June 21, 2022

Over the past two-plus years of pandemic-related stressors, a common sentiment has emerged across almost every sector of society: we’re tired, we’re frustrated, and we’re worn out. Across industries – and including education – unprecedented numbers of people are resigning from jobs or considering career changes, citing burnout.

But is this collective fatigue, emotional lethargy, and professional apathy so many of us are experiencing really just burnout? Or is something else going on?

This June, the Center for Mindfulness, Compassion and Resilience talked about the quickly-escalating problem of compassion fatigue with academic advisors, student support staff, and administrators with ASU’s Fulton Schools of Engineering.

Understanding compassion fatigue – including what it is and how to address it – is increasingly important in our world. RIght now, compassion fatigue itself is at epidemic levels as we struggle collectively and individually to process the losses and challenges of the past years.

What is compassion fatigue?

At its most basic, compassion fatigue is a form of emotional suffering marked by a sense of overwhelm brought on by the circumstances or grief of others.

More specifically, it refers to a state of stress and preoccupation we can feel when working or interacting with people who have been traumatized and with whom we empathize. Psychologists sometimes refer to compassion fatigue as secondary post-traumatic stress, and it can lead to avoidance of traumatized individuals or populations, persistent anxiety when in their presence, and emotional compartmentalization or disengagement.

Compassion fatigue has long been associated with employees working in the caregiving and helping industries, such as health care, social work, mental health outreach, emergency response services, and the legal profession.

In a world wracked with pandemic, civic unrest, divisiveness and political polarization, though, compassion fatigue can affect any of us. We all know someone who has suffered loss. We’ve all been challenged to feel empathy for those whose choices or politics or beliefs we may not agree with.

Signs of compassion fatigue can include nightmares, replaying of conversations or events, difficulty focusing, emotional numbness or detachment, exhaustion, and a sense of hopelessness or futility. If not addressed, compassion fatigue can lead to depression, anxiety disorders, reduced quality of relationships, and loss of purpose.

Outside of select fields where it is a recognized occupational hazard, compassion fatigue is not well known or understood, and is often dismissed as workplace burnout or the result of exhaustion or stress.

When we don’t want to get up and moving on a Monday morning or find ourselves unfocused or unmotivated at work, we shrug it off as burnout. And when our students seem distracted, inattentive or behave poorly, we attribute it to pandemic-related ennui or just being so over it.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

How does it differ from burnout?

Burnout is a psychological condition specifically associated with job-related stress, and happens when we are unable to juggle our own needs with those of our clients, patients, or staff or when the stress of our jobs bleeds over into our personal lives.

Burnout is characterized by a graduate onset of cognitive, emotional and physical exhaustion. Signs include diminished mental, emotional and behavioral health, declines in job-related motivation and satisfaction, increased cynicism and ‘checking out’, and a sense of reduced accomplishment. In other words, it can look and feel a lot like compassion fatigue.

However, compassion fatigue differs from burnout in that while burnout is associated with workplace factors, compassion fatigue can be triggered in any element of our professional or personal lives. While burnout occurs over time with the slow accumulation of stresses, compassion fatigue can be triggered by a single incident or interaction.

Most importantly, unlike burnout, compassion fatigue doesn’t fade away with changes in our workplace environment, more sleep, or a much-needed vacation. For those who have not been trained to recognize compassion fatigue as a professional or personal hazard, it can be a tricky phenomenon to deal with.

Understanding compassion fatigue – and what it is and is not – is the first step toward overcoming it.

Why do we get compassion fatigue?

Being compassionate can be hard work. It requires us to empathize  or take on the emotional resonance of someone else’s experience. If that experience is a painful or traumatic one, the second-hand experience can be emotionally exhausting. More importantly, neuroscientists say that when we share in someone else’s grief or trauma, our brains process it as if it were our own.

How do we overcome compassion fatigue?

Compassion fatigue is a stress response to stimuli our brain’s perceive as threatening. When we break the stress cycle by doing practices and activities that stimulate endorphins (our so-called 'life-is-good’ hormones), we recharge our own emotional capacity.

Specifically, doing anything that gives us positive emotions – the ‘warm fuzzies’ – can help us recharge.

With its focus on awareness of the present moment in a curious, open, and non-judging way, mindfulness can help us develop greater compassion, altruism, and gratitude – some of those ‘warm fuzzy’ generators – and in doing so provides us a way to avoid or overcome compassion fatigue.

Everyday practices

The Center for Mindfulness offers the following simple, everyday practices to students, staff, faculty and administrators when addressing compassion fatigue:

Practice compassion: 

• exercise self-compassion 
• give yourself a break: understand it’s okay to feel this way at this moment
• give someone a genuine compliment 
• practice random acts of kindness 
• do a lovingkindness meditation

Practice gratitude:

• reflect/journal on something you are grateful for each day
• tell someone something you appreciate that they do/have done
• reconnect to your why: do something that gives you a sense of purpose
• connect with others: when we feel we are in community, we produce endorphins (‘feel-good’ hormones that stand down our stress responses)

Regulate your stress response and/or mood:

• give yourself a break: social media and news consumption gives us narrative fatigue and stresses us out; maladaptive coping strategies can just cause us to stress out more
• get some physical activity or movement (it triggers ‘feel-good’ hormones)
• eat nutrient-rich foods (it helps our bodies produce ‘feel-good’ hormones)
• spend time outdoors (it triggers ‘feel-good’ hormones)
• jam out to good music, indulge in laughter (see above, above, and above)
• attend to your wellness, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally
• just breathe: deep breathing tells our amygdala we are safe and steps down the automatic stress response
• meditate or practice mindfulness: paying attention to the present moment, without judging it, accepting it as it is, focuses our attention away from worry or anxiety and therefore breaks the stress reaction cycle, allowing us to think expansively and overcome overwhelm and emotional fatigue
• jam out to good music, indulge in laughter

• attend to your wellness, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally
• just breathe: deep breathing tells our amygdala we are safe and steps down the automatic stress response
• meditate or practice mindfulness: paying attention to the present moment, without judging it, accepting it as it is, focuses our attention away from worry or anxiety and therefore breaks the stress reaction cycle, allowing us to think expansively and overcome overwhelm and emotional fatigue