Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Extinguishing burnout

Nature Energy volume 7, page 1111 (2022)Cite this article

Subjects

Lyndsey McMillon-Brown explores how to recognize burnout and actions that can be taken to prevent it in ourselves and our colleagues.

You are likely burnt out. Burnout is a negative state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion accompanied by decreased motivation, lowered performance and negative attitudes towards oneself and others. Burnout is caused by excessive stress and an inability to cope with it. Burnout results when the balance of working hours, deadlines, demands, and other stressors outweigh rewards, recognition, and relaxation. The fast pace of research and development in the energy field generates the perfect storm for burnout.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, John H. Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Lyndsey McMillon-Brown

Authors
  1. Lyndsey McMillon-Brown
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lyndsey McMillon-Brown.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

McMillon-Brown, L. Extinguishing burnout. Nat Energy 7, 1111 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-022-01168-6

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-022-01168-6

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing