"I'm burnt out": A common sentence heard in training, sports and work life. Like all the matches in the box have been lit, and no matter how much you try there’s no matches left and the ones you’ve used won’t reignite.
Burnout literature initially focused on the workplace, but the term has recently become more and more spoken about in terms of sports, especially of its strong links to dropout and poor mental health.
What are the signs of burnout?
Emotional (and physical) exhaustion
Not only do you feel completely physically fatigued but you are also emotionally depleted. This can look like experiencing low mood and mood swings, feeling hopeless with a lack of purpose or feeling overwhelmed in even the simplest of situations.
Reduced sense of accomplishment
Even though you may be achieving the goals you have set, it might not feel like it. Or, you attribute your achievement to external factors that it’s not your doing but luck or chance.
Sport Devaluation
This entails a loss of interest in your sport, even though you used to enjoy it. There is an increased lack of caring surrounding the sport as well. For example, when you fail hitting the targets during an interval session you no longer look to why that might have happened and try to overcome the challenge, instead you just do not care about it at all.
Symptoms of Burnout
There are five categories of symptoms: affective, cognitive, physical, behavioural, motivational
Affective symptoms are the emotions you feel, and are often linked to emotional exhaustion. Often this includes feeling depressed, overwhelmed and quick to anger.
Cognitive symptoms are the symptoms associated with your thoughts and everything that goes on in your head. A common cognitive symptom is inattentiveness and inability to concentrate because you are too wrapped up in what’s going on in your head.
Physical symptoms in your sport can be an inability to perform in training and performances. It is often characterised by the feeling of the lack of ‘oomph’ and lack of ability to be explosive or fast. I find that my heart rate refuses to go up as well no matter how hard I try.
Behavioural symptoms are the things you can see, the way you behave. This can be behaviours surrounding the exhaustion you feel such as frequent napping. It can also be impaired performance in sport and in work. Often this is due to lack of concentration. Eventually, this can also lead to dropout from the sport.
Finally, motivational symptoms are mainly around losing motivation or not having motivation at all. You no longer want to do the things you previously enjoyed and feel a sense of what’s the point.
As you may be able to see, many of these symptoms overlap. Often this makes it feel like the symptoms are spiralling and that the burnout just keeps getting worse and worse impacting not just sport but other areas of life as well.
So Where Can Burnout Come From?
The exact mechanism of burnout is yet to be completely understood and varies from person to person.
A key factor, however, is stress. Burnout manifests because of situations (either one or many interacting) and your perception of it. This perception influences your thoughts and emotions leading to a behavioural and physiological response. The lack of recovery from this stress eventually leads to a maladaptive response, burnout.
In sport, it can come from overtraining. Constantly pushing yourself to the limit not only fatigues, and eventually exhausts, you physically it also negatively impacts you mentally. Pushing that hard alongside the lack of recovery requires self-regulation, including emotional regulation that eventually depletes. Not only that, it can increase the lack of motivation and increase that feeling that you aren’t accomplishing anything because you are so exhausted that you don’t hit the targets you have set.
Motivational climate is another big one. This is based on achievement goal theory, which suggests that achievement influences thoughts, emotions and behaviour. When we are focused on task mastery and skill progression and are praised for effort by coaches and peers this creates a positive motivational climate and can protect against burnout. However, when the motivational climate created by the club, coaches and teammates focuses solely on achievement and ability in comparison to others this can cause demotivation and propagate burnout symptoms.
So What Can I do to Prevent Burnout or Overcome it?
First and foremost, I recommend speaking to someone whether that be friends, family or a psychologist. This is the first step in accepting your emotions can help you find solutions to some of the stressors you are experiencing.
Looking at the climate and culture within your sport and club is also important. What language is being used around skill progress compared to achievement in comparison to others? Are you overtraining? What in the culture motivates you and what can you focus on?
Final Thoughts
Burnout can be experienced mildly or severely. It any of this resonates with you please reach out for support and remember: you are not alone.
Relevant Literature
Goodger, K., Gorely, T., Lavallee, D., & Harwood, C. (2007). Burnout in Sport: A Systematic Review. The Sport Psychologist, 21(2), 127–151. https://doi.org/10.1123/tsp.21.2.127
Madigan, D., Gustafsson, H., Smith, A., Raedeke, T., & Hill, A. (2019). The BASES Expert Statement on Burnout in Sport. The Sport and Science Scientist, 61.
Maslach, C., & Jackson, S. E. (1984). Burnout in organizational settings. Applied Social Psychology Annual, 5, 133–153.
Raedeke, T. D., Smith, A. L., Kenttä, G., Arce, C., & de Francisco, C. (2014). Burnout in Sport: From Theory to Intervention. In A. R. Gomes, R. Resende, & A. Albuquerque (Eds.), Positive human functioning from a multidimensional perspective: Promoting stress adaptation. Nova Science Publishers Inc.
Schaufeli, W. B., & Buunk, B. P. (2004). Burnout: An Overview of 25 Years of Research and Theorizing. The Handbook of Work and Health Psychology, 383–425. https://doi.org/10.1002/0470013400.ch19
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