Stress Belongs to Life but in Excess, Increases the Risk of Burnout

At times, stress seems like a buzzword that’s used so much that we simply accept it without paying much notice. “We all have stress; just deal with it”… However, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that excess stress is a serious health problem that needs to be addressed. In this blog, I put together a few statistics and thoughts about stress, followed by a case study to demonstrate how physiological data can reveal excess stress before it becomes a serious health issue – and prompt the individual to start managing stress in a healthy, personally tailored way.  

Good and Bad Stress

Firstly, it’s important to differentiate between “good stress” (eustress) that belongs to life, helps us get things done, and can feel rewarding – and “bad stress” (distress) that typically feels overwhelming and can lead to physical and mental health problems if prolonged. The good kind of stress is like the driving force or energy that keeps us going and helps us perform at a high level, whereas the bad kind of stress keeps the body “on” (physically and mentally) even after the stressful situation is over. Bad stress consumes the body’s resources, prevents much-needed recovery, and is associated with burnout, commonly defined as a state of emotional and physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. 

• According to Mental Health UK’s Burnout Report 2025, one in three adults (34%) experience high or extreme levels of pressure or stress ‘always’ or ‘often’. 

• A global survey by McKinsey shows that 1 out of 4 employees worldwide report suffering from burnout symptoms. 

• Firstbeat Big Data shows that the percent of people who feel stressed has doubled over the last few years (Fig 1) and the percent of people who have insufficient recovery has increased (Fig. 2).  

Fig. 1. People feel more stressed; the percent of people who feel very stressed has doubled since 2020. (Based on 100.000 Firstbeat Life measurements from working-aged people in 2020-24.)

Fig. 2. The percent of people with inadequate physiological recovery is increasing. (Based on 100.000 Firstbeat Life measurements from working-aged people in 2020-24.)

Individual and Company-Level Approaches Needed

Even if we agree that we all have some stress, and that life is sometimes going to be stressful, the topic of excess stress needs to be taken seriously, both at individual level – to help people recognize heavy stress and understand the role that healthy lifestyle has in preventing stress from building up – and at company level – to address many of the root causes of excess stress and make sure they are not swept under the carpet. Real efforts need to be made to keep work demands, expectations, and schedules reasonable and support preventive approaches and healthy work habits. The costs of burnout – at human and economic level – are way too big to ignore.     

Firstbeat Life Makes Stress Personal

Firstbeat Life is a heart rate variability -based measurement, conducted in a person’s daily life over several days, focused on identifying excessive stress and seeing if recovery mechanisms are working to counterbalance the stress. The value of using this kind of objective real-life data in coaching programs is powerful because it helps the coach and the client see how the body is reacting to life and whatever stressors it includes – identifying strengths as well as challenge areas. Getting a visual on the person’s stress profile and putting it in context of their life situation and how they are feeling makes it possible to build realistic and personalized strategies to tackle stress and prevent it from building up, instead of having to rely on often unrealistic one-size-fits-all solutions.   

To further illustrate what this kind of data might look like, let’s take a look at a real-life example.  

“Always on”: Case Carla  

Carla von Herff is a 44-year-old holistic health coach from Germany, who started using Firstbeat as part of her coaching practice in the spring of 2024. She 1st tested the method on herself, to fully understand how it works. Her initial results (example in Fig. 3) were a bit of a shock for her. She thought it would look good because she took good care of herself, had a healthy lifestyle, and in general, felt well. Instead, her days had hardly any physiological recovery and she spent a large part of her sleep is nonrestorative sleep, with stress reactions prominent. She did a couple of measurements, and the results were about the same.    

When asked, she acknowledged that she was always very tired and out of energy in the evenings and felt that she wasn’t sleeping very well. She had figured it was just the way things are for a busy working mom of a 4-year-old. To be fair, the result wasn’t alarmingly bad, but if things continued like that, without recognizing that she was literally “on” so much of the time, it would start depleting her energy and resources. The problem is that people get so used to feeling like this that they no longer recognize the signs. Until they see all the RED…   

Fig. 3. A typical example (day + night) during Carla’s initial measurements. Very little recovery / restoration during the day and a lot of stress reactions during the night.

Learning to Switch Off

Carla decided to tackle the problem by paying better attention to her lifestyle and daily rhythm. She started to identify things that cause her stress (or prevent recovery during sleep) and build in activities that bring her stress level down to help her recover. She became her own coach and test subject, with regular Firstbeat Life measurements.   

After several months, she realized that she was feeling less fatigued and worn out in the evenings and felt that she was sleeping better. The physiological results started to look better, too, with bits of green showing up during the day and the sleep periods looking better (with lower heart rate and higher HRV). When asked what was more obvious – changes in daytime recovery or better sleep – she stated that it was both, or specifically the understanding that good sleep is built during the day. If we are always on (even if it’s “good, energizing on”), it can be very difficult to switch off (mind and body), and as a result, sleep is not as restorative as it could be. Over the long term, this can lead to physical and mental health challenges, such as burnout.  

Carla also realized that it was not the most obvious things that brought green moments to her days. For example, meditation initially kept showing up as stress (could be overthinking it or trying too hard), whereas a mindful playing moment with her son (sitting on the floor and playing with Legos or cars; no scrolling on the phone) in the evening showed up as green. This is the kind of process that many people go through, finding strategies that work for them and recognizing that small changes and sensible planning can improve energy and help prepare us for better sleep. Fig. 4 shows an example of one of Carla’s recent results, with good sleep recovery and periodic daytime recovery moments (green), despite it being a busy day when she was on the move a lot (indicated by the light blue color).  

Fig. 4. Carla’s sleep started to improve when she realized that good sleep is built during the day. She had some green moments during the day, which helped prepare her for sleep.

We all have different ways of dealing with stress, and different thresholds for what is good stress versus when it starts to turn bad. The key is to understand your personal sources of stress as well as your personal strategies for dealing with it  – and develop a preventive approach for dealing with stress in a healthy way.