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Sharon remembers a time, not too long ago, when her alarm clock would ring and she’d leap out of bead. “My job was invigorating,” says the thirty-three-year old marketing manager for a five-star Makati hotel. “I felt challenged, and I was constantly learning new things about the hospitality industry.”

But having immersed herself in work—up to fourteen hours per day—for ten years, Sharon now feels bored, emotionally drained, stuck in a going-nowhere position. “I dread Monday morning,” she whines, “Because I know an entire workweek lies ahead.” Moreover, since her career has been all-consuming, her social life is non-existent. “All I ever really want to do is stay home and hibernate.”

The condition Sharon—and a legion of ambitious women like her—suffers from is called burnout, often associated with the hard-driving eighties but also extremely common today. “The number of burnout cases that come through my door has definitely increased in the last few years,” says Herbert Freudenberger, a New York City psychologist who’s been studying the phenomenon for two decades. “It’s a gradual wearing down, a depletion of one’s physical and mental resources” resulting from stress, although not always job-related. “Quite often,” notes Freudenberger, “victims have been worn out by striving to reach unrealistic expectations, many of them self-imposed.

Ann McGee-Cooper, a corporate motivational consultant and author of You Don’t Have to Go Home From Work Exhausted, agrees with the theory that many of us inadvertently inflict burnout on ourselves: “How you approach your job can make all the difference. Burning out is not always a matter of what’s happening to you but how you interpret it.”

This overpowering mental fatigue may also result from a feeling of over powerlessness, the sense that no matter how hard you toil or how competent you are, someone else controls your destiny. Most at risk are employees of companies targeted for takeover and women who’ve hit the proverbial glass ceiling. One sufferer, a middle manager at a plastics firm, is dismayed because her career has plateaued, despite her substantial accomplishments and unwavering team spirit. The company simple doesn’t promote females to its upper echelon.

THE SYMPTOMS

General malaise. “Most mornings, you wake up unexcited about life,” says McGee-Cooper. Elisa, a twenty-nine-year-old high school teacher from Greenhills, can relate: “After six years of trying to convince high school seniors that trigonometry is worth learning, I feel frazzled, uncreative, uninspired. I go through the motions, but I’m no longer passionate about anything.”

Withdrawal. Many burnout victims, says Freudenberger, tend to recoil from the very thing they need most—contact with friends and family. “I’ve stopped calling my friends just to talk,” says Rhonda, a thirty-year-old social worker. “The thing is, I spend so much time on the phone with agencies, I can’t bear another conversation after hours.”

Volatility. In the advanced stages of burnout, most people become extremely irritable, take out their anger on spouses, and overreact to minor crises at work. Carmen, a thirty-eight-year-old corporate-communications manager in Mandaluyong, admits to pouncing on subordinates with little provocation. “I criticize all the time, and I’ve probably alienated my entire department,” she says. “Even worse, my husband and kids are fed up with my moodiness.”

Desperation. “People who are burned out often talk about quitting their jobs and running away to Hawaii or someplace,” says Barbara Sher, a therapist, career counselor, and author of Live the Life You Love. But escape isn’t the solution, cautious Freudenberger: “You’d take the same burned-out person—yourself—with you wherever you were to go.”

DIVERSIONARY TACTICS

To snuff the first sparks of burnout, Sher recommends finding an activity that’ll take your mind completely off work…and she’s not suggesting you watch inane sitcoms or chug margaritas. “The key is to learn something new. You must cool down your brain so you can go back to making good decisions about your life.” As an example, Sher cites a weary stockbroker who volunteered to visit hospitalized children “and it turned out to be wonderfully rejuvenating.”

Or pursue a personal interest—pick up the musical instrument you abandoned after high school, learn to scuba dive, plant a vegetable garden, finish reading Dostoyoevsky’s The Idiot. When Tricia was slaving so hard at work she was beginning to sizzle, the Malate-based textile designer signed up for a creative-writing course. “In college, I’d always wanted to write short stories,” she says, “but I scrapped that idea because I needed to make a living. My job turned out to be incredibly demanding, and the last thing I needed when I got home was to feel pressured to think. But the kick I get from this writing class actually propels me through the rest of the week. Not that I have visions of publishing a best-seller or anything,” she adds. “I just enjoy sharing ideas with my teacher and classmates.”

Sher cautions that finding a stimulating, totally absorbing activity—one that’s a complete change of pace from your oppressive daily grind—might be difficult, but it’s definitely worth the effort. “One woman, a social worker, came to see me, and we fished around for a while before she found something that she really loved—ballroom dancing. It was so frivolous compared with her job. Even though the steps she had to learn were challenging, it really helped her relax.”

GET PUMPED

After yet another eight-hour day of tedium, the prospect of dragging yourself to a flower arranging class or a workshop in ceramics may not be appealing. “I’m sure an extracurricular interest would be good for my mental health,” say Janina, a thirty-year old suburban Atlanta law librarian, “but I’m usually too exhausted even to cook dinner, let alone drive with all that traffic.” At quitting time, Lila, a segment producer for a TV news program, also feels sapped out of stamina. “Want to know how I deal with burnout?” she asks. “I sleep.” Getting adequate rest is obviously important, yet experts say burnout sufferers often oversleep in order to escape their boredom, anxiety, depression. The perfect antidote? Physical activity! “Exercise triggers endorphins, chemicals in the brain that function like a natural opiate,” explains Liz Neporent, whose New York City-based company designs corporate fitness programs. “That’s why you generally feel happier and more relaxed after you exercise.” Working out, she adds, can also boost vigor by increasing muscular strength and reducing body fat.

To the burnout-prone, even leading a healthy lifestyle may cause undue anxiety, comments motivational consultant McGee-Cooper. “So much of the stress-management literature tells us to exercise, eat right, and do all the other things that are supposedly good for us. But the reaction from a lot of people is ‘You’re taking all the fun out of my life.’” Rather than badgering yourself to exercise, McGee-Cooper recommends thinking about having fun first, getting in shape second. “Kids don’t go out and say ‘Okay, now I have to do aerobics.’ They just run and jump and enjoy themselves. If you can find a way to exercise in that spirit, it’ll double your energy.”

A balanced diet is also important, continues McGee-Cooper, but burnout sufferers are often joy-deprived; denying themselves their favorite treats may do more harm than good. “The joy you get from a vice can actually be very healing.”

COME OUT OF HIDING

Stop turning down party invitations. Give up your recluse status, start spending time with friends and family! Julie, an overworked Manila newspaper reporter who covers local crime, felt that if she heard about one more incident of violence, she’d literally crack up. So she did the only logical thing: She took up the hobby loved by her father and grandfather—target shooting. “My dad gave me a gun for my birthday,” says Julia. “Not only do I like being outdoors and being active, but it’s also made us much closer. Now we have something to talk about.”

The goal, of course, is to communicate with other people, not simply use them as activity partners or sounding boards about your complaints about work. “Some people I know can’t even hear anyone else because they’re too busy talking about themselves,” says Monica, a thirty-six-year-old pharmaceutical sales rep from Cubao, Quezon City. After five years on the job, she admits, “I literally feel fried. To chill out, I take the spotlight off me and ask my friends a million questions about their jobs.”

While Freudenberger warns against too much introspection, he believes keeping a journal or “burnout log” can be quite helpful. “Write down what you feel is causing your burnout,” he says. Focus on the people you’ve been with your surroundings, and the time of day irritability and listlessness peak.

Theresa, a twenty-nine-year-old real-estate agent in Makati, says she found this tactic to be an incredible stress reducer. “When I’m at the office and the phone keeps ringing, customers are annoying me, and nothing seems to be going right, I bring up a file on my computer called ‘Personal’ and write down my thoughts. I don’t save what I write but the process of putting everything into words I liberating.”

TIME FOR YOU

Douse burnout, too, by taking frequent breaks. Go for a walk in the park, close your door and jog in place, groom and water the plants. Anna, who works in an Ortigas-based publication, says she spends lunch time visiting. In some busy offices, time off may be hard to negotiate, but it’s essential. Career counselors maintain that working nonstop actually lowers productivity and weakens powers of concentration.

Assigning some of your responsibilities to others is another neat time-managing trick. “I find that many people who suffer from burnout don’t delegate tasks,” says Freuderberger. “They’re either unable to trust anyone or trying to prove something to themselves.”

You must learn to say the magic word—no. Telling the boss you can’t work late because you’re rushing off to haiku class may not always be a great idea (particularly if you’re campaigning for a raise), but those on the burnout track must learn to set limits. Says Freuderberger, “Many of us tend to sacrifice self and family for money and power.”

MOVE ON

Okay, you’re faithfully attending guitar lessons and aerobics class, getting together with friends—and you feel energized, in control, happy. Congratulations, you’ve extinguished burnout! Then again, maybe you’ve done all the right things and you’re still assaulted by crushing anxiety at the same time very Sunday night.

A case of serious burnout calls for drastic measures to make work seem less like drudgery. “Sometimes,” says McGee-Cooper, “the key is to step back and ask ‘How can I make this process more efficient? How can I improve the product?’” Taking initiative, she maintains, might diminish your feelings of professional impotence.

You may also want to take on new responsibilities. Paula, a nurse-practitioner for twelve years, recalls how she transformed her job from stifling to stimulating: “I went to my boss, the head of gynecology and sold him on the idea of letting me lead a support group for women struggling with infertility. It was an opportunity to recharge my batteries, and I learned so much in the process.”

Sometimes, however, resigning from a job in which you feel intellectually and emotionally broiled may actually be the best option. “Many people who complain of burnout have personal values that are at odds with those of their companies,” says Fredudenberger. Maybe you’re a public relations specialist sick of putting the right spin on company policies that you find repugnant. Perhaps you’re a public school teacher who can’t stand the thought of spending one more day working within a rigid bureaucracy. Ethical disputes are especially common, says Freudenberger, in family businesses in which sons and daughters disagree with parents.

Ultimately, if burnout is acute—and incurable—you must reassess priorities and make sure you’re not chasing money and security at the expense of sanity. Cynthia, a thirty-six-year old copywriter, recently reached a professional and personal turning point. After toiling for twelve years on toothpaste and deodorant ads, she decided to take a risk and follow her heart by becoming a stage actress.

“My dreams are finally coming true,” enthuses Cynthia during a brief respite between auditions. Although success is hardly assured, she believes changing careers was her salvation. “My grandmother probably wouldn’t agree, but I think my mental health is much more important than a paycheck or dental insurance. I need to do something that I totally believe in, something in which I can invest not only my time but also my life.”