Don't let yourself burn out

It was time to knock off long ago, but you’re still at your desk in the office on Friday evening. On Saturday you’ve got emails to write, and on Sunday you’ll do advance work for Monday. If you regularly take on a workload like this, you may be suffering from “burn-on.”

What is burn-on?

The term was coined by psychological psychotherapist Timo Schiele and Dr Bert te Wildt, a psychiatrist and psychotherapist. The two co-authored a book whose German title translates as Burn-on: Always on the Brink of Burn-out. As they delineate the closely related syndromes, burn-out is acute depressive exhaustion while burn-on is chronic. “We felt it would be constructive to describe (chronic depressive exhaustion) and couch it in a different term in order to categorize patients more accurately,” te Wildt says.  It should be noted here that the 11th - and latest - revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), published by the World Health Organization (WHO), includes burn-out as occupational phenomenon and not, in contrast to depression, as a medical condition, although their symptoms can be similar. Burn-out is a syndrome “resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed,” in the words of ICD-11. This is what distinguishes burn-on from burn-out, he explains.

What leads to burn-on?

Signs of burn-on are also common in people with jobs that have no fixed working hours and/or are focused on other people, such as nursing, medicine, therapy and teaching. “They’re often responsible for other people,” te Wildt says.

Symptoms of burn-on?

While burn-out is characterized by exhaustion and a strong aversion to one’s job, people affected by burn-on are cognitively confined to their job. This manifests itself, in a focus on effectivity and performance — in their private life.

Remedies for burn-on

Becker says there’s something else that’s important: “Clearly saying ‘no’ is a very important ability that many people lack.”

Te Wildt has the following advice: “You’ve got to ask yourself what you’re prepared to give, to do, and what clearly exceeds your limitations, and then to draw the line.”

In many cases, out- or in-patient therapy — in which the therapist helps the patient work out strategies and ways to implement them — is necessary to provide support.

Copyright: dpa