By this point in the Dyslexia & Me campaign, we’re no strangers to the potential ins and outs of interactions between dyslexia and common mental health conditions like anxiety, stress and depression. But there’s one we haven’t talked about perhaps as much as we should- and that’s burnout.
Burnout is a form of exhaustion caused by being constantly swamped. Whether this is emotionally, at work, in education, or even just within social groups - anybody can suffer from it, but people with dyslexia might have more chance of encountering it due to the extra workload that dyslexia sometimes causes. Tasks that might be quick to complete for some co-workers might take you longer and this causes work to pile up, or it may simply be a case of never getting to switch off your 'work mode' because reading and communicating take extra effort even when you're not sat at your desk.
Burnout is a silent illness and it takes many people a long time to work out if they’re suffering from it – and some people never realise, as it’s simply a constant force in their life. But it can have some potentially serious long-term health effects such as blood pressure changes, sleep disorders, chronic fatigue and IBS. Some people might also find that their appetite changes, and find themselves either eating unhealthily due to a lack of time for food preparation, craving carbohydrate-rich or salty foods, or even not feeling the urge to eat that much at all. Burnout can cause near-constant nausea, as well as problems with the gut and digestion, so it makes it difficult to take care of yourself at a nutrition level as some people find themselves unable to tolerate foods that they were fine with before, too.
Burnout isn’t obvious, especially if it’s as a result of something like dyslexia, which you’ll have been living with your whole life. It’s not so easy to spot, but it can look like:
🔥 You might find yourself unable to sleep…
🔥 Or feel like you can never sleep enough, either.
🔥 Tiredness is a constant, and things that should take a little effort feel like gargantuan tasks.
🔥 You can’t get started, even though deadlines are pressing – you feel detached from the tasks in front of you.
🔥 You can't be bothered to socialise, or feel like you need excessive time to decompress afterwards
🔥 You find yourself leaning more on alcohol or medication to relax and unwind
🔥 You stop caring about your work and feel alienated from it, or feel cynical about any rewards that might come from it.
🔥 You’re hyper-sensitive to criticism and react very emotionally when someone makes a suggestion for improvement.
🔥 Maybe you can’t stop thinking about it, either – you could be tending to dwell on negative things, and becoming fixed within a spiral of anxiety.
🔥 You struggle to be creative, even if it’s usually one of your strong suits.
🔥 You feel stressed and snappy, and feel like you have a short fuse at the moment.
🔥 You feel a sense of dread related to certain activities, like waking up for work or education in the morning, starting on your tasks, or even just when you hear the phone ring.
🔥 You might feel forgetful, or miss things you’d usually spot.
🔥 You might lose your appetite, or find you want to eat more than usual…
🔥 Or that you’re simply craving quick dopamine-boost foods all the time, like chocolate.
🔥 A feeling of ‘emptiness’ might manifest, alongside an inability to enjoy non-work activities.
🔥 Headaches, stomach aches, gastro-intestinal issues and muscular pains are common too - burnout can have a lot of physical elements that we might not spot at first.
People with burnout often feel lethargic and emotionally drained. Many switch focus from maintaining a structured and balanced lifestyle to only focusing on one immediate need- such as study or work- and neglect others, such as socialising, mindfulness, maintaining a healthy diet and taking time out for themselves. It's a mental health condition based in feelings of fatigue, but it goes deeper too. And this is where it can lead into other long-term conditions like anxiety and depression, so it’s certainly not one that we should be ignoring, especially in a community of people who could be more likely than most to struggle with high levels of constant day-to-day pressure. Having dyslexia can feel exhausting sometimes, as the world isn’t fully accessible yet and so many people and organisations aren't dyslexia-aware, so burnout isn’t perhaps as distant on the horizon for some of us as we might first think.
If you think you’re suffering from burnout, whether it’s related to work, education, or even just your day-to-day experience, consider reaching out to friends, family, and healthcare professionals for support. They might direct you to support services like counselling or therapy, suggest life changes and life coaching, or even go down a pharmaceutical route to managing anxiety and low mood. What matters is recognising it, and reaching out, even if it feels trivial or embarrassing at first - it isn't, but sometimes that hurdle is one of the largest for people.
Burnout is prevalent. We don’t talk about it enough as a mental health condition, but it’s one that’s just as serious as ‘the big three’ of anxiety, stress and depression that we talk about with much more frequency. The biggest hurdle is recognising that you’re actually experiencing burnout for most people – we didn’t tend to talk about it much before the Covid-19 pandemic where many of us started feeling the emotional burn from having to work and study during a terrifying world event – so we’re not as good at recognising it yet. Things are changing, but slowly- and we need to know what to look for when it comes to taking care of ourselves.
You can find out more about burnout at Mental Health UK, and take a closer look at Dyslexia and Fatigue at Discussing the Dyslexic Brain for an exploration of why excessive tiredness and general fatigue can be one of the body’s responses to long-term studying and working when you’ve got dyslexia.