9 ms·

Burnout is an official medical diagnosis, WHO says

256 points by alok-g 7y ago

xyzzy_plugh 7y ago
What are the implications of this? Will insurers cover time off due to burnout?
- maxxxxx 7y ago
  I would hope that maybe people will become more aware of work conditions that lead to burnout. Harassment is not OK anymore, so are a lot of other negative behaviors, maybe people will become aware of the dangers of overworking.
  - honestoHeminway 7y ago
    I would love to live in your world
- crehn 7y ago
  Not sure about burnout, but similar announcements sure do trigger some companies: http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20190526000118 http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20190526000118
- smudgymcscmudge 7y ago
  It’s guidance for diagnosis. Doctors can already diagnose whatever they want. This is just a step toward agreement on what “burnout” means.
  - wongarsu 7y ago
    > This is just a step toward agreement on what “burnout” means Which is really important. Right now it seems to me like we classify many different things with vaguely similar symptoms as burnout.
  - dwild 7y ago
    I'm in Quebec, so it can be different, but when my SO had a burnout, all the doctors we saw said that there was no diagnosis for "burnout" and they had to declare it as a clinical depression. I guess it's different here because the government insurance is involved, but that was an issue for us. Maybe she did have a depression though, it was quite a bit of work just to get a work leave for her, we had to see so many doctors. We didn't push to further afterwards and now that she no longer work at the same place, she is much better.
- odyssey7 7y ago
  Hopefully corporate incentives will be more aligned to prevent burnout. In many cases, the employer should be at fault when this happens.
mensetmanusman 7y ago
Every year the WHO adds and subtracts medical conditions depending on the milieu of the year. Hopefully at least one person is helped.
- adamnemecek 7y ago
  It's probably about staying in the media.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  Last year or so they classified “gaming disorders” for people who spent too much time playing video games. FWIW
  - omeid2 7y ago
    Putting a name on things helps. There is little reason to doubt that problem-gaming exists, sure, it is a manifestation of something more general (à la Behavioral-Addiction/OCD) but having a name for it helps to talk about it more precisely, and being able to talk about a problem is the first step to finding a solution or way out.
    - mensetmanusman 7y ago
      Not sure if that is true. Sometimes adding a label simply adds unlimited anxiety.
- Thants 7y ago
  So you're saying our understanding of medical conditions changes over time? Weird.
digitalsushi 7y ago
I was desperately scanning down through the article looking for what the cure was. Oh. It's just a diagnosis, it doesn't come with a cure yet. Oh well - maybe if I can get our sprint velocity even higher this year, I can get a bonus and go on a vacation to /really/ recover!
- nostrademons 7y ago
  I've heard of a couple, and used them successfully: 1) Learn something. 2) Get a small win after a big loss. The ideal project to do when you're feeling burnt out is something that is well inside your comfort zone and can be completed in a couple days, but also teaches you something new. Something like learning a new framework, or building a quick new "toy" that isn't really critical to the business but users would find interesting, or doing a refactoring that you totally know how to do but have been putting off for months because other stuff is more important. I've also had managers put me on projects like this after slaving away for months on a project that gets canceled. In hindsight they knew exactly what they were doing, and the fact that it was kinda fun and not critical to the business was actually a long-term investment.
  - sosuke 7y ago
    Small wins can go a long way.
    - turk73 7y ago
      This would explain all my home projects that I do just to stay sane.
  - taneq 7y ago
    This reminds me of the "make your bed" advice: https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/make-your-bed-by-admiral-william-h-mcraven https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/make-your-bed-by-admir...
    - amelius 7y ago
llamataboot 7y ago
Are there good resources online for strategies for dealing with knowledge worker burnout? It seems to be a different animal than other types of burnout (compassion fatigue, pure overwork, body breaking down, etc)
- JamesBarney 7y ago
  I think do less is pretty much the answer I consistently see. The worse the burnout the less you need to do and for longer. Many times the reasons why it's hard to do less are mental hangups(like fear of failure, perfectionism, the Ides that you're worthless as a coder if you're not coding 24/7) that prevent people from doing less and a therapist would help with that. Of course sometimes what is preventing someone from doing less is their financial situation in which case you unfortunately have a lot fewer options. For me it was quitting my job and starting a consulting company with a couple of friends. I make less money and work more but I have a way better time doing it and that has allowed me to recover.
wodenokoto 7y ago
I always thought burnout was IT lingo for work induced stress. Don’t get me wrong, it’s serious, but it always seemed to me akin to “shellshock” vs “PTSD”. Shellshock just carries a lot of weight as a word on its own. It sounds serious and traumatizing and you don’t really need to know what it means in order to respect the diagnosis.
- bayesian_horse 7y ago
  Burnout is also used as a socially-acceptable reason for mental health problems. "I work so hard that I get sick" is more acceptable than "I get sick because I'm crazy/mentally ill". Which is in itself a false choice.
bg24 7y ago
I feel it everyday. In addition to other comments, the following have been helpful. - Manage expectations. - Work for yourself. Learning time that sets you up for goodness a year down the line is good. But same repetitive work getting to burnout is not. I am taking objectives to be in the former. - Manage my time. I should not cry burnout if spending hours of time just browsing without objective. So far, been a failure at managing time, but successful at self-realization that I need to manage my time well. For example, I should not be here on hacker news instead of sleeping.
jeauxlb 7y ago
This has existed for 16 years, from ICD-10 v2003: http://apps.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online2003/fr-icd.htm http://apps.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online2003... (code is Z73.0)
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
iyhlj 7y ago
Is this true, though? Looking at the ICD-11 draft [0], burnout appears in chapter 24 which lists "factors influencing health status or contact with health services" but no proper disorders. This has already been the case since the release of ICD-10 [1]. So there doesn't appear to be a change. [0] https://icd.who.int/browse11 https://icd.who.int/browse11 [1] https://icd.who.int/browse10/2016/en#/Z73.0 https://icd.who.int/browse10/2016/en#/Z73.0
bayesian_horse 7y ago
Burnout and clinical depression are extremely similar, and I think most people who self-diagnose as burned out actually are clinically depressed, though maybe mildly. But I can see that diagnosis and treatment would be more difficult and less standard when there are no clear signs of depression or other disorders. And there would be a two-phase treatment: First phase is getting out of burnout mode. Second phase is preventing the relapse. Confusing the two phases will only result in frustration.
- andreyk 7y ago
  I agree that a connection is likely, though perhaps more like burnout may lead to depression. This is definitely the experience I had - first work was daunting, then everything. Both require a lot of care to get out of in a healthy way.
  - bayesian_horse 7y ago
    I'd say you are describing a temporal connection. Identifying causes for mental health conditions is problematic and not very fruitful. Depression can happen virtually on its own, as far as doctors or patients are concerned.
    - krageon 7y ago
      > Depression can happen virtually on its own Given that CBT is the first-line treatment for chronic depression and has a really good success factor, we can see that what you are saying is technically correct (it can happen) but the assumption you make earlier: > Identifying causes for mental health conditions is problematic and not very fruitful Is, while also technically true in some cases (it is a broad statement that applies to more than depression), as connected to depression plainly false. You've constructed a compelling argument that seems to check out based on only a tenuous relation between different true statements. I hope that this is just a prejudice and not something you believe as someone suffering from depression. If this is in fact the case, know that in a lot of the cases causes can be discerned and you can with treatment in fact be able to live a lot better. In the small minority of cases where you are depressed because of a biological limitation (yes, this also happens - it's just not the most usual trajectory), that's when you treat it with a (hopefully life-long) line of antidepressants that work for you.
patatino 7y ago
My wife is a therapist and has so many clients who say they have a "small burnout" or something similar. People fight to not have the label "depression" over them. It is really sad in my opinion. It's your health, it is time to put the pride away and don't care about terminology and do whatever you can to get better.
- orbifold 7y ago
  Except this goes in your permanent record and increases insurance fees from then on. At least that is how it works in Germany. The only way to avoid this is to pay in cash. It‘s probably also a good idea to not bring your phone, so that there is no location tracking of you.
  - krageon 7y ago
    With the exceptionally low amount of real detail in this post, I am left with the most salient question: How can it be on a permanent record at a company when all involved parties (except for you of course) are sworn to secrecy? Given this critical center concern, your closing thought of location tracking (while relevant for a nation-state actor) pushes the whole thought process a bit over the line of sounding reasonable.
    - orbifold 7y ago
      Pretty simple, if you visit a psychiatrist/psychotherapist you have to pay them somehow. One way of doing so is by using your medical insurance. So you hand over your medical insurance card, and now they know you’ve visited a psychotherapist. If at any later point in time you want to get work disability insurance or switch to private health insurance you have to disclose any preexisting medical conditions, since there is a record of you going to a therapist, they could otherwise retroactively find out that you got treated for depression and deny your claim if you have burn out.
  - nisa 7y ago
    > Except this goes in your permanent record and increases insurance fees from then on. At least that is how it works in Germany. [citation needed] Neither is true as far as I know. What do you refer to?
TomK32 7y ago
What about Bore-out?
candiodari 7y ago
From the article: > According to the handbook, doctors can diagnose someone with burnout if they meet the following symptoms: > 1. feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion > 2. increased mental distance from one's job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job > 3. reduced professional efficacy Is there anyone here who hasn't had this ? I have this constantly, for almost a dozen years now. How is calling this a medical problem even remotely reasonable ? You're paid for your job, because it takes energy to do it ...
- joncrane 7y ago
  I think there are severity levels. I think everyone's typical week has at least a couple of "OMG I hate this place!" moments that are related to a particularly difficult commute, a technical problem that crops up at a particularly frustrating time, repeated runins with a difficult coworker that you usually only have to deal with once a month, etc. But you're able to "talk yourself down" within a few minutes. But when it's every day much of the day, it's a problem. So where do you draw the line is the question.
  - hmschreck 7y ago
    At my last job, I was getting paid $45k/yr and was expected to work 80-100 hours per week, on top of a 1.5 hour round-trip commute, because the other people on the team for the project were pulled to do other things that were deemed "more important", but the timeline for the project didn't shift at all, because it was also "vital". There's a really great Usenix talk about burnout I stumbled across, and it so perfectly described what I was feeling, even down to the fact that I found myself drinking more and more each night just to be functional. On paper, I took a pay cut at my next job, but I earned enough in overtime to more than make up for it, and I've gotten significant raises since then.
    - candiodari 7y ago
      I find this sort of thing really destresses me. That may sound stupid, but stressfull is when your managers asks 90%, or 110%, 120%. You know, vaguely realistic. Just a tiny bit less, or more than you can realistically do. So that it really matters how you feel. An unpredictable illness (you or kids, or ...) can easily make the difference between delivering or failing. You start worrying if your breaks are too long. When your manager asks 200%, there's zero stress. It's like someone pointing a gun at you demanding you lasso the moon. It's funny. Because you see, whether you get shot or not does NOT depend on whether you try. Therefore it's a sunk cost. There's no point worrying about it. In fact, there's very good reasons to be very easy going about it. No point shortening any break. The same with your manager. He asks the impossible, and of course you won't deliver. So whatever will happen, has already happened. It does NOT depend on your level of effort. Whether you get blamed ... is already determined at that point. Whether you get fired ... is a done deal. No point worrying about it, as the decision is made. Find an online course, or watch some esports on Youtube. Put in the hours, but ... It's no more worrying than the idea that an asteroid might be (in fact almost certainly is) on a collision course with the earth right now.
stuaxo 7y ago
Isn't burnout depression?

256 points by alok-g 7y ago

xyzzy_plugh 7y ago

What are the implications of this? Will insurers cover time off due to burnout?

maxxxxx 7y ago
I would hope that maybe people will become more aware of work conditions that lead to burnout. Harassment is not OK anymore, so are a lot of other negative behaviors, maybe people will become aware of the dangers of overworking.
- honestoHeminway 7y ago
  I would love to live in your world
crehn 7y ago
Not sure about burnout, but similar announcements sure do trigger some companies: http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20190526000118 http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20190526000118
smudgymcscmudge 7y ago
It’s guidance for diagnosis. Doctors can already diagnose whatever they want. This is just a step toward agreement on what “burnout” means.
- wongarsu 7y ago
  > This is just a step toward agreement on what “burnout” means Which is really important. Right now it seems to me like we classify many different things with vaguely similar symptoms as burnout.
- dwild 7y ago
  I'm in Quebec, so it can be different, but when my SO had a burnout, all the doctors we saw said that there was no diagnosis for "burnout" and they had to declare it as a clinical depression. I guess it's different here because the government insurance is involved, but that was an issue for us. Maybe she did have a depression though, it was quite a bit of work just to get a work leave for her, we had to see so many doctors. We didn't push to further afterwards and now that she no longer work at the same place, she is much better.
odyssey7 7y ago
Hopefully corporate incentives will be more aligned to prevent burnout. In many cases, the employer should be at fault when this happens.

mensetmanusman 7y ago

Every year the WHO adds and subtracts medical conditions depending on the milieu of the year. Hopefully at least one person is helped.

adamnemecek 7y ago
It's probably about staying in the media.
SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
Last year or so they classified “gaming disorders” for people who spent too much time playing video games. FWIW
- omeid2 7y ago
  Putting a name on things helps. There is little reason to doubt that problem-gaming exists, sure, it is a manifestation of something more general (à la Behavioral-Addiction/OCD) but having a name for it helps to talk about it more precisely, and being able to talk about a problem is the first step to finding a solution or way out.
  - mensetmanusman 7y ago
    Not sure if that is true. Sometimes adding a label simply adds unlimited anxiety.
Thants 7y ago
So you're saying our understanding of medical conditions changes over time? Weird.

digitalsushi 7y ago

I was desperately scanning down through the article looking for what the cure was. Oh. It's just a diagnosis, it doesn't come with a cure yet. Oh well - maybe if I can get our sprint velocity even higher this year, I can get a bonus and go on a vacation to /really/ recover!

nostrademons 7y ago
I've heard of a couple, and used them successfully: 1) Learn something. 2) Get a small win after a big loss. The ideal project to do when you're feeling burnt out is something that is well inside your comfort zone and can be completed in a couple days, but also teaches you something new. Something like learning a new framework, or building a quick new "toy" that isn't really critical to the business but users would find interesting, or doing a refactoring that you totally know how to do but have been putting off for months because other stuff is more important. I've also had managers put me on projects like this after slaving away for months on a project that gets canceled. In hindsight they knew exactly what they were doing, and the fact that it was kinda fun and not critical to the business was actually a long-term investment.
- sosuke 7y ago
  Small wins can go a long way.
  - turk73 7y ago
    This would explain all my home projects that I do just to stay sane.
- taneq 7y ago
  This reminds me of the "make your bed" advice: https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/make-your-bed-by-admiral-william-h-mcraven https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/make-your-bed-by-admir...
  - amelius 7y ago

llamataboot 7y ago

Are there good resources online for strategies for dealing with knowledge worker burnout? It seems to be a different animal than other types of burnout (compassion fatigue, pure overwork, body breaking down, etc)

JamesBarney 7y ago
I think do less is pretty much the answer I consistently see. The worse the burnout the less you need to do and for longer. Many times the reasons why it's hard to do less are mental hangups(like fear of failure, perfectionism, the Ides that you're worthless as a coder if you're not coding 24/7) that prevent people from doing less and a therapist would help with that. Of course sometimes what is preventing someone from doing less is their financial situation in which case you unfortunately have a lot fewer options. For me it was quitting my job and starting a consulting company with a couple of friends. I make less money and work more but I have a way better time doing it and that has allowed me to recover.

wodenokoto 7y ago

I always thought burnout was IT lingo for work induced stress. Don’t get me wrong, it’s serious, but it always seemed to me akin to “shellshock” vs “PTSD”. Shellshock just carries a lot of weight as a word on its own. It sounds serious and traumatizing and you don’t really need to know what it means in order to respect the diagnosis.

bayesian_horse 7y ago
Burnout is also used as a socially-acceptable reason for mental health problems. "I work so hard that I get sick" is more acceptable than "I get sick because I'm crazy/mentally ill". Which is in itself a false choice.

bg24 7y ago

I feel it everyday. In addition to other comments, the following have been helpful. - Manage expectations. - Work for yourself. Learning time that sets you up for goodness a year down the line is good. But same repetitive work getting to burnout is not. I am taking objectives to be in the former. - Manage my time. I should not cry burnout if spending hours of time just browsing without objective. So far, been a failure at managing time, but successful at self-realization that I need to manage my time well. For example, I should not be here on hacker news instead of sleeping.

jeauxlb 7y ago

This has existed for 16 years, from ICD-10 v2003: http://apps.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online2003/fr-icd.htm http://apps.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online2003... (code is Z73.0)

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

iyhlj 7y ago

Is this true, though? Looking at the ICD-11 draft [0], burnout appears in chapter 24 which lists "factors influencing health status or contact with health services" but no proper disorders. This has already been the case since the release of ICD-10 [1]. So there doesn't appear to be a change. [0] https://icd.who.int/browse11 https://icd.who.int/browse11 [1] https://icd.who.int/browse10/2016/en#/Z73.0 https://icd.who.int/browse10/2016/en#/Z73.0

bayesian_horse 7y ago

Burnout and clinical depression are extremely similar, and I think most people who self-diagnose as burned out actually are clinically depressed, though maybe mildly. But I can see that diagnosis and treatment would be more difficult and less standard when there are no clear signs of depression or other disorders. And there would be a two-phase treatment: First phase is getting out of burnout mode. Second phase is preventing the relapse. Confusing the two phases will only result in frustration.

andreyk 7y ago
I agree that a connection is likely, though perhaps more like burnout may lead to depression. This is definitely the experience I had - first work was daunting, then everything. Both require a lot of care to get out of in a healthy way.
- bayesian_horse 7y ago
  I'd say you are describing a temporal connection. Identifying causes for mental health conditions is problematic and not very fruitful. Depression can happen virtually on its own, as far as doctors or patients are concerned.
  - krageon 7y ago
    > Depression can happen virtually on its own Given that CBT is the first-line treatment for chronic depression and has a really good success factor, we can see that what you are saying is technically correct (it can happen) but the assumption you make earlier: > Identifying causes for mental health conditions is problematic and not very fruitful Is, while also technically true in some cases (it is a broad statement that applies to more than depression), as connected to depression plainly false. You've constructed a compelling argument that seems to check out based on only a tenuous relation between different true statements. I hope that this is just a prejudice and not something you believe as someone suffering from depression. If this is in fact the case, know that in a lot of the cases causes can be discerned and you can with treatment in fact be able to live a lot better. In the small minority of cases where you are depressed because of a biological limitation (yes, this also happens - it's just not the most usual trajectory), that's when you treat it with a (hopefully life-long) line of antidepressants that work for you.

patatino 7y ago

My wife is a therapist and has so many clients who say they have a "small burnout" or something similar. People fight to not have the label "depression" over them. It is really sad in my opinion. It's your health, it is time to put the pride away and don't care about terminology and do whatever you can to get better.

orbifold 7y ago
Except this goes in your permanent record and increases insurance fees from then on. At least that is how it works in Germany. The only way to avoid this is to pay in cash. It‘s probably also a good idea to not bring your phone, so that there is no location tracking of you.
- krageon 7y ago
  With the exceptionally low amount of real detail in this post, I am left with the most salient question: How can it be on a permanent record at a company when all involved parties (except for you of course) are sworn to secrecy? Given this critical center concern, your closing thought of location tracking (while relevant for a nation-state actor) pushes the whole thought process a bit over the line of sounding reasonable.
  - orbifold 7y ago
    Pretty simple, if you visit a psychiatrist/psychotherapist you have to pay them somehow. One way of doing so is by using your medical insurance. So you hand over your medical insurance card, and now they know you’ve visited a psychotherapist. If at any later point in time you want to get work disability insurance or switch to private health insurance you have to disclose any preexisting medical conditions, since there is a record of you going to a therapist, they could otherwise retroactively find out that you got treated for depression and deny your claim if you have burn out.
- nisa 7y ago
  > Except this goes in your permanent record and increases insurance fees from then on. At least that is how it works in Germany. [citation needed] Neither is true as far as I know. What do you refer to?

TomK32 7y ago

What about Bore-out?

candiodari 7y ago

From the article: > According to the handbook, doctors can diagnose someone with burnout if they meet the following symptoms: > 1. feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion > 2. increased mental distance from one's job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job > 3. reduced professional efficacy Is there anyone here who hasn't had this ? I have this constantly, for almost a dozen years now. How is calling this a medical problem even remotely reasonable ? You're paid for your job, because it takes energy to do it ...

joncrane 7y ago
I think there are severity levels. I think everyone's typical week has at least a couple of "OMG I hate this place!" moments that are related to a particularly difficult commute, a technical problem that crops up at a particularly frustrating time, repeated runins with a difficult coworker that you usually only have to deal with once a month, etc. But you're able to "talk yourself down" within a few minutes. But when it's every day much of the day, it's a problem. So where do you draw the line is the question.
- hmschreck 7y ago
  At my last job, I was getting paid $45k/yr and was expected to work 80-100 hours per week, on top of a 1.5 hour round-trip commute, because the other people on the team for the project were pulled to do other things that were deemed "more important", but the timeline for the project didn't shift at all, because it was also "vital". There's a really great Usenix talk about burnout I stumbled across, and it so perfectly described what I was feeling, even down to the fact that I found myself drinking more and more each night just to be functional. On paper, I took a pay cut at my next job, but I earned enough in overtime to more than make up for it, and I've gotten significant raises since then.
  - candiodari 7y ago
    I find this sort of thing really destresses me. That may sound stupid, but stressfull is when your managers asks 90%, or 110%, 120%. You know, vaguely realistic. Just a tiny bit less, or more than you can realistically do. So that it really matters how you feel. An unpredictable illness (you or kids, or ...) can easily make the difference between delivering or failing. You start worrying if your breaks are too long. When your manager asks 200%, there's zero stress. It's like someone pointing a gun at you demanding you lasso the moon. It's funny. Because you see, whether you get shot or not does NOT depend on whether you try. Therefore it's a sunk cost. There's no point worrying about it. In fact, there's very good reasons to be very easy going about it. No point shortening any break. The same with your manager. He asks the impossible, and of course you won't deliver. So whatever will happen, has already happened. It does NOT depend on your level of effort. Whether you get blamed ... is already determined at that point. Whether you get fired ... is a done deal. No point worrying about it, as the decision is made. Find an online course, or watch some esports on Youtube. Put in the hours, but ... It's no more worrying than the idea that an asteroid might be (in fact almost certainly is) on a collision course with the earth right now.

stuaxo 7y ago

Isn't burnout depression?