Answer one question before choosing a route: would this load still be there for whoever replaced you? If yes, it is the job. If you would find extra work in a job that did not require it, it is the pattern. If you are flat and cynical rather than pulled, look at depletion first. Each answer points somewhere different, and picking the wrong door costs a year.
The test, run properly
Most people already suspect the answer and want to be told they are wrong, so run this in writing rather than in your head.
**Take last week and list the hours you worked beyond your contracted ones.** Beside each block, mark one of three letters.
- **J** if the work was assigned, expected, or would otherwise not have been done by anyone.
- **P** if you chose it, extended it, or went looking for it.
- **D** if you did it slowly and badly because you were exhausted, and it should have taken a third of the time.
Mostly J points at the job. Mostly P points at the pattern. Mostly D points at depletion. A mix is normal, and the majority letter is the door to try first.
Two supporting questions. Would a fortnight properly off feel like relief or dread? And did the last job end the same way? If the last two jobs ended the same way, the constant is worth looking at, whatever the letters say.
If it is the job
This is the answer most content skips, and for a lot of readers it is the true one. No shutdown routine fixes a workload that needs two people.
The Health and Safety Executive puts the duty in one sentence: "Employers have a legal duty to protect employees from stress at work by doing a risk assessment and acting on it." Its Management Standards give you the vocabulary, and using the employer's own words makes the conversation go better:
- **Demands**: "workload, work patterns and the work environment"
- **Control**: "how much say the person has in the way they do their work"
- **Support**: "encouragement, sponsorship and resources provided by the organisation"
- **Relationships**, **Role** and **Change**
What to do, in order. Write down which of the six is failing, with dates and examples. Take that to your manager as a workload conversation rather than a personal one. If nothing changes, use the formal route: "All employees have the legal right to request flexible working", covering hours, start and finish times, days, or where you work. And if you signed a 48-hour opt-out, know that "You can cancel your opt-out agreement whenever you want, even if it's part of your employment contract", with at least seven days' notice, or up to three months if your agreement says so.
Changing employer is a legitimate answer and it is not a failure. The thing to watch is whether you have changed employer twice already for the same reason.
If it is depletion
If the honest letter is D, the first appointment is a GP rather than a fellowship or a job board.
WHO defines burnout as an occupational phenomenon "resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed", with three dimensions: exhaustion, mental distance or cynicism about the job, and reduced professional efficacy. It states directly that burnout "is not classified as a medical condition", so a GP is not treating burnout as such. They are treating the sleep, mood, anxiety or exhaustion that comes with it, and separating it from depression, which overlaps heavily and needs different handling.
Also worth asking for: a fit note if you need one, and a workplace stress risk assessment. [Burnout or overworking, which is it](/guides/work/burnout-or-overworking-which-is-it) has the fuller version of this fork.
If it is the pattern
Then you have three routes, and they ask genuinely different things of you.
Workaholics Anonymous
A twelve-step fellowship whose members, in its own description, "recover together from overwork, activity addiction, work avoidance, burnout, and more". Meetings are free, mostly online, and there is no professional in the room.
**What it asks:** attending meetings, working steps, usually with a sponsor, and a willingness to describe your own experience out loud in front of strangers.
**What it is good at:** company. It is the only route where the other people have lived exactly this, and its twenty-question self-check names things no clinical instrument does, including work avoidance and procrastination as part of the same pattern rather than its opposite.
**What to know:** twelve-step fellowships, as UK government guidance describes them, "maintain independence from professional bodies and make sure they remain led by people in recovery in a volunteer capacity and do not accept funding from external sources". That is a strength and it also means no clinical oversight, no assessment, and no treatment of an underlying anxiety or depression.
SMART Recovery UK
Free mutual-aid meetings grounded in cognitive behavioural therapy, secular, facilitated by trained volunteers rather than sponsors, and scoped to problem behaviours generally rather than to one substance. Their line is 0330 053 6022.
**What it asks:** turning up, and doing tools and exercises rather than steps. It is more like a workshop than a confession.
**What it is good at:** people who bounce off the twelve-step frame, and people whose behaviour has no name. It does not require you to accept any model of yourself.
**What to know:** it is peer support, not therapy, and there is no requirement that your problem be diagnosable.
Therapy
The route with the most reach into what is underneath, and the one where you have to check credentials yourself.
**What it asks:** money in most cases, weekly time, and a willingness to look at material you may have been outrunning for years.
**What it is good at:** anxiety, the guilt reaction, whatever is at home, and the identity question that sits under a lot of this. If [what you get from working late](/guides/work/what-you-get-from-working-late) turned up something heavy, this is the route for it.
**What to know, and it matters.** In the UK, "Psychotherapists are not regulated by law, but can choose to join an Accredited Register." "Counsellor" and "psychotherapist" are not protected titles, so anyone may use them. Before you pay anyone:
- Check they are on a register accredited by the Professional Standards Authority, or on the HCPC register if they are a practitioner psychologist.
- Ask what model they work in and what they think would help. A straight answer is a good sign.
- Ask about supervision, insurance and their complaints route.
- Be wary of anyone selling a package of sessions up front, or promising a particular outcome.
An NHS route exists too. The NHS says that ["For many mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression, you can refer yourself to NHS talking therapies without speaking to a GP"](https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/talking-therapies-medicine-treatments/talking-therapies-and-counselling/nhs-talking-therapies/), provided you are registered with a GP and aged 18 or over, or 16 or over in some areas. It treats the anxiety or depression rather than your hours, and for a lot of people that is what is keeping the pattern running.
You can run more than one
These are not exclusive and most people who get somewhere use two. A common combination is a workload conversation at work plus one peer group, or therapy plus a boundary that a device enforces.
The one thing to avoid is spending three months choosing. Pick the door your test pointed at, give it six weeks, and change if it is not doing anything.
Renovyn sits alongside any of these: it can track the hours and let someone you trust see whether a boundary held. It is a support tool rather than treatment.
If you are struggling to cope, the Samaritans are on 116 123, free, at any hour. For urgent mental health support in England, call NHS 111 and press option 2.
Common questions
**Does Workaholics Anonymous work?** There is no trial evidence for it, so nobody can tell you a success rate honestly. What can be said is that it is free, it costs you an hour, and the people in the room have lived the same thing. Judge it after three or four meetings rather than one, since first meetings are mostly about getting used to the format.
**Is there NHS treatment for working too much?** Not for that as such, because it is not a recognised diagnosis. There is NHS treatment for the anxiety, depression, exhaustion and sleep problems that usually come with it, and for many of those you can refer yourself to NHS talking therapies without speaking to a GP first. A GP is also the person who can start a workplace conversation with a fit note.
**How do I know if a therapist is legitimate?** Check them against a register accredited by the Professional Standards Authority, or the HCPC register for practitioner psychologists, because the titles themselves are not protected in law. Then ask about their model, their supervision and their complaints route. A good practitioner will not mind being asked any of that.
**Should I just quit?** Sometimes yes, and it is worth being honest about what quitting fixes. It fixes a load that genuinely does not fit the hours. It does not fix a pull that would find work anywhere, and people who quit for that reason often reproduce the same week within a year. Run the J, P and D test before you resign, not after.
Sources
- [HSE, What are the Management Standards?](https://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/standards/overview.htm): The employer's legal duty to assess work-related stress, and the six areas.
- [Professional Standards Authority, Psychotherapist](https://www.professionalstandards.org.uk/practitioners/psychotherapist): That psychotherapists are not regulated by law in the UK and may instead join an Accredited Register.
- [GOV.UK, Clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment, chapter 6](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/clinical-guidelines-for-alcohol-treatment/6-recovery-support-services-and-lived-experience-initiatives): A neutral description of how twelve-step fellowships operate, independent of professional bodies and led by volunteers.
- [GOV.UK, Flexible working](https://www.gov.uk/flexible-working): Every employee's legal right to request flexible working, and what a request can cover.
