
Burnout is an official medical diagnosis, WHO says - alok-g
https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/05/27/health/who-burnout-disease-trnd/index.html
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digitalsushi
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
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.

~~~
taneq
This reminds me of the "make your bed" advice: [https://jamesclear.com/great-
speeches/make-your-bed-by-admir...](https://jamesclear.com/great-
speeches/make-your-bed-by-admiral-william-h-mcraven)

~~~
amelius
Making your bed is bad advice:
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4181629.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4181629.stm)

~~~
taneq
"Brush your teeth" would probably serve a similar purpose, "tidy your room"
would be even better if you're the sort of person who wouldn't have it already
tidied.

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bayesian_horse
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
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
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
> 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.

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

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llamataboot
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
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.

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wodenokoto
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
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.

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

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
Last year or so they classified “gaming disorders” for people who spent too
much time playing video games. FWIW

~~~
omeid2
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
Not sure if that is true. Sometimes adding a label simply adds unlimited
anxiety.

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patatino
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
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
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
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.

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

~~~
smudgymcscmudge
It’s guidance for diagnosis. Doctors can already diagnose whatever they want.
This is just a step toward agreement on what “burnout” means.

~~~
dwild
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.

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bg24
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.

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candiodari
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
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
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
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.

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iyhlj
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)

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stuaxo
Isn't burnout depression?

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TomK32
What about Bore-out?

