Comments
Work stress and burnout are mutually reinforcing, according to a new study published in Psychological Bulletin.
The study contradicts the belief that one of the primary causes of burnout is stress and overload in the workplace. According to the study, burnout has a much greater impact on work stress than vice versa.
Why ‘burnout leave’ is the new normal
“This means that the more severe a person’s burnout becomes, the more stressed they will feel at work, such as being under time pressure, for example,” said Professor Christian Dormann of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU).
People prefer talking to robot over their manager about stress and anxiety at work: study
The study was conducted by Dr Christina Guthier as part of her doctoral thesis in Dormann’s research group. Guthier evaluated 48 longitudinal studies of burnout and work stress which had 26,319 participants overall. The longitudinal studies from 1986 to 2019 belonged to predominantly European countries along with Israel, the US, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Australia, China, and Taiwan.
Psychological distance
According to the study, burnout can lead to increased work stress. Burnout causes exhaustion. One of the most important symptoms of burnout is exhaustion. When an employee is exhausted, even the smallest task can then seem tedious, as per the researchers.
“The most important burnout symptom is the feeling of total exhaustion — to the extent that it cannot be remedied by normal recovery phases of an evening, a weekend, or even a vacation,” explained Dormann. “To protect themselves from further exhaustion, some try to build a psychological distance to their work, that is, they alienate themselves from their work as well as the people associated with it and become more cynical.”
“Once burnout begins, it develops only very gradually, building up slowly over time. Ultimately it leads to work being increasingly perceived as stressful: The amount of work is too much, time is too short, and work stress is too great,” Dormann said.
Researchers suggested increased support from colleagues and superiors to help employees mitigate the effect of burnout on perceived work stress.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.