Signs of job burnout

Your 20 year old daughter is pretty good about handling and hiding her stress. When she comes home for the holidays, however, all of the exhaustion that she has somehow been avoiding during the semester at college comes crashing down. Best case scenario, she simply sleeps for the first two days that she is home. Worst case scenario, the whole family suffers from her tiredness, stress, and frustration.
When she is in one of her calmest and most rested moments you have had some real conversations about recognizing her own stress burnout symptoms and finds ways to cope. She is in her third year as a college Biology major, and intends to enroll in a one year intensive nursing program after she graduates. She knows that any kind of medical career comes with its own level of workplace stress and has decided that in order to have a better work-life balance she will not be pursuing medical school. She is pretty sure that she wants to eventually get all of the training to be a nurse practitioner, but hopes that she might find a job where they will pay her to pursue this final set of classes.

Today’s Medical Careers Come with Both Stress and Exhaustion

Medical schools today make sure that they prepare their students to recognize stress burnout symptoms in themselves, as well as in others. Talking about these risks ahead of time can help students decide if this is really a career that they want to pursue or, at least, make sure that they know how to recognize the times when they need to ask for help.

Consider some of these facts and figures about some of today’s most stressful workplace environments and some of the interventions that can be of help:

  • Some of the causes of workplace anger can be avoided if employees and their managers understand how to look for initial signs of employee stress.
  • Medical students report a rate of depression that is 15% to 30% higher than the general population by a significant amount.
  • 66% of both men and women indicate that their work has a significant impact on their stress level. In fact, 25% of them have called in sick or taken a ?mental health day? as a result of work stress burnout symptoms.
  • When compared to the general public, physicians have a 10% to 20% higher divorce rate.
  • 1 million employees to miss work each day because if workplace stress.

Whether you are only 20 years old or you have been in a career for 20 years, being mindful of the need to make sure that you are finding a balance between work and life is important.