In the 2024, the charity Mental Health UK surveyed over 2000 working adults and found that 91% reported they experienced high or extreme levels of pressure or stress at some point in the past year. Stress is our body’s natural response to pressure and can manifest itself in many different ways. While stress is commonplace in life, long-term exposure to high or extreme levels of stress can result in burnout.
9 in 10 UK adults experienced high or extreme stress in the past year.
According to the survey, which is forms the basis of The Burnout Report, while our working arena has changed, mental health support has not caught up. Mental Health UK's research found that nearly half of workers (49%) said their employer doesn’t have a plan to spot the signs of chronic stress and prevent burnout in the workplace, and just 29% of people knew what plans their employers had in place.
One in four (24%) told the poll that they felt ‘unable to manage stress and pressure in the workplace’, with 1 in 5 working adults (20%) needing to take time off work due to poor mental health caused by pressure or stress in the past year.
Extreme stress isn’t limited to the workplace. Full-time students (95%) and people who are unemployed (95%) tended to experience high or extreme levels of pressure or stress more in the past year than any other working status group.
So what is the difference between stress and burnout?
Burnout is a state of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion. It can occur when you experience long-term stress and feel under constant pressure. Whilst burnout can be caused by stress it isn’t the same as stress. Stress tends to be short term and whilst it may be having an impact on your sleep, energy and emotions you are still able to engage in the activity that is causing you stress.
Crucially, this is a gradual process over time. Signs you have burnout could be attributed to stress, depression or anxiety and could go unnoticed and unaddressed. Burnout symptoms can be recognised physically, emotionally and behaviourally. Most people will experience a combination of symptoms including severe exhaustion, feeling cut off from others, and feeling they have no hope, energy or reason for things to change.
The lines between work and home life have become increasingly blurred in recent times. Many of us are working longer hours, and the societal changes caused by the pandemic are still present.
If looking for signs that someone is burnt out, it can often be recognized by someone’s behaviour both at work and home. They might be less productive, absent from work, excessively tired or appear irritable. Sometimes people can rely on excessive alcohol or drugs and/or their eating habits could change.
It's time to learn the skills needed to manage mental health, stress and burnout.
We need to create working cultures and environments where talking about our mental health is welcomed and invited – where we are better able to spot the signs of stress and prevent burnout.
Training is vital for us to learn how to support each other in the workplace or other settings such as education.
We offer a bespoke Mental Health and Wellbeing review service, as well as a selection of courses, including Mental Health First Aid training and 9-week on-site Mindfulness course.