Millennials are burned out, baby.
Ninety-six percent say burnout affects their everyday life, according to a survey of 2,059 Millennials by psychiatric and trauma recovery center Yellowbrick.
Burnout hadn’t been recognized by any organization until May, when the World Health Organization classified it as a strictly work-related “syndrome… resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”
The bulk of Millennial respondents said they felt mental exhaustion either daily (29%) to multiple times per week (28%). And 31% claimed to be physically exhausted daily, while 29% felt it many times over the week.
Burnout seems to be holding back Millennials from living their best lives, performing their best at work, and even performing their civic duties.
- 78% say burnout has prevented them from socializing
- 53% have missed work due to burnout
- 32% have missed paying bills due to burnout
- 24% didn’t vote due to burnout
And two-thirds agree both that their life is more stressful than the average person’s and more stressful than previous generations.
At the workplace, 62% of Millennials say they feel they always need to be available via email or Slack, and 63% feel pressure to have the “perfect” job. Nearly half (48%) identify as a workaholic.
And they’re putting in the hours:
…and they’re coping with those hours by zoning out in a variety of ways.
- 16% watch Netflix/Hulu/TV
- 10% sleep to escape
- 10% exercise
- 9% drink alcohol
- 8% use drugs (of this percentage, 68% use marijuana)
- 8% meditate
- 7% surf the Internet
It’s interesting to see that almost twice as many Millennials would rather binge-watch TV than drink. They’ve already been pegged as the generation that takes less pleasure in drinking.
It sounds like Millennials are at their breaking point: 60% of respondents say they are either planning or considering making a major lifestyle change within the next year to reduce their burnout symptoms.
Originally published on The Ladders.
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