Stress and burnout

The word means something different here

If you have moved to Denmark, this is worth knowing: Danes use stress to describe a recognised condition, not just a busy week. Being sygemeldt med stress — signed off sick with stress — is common, accepted, and not career-ending in the way it might be where you come from. Colleagues will not think less of you. Many of them have done it.

How to tell it apart from being busy

Busy passes when the deadline does. Stress does not. The markers we look for:

• Cognition goes first. You reread the same paragraph. You forget names of people you know well. Decisions that used to take a second take an afternoon.
• Sleep breaks in a particular way. You fall asleep exhausted and wake at three, fully alert, with your chest tight.
• The body joins in. Headaches, stomach trouble, palpitations, infections that keep coming back.
• You stop caring, then feel ashamed of not caring. That combination is the clearest signal of all.

What actually helps — and what does not

Rest alone does not fix it. People take three weeks off, feel better, return, and collapse within a fortnight. Rest is necessary, but it is only the first of three parts:

1. Recovery. Genuine rest, and enough of it. This takes longer than anyone expects — weeks, not days.
2. Understanding what took you there. Almost never the workload alone. Usually something about how you handle demands: an inability to disappoint people, a standard nobody set but you, a job you have outgrown and cannot admit it.
3. Returning differently. A graded return, with something changed. Going back to exactly what broke you is how second episodes happen — and second episodes are worse.

The second part is where therapy earns its place. It is also the part people skip.

Sick leave, practically

Your GP signs you off — psychologists cannot. If you are off for more than a few weeks your employer may ask for a mulighedserklæring, a form completed with your doctor about what you can and cannot do. Your employer is not entitled to know your diagnosis or what you discuss with us. Nothing goes from us to your workplace without your written consent.

When it is not stress

Sometimes what is called burnout is depression, and sometimes it is a long-standing anxiety problem that finally ran out of room. The treatment differs, so it is worth getting right. We will tell you what we think after a couple of sessions.

Paying for it

Work-related stress is one of the things employer health insurance most often covers. If you have insurance through your job, check before you pay yourself — see insurance and reimbursement.