The Silent Slide from Stress to Burnout
Silent slide, slippery slope… either way, if you’re reading this and you’ve any experience of burnout, then you’ll recognise its meaning.
Stress seems to have become a badge of honour in modern working life. Conversations in the coaching room suggest that many people accept it as the price of ambition, of building a career or of having increased responsibility. The late-night emails, the tight deadlines, the ever-growing list of demands.
There’s definitely an ‘up-side’ to stress
It’s well known that stress is the body's natural response to pressure or demands, designed to help us react quickly in the short term. This fundamental physiological response is there to keep us safe from harm. The cortisol hit, the burst of energy, the extra push to get us out of, or through, a challenging moment.
In moderation, stress can serve a useful purpose. It can be our friend. It sharpens focus, momentarily boosts energy, and can push us to deliver when the stakes are high. We all know that feeling where we push hard to deliver something that had felt seemingly impossible.
But the fine line between being productively stretched and being dangerously depleted is far thinner than many people realise. And although not a medical condition itself, prolonged or unmanaged stress can seriously harm mental and physical health, making its early recognition and management essential to prevent more severe outcomes like burnout.
But what is ‘burnout’ exactly?
Burnout is a state of complete exhaustion – emotionally, physically and mentally – a state that builds up over time as a result of prolonged and unmanaged stress. While stress can often act as a useful signal, pushing us to meet challenges and stay alert, burnout represents a much deeper depletion. It goes beyond feeling overwhelmed and leaves a person drained, detached from their work, and struggling to find motivation or satisfaction.
“It felt like my world was shrinking, becoming narrower, I was working and thinking with tunnel vision”
Recognised by experts as an occupational phenomenon, burnout is often linked to long-term workplace pressures that have not been effectively managed. It can profoundly affect wellbeing, leading to reduced productivity, emotional exhaustion, and a sense of helplessness.
Understanding the difference between stress and burnout is vital for individuals and organisations alike and recognising the early warning signs is essential, so that appropriate steps can be taken to prevent this deeply damaging state.
Stress: Friend not Foe
Try thinking of stress as the body’s way of signalling that something requires attention. A bit like a smoke alarm. It’s super helpful for helping us to know that we need to deal with something.
But if we ignore a smoke alarm there can be massive consequences, and unattended stress is just the same.
Sadly, that’s exactly what so many of us do. We ignore the early warning signs; we tell ourselves it’s part of ‘working life’ and we suck it up and keep going, in the process slowly changing the baseline of what we consider ‘ok’.
When heightened pressure becomes a daily rhythm rather than an occasional jolt, the very system that’s designed to protect us instead starts to wear us down.
Physiologically, prolonged stress places the body in a constant state of alert, draining energy reserves and making recovery harder. Psychologically, it can lead to irritability, anxiety and an erosion of resilience.
The Space Between Useful Stress and Painful Burnout
The most challenging stage to recognise is the transition between helpful or tolerable stress and burnout.
This is a complex zone where, paradoxically, individuals can seem fully functioning on the surface. In fact, they can seem like they are functioning at a really high level – hitting targets, joining meetings, replying to emails – but privately they can feel increasingly drained.
Concerningly too, some workplaces praise the level of effort visible at these times. People who ‘push through’ tiredness or overwhelm are sometimes seen as dependable, even inspirational.
It’s a slippery slope and one that gets steeper the further down it you get. As a professional coach, I have so many experiences which show that the further down the slope a person gets, the harder it is to help them pull back.
“It chips away at your ability to bounce back from difficult experiences, it’s like the elastic’s gone, and it becomes harder and harder to return to the space where you were”
Yet, it is precisely this ability to persist under stress that can accelerate a decline into burnout, because the warning signs are concealed beneath continued productivity. They are suppressed and unattended. I’ve always said it is my bravest, strongest most capable clients that fall hardest. They keep going, and keep going, and keep going… until the decision is taken out of their hands, their body and mind take over and they simply have to stop.
It just goes to show what a complex period of time this can be. And confusing for those involved.
What Can We Do to Avoid Burnout?
Noticing the signs of impending burnout sooner rather than later is key. The earlier on that slippery slope a person is held, the better.
So, what are the signs I watch out for in the coaching room?
There are many, but here are some common ones:
Trouble concentrating
Reduced creativity
A blurring between work hours and personal recovery time
Trouble sleeping
A drop in self-care
Loss of perspective
Feelings of overwhelm
Articulation of being out of control
Sometimes clients become more cynical or emotionally distant, not because they no longer care, but because caring feels too costly. Eventually, this withdrawal deepens into the defining features of burnout: exhaustion, disengagement, and sadly sometimes collapse.
When I see these signs, I flag them clearly with my client. ‘I’m noticing this’ or ‘I’m concerned about that’, followed by exploring what support is needed. Simple examples include exploring how a person could take some time out or helping a person regain a short term sense of control.
When a person is asked ‘what do you need right now?’ often they can tell you. For a person with burnout symptoms, it might be harder to articulate. So, providing reassurance that it’s OK not to know, and encouraging a momentary pause to acknowledge the severity of the situation is always a good starting point.
Why Prevention Matters More Than Cure
Recovering from burnout is not as simple as taking a week’s holiday or cutting back slightly on workload. True burnout represents a deep depletion of psychological and physiological reserves. Restorative time is usually far longer and more complex than a quick reset.
For this reason, the emphasis really needs to be on prevention, not repair.
Preventing burnout requires recognising stress signals early and creating organisational cultures where recovery is not a guilty indulgence but a necessary part of sustainable performance. Leaders who openly challenge long-hours culture, model healthy boundaries, and encourage conversations about workload not only protect individuals but also safeguard the wider organisation against costly turnover and disengagement.
In future posts, we’ll be exploring what managers and organisations can do to support their colleagues through stressful times and how they can respond to the signs of burnout effectively.