Defining Burnout As a Work Issue Matters

We experience chronic stress across many facets of our lives. Here’s why we need to talk about burnout as a work-related phenomenon

My favorite part of speaking to groups on the topic of burnout is the Q&A at the end. It often surfaces the most interesting conversations and helps me understand what people really want to know about burnout.

One of the questions I receive most often goes like this:

“Is burnout really just about work? What about all the other factors of life that cause us chronic stress? Isn’t burnout an amalgam of all of those?”

It is such a great question.

Here’s how I tend to answer.

Let’s start with the definition of burnout

Burnout is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a syndrome caused by chronic workplace stress.

That is, burnout is the result of chronic (low-level, persistent and insidious) stress that occurs in or in relation to your work. They go on to clarify that burnout refers to “phenomena in the occupational context” and the word should not be used in other contexts.