Interesting article: Burnout, amygdala, neurological changes, cognition

Nope!

Thank, that's really useful. I used to find freelance the best solution because I could control my environment and schedules. Unfortunately the freelance boom is over and austerity hit my client base. I've had to take PAYE again, I'm 22 hours a week and still have burned out - quicker than usual, I've only made it through a year. I'm going to have to change jobs because the governance on my current job is absent with open season for bullying. I can't solve it and I'm feeling a little desperate, poverty really doesn't appeal...

Same for me!

Interesting, I have crappy exec function and I'm really prone to burnout. Currently signed off with it.

These are brilliant Pixiefox! Likewise I'm doing 30 hours & wish it were 25 but can't afford it :-).

Getting hit by burnout was a real wake-up call to pay attention to what my brain had been screaming at me but I didn't realise I was allowed to act on. Mainly thinking about point 2 here.

I've got that under control plus adjustments at work (and in a way, at home too) and it's really helping; the thing I would add is:

5. Don't be tempted to give in to pressure to conform "just this once" or "because I could & it would be seen as being helpful or at least 'not weird' " - we put boundaries and adjustments in place for a reason. Remind yourself of the reasons & what might happen. At the very least, if you go the extra mile, plan some re-balancing time afterwards and protect it.

The other thing I keep having to lean on has come to me through various goes at CBT plus simple age & experience, and it's to be *really* firm with myself when I find myself ruminating over the past and/or possible futures; it does not help! Distract yourself, however you can.

This is an interesting thread, although I don't really understand all of it. But I do understand about burn out, and I realize this is what I've experienced many times. I've changed jobs a lot because I could no longer cope, and I can relate this burn out phenomenon with significant stressful events, at work and in my personal life.

I found a description of what CBT is: "Practitioners base CBT on the theory that problems arise from the meanings people give to events, as well as the events themselves." . But I don't think I give stressful events meanings. I often can't make any sense of them - I can't understand why other people would seemingly want to make me feel bad. I also get upset when events are out of my control.

I have been in the same job for 4 years now - almost a record for me. Finding out I was autistic and learning about how it affects me has given me these coping strategies:

1. Keep working hours to an absolute minimum you can manage. I started full time in my current job but had to reduce to 25 hours a week (5 a day) - I'd prefer to do 20, but it's a compromise as I can't live on the pay from 20hrs pw. It still means I have afternoon "down time". 

2. Don't worry about not going to social events or not seeing people you don't really get on with. They won't miss you when they're having their version of fun that you probably wouldn't enjoy but would be joining in with to not look "odd".

3. When stressful events happen: analyse what the root cause is - perhaps you've misread  someone's intentions/meaning, perhaps you need help or support with something, or to talk it over to help you make sense of it and make it seem less of a huge obstacle? Then make an action plan - talk to someone you trust about ut, ask for clarification, or ask for help/support. Finally, review results - have you been able to get what you need to manage? Do you need to take any further action or do you need to distance yourself from it, get a new job, stop seeing someone, etc. When I asked  if my working hours could be reduced I was initially told no, so I handed in my resignation, explaining that I could no longer manage to work full time. Two weeks later I was thankfully offered part time hours as they didn't want to lose me, but I wasn't bluffing - I had to do what was right for me.

4. Work out your own mindfulness and distraction techniques. Learn to recognise when you're starting to become overwhelmed and take action. Take yourself away from it if possible, or focus on something else, or visualise it being over and you being in a safe place / feeling ok again

Does anyone have any other coping strategies?

I don't suppose that you happen to know what part of your hind brain you have the hernia in? Does it cause you any symptoms? 

I've just googled all of those parts of the brain. I have a hind brain hernia I wonder if theres any connection 

There's definitely a good theoretical and experiential basis to support the idea that certain underlying neurological differences make a person more susceptible to the effects of stress and anxiety. The only problem with the articles that I found is that number 11 suggests that the Caudate Nucleus is enlarged in Autism as opposed to being smaller. However, I'd take a guess that as it is less stable to begin with that might make it more susceptible to the effects of stress and therefore more likely to shrink in Autistic as opposed to non-autistic people. I might have a look to see if can find any evidence to back up that theory next week when I'm less busy.

I've just gone back to the original article I mentioned and found this

"It’s also possible that individuals who have low executive functioning to begin with end up being more vulnerable to the negative effects of stress — ultimately resulting in higher rates of burnout."

which is very similar to what we were both saying.

Hi Besidethesea, I wonder this too - can we do anything to take advantage of brain plasticity that would ameliorate the aspects that we find troubling?

There are lots of psychological methods used to treat MH problems that do effective re-wiring on the brain (CBT for example) but what I don't know is how to be sure that we are doing healthy re-wiring and not re-establishing the masking patterns that contributed to burnout in the first place - the last thing I want to do is burn out again.

I found this all very interesting to read, thank you.

I had burn out because of my job last year. I've changed job, changed lifestyle and very much enjoy where I work. But here I am a year later and I am in tears every day and have a meltdown (akin to an adult tantrum coupled with really angry thoughts which come out of nowhere) every few months. I'm exhausted from it and don't know how to move forward. I can think of a few other times in my life I've been at this stage and each time has been linked with a significant event..a series illness, bullying at work, family upheaval. I want s break from myself.

So my question is, do we have to weather the storms or can something neurological be done? Not medication but training our brain to work differently?

I don't want to be without my ASD. I'm good friends with it. It helps me do really amazing things. But there are a couple of bits which I could do without and this is one of them. Anyone successfully coached themselves out of meltdowns? Or experienced bouts of crying for an extended time and manahed the episodes?

Thank you for reading.

Hi Out_of_step, sorry to hear about that. If it helps you decide whether it's burnout or not, the thing that stood out for me against all previous episodes of depression / stress / sick leave was that I suddenly no longer cared what happened to me. I gave up any idea of needing to preserve anything in my life - all of the fight had gone out of me.

I didn't struggle with physical symptoms, it was all mental for me. But that won't be the same for everyone.

Thanks for the article, I found it quite informative.  I'm currently off work with anxiety but it's been brewing for ages, I'm wondering if I am burnt out. The physical symptoms which I've had for the past year I've only realised this past month are my body crying out "stop". I know my body is going to take a while to recover.  I think i get the bit about "thousands of disappointments" in that it's all the little things which cumulate together to cause one big ball. One thing which rang bells for me was the bit about changing your circumstances after recovery and listening to your body so it doesn't happen again.

Wow that's lot of references! Thanks Kitsun :-) I will get reading ...........

You came to a similar conclusion to where I was vaguely going. Alongside my other post today, I am realising that my EF is easily overstretched, and that's probably precisely the brain function that I've been desperately trying to use for 20 years or so in masking.......

This is a really interesting article, largely because of the overlap of brain structures involved in Burnout and Autism.

Your article suggests that people suffering from burnout will have more pronounced thinning of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex, beyond what is expected due to the normal aging process. As well as larger Amygdala and shrinking in the Caudate Nucleus.

To summarise the brain structures and their function that are involved in both:

Various articles implicate the involvement of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex in decision making and memory and the ability to retrieve the best action or emotional response to specific events at a particular place and time (1). The Amygdala is responsible for the reactions to stimuli that elicit the emotion of fear. If the Amygdala is damaged or removed then the feeling of fear and thus the response to it is either severely impaired or completely removed (2). The Caudate Nucleus is thought to be involved in the storing and processing of memories and the use of information about past experiences to influence future actions and decisions. It is implied that it also plays a large part in the development and use of language and communication skills (3). Not only that but there are also studies that show evidence for a role of the Caudate Nucleus in OCD suggesting that if the Nucleus is unable to control the transmission of worrying and concerning impulses between the Thalamus and the Orbitofrontal Cortex this then alters the impact and influence of the stored memories about how to respond in a certain situation which then has a knock on effect on decisions and actions in response to certain stimuli (4). 

With regards to Autism. Studies suggest that the different functioning in the Medial Prefrontal Cortex causes many of the behavioural difficulties in ASD due to differences in processing and integrating information from the fields of perception, memory, emotion and motor (5). There is a wealth of studies that see the Amygdala dysfunction as having a central role in the main symptoms of Autism due to the role it plays in social functioning and social behaviours (6, 7, 8, 9). There have also been found to be some abnormalities of the Caudate Nucleus in Autism, especially with regards to it's connections with other parts of the brain. This has been shown by some studies to influence stereotypical behaviours and executive function (10, 11).

Thus, in conclusion it would appear to be the case that the very parts of the human brain which are found to be affected by stress related burnout are also some of those that whose function is impaired in Autistic individuals. It could therefore be suggested that Autistic individuals are at a much higher risk of burnout, due to differences in their underlying neurological functional anatomy as compared to non-Autistic individuals.

I wonder if they thought to run the ADOS on the participants in the study that you cited? Just a thought....

1.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3562704/

2. https://nba.uth.tmc.edu/neuroscience/m/s4/chapter06.html

3. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301008208001019

4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3079445/

5. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00074/full (also links on here to lots of other really good papers)

6.. https://www.sfari.org/funded-project/amygdala-circuitry-of-impaired-social-emotional-behavior-in-autism/

7. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170207142714.htm

8. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5192959/

9. https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13421

10. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1635430/

11. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187892931530013X

Please see also:

12. https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/25/6/1554/300206

13. www.frontiersin.org/.../full

Right that's me done for the day with scientific research! Thank you for the distraction :-)

I've noticed that every few years things simply become unsustainable and feel overwhelming.  In the workplace I've had to take time off or leave altogether.  Then it takes me a long tome to put myself back together again.  i only recently started to see it as burnout, more specifically autistic burnout, but looking at it like that does make a lot more sense.  If i'd known beforehand I could have made allowances in advance and some of the jobs I took i never would have taken on in the first place.  Now i could look at them and see instantly, "This is sure to lead to burnout."

There have been major and medium sized disappointments along the way, many of which still cling to me, but these were always firmly in my awareness.  It's the tiny disappointments that I haven't really considered so much but i think these probably eroded me to the point where the larger ones could just simply bowl me out.  I had nothing left to give.   

I can relate to the bit you quoted too, though for me it was more along the lines of hundreds of medium-sized disappointments :-). i.e. fewer but larger than the quote suggests.

I had high stress levels from somewhere around the end of my teens until my burnout switched everything off. Since then I'm doing better with stress.

How was your experience? Have you experienced what you'd describe as burnout?

Brain science fascinates me and I'm partly looking for clues as to things that I can do to help myself recover further other than "keep going and keep trying (harder)".

I'm also beginning to get a bit passionate about the fact that the experts on burnout seem to be the sufferers themselves give or take - Occ Health departments and general media awareness has caught up with championing general mental health, correcting false beliefs around depression and anxiety, but there seem to be few places to turn to for expertise in treating (& even better, preventing) burnout.

Many thanks.  Really interesting.   I've long thought that my amygdalae might be enlarged and I've always had quite high stress levels, from primary school onwards.  Plus certainly my experience of life (and the workplace especially) has involved "“the accumulation of hundreds or thousands of tiny disappointments, each one hardly noticeable on its own.”