Burnout, the disorder stalking stressed out millennials (and everyone else) at every turn, is now a diagnosable condition. The World Health Organization’s latest diagnostic manual lists the criteria as “feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion,” “increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job,” and “reduced professional efficacy.” In which case, diagnose us immediately. The paper says that before considering burnout, doctors should first rule out similar disorders like anxiety and depression. It’s also limited to work, and shouldn’t be applied to other stressful situations.
Anticipating a wave of opinion pieces about what contributes to burnout, i-D has done an unscientific, pre-emptive poll of fashion writers (ourselves) and concluded that the following greatly increase your risk of burnout. Factors include:
Inbox overload
Meetings about meetings
The internet at large
Nobody getting the theme for the Met Gala
Being a “creative”
Worrying if you should be doing something to prevent ecological collapse rather than writing about shoes
Having to commute to work
Working at all.
Obviously, the real cure for burnout would be to abolish work altogether. Or, at least, make the “@here” function on Slack illegal before we all explode.