“The symptoms of a manic modern world are real, but the diagnosis is wrong. We are not all working more, sleeping less and feeling more rushed,” lead researcher Jenevieve Treadwell wrote. “The core problem is our higher tempo of life.”
We know this. And yet the burnout epidemic is getting worse. We live at this “higher tempo,” because we are shamed if we fall behind, and praised for keeping up, even when it harms us. That’s how we came to believe our experience of stress is a necessary and noble sacrifice that humans make in service of the great and mighty economy, which matters more than the lives of us mere mortals. But burnout isn’t honourable, or inevitable. It is a wound. The sooner we recognise this, the sooner we can take steps to counter the damage…
Instead, we smile and we’re polite, because lashing out wouldn’t allow us to keep our jobs or stay safe. But that same stress response still happens in our bodies; instead of being spent, it just gets stuck. Modern-day stressors can include everything from body shame to white supremacy; we never get a chance to return to our baseline.
This adds up to constant increased strain on, for instance, our cardiovascular system, with no opportunity to heal the damage. Those injured places can develop plaques, which break loose and cause heart attacks. We are living in an upside-down world where stress itself is now more likely to kill us than the things that cause our stress. And we accept that this is normal and true.
— Amelia Nagoski, In a world that glamorises stress, ‘burnout’ is a badge of honour. But there is a cure. (The Guardian · April 6, 2023). Amelia Nagoski is the author of Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
