Statistics agree: today's society demands too much, too much and more. And the result is no surprise: companies are gradually seeing more and more employees taking sick leave. Medical certificates are piling up with the recurring reason: exhaustion or more commonly burn out. Even mothers are affected and recognized by this malaise which makes them "at the end" by the number of tasks they must support and endure daily. The demands are increasing but our nervous and emotional system is stable.

Burn out is finally recognized as an illness.

Of course, the causes are real, deep and the sufferer undergoes awful moments of life that he or she would like to be able to erase, but the burn out has a very real meaning. When we fall into the meanders of nervous and emotional disorders, we forget a little everything around us and very often, when we are alone to get out of it, we forget to take stock, to dig to find the fault that has sunk us so deep.

You've probably heard the common expression "burning the candle at both ends"? And if one were to give an emotional definition to burn out, this would be it. A person can only go so deep into such extremes of life. Very often the individual who sees his energy diminish to this point has been at the end of himself, he has been trapped in a kind of exhausting and blinding spiral. This exhaustion can occur in many areas. The professional environment is often put forward, but it is not uncommon to see a burn out triggered in the family, friends or personal environment. There are no rules, exhaustion is inscribed in us because we have not been able to meet a certain ideal. As a result of drawing on our reserves to achieve perfection and devotion, the body gives out and gets sick.

Depression is not a burn out and vice versa.

Amalgams can be made, definitional problems can be put forward, but a depression is not comparable with a burn out. It is important to be able to separate the two.

While burn out occurs as a result of being under pressure, depression is not the result of exhaustion. The nervous breakdown is a pathology where emotions are brought to the forefront with a feeling of devaluation or guilt. The depressed person eats himself totally from the inside, he mopes, he feels miserable, deplorable even detestable. While the person who suffers from burn out tries at all costs to get his head above water from his pressure situation, the one who suffers from depression has the difficulty to exist in the present moment. He fights against the past and runs away from this future which frightens him to the highest point. Moving forward in life is a complicated stage where desires and wishes are erased by this resignation of emotions.

What about depression?

Finally, the low mood is, contrary to depression, of short duration and could be defined as a depressive state that plunges us into a deep lassitude and discouragement. Very often the periods most conducive to this kind of malaise are the fall and winter when we suffer from so-called seasonal depression. A lack of brightness brings out the dark sides of our personality as well as the complicated situations we live and therefore the problems seem to have no way out. Life is therefore seen as a glass half empty, in a very negative and dark way. This condition does not require any medical treatment and very often the situation recovers by itself after a few days.

Source: The Great Dictionary of Discomforts and Diseases by Jacques Martel