How to Beat Job Burnout
Studies show burnout is real, on the rise and hitting women the hardest. We went to an expert for advice on how to cope.
Dr. Seema Parmar has two tells when she’s beginning to burn out. First, she starts cancelling plans with friends. And second, she clocks a shift in her attitude toward her kids. “If I start feeling disconnected from my friends or get irritable when I know my child wants my time, I’ve learned these are signs that I’m tipping into burnout.”
The World Health Organization defines job burnout as a state of emotional, physical and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress at work. Dr. Parmar, senior director of global corporate advisory services at Cleveland Clinic Canada, says burnout typically manifests when people chronically feel a high sense of responsibility, but low control.
“This disproportionately affects women,” she says, especially women in the “sandwich generation” who are caring for both children and aging parents. “Women tend to have more domestic responsibilities and the unseen mental labour of handling a household, kids and their parents along with their careers,” she says.
A 2024 report from Infinite Potential, which surveyed more than 2,000 people worldwide, found that 42 percent of the women reported feeling burnt out, an increase from 38 percent the year prior. By comparison, fewer men and nonbinary folks reported feelings of burnout year over year.
Dr. Parmar says that burnout can cause social, mental, emotional and physical symptoms, and that it can look different for everyone: one person might feel intense exhaustion while another might suffer from insomnia.
All this burnout isn’t just causing employees significant distress — it’s costing employers. A February 2025 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine estimates that employee burnout in the U.S. costs up to $21,000 USD per worker per year.
And a 2023 survey by The Prosperity Project reported that more than 71 percent of Canadians have considered quitting their jobs due to burnout or stress (32 percent of those surveyed actually quit). The research, which called burnout “the biggest threat to the Canadian economy,” found that women were more likely than men to abandon their careers because of burnout.
“It’s not the people who can’t cut it who get burnt out; it’s the people who take everything on,” says Dr. Parmar. “Perfectionism, high empathy, people-pleasing — these tend to be things that women have to navigate as high performers.” And when these factors intersect with personal stressors, such as caring for two generations or dealing with health challenges, women are increasingly deciding that enough is enough.
But you can come back from burnout, she says, and even prevent it from happening in the first place. Here’s how.
1. Build a support system — and know when to ask them for help
“Find your people,” Dr. Parmar says, noting this is especially crucial for women who find themselves both caregivers and fixers. “Women are usually the ones helping and not the ones being helped,” she says, adding that she sees this phenomenon play out at work as well as in women’s personal lives.
Your support system, Dr. Parmar says, should be people who you can turn to for help, even when you’re not sure exactly what you need. “It might be your mom, it might be your best friend, it might be your partner, but having a few people to whom you can just say, ‘I need help’ without having to project manage your own support is important.”
To identify people in your work orbit who can go from colleague to confidante, Dr. Parmar says it comes down to trust. “For me, it’s ‘do I lean on them in my most vulnerable times?' If I can go to someone and say, ‘I'm going through this right now. I could really use support,’ then they’re one of my people.”
2. Take control of how you spend your time
Agency plays a big role in managing burnout, Dr. Parmar says. “A lot of women who are exceptionally high performers, at home and at work, are at greater risk for burnout not because of their lack of capacity, but because of their increased capacity rate. So, it becomes really important to advocate for yourself.”
Exercising agency or choice can mean deciding how you spend your time by setting boundaries. “If you prioritize your time, it becomes a lot easier,” she says. “Often, it's not about saying ‘no’ to one thing, it's about saying ‘yes’ to something else.” This could mean accepting an invitation to a book club with friends instead of joining a workplace bowling league on the same night. “Ultimately, it's about asking yourself: are you spending your time on things that are meaningful to you?"
One way to have agency is to prioritize your health and wellbeing. Women tend to neglect their own self-care, but taking the time to be proactive about your health can not only help you cope with symptoms of burnout, it can also help prevent it. This might mean blocking time in your schedule for a physical activity that you enjoy, or it could mean taking the time to book the appointments you've been putting off. Dr. Parmar says that keeping on top of your health in general can help you spot when something might be amiss and get ahead of it, thus avoiding further stress that could compound your burnout.
3. Be communicative and flexible at work
Dr. Parmar says that regardless of what side of burnout you’re on — whether you’re a team member who’s on the brink of a breakdown or a manager who has team members in need of support — communication is key. For managers, she stresses the importance of listening and offering compassion. “You don't have to be the person who knows everything,” she says. It’s about listening, asking questions, being transparent. Those parts of effective communication help you build trust, and they help you actually get to better solutions for your team.”
Getting comfortable with uncertainty can also help managers support staffers through burnout. “We’re in a world that’s being continually disrupted, and a feeling of stability has really been eroded for a lot of people," Dr. Parmar says. "There's a lot of uncertainty.” Creating a greater sense of stability at work requires some flexibility. It might mean re-allocating resources or responsibilities if a team member is struggling, or reasonably accommodating people when they need it.
4. Take time to recover and establish healthy new habits
Healing from a bout of burnout is a journey and doesn’t necessarily come with a clear end point, Dr. Parmar says. “It takes time to recover from burnout because you have to develop new habits and you may not know what it is that you need at the start.”
She recommends identifying and replacing unhealthy coping mechanisms with more positive habits. “Look at what it is that you're using as a coping mechanism and whether it’s ‘refueling your tank,’” she says. Less than ideal: substance use, social media doom scrolling, online shopping and binge watching.
Figuring out what you need, and establishing healthy new habits around those needs, can take a lot of experimentation. “It might be exercise for you, it might be time with friends for me. It's the habits and mindsets that get sustained in the long run that really help you.”
5. Don’t be afraid to ask for help
There are times when support from your inner circle isn’t enough. The best time to ask for professional help is before you reach a crisis point, Dr. Parmar says. “You don't have to get to rock bottom to see a psychiatrist. There are therapy options. There are counseling options. There are many different ways to get the support you need.” One place to start is by looking at the resources available to you at work. Some employers have mental health educational resources like webinars or trainings to help manage workplace stress, or they might have Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) through which staff can access confidential mental health assessments or short-term counselling.
Ultimately, Dr. Parmar says the best way to beat burnout is to take control: set yourself up with a strong support system, establish boundaries around how you spend your time, and focus on creating healthy habits that can help prevent it from happening in the first place. “There are things we can all do to not feel like we’re at the mercy of what's happening to us.”
