I was recently asked to give a keynote at a symposium for women in tech. When I asked about the temperature of their organization, they had two words for me: Burned. Out.

We hear a lot about burnout, especially now. But what is it exactly? Depends on who you ask.

The World Health Organization refers to burnout as an “occupational phenomenon,” or “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”

Hallmarks include: feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, as well as feelings of negativism or cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy.

APA’s 2021 Work and Well-being Survey of 1,501 U.S. adult workers found that 79 percent of employees had experienced work-related stress in the month before the survey. Nearly 3 in 5 employees reported negative impacts of work-related stress—with 36 percent reporting cognitive weariness, 32 percent with emotional exhaustion, and 44 percent with reported physical fatigue.

Burnout is widespread—and a full-body hit. But what it isn’t is a specific diagnosis.

“Surprisingly, the DSM-5, the manual medical professionals use to diagnose mental health conditions, doesn’t recognize burnout as a “mental disorder,” says licensed psychotherapist and coach Maegan Megginson (who helps entrepreneurs redefine work, rest, and profit outside of the capitalist model). “That means there is no official diagnosis for burnout, which is wild, considering how many people suffer from burnout symptoms!”

Burnout is a complex problem, which means there is no “one” cause or entity to blame. There are many and I’ve got a lineup for you of all the culprits to be aware of—and what you can do to begin to recover from burnout. (Hint: working harder won’t help.)

How settling down as a species set us up for burnout

Burnout is a symptom of modern life, to be sure — but the roots run deep, long before the internet.

Some people suggest that Edison may be partly to blame — since the invention of the light bulb allowed us to extend our work days (and nights) and basically ignore our circadian rhythms. We no longer rose with the sun or slept when it set. But let’s not be too hard on him, after all.

Others blame the Industrial Revolution, thanks to its basic manifesto: favor profit, scale, and expansion over people, health, and natural resources (and put all the power and money into the hands of a few white dudes). I mean, we should have seen that coming.

But it may have started even before that.

In his (fabulous) book The Mismatched Human: Our Fight for a Meaningful Existence, philosopher Mark Hawkins, PhD, points to the dramatic (and in many ways, traumatic) shift from Paleolithic times, when we lived in small tribes of hunters and gatherers, to the Neolithic era 10,000 years ago, when we literally and figuratively settled down and started growing our own food and raising livestock.

This is where our sedentary lives began, and the beginning of a bitter, drawn-out divorce between humans and nature (and nature was the one to move out). With nature “out there” and us “in here,” we became distrustful strangers engaged in a centuries’ long power struggle. And we were never quite the same again.

This, Hawkins says, “set us on a path of what is called evolutionary mismatch, when our lifestyles were no longer in sync with our DNA,” he writes. “There’s nothing “natural” about burnout,” says Hawkins. “It’s a product of civilization—and inevitable given it’s out of whack with our natural hunter-gatherer instincts.”

Progress? Pshaw. For all of our efforts to dominate and bring nature to heel, this shift also gave rise to existential crisis, anxiety, and boredom, as we went from living in the moment to trying to manage—and control—the future.

After all, if you put everything you’ve got into one crop, and it fails, you’re shit out of luck. It’s no surprise that this is around the time institutionalized religion began to take root, as a way to channel our existential fears and restore the sense of power we’d lost. But that’s a whole other story.

Believing that being productive means being “good” puts us closer to burnout

We all know that anxious sense that we should be “doing” something—the result of a toxic blend of capitalism, religion, fear of boredom fed to us from an early age by parents, teachers, and bosses. We’re taught that to produce is a virtue.

“Toxic productivity says that we’re only worthwhile when we’re producing,” says Patty Lennon, speaker and author of Make Space for Magic. “If you produce, you’re good, if not, you’re bad.”

Megginson agrees. “The conditions of capitalism sink their hooks in our psyches from a very early age,” she says. “We grow up watching caregivers work endlessly. We learn to work hard to earn good grades and positive feedback. Then we enter the workforce and add money to the mix. By the time we’re adults, it’s hard to imagine a successful and happy life that doesn’t include symptoms of burnout.”

And what’s it all for? That’s the big question. Back in the Paleo days, the connection between effort and survival was quite clear. Now? Not so much (is this Powerpoint deck going to feed me today? Not really). And that disconnect leads to burnout, says Hawkins.

“Most of us are living so far beyond survival now that we need to convince ourselves that what we are doing is truly important and worth the drudgery.”

And there it is, the point of most of corporate life: The ongoing effort to convince ourselves what we’re doing is really important. To forge what is a missing link in the work/reward cycle. (Ask yourself these questions to find vision and purpose.)

What we’re lacking, says Lennon, is discernment, like a muscle we let atrophy while we’re doing everything for everyone. “Just because an opportunity to produce becomes available doesn’t mean we have to do it,” she says. “When we think we must produce at all costs, we stop defending our most precious resources: Time, money, energy.”

In her 2011 book, Fried: Why You Burn Out and How to Revive, Harvard-trained medical scientist and renowned psychologist Joan Borysenko, PhD, says it’s worth being really honest about yourself about why you’re pushing so hard. Is it about productivity (and if so, is it for its own sake?), is it because you want to do a good job or because you believe somehow that working harder makes you a better person?

Borysenko herself admits that when she gets attached to results (say, hoping her book makes the New York Times bestsellers list), “I’m setting myself up for burnout. But if I can be content to concentrate not on the results but on the value…then there’s nothing to prove.”

And while we may see all the work we’re doing as virtuous or selfless, adds Borysenko, there’s often an underlying goal: to prove our value and worth. And that is what causes the burnout. It’s one thing to have a great reputation at work. But are you willing to sacrifice your health for it?