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With so many people working from home, managing kids, and endless Zoom calls, you can absolutely get burnout working from home. Similar things that can lead to burnout in the workplace, transfer over to home when you’re working there. Add in even more things that have your attention, not setting boundaries and answering late emails or staying up later to get the work done you weren’t able to do during the day, and it can be challenging not to feel burned out at home. You can also get burned out at home with tasks, responsibilities and duties.

Burnout symptoms can vary. According to mayoclinic.org, they mention, Ask “yourself these questions.

• Have you become cynical or critical at work?
• Do you drag yourself to work and have trouble getting started?
• Have you become irritable or impatient with co-workers, customers or clients?
• Do you lack the energy to be consistently productive?
• Do you find it hard to concentrate?
• Do you lack satisfaction from your achievements?
• Do you feel disillusioned about your job?
• Are you using food, drugs or alcohol to feel better or to simply not feel?
• Have your sleep habits changed?
• Are you troubled by unexplained headaches, stomach or bowel problems, or other physical complaints?

“If you answered yes to any of these questions, you might be experiencing job burnout.”

Whether you answer “Yes” to these questions or not, if you’re feeling burned out, then you are burned out.

Burnout can lead to physical, mental, and emotional issues. Just for a few examples–Burnout will impact your mood and attitude, how you perform at work, how you interact with others, your ability to share your ideas and thoughts, your confidence in leadership, in conversations, or with your team. Burnout will impact how you engage with your family, whether it’s doing activities, being present, or spending quality time with them. It also affects your physical health, eating habits, and desire to move or be active.

Burnout and the brain are directly linked to each other. Here’s how burnout impacts your brain…

• It enlarges the part of your brain that controls your emotional reactions, which increases moodiness, irritability, frustration, or impatience
• It thins the part of your brain that’s responsible for cognitive functioning, impacting your memory and attention
• If you are chronically burned out, your brain shows similar damage as people who have experienced trauma
• The connectivity between different parts of the brain are impaired, which decreases creativity and problem-solving skills

Before COVID hit, burnout in the workplace was the only way burnout was really recognized. With so many people working from home, people realize you can easily get burnout at home too, especially when you’re having to manage things in different ways, adapting to change, and dealing with kids around while you’re trying to be productive. You can also have Zoomitis or Zoom burnout with all the Zoom meetings or get social media burnout.

As a burnout researcher, it’s fantastic that you’re wanting to get help with burnout. There’s lot of help on this page with the provided answers. You can also reach out and let me know how I can help your group or organization prevent and extinguish burnout.

As mentioned above, burnout affects a variety of areas of your health. It doesn’t just impact your physical health but also affects your mental and emotional health. From your attitude and disposition to your physical motions and movements to acknowledging and being in tune with your feelings. Burnout creates a trickle-down effect starting with one thing and then continuing to impact every area of your life, sometimes one area at a time.

Work can often lead to burnout. Why? Because work can easily stress you out, especially depending on the type of work you do and how long you’ve been in the industry. The longer you’re in an industry, the more burnout hits, the longer it stays, and the harder it is to get out of. Often when you’re in an industry or job type for a long time, you tend to have a routine or certain ways you always do things, which is one of the biggest contributing factors to burnout.

Yes, you can get burnout at work. Why? Because there are so many factors that can lead to continual stress at work. Think of the things that stress you out. Oftentimes they have to do with work—your boss, the hours you work, how long you work, not enough pay, expect to do more with less, doing the same things, doing the job of multiple people, feeling like the company/boss doesn’t care, or not feeling appreciated. It’s enough to feel overwhelmed on a good day. There are a variety of things that lead to burnout at work, whether you work on-site or at home.