Burnout

Burnout recovery doesn’t happen overnight, but with the proper support, you can regain your enthusiasm and avoid relapses. Axis Integrated Mental Health has offices in Boulder, Denver, and Westminster, Colorado, where experienced professionals offer treatments, coaching, and paid mental health leave if appropriate for people suffering from burnout. Call the Axis Integrated Mental Health office nearest you to discuss your burnout problems or schedule an in-person or telehealth consultation online today.

What is burnout?

Burnout is a mental state where you feel exhausted, overwhelmed, and unable to perform your usual tasks. Job burnout is the most common problem, but you can also experience parenting, sports, relationship, caregiver, and other forms of burnout.

Everyone experiences stress or anxiety sometimes, and that’s no bad thing — you need some stress to keep you motivated, prepare for danger, and optimize your performance. However, if you reach burnout, long-term pressure has become so severe it causes significant mental and physical issues.

This pressure has various causes, like an excessive workload, difficult co-workers, poor or abusive management, and an unsuitable role. You’re more likely to suffer from burnout if you don’t learn to manage stress effectively.

Burnout is recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a condition that can seriously impact people’s quality of life. It was added to the ISD 10 as an official medical diagnosis but reclassified in ISD 11 as an occupational phenomenon. Regardless, it's a genuine problem that’s similar to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or high-functioning depression (persistent depressive disorder) and can lead to persistent health problems in the future.

What symptoms does burnout cause?

Burnout symptoms can be mental and physical. Common examples include:

• Constantly feeling exhausted
• Brainfog
• More frequent illnesses
• Regular headaches
• Appetite changes
• Poor sleep and insomnia
• Difficulty concentrating
• Feeling like a failure
• Continual self-doubt
• Depression and anxiety
• Feeling detached from everything
• Lack of motivation
• Increasingly negative outlook
• Little joy or satisfaction with life
• Social isolation
• Procrastination
• Frustration and irritability

When burnout is severe, you might start avoiding your responsibilities, skipping out on work, or simply giving up and staying home.

What could be causing burnout?

Burnout isn’t just about being tired—it’s a chronic state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion caused by prolonged stress. At Axis Integrated Mental Health, we help you get to the root of what’s really driving your burnout so you can start to heal. Common causes of burnout include:

• Workplace stress – Long hours, high pressure, and lack of control or recognition can leave you feeling depleted, especially as so few leaders are trained to manage mental health appropriately in the workplace.

• Caregiver fatigue – Taking care of others—whether you're a parent, partner, or healthcare worker—can lead to emotional overload. It can be difficult to even know what to do support a loved one who is experiencing depression.

• Undiagnosed ADHD – Many high-functioning professionals unknowingly struggle with focus, overwhelm, and executive dysfunction, mistaking it for “just stress.”

• Anxiety or depression – Mood disorders often manifest as exhaustion, apathy, or brain fog, especially when left untreated.

• Lack of boundaries – Saying “yes” to everything and everyone can wear down your mental health over time.

• Perfectionism and high self-expectations – Holding yourself to impossible standards can create a constant sense of failure and fatigue.

If you're feeling drained, disconnected, or stuck in survival mode, it's not just in your head—and it won’t go away on its own. Our psychiatric providers and therapists specialize in identifying burnout triggers and building personalized treatment plans that restore energy, clarity, and peace of mind.

Burnout is a signal, not a weakness. Let’s find out what your brain is trying to tell you.

How do I overcome burnout?

The Axis Integrated Mental Health team uses a holistic approach, encouraging you to prioritize your mental and physical health. They create a personalized treatment program for you that focuses on tracking your stress levels so you learn what triggers stress and how to avoid it. This may include taking paid mental health leave for up to 3 months at 90% of pay, to which most Coloradoans are entitled. You can see if you qualify by taking our brief FAMLI Leave quiz below.

Working with our integrative psychiatrist will help you get sleep and mood under control through a combination of medications, lifestyle changes, and advanced therapies. We also recommend working with a therapist, either at Axis or one you select, to help define what success might look and feel like for you.

For more information about burnout, please download our burnout survival guide. 

With our collaborative care team, you learn to set boundaries, like saying no to activities you can’t manage, and focus on things you enjoy. You also benefit from stress management techniques, meditation, a healthy diet, and feel-good hormones produced by lifestyle changes that we can coach you on.

Advanced treatments like esketamine therapy or transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can help many patients who are trying to cope with high-functioning depression and are covered by most insurance plans.

Call Axis Integrated Mental Health to arrange a burnout assessment or paid mental health leave, or schedule a consultation online today.

FAQ

• Is burnout high-functioning depression?
• Will my job be protected if I go on mental health leave? 
• How can I avoid burnout?
• What does burnout feel like?
• What is burnout?