I don't know if I'm burning out.

What's probably happening

You are tired in a way that rest is not fully fixing, and you are wondering if it has a name. That uncertainty is normal: burnout builds gradually, so from the inside it just feels like a long stretch of hard weeks.

What your mind is doing

It may be swinging between 'everyone is tired, stop complaining' and 'something is genuinely wrong'. Both voices are guessing. What helps is a clearer lens, not more self-argument.

What your body is doing

Common signs: waking tired after full nights, more headaches or tension than usual, getting sick more often, and a Sunday-evening heaviness that arrives like weather.

Why this happens

Researcher Christina Maslach, who built the most widely used measure of burnout, describes it as three things moving together: exhaustion (drained beyond what rest repairs), cynicism (a detached, checked-out feeling about the work), and reduced effectiveness (feeling like you accomplish less than you used to). Ordinary tiredness has the first one; burnout tends to collect all three. The self-check below walks you through them.

What helps today

Whatever your scores, lower today's bar on purpose: pick the two tasks that matter most and let the rest wait. Take one real, screen-free break this afternoon. And tell one trusted person your three numbers; saying them out loud makes the picture harder to dismiss.

What helps long-term

Re-run the three questions weekly and watch the trend, not the single reading. Rebuild recovery as a routine: a hard finish time, a sleep floor, one restorative thing per week that is only for you. And look at what is feeding the depletion; a workload conversation or a boundary, raised early and calmly, is far cheaper than a collapse later.

Therapist tip

The people most at risk of burnout are usually the ones who care the most; cynicism is what caring turns into when it runs on empty for too long. Treat a rising cynicism score as devotion asking for maintenance, not as proof you stopped caring.

Common mistakes

• Waiting for a crash before taking the signals seriously; burnout is easiest to turn around early.
• Treating it as a personal failing rather than a load-and-recovery equation that can be rebalanced.
• Fixing it with one vacation; a week off helps, but only changed weekly rhythms keep it from refilling.

When to seek more support

If two or more of your scores have been high for over a few weeks, if work dread bleeds into most evenings and weekends, or if exhaustion is affecting your health or relationships, bring in help now rather than later: talk to your therapist, or start with Milo in the app.