6 Early Signs of Burnout

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When you are extremely stressed out, what kind of signs have you noticed in yourself? Do you notice them in other people too?

Personally, I notice myself feeling tired, disinterested in everything, and performing worse in the gym and in everyday activities than normal. I wanted to continue the topic of burnout because it is important to recognize the early signs of burnout in ourselves and in others.

As a performance coach, I feel it’s my responsibility to see these signs before the situation goes too far. I want to understand the person’s life better so I can also plan the training so their stress and recovery are balanced.

You can check out the last blog post about the different factors of burnout here:

In this post, we examine the early symptoms based on the integrated model presented by Gustafsson et al. 2011 (1). I presented the model in the previous blog post as well but you can see the whole model in figure 1 below. It illustrates how multidimensional burnout really is but this time we only focus on the early signs.

Figure 1. A schematic of athlete burnout including major antecedents, early signs, factors, and consequences. Integrated model by Gustafsson et al (1).

Early signs of burnout

Burnout can be a very different experience for different people. The symptoms can often go unnoticed for a long time. As a coach, I want to understand this phenomenon better so I can help people recognize these signs earlier.

Detecting the signs early is very difficult, especially in sports and corporate life since people’s attitudes toward burnout are still somewhat negative. It can be difficult for an individual to talk about their feelings if they feel the pressure to perform. As a Finnish person, I feel the tide is turning and mental health issues are more talked about, but there is still work to be done.

Now we’ll go over the early signs of burnout. We will skip talking about cortisol because it’s not really a practical way for us to measure it anyway.

Mood swings

One of the early signs is mood disturbance. A person can experience symptoms of distress like exhaustion and negative feelings. These things can lead to affecting one’s social relations. (1) At least, when I’m stressed out, it’s easy to take it out on my family and friends. Some athletes suffering from burnout also experience feelings of isolation (2).

Lack of motivation

In athletes, it has been noticed that the level of motivation can start to fade. The motivation of a person can also shift from self-determined motivation to a less self-determined motivation. In other words, the reasons why you’re doing something are changing. Finally, this can lead to a lack of motivation. (3)

Frustration over poor results

Cresswell & Eklund mentioned in their article that frustration over lack of accomplishment and lack of perceived ability is probably one of the first signs of burnout. Many athletes perceive these early on in the process. (2)

These can cause the person to be easily irritated, have difficulties concentrating, and have problems with their self-esteem (1).

Dysfunctional behaviors

Dysfunctional behavior in this context means when an athlete continues to train despite a drop in performance or “cheating” in training. “Cheating” in practice would be purposefully not giving their best. In sports, this is important because it also means the athlete can’t progress as well.

In the corporate world, I would imagine this would be the equivalent of doing your bare minimum. I think this is sometimes fine, but if it keeps going for months, it might be a problem.

Lack of control

The individual can show signs of isolation and withdrawal from the coach and friends. There can also be difficulties handling their sport- or work-specific demands and experiencing a lack of control. (3)

Impaired performance

Impaired or stalled performance can be another early sign of burnout. Long-term performance impairments are considered the gold standard measure of overtraining syndrome. This makes early detection of burnout hard because all people do not experience issues in their performance, especially in the early phases. (1)

Summary

Even though this blog post uses athlete burnout as a framework, I feel these concepts apply in the corporate world as well. Performance impairment might be harder to catch though.

I see this topic to be of great importance because burnout is getting more and more common. If we can identify the signs early in ourselves, our friends, employees, or athletes, we can help people avoid going deep into burnout.

If any of this resonates with you and you are experiencing burnout symptoms. I encourage you to talk to someone, a friend, a family member, a supervisor at work, or a healthcare professional.

References

1. Gustafsson, H., Kenttä, G. & Hassmén, P. Athlete burnout: an integrated model and future research directions. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology 4, 3–24 (2011).

2. Cresswell, S. & Eklund, R. The athlete burnout syndrome: possible early signs. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport 7, 481–487 (2004).

3. Lemyre, P.-N., Treasure, D. C. & Roberts, G. C. Influence of variability in motivation and affect on elite athlete burnout susceptibility. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology 28, 32–48 (2006).