High-Functioning Burnout: 5 Hidden Signs You’re Running on Fumes (and How to Reset)
Are you barely keeping your head above water and constantly overwhelmed? You may have high-functioning burnout.
High-Functioning Burnout – You’re persisting through physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion caused by excessive, prolonged stress. This is more than just being tired, it’s being so drained that you start feeling cynical and detached, and may even start to think your effort doesn’t make a difference anymore. High-functioning burnout is common in work settings that are high demand, low resources. In these settings self-sacrifice is a given, and customer service and productivity are the priorities.
The problem: The hypervigilance, perfectionism, and work ethic that got you this far in your career are draining your energy and capacity. You’re still performing at work, but at what cost?
5 Hidden Signs of High-Functioning Burnout
1. Irritability with Your Mission: You feel unusually annoyed with your tasks/clients/patients, especially anything that takes up a lot of time. It feels like there is never enough time in the week to do everything you need to do, and anything that sets you back causes major frustration.
2. Treatment-Resistant Tension (Body-Budget Breakdown): Where are your shoulders right now? If they are up by your ears and in a constant state of tension, your body might be trying to tell you something. Chronic stress and burnout can manifest in physical issues like tension headaches, TMJ, stomach problems, and sleep disruption. Physical treatments (e.g., massage) might help, but don’t solve the problem.
3. The Loss of Agency (Yes-Compulsion): You struggle saying "no" to low-priority, high-effort tasks. This can be fueled by the fear of being "found out" as not knowing what you’re doing or having done something wrong (Imposter Syndrome).
4. Task Paralysis on Small Things: Your high-achieving brain that can handle complex projects stalls completely on a simple, 5-minute task, like writing an email. You get stuck in a procrastination, doomscrolling spiral and get even further behind on work and more overwhelmed.
5. Emotional Numbness, Not Sadness: You don't feel "depressed," you just feel numbness towards things you used to enjoy (hobbies, social life). Your system has run out of emotional capacity and you struggle to feel connected with others.
Moving from Coping to Strategic Recovery
So you just need to take a two week vacation, right? While rest and taking time off are extremely important, trying to fix burnout with a vacation is like treating a bacterial infection with ibuprofen. It helps the symptoms temporarily (in this case, you might feel less tired), but it doesn’t solve the actual problem (your cognitive patterns, work life balance, and stressors). We may not have control over changing some stressors (e.g., systemic oppression of marginalized people), but we do have tools to improve quality of life and our relationships with ourselves. We can build strategic resilience.
Strategic Resilience:
o Reclaiming Agency: Establishing boundaries rooted in choice, not exhaustion and anxiety.
o Dismantling the Imposter: Re-wiring the brain to trust objective evidence over feelings of inadequacy.
o Manual System Reset: Learning how to deliberately move the nervous system from high-alert (sympathetic nervous system activation, or “fight or flight”) to genuine “rest and digest” (parasympathetic nervous system) recovery.
o Building Self-Compassion: Cultivating kindness, increasing mindfulness of our thoughts and emotions, and contextualizing ourselves as being part of the greater humanity. Extensive research consistently suggests that increasing self-compassion improves physical and mental health as well as productivity and job performance.
Strategic resilience can help you maintain sustainable, high-level performance without the cost to your mental and physical wellbeing.
If reading these signs hits a little too close to home, you may be struggling with burnout. It’s time to move from just surviving to strategic mastery of your well-being. Book a confidential consultation today to start building a plan for strategic resilience.
Sources
Clance, P. R., & Imes, S. A. (1978). The imposter phenomenon in high achieving women: Dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, 15(3), 241–247.
Germer, C., & Neff, K. (2024). Mindful Self-Compassion for Burnout: Tools to Help You Heal and Recharge When You're Wrung Out by Stress. Guilford Press.
Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (2016). Understanding the burnout experience: recent research and its implications for psychiatry. World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), 15(2), 103–111. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20311
Maslach, C., Jackson, S. E., & Leiter, M. P. (1996). Maslach Burnout Inventory manual (3rd ed.). Consulting Psychologists Press.
Dr. Ashley Sutton is a licensed clinical psychologist who helps high-achieving professionals reclaim balance and freedom from burnout and anxiety. She sees clients virtually in New York and Pennsylvania.