Arianna Huffington Has a Plan to Fight the Burnout Epidemic
Five Minutes with the Thrive Global founder on the danger of being always on and why our health affects our productivity.
When Arianna Huffington collapsed from burnout and exhaustion in 2007, she hit her head on her desk and broke her cheekbone. That’s when she began to realize that burnout wasn’t just a problem she was having, but, she says, a global epidemic. “It was based on this collective delusion that in order to succeed, in order to perform at our best, we have to be always on,” she said. “And the science makes it very clear that the human operating system is very different than machines.”
The phenomenon is coming even more to light since the pandemic with the Great Resignation, quiet quitting and trials of a four-day workweek — some of which found that people used the extra time to sleep. More than 40% of people with desk jobs felt burned out at work, according to a survey released earlier this year from the Future Forum, a research consortium backed by Salesforce Inc.’s Slack Technologies. And in a report last year, the US Surgeon General said it’s up to bosses to create more supportive environments, rather than expecting employees to take on the burden of establishing boundaries — which can often backfire, especially for workers from underrepresented backgrounds.