Burnout Check | Free Evidence-Based Self-Assessment | Little Farm of Calm
Evidence-Based Self-Assessment

Are You Burnt Out
or Just Tired?

I used to get up at 3am to find time to think. I was a physiotherapist running a wildlife shelter, raising kids, and trying to write a thesis. I thought I could handle it. I was wrong. This check is built from the tools I wish I'd used earlier.

Copenhagen Burnout Inventory Perceived Stress Scale AHPRA Physiotherapist Free - No email required
Illustration of Jill at her desk at 3am with thesis, wildlife shelter and business weighing on her
The Science

What Actually Is Burnout?

Illustration showing how burnout manifests physically — brain fog, tension, surviving on caffeine, 2% battery

Not a mindset problem. Not a productivity problem. Not something you push through, journal your way out of, or fix with a long weekend. The World Health Organisation classified burnout in 2019 as an occupational phenomenon with its own ICD-11 diagnosis code (QD85). It is a physiological state, not a personal failing.

What makes it so easy to miss is how gradually it builds. Most people adapt to the slow narrowing of their energy and capacity so incrementally that "exhausted and flat" starts to feel like their personality. It isn't. It's a clinical state with three consistent markers, and one of those markers is that you stop being able to see it clearly in yourself. (I know this from both the research and personal experience.)

Exhaustion

Persistent physical and emotional depletion that sleep and weekends no longer resolve. The kind you bring home from the holiday.

Disengagement

Growing distance, numbness, or not-caring toward things you used to care about. Including, sometimes, the business or career you built.

Reduced Efficacy

A sense that nothing you do is quite enough, combined with a growing inability to think clearly, make decisions, or get things done.

Self-Assessment

Check Your Burnout Level

For each question, choose the response that best reflects how you have been feeling over the past two weeks. There are no right or wrong answers.

About this assessment: The questions below are adapted from the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (Kristensen et al., 2005) and the Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen et al., 1983) - two of the most widely validated burnout and stress assessment tools in clinical and occupational health research. This is an educational tool, not a clinical diagnosis.
Question 1 of 10

How often do you feel physically exhausted?

Question 2 of 10

How often do you feel emotionally drained?

Question 3 of 10

How often do you struggle to recover your energy, even after sleep or time off?

Question 4 of 10

How often does everything feel like it requires more effort than it should?

Question 5 of 10

How often do you have difficulty concentrating or making decisions?

Question 6 of 10

How often do you feel overwhelmed by your daily responsibilities?

Question 7 of 10

How often do you feel detached or disconnected from things and people you normally care about?

Question 8 of 10

How often do you feel irritable or short-tempered for reasons that feel disproportionate?

Question 9 of 10

How often do you feel like you're just going through the motions rather than genuinely engaging?

Question 10 of 10

How often do you feel that no matter how much you do, it is never quite enough?

Please answer all 10 questions before submitting.

Who Made This

Built by Someone Who Missed It in Themselves

In 2023, I was finishing a thesis, running a working wildlife shelter, raising kids, and managing a business. I was getting up at 3am to find uninterrupted time to write. By the time it became harder and harder to think, harder to feel, and I couldn't get three words on the page, I told myself I was just tired. I thought reaching the finish line would fix it. It didn't. There was no finish line because everything else I'd put off was still there waiting for me.

What I know now, as a physiotherapist who has spent decades working with stressed and depleted bodies, is that my clinical background made it harder to recognise in myself. The fog was too thick and the self-talk too loud. I tried to treat it like an injury. That didn't work either.

I built this tool because I kept meeting people who were deeply burnt out but had normalised it, and because I wished I'd had something like this earlier. It's grounded in real clinical science, it's free, and it doesn't require your email address.

If you want to go deeper on the evidence behind burnout and what actually works for recovery, the Burnout Recovery Handbook is free to download — no email, no sign-up. It covers the physiology, the stages, and the strategies in more detail than a quiz result can.

Illustration of Jill juggling the BAS, unread emails, kids, wildlife emergencies, perfect house and relationship
Credentials
  • AHPRA Registered Physiotherapist (MSc, BPhysio 1st Class Honours, PhD Candidate - University of Melbourne)
  • ESSA Accredited Exercise Physiologist (30+ years clinical experience)
  • DEECA Licensed Wildlife Shelter Operators
  • Airbnb Superhost · Booking.com Award 2024 · Google 5.0

References & Further Reading

Kristensen, T.S., Borritz, M., Villadsen, E., & Christensen, K.B. (2005). The Copenhagen Burnout Inventory: A new tool for the assessment of burnout. Work & Stress, 19(3), 192-207. https://doi.org/10.1080/02678370500297720

Cohen, S., Kamarck, T., & Mermelstein, R. (1983). A global measure of perceived stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 24(4), 385-396. https://doi.org/10.2307/2136404

Schaufeli, W.B., De Witte, H., & Desart, S. (2020). Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT) — Development, validity, and reliability. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(24), 9495. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17249495

Maslach, C., & Leiter, M.P. (2016). Understanding the burnout experience: Recent research and its implications for psychiatry. World Psychiatry, 15(2), 103-111. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20311

Bianchi, R., Schonfeld, I.S., & Laurent, E. (2021). Is burnout a depressive condition? A 14-sample meta-analytic and bifactor analytic study. Clinical Psychological Science, 9(4), 579-597. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702620979597

World Health Organisation. (2019). Burn-out an "occupational phenomenon": International Classification of Diseases. ICD-11 Reference Code QD85. who.int

Rotenstein, L.S., et al. (2023). Prevalence of physician burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic: Systematic review and meta-analysis. The American Journal of Medicine, 137(2), 155-164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2023.09.002

Sonnenschein, M., Mommersteeg, P.M., Houtveen, J.H., Sorbi, M.J., Schaufeli, W.B., & van Doornen, L.J. (2007). Exhaustion and endocrine functioning in clinical burnout. Biological Psychology, 75(2), 176-184.

Black Dog Institute. (2024). Understanding stress and burnout. blackdoginstitute.org.au

© Little Farm of Calm · Benalla, Victoria · littlefarmofcalm.com · This tool is for educational purposes only and does not constitute clinical advice. If you are concerned about your mental health, please consult a qualified health professional or contact Beyond Blue (1300 22 4636).