Burnout recognized as a chronic disease by the World Health Organization

Burnout is a phrase that you may have heard over the years to describe the feeling of being physically and emotionally exhausted.

Some might have been tempted to consider burn-out as millennial jargon, but it has now been added to the International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organization (WHO), which means it will become a recognized disease worldwide from 2020.

The WHO defines burnout as "chronic stress at work that has not been successfully managed."

It characterizes the condition with the following symptoms: feeling of exhaustion or exhaustion of energy; heightened mental distance from his work, or feelings of negativity or cynicism related to his work; and reduced professional efficiency.

The WHO only refers to such feelings in work environments and states that burnout should not be applied to describe symptoms caused by other life situations.

A spokesman for the WHO said Agence Presse France Monday is the "first time" that burnout has been classified as a health problem by any official health organization.

The phrase "burn-out syndrome" is attributed to Herbert Freudenberger, a psychologist of German origin, who used it in a study conducted in 1974 on this disease.

Freudenberger analyzed the phenomenon after observing it in some of his colleagues, who described themselves as "exhausted" and experienced it later.

The psychologist described the state of burnout as "exhausting himself by making excessive demands for energy, strength or resources".

In January 2019, a buzzfeed article entitled How millennia have become the generation of burnout become viral. Writer Anne Helen Peterson was praised for accurately describing how and why the disease affects people aged 18 to 34, and in some cases makes them emotionally and physically paralyzed.

However, unlike the WHO, Peterson recognizes overwork in areas outside the workplace by writing:Burnout, the behaviors and the weight that go with it are actually not something we can heal on vacation.

"This is not limited to workers in extremely stressful environments. And it is not temporary suffering: it is the millennial condition. This is our basic temperature. It's our background music. It's like that. It's our life. "