The Burnout Spectrum: Understanding the 5 Stages of Burnout
How burnout impacts your mind, body, and work—and what you can do to recover before it’s too late.
New here? Click here to learn more about why I created The Love Work.
Need to catch up?
The Vagus Nerve: A Perspective on Manifesting
Beyonce Bowl, Thinking Like a Futurist, and Having a Say
How to De-stress and Down Regulate Your Nervous System with Somatic Awareness
Leading Through Listening: Why Empathy is the Key to Modern Leadership
The Great Unmasking: Dealing with Shame
Like many I spent hours watching and rewatching Kendrick’s halftime show decoding the brilliance that is him and Dave Free,
As part of this rabbit hole I gladly journey, I also (very much post game) watched the pre-show interview with Kendrick and the gems dropped…ever so subtly.
The interviewer asked him, in a few different ways, about his journey and process—did he see himself at the Super Bowl? Is he awed by himself the way he inspires awe in others? Each time, he brought it back to two things:
Be here now—living in the present moment.
The craft.
When asked if he ever imagined himself performing at the Super Bowl, he responded, “I was just thinking about laying that next track and splitting $5 at Church’s.”
Later, when questioned about how his creative process has evolved, he simply said, “I’m just thinking about the art, the craft—writing like I would be writing a book—and then I think about how I am going to perform it.”
That brief interview was packed with wisdom. It made me reflect on the natural flow of energy when we align with our purpose and craft.
And specifically, the relationship between the burnout epidemic and the mass illusion around what it takes to be successful.
Understanding Burnout: A Conversation We Need to Have
Over the next few months, I will slowly unpack a conversation around burnout, starting with this month’s theme: How to Identify Burnout.
Burnout is an intersectional epidemic, touching mental health, workplace culture, organizational development, and psychology.
The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies burnout as an occupational phenomenon and a workplace disorder—not just a state of mind but a real, physiological condition. However, in many environments influenced by hustle culture and traditional institutional mindsets that deprioritize well-being, burnout is often mistaken for laziness, procrastination, or a lack of resilience. In reality, it is none of these.
The term resilience itself deserves to be unpacked in our society.
The fact remains: burnout is a diagnosable disorder with mental, emotional, and physical impacts. It cannot simply be “pushed through.” In fact, pushing through may be the very catalyst for burnout symptoms.
The Burnout Spectrum: The 5 Stages of Burnout
A recent McKinsey study on burnout found that:
25% of Gen Zs
13% of Millennials
13% of Gen Xs
8% of Baby Boomers
reported feeling emotionally distressed with low levels of well-being.
Burnout does not happen overnight. It is a gradual process—a journey where symptoms develop and intensify over time, often due to chronic stress without renewal or recovery.
Stage I: Lack of Recovery
The first stage of burnout, as simple as it sounds, is a lack of recovery from stress. This is something many balancing work, family, and life can likely relate to.
Lack of recovery means encountering stressful events with limited opportunities to recuperate. Sound familiar?
The widespread nature of this stage is reflected in the long waitlists for yoga and Pilates classes across major cities. I personally began a daily yoga practice the summer before my senior year at Howard while participating in a research program at UC Berkeley.
At the time, I didn’t realize I was building a practice that would become a lifelong anchor. If I knew then what I know now, I would have prioritized recovery more intentionally.
Which leads to the next stage…
Stage II: Changes in Stress Physiology
The body is designed to heal and recover—but only if we allow it. When stress accumulates without adequate recovery, our baseline stress level rises.
This creates a new internal ‘normal’ where stress levels are consistently higher. Over time, this can lead to:
Hyperactivity
Sleep difficulties
Inability to relax
Without intervention, this leads to Stage III: Chronic Stress.
Stage III: Chronic Stress
At this point, symptoms become more severe:
Headaches
Digestive issues
Difficulty focusing
Feelings of anxiety and panic
Social conflicts and/or withdrawal
Individually, these symptoms might seem like everyday struggles. Many people accept them as part of life. But when left unaddressed, they become chronic, driving burnout deeper into the body and mind.
Stage IV: Pseudosychopathology
As chronic stress builds, our internal systems—responsible for mood, cognition, and behavior—begin to deteriorate.
At this stage, pseudosychopathology sets in. This means a reduced ability to process complexity, leading to:
Rigid thinking and problem-solving
Increased suspicion or paranoia
Decreased creativity and empathy
This phase is often mistaken for maladaptive personality traits or other diagnoses. It’s one of the reasons burnout is so difficult to pinpoint and why its classification as a mental health disorder remains debated.
From an organizational perspective, burnout at this stage can impact company culture, while on a personal level, it can distort one’s entire self-view.
Stage V: Clinical Burnout
At this final stage, burnout becomes debilitating. Individuals may need to take extended breaks from work or life responsibilities due to:
Emotional breakdowns
Severe fatigue
Cognitive impairment
The World Health Organization defines burnout as:
“A syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions:
Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion
Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism
Reduced professional efficacy”
Conclusion
Burnout is a complex issue. Despite its severe physical and psychological consequences, it is still clinically defined as a work-related disorder rather than a broader health condition.
A good starting point is to assess your work-related stress factors and explore steps to mitigate and reverse burnout’s impact.
Paid subscribers find the assessment here to see if you are at risk of burnout.
******
Whenever you are ready, here are 2 ways I can help you: