ADHD burnout is a state of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion caused by the constant stress and challenges associated with managing ADHD symptoms. It occurs when individuals with ADHD feel overwhelmed by their responsibilities and struggle to cope with the demands of daily life.
The persistent effort to manage time, stay organized, regulate emotions, and maintain focus can lead to a depletion of energy and motivation. As a result, people with ADHD may experience increased anxiety, depression, and a sense of hopelessness.
Burnout can manifest in various aspects of life, including work, school, and personal relationships, making it difficult for individuals to function at their best.
Signs of ADHD burnout
The signs of ADHD burnout may look and feel like an increase in the severity of ADHD symptoms. It may also look similar to the signs associated with depression, as individuals may become more sad, unmotivated, and apathetic.
Below are some of the common signs of ADHD burnout:
- Overwhelming feelings of exhaustion and fatigue
- Decreased motivation and drive to complete tasks
- Difficulty concentrating and increased distractibility
- Lowered productivity and poorer performance at work or school
- Increased procrastination and avoidance of responsibilities
- Heightened irritability and frequent mood swings
- Feelings of guilt, inadequacy, and low self-esteem
- Emotional detachment, numbness, or apathy
- Physical symptoms such as headaches, muscle tension, or digestive issues
- Changes in appetite, sleep patterns, or substance use
- Anxiety and depression
- Thoughts of escaping or running away from obligations
David Greenwood, ADHD author of the book Overcoming Distractions: Thriving with Adult ADD/ADHD describes how burnout can cause sleep anxiety:
“Our sleep even gets worse… Not only less, but worse… I just would rehearse potential bad things at two in the morning and how I was going to deal with them.”
David goes on to explain that one of the red flags that may indicate someone is entering a burnout is a loss of interest in something that is usually enjoyed, whether that be a hobby, job, or any activity.
He explains that you may know that you still love that thing in your mind, but now your feelings are disconnected from it.
What causes ADHD burnout?
The signs of ADHD burnout may depend on what is causing the burnout. Below are some possible reasons why someone may be experiencing burnout.
Overcompensating
Overcompensation involves relentlessly trying to please others and meet expectations, even at the cost of personal well-being.
This need to constantly prove oneself can result in overexertion and burnout, as ADHDers push themselves beyond their limits in an attempt to counter deeply ingrained negative self-perceptions.
They may compulsively strive to prove their worth and make up for perceived shortcomings such as being lazy or intelligent (these labels may also be perpetuated by others).
This overcompensating can look like trying to be neurotypical, known as “ADHD masking.“
Skye Rapson, an ADHD coach, explains how she overcompensates by trying to meet the unspoken expectations she has built up in her head, such as the notion that she is not reaching her potential despite already working hard.
She pushes herself to work weekends, assuming everyone else is doing the same without saying anything, in an attempt to hide her struggles and mask her ADHD symptoms, ultimately leading to burnout.
Overcommitting
Overcommitting is another common challenge for individuals with ADHD that can lead to burnout. Due to difficulties with time management, organization, and impulsivity, ADHDers may take on too many tasks or responsibilities without considering their own limitations or the time required to complete them.
For example, an adult with ADHD might agree to attend multiple social events in a single week, such as dinner parties, birthday celebrations, and community gatherings, while also promising to help friends with various projects like moving or renovating their homes.
This overcommitment stems from a desire to maintain friendships and avoid disappointing others, but it can quickly lead to feeling overwhelmed and unable to follow through on all of their commitments.
As the individual struggles to keep up with their packed social schedule and faces the consequences of overextending themselves, they may experience increased stress, anxiety, and feelings of guilt for letting others down.
This can strain relationships and contribute to social burnout, ultimately leading to a sense of exhaustion and a need to withdraw from social interactions to recharge.
Difficulty managing time and keeping organized
Challenges with time management and organization, linked to executive function deficits, can significantly contribute to ADHD burnout.
For example, a student with ADHD may have difficulty prioritizing tasks, meeting deadlines, completing homework on time, and managing their study time efficiently. As a result, they may experience a sense of being overwhelmed and unable to cope with demands.
These feelings can occur daily and, over time, make individuals more susceptible to burnout because they have fewer mental resources to cope with their stress.
Emotional dysregulation
When faced with overwhelming situations, individuals with ADHD may experience heightened stress and emotional intensity, leading to mood swings and impulsivity.
For example, when faced with a challenging work project, someone with ADHD may become increasingly frustrated and impulsively snap at people or want to give up.
As the situation persists, their ability to self-regulate emotions diminishes, depleting their coping resources and resulting in exhaustion and helplessness.
This can trigger a “shutdown” response, where the person withdraws from the task or situation to protect themselves from further emotional turmoil.
This overwhelming cycle can become repetitive, affecting daily functioning, work, school, and relationships, ultimately leading to burnout.
Procrastination
Procrastination is a common problem for people with ADHD. They often struggle with organizing, prioritizing, and controlling impulses, making it hard to start and finish tasks on time. This leads to last-minute rushes or forgetting to do important things altogether.
When procrastination becomes a long-term issue, it can seriously affect someone’s work, school, money, and relationships. Repeatedly failing to complete tasks can make people with ADHD feel depressed, anxious, ashamed, and self-critical.
Procrastination can have a negative impact on all parts of life for someone with ADHD, making their overall well-being and happiness worse. This ongoing struggle can eventually result in burnout.
Hyperfocus
Kristen Carder, an ADHD expert, explains that while hyperfocus may seem like a positive aspect of ADHD, it can actually contribute to burnout.
Hyperfocus is the ability to intensely concentrate on a task of interest, often to the exclusion of everything else.
However, as Carder points out, individuals with ADHD cannot control when they hyperfocus or easily switch it off. This can lead to neglecting important responsibilities, such as family obligations or self-care.
Moreover, hyperfocus often occurs after a period of procrastination, resulting in a frenzied attempt to complete the task.
The aftermath of hyperfocus can leave individuals with ADHD feeling emotionally and mentally drained for days.
Carder emphasizes that the inability to regulate hyperfocus and its potential to disrupt daily life can be debilitating, ultimately contributing to burnout in those with ADHD.
Undiagnosed ADHD
It is possible that those with undiagnosed ADHD may experience more frequent burnouts than those with a diagnosis.
Without an understanding that poor concentration, inattentiveness, and inability to adapt to complex job requirements are a result of ADHD, these individuals may continue to feel frustrated and stressed, resulting in more burnouts.
Skye Rapson explains how, without an understanding that you may have ADHD, you may be stuck in a cycle of burning out and quitting jobs because ‘this career just isn’t for me – I think I need to go find a completely different career,’ but then you end up going through the same cycle at another job.
In contrast, individuals with diagnosed ADHD who receive proper treatment, such as stimulant medication and therapy, as well as workplace accommodations, may be able to manage their symptoms more effectively.
This timely intervention could help prevent or alleviate burnout syndrome by addressing the underlying ADHD-related challenges.
ADHD burnout cycle
The overwhelm-shutdown cycle is an emotional and behavioral pattern that individuals with ADHD may experience. The stages of this cycle can be described as follows:
- Initial Overwhelm: When faced with a demanding task or situation, such as a challenging project, a tight deadline, or a socially stressful event, the individual may feel overwhelmed. This can trigger heightened feelings of stress, anxiety, or frustration as they perceive the demands to be too great.
- Escalating Stress: As the overwhelming situation persists, the individual’s stress levels and emotional intensity continue to rise.
- Difficulty focusing, procrastination, and impulsivity: The individual may have trouble concentrating on the task at hand, leading to procrastination. They may also act impulsively as a way to cope with the mounting stress. Challenges in regulating emotions and maintaining a sense of control. This heightened emotional state can result in mood swings and further emotional dysregulation.
- Depleting Coping Resources: As the stress and emotional intensity persist, the individual’s ability to cope and self-regulate diminishes.
- Exhaustion and burnout: The individual may feel physically and emotionally drained, lacking the energy to tackle the overwhelming situation. They may experience a sense of helplessness and hopelessness.
- Shutdown Response: In response to the overwhelming and emotionally charged situation, the individual may enter a “shutdown” phase. This can manifest as disengagement, avoidance, or withdrawal from the task or situation. The person may become uncommunicative or completely avoid the task as a coping mechanism to protect themselves from further emotional distress.
It’s important to recognize that this cycle can be challenging for individuals with ADHD to break, as the overwhelm and subsequent shutdown can reinforce feelings of inadequacy and make it harder to approach similar situations in the future.
ADHD burnout recovery and prevention
It can be difficult to leave a burnout state if you are already experiencing ADHD burnout, so prevention is often better. However, there are some ways in which to soothe a burnout so that recovery is quicker and the burnout is not extended.
Below are some ways in which to prevent and recover from ADHD burnout:
- Set your own expectations: Rather than trying to keep up with what is expected from society, try to identify what is important to you and what your individual goals are, even if this means you are ‘doing less’ than others.
- Allow yourself to take breaks: Schedule regular breaks, such as taking a 5-minute break after every hour of work, using your allocated vacation days, and making the most of your downtime after work or school.
- Try out organizational tips: Create a weekly plan for tasks you can reasonably achieve, prioritize tasks, and focus on one task at a time, limiting distractions.
- Be kinder on yourself: Allow yourself to make mistakes. Understand that you may need extra support to complete some tasks and that is ok. Consider how you would comfort a friend who was in a similar situation.
- Unmask your ADHD: Slowly be more authentic around people you trust. Be more honest if you know that you will need extra accommodations at work or more alone time after socializing.
- Support networks: Ask for help if you need it, and reach out to close friends or family either when or before burnout hits.
- Practice self-care: Allow time to do calming activities that help to recharge your batteries without the pressure to make this time ‘productive.’ Go for long walks in nature, sleep-in, take a long bath, or engage in your hobbies.
- Set boundaries: Practice saying ‘no’ to extra demands before you reach a burnout. You do not have to give a reason for setting your own boundaries to protect your mental health.
- Allow yourself more time: If you know that it will take you a week to complete a task, then make sure you give yourself more than a week to account for any unexpected hurdles.
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References
Tenev, V. (2024). Undiagnosed ADHD and Burnout Syndrome–is Untreated ADHD A Risk Factor for Burnout Syndrome. Inf J Neuropsy Beh Sci, 5(1), 1-2.
Turjeman-Levi, Y., Itzchakov, G., & Engel-Yeger, B. (2024). Executive function deficits mediate the relationship between employees’ ADHD and job burnout. AIMS Public Health, 11(1), 294. https://doi.org/10.3934/publichealth.2024015
