Burnout: long hours, exercise and the point at which to get help

Three questions taken from the definition

The WHO wording can be turned into three questions you can ask yourself on a Sunday evening. They are not a test, and no score comes out of them. They simply make the definition concrete.

1. Energy. Do I wake up tired after a normal night, and does the tiredness last through weekends?
2. Distance. Have I started to feel detached or cynical about work I used to care about?
3. Efficacy. Do I feel less capable, and do tasks that once took an hour now take an afternoon?

One yes in a hard month is ordinary. Several, lasting for weeks, deserve attention and a conversation with a doctor or an occupational health professional. The definition also matters for what it excludes. Burnout refers to work. Exhaustion from caring for a sick parent, or low mood with no link to the job, calls for a different conversation.

What 55 hours a week costs

The numbers behind long hours come from a joint WHO and ILO analysis published in 2021. In 2016, Pega and colleagues estimated, 488 million people, 8.9% of the world's population, worked 55 hours a week or more. The resulting deaths were split between 398,000 from stroke and 347,000 from heart disease.

Two systematic reviews carry those estimates.

• Heart disease: Li and colleagues found that working 55 hours or more was associated with a 13% higher risk of developing ischaemic heart disease and a 17% higher risk of dying from it, with evidence of moderate quality.
• Stroke: Descatha and colleagues found a 35% higher risk of having a stroke. The effect on dying from stroke was uncertain.

All the hours in these studies were self-reported, and the studies were observational. They describe risk across populations, not what will happen to one person. They also give no safe number below 55: between 41 and 54 hours, the evidence was uncertain.

Where executives sit against the line

The UAE Labour Law sets normal private-sector hours at 8 a day or 48 a week, with overtime capped at 2 hours a day and hours cut by 2 a day during Ramadan. Founders and senior executives are often outside that frame in practice, so 48 hours is not a limit that binds them. It is still a useful reference for what the law treats as a normal working week.

Many people who run companies pass 55 hours without counting. The calculator asks you to count: e-mail at 11 pm and calls on a Saturday are working hours. If your total sits above 55 most weeks, the WHO estimates apply to you, whatever your title.

What exercise can do, and what it cannot

The research on exercise and burnout does not agree with itself.

• A systematic review by Naczenski and colleagues found that physical activity was associated with less exhaustion, the core of burnout. Most of the studies were of low quality.
• A meta-analysis of randomised trials by Ochentel and colleagues found no clear effect of exercise therapy in people with burnout.

So exercise is a reasonable part of looking after yourself under load, and it is not a treatment. WHO's 2022 guidelines on mental health at work say that leisure-time physical activity, such as strength training, aerobic training, walking or yoga, may be considered for workers to improve mental health and work ability. The phrase is careful, and it should be read that way.

The risk for high achievers is to turn training into one more performance target. Adding hard sessions to a 65-hour week can deepen the exhaustion it was meant to relieve. In a heavy period, keep the habit and lower the intensity: walks, easy cycling, short strength sessions with moderate loads. How to scale sessions on hard weeks is covered in exercise and stress, and how to protect the habit itself in mental load and training.

Sleep and activity: the two protective floors

The calculator uses two further reference points. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society recommend 7 hours or more a night on a regular basis. WHO recommends 150 to 300 minutes of moderate activity a week, or 75 to 150 of vigorous activity, with strength work on two days or more.

Neither will cancel out an unmanageable job. Both are things you can protect this week, while the larger questions take longer. Sleep usually goes first when hours rise, so protect it before adding training. Sleep for executives sets out the habits with the most weight.

Work is part of the answer

WHO's guidance does not place the whole burden on the individual. For the first time, its 2022 guidelines recommend training managers to prevent stressful work environments and to respond to workers in distress. It also lists stress-management training based on mindfulness or cognitive behavioural approaches.

For a chief executive, that cuts both ways. Your own hours set the tone for the people around you, and the culture you build is one of the few levers that changes the cause rather than the symptoms. Delegating, closing the inbox at a fixed hour and refusing late meetings are organisational measures, not signs of weakness. The guide on exercise and business performance looks at the wider link between health and output.

When to stop and get help

If you feel exhausted, detached or unable to function for weeks, see a doctor or an occupational health professional. If you have thoughts of harming yourself, seek urgent help now, through your local emergency number.

Persistent exhaustion can also have causes that have nothing to do with work, and only an examination can rule them out. That is one more reason not to answer it with a new training plan alone.

Coming back gently

After a period of burnout, return to training slowly and without targets. Walking outdoors, mobility work and light strength sessions are a reasonable start, built up over weeks as energy allows and with your doctor's agreement. The aim of the first month is regularity, not progress.

A coach can carry the planning so that training stops being one more decision. The coaches of the Club adjust each session to the state you arrive in, and the report afterwards records what was done. You can open your space with one email, and start when the time is right.