The Reality of the Mental Health Crisis

Work is What’s Broken By Dr. Jeffrey Overall, PhD | drjeffreyoverall.com Burnt-out people are easy to control. The fix starts when we wake up and redesign work. The Real Crisis We Don’t Want to Name We’ve spent years debating the “Future of Work,” but the truth is much simpler and far more uncomfortable: the nature of work is broken. My research shows that 50% of full-time employees are burnt out, 76% struggle with work–life imbalance, 20% describe their workplace as toxic, and 40% battle addictive tendencies—while fewer than 8% ever use employee assistance programs. Behind those numbers lie stories of despair—people marking time to retirement like inmates etching days on a cell wall, waiting for freedom that should’ve been theirs all along. Traditional responses—more benefits, more prescriptions, more workshops—aren’t fixing it. Antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications treat symptoms—they don’t cure the underlying causes, let alone a system that demands constant acceleration. The uncomfortable reality is that we’ve built a world of work that drains people, and most of our so-called solutions only mask the problem.  The Weight of Constant Production Modern citizens are trained to participate in a cycle of production and consumption. The average full-time worker now spends nearly half the week either working or commuting. Most social interactions occur in professional settings, governed by hierarchies and unspoken expectations. People often describe their work as tense, tedious, and unfulfilling—characterized by high pressure, low control, and little genuine creativity. They’re constantly reacting to superiors rather than shaping their own decisions. It’s a form of tempered freedom: you can choose how to deliver the impossible, but not whether to do it. Meanwhile, companies demand perpetual growth—bigger targets, faster output, higher margins. Each quarter must outperform the last, even when the market, the planet, and human physiology can’t sustain it. To keep up, people stretch their days, sacrifice weekends, and normalize exhaustion. At the turn of this century, mental health was already costing billions in lost productivity and healthcare expenses. Two decades later, it’s in the trillions. What do you do when you’ve a bad day? Eat more, drink more, buy more… When the pace never slows, escapism becomes survival. People chase relief in every available form—alcohol, food, shopping, streaming, scrolling. It’s easy to dismiss these habits as personal weakness, but they’re collective coping mechanisms for a culture that mistakes busyness for worth. The social media era intensifies it. People compare not only their careers but also their lifestyles, homes, and vacations against carefully curated feeds. It’s the modern form of “keeping up with the Joneses.” Consumption becomes the language of validation: if you can show you’re thriving, maybe you’ll start to believe it yourself. But it’s an expensive illusion. Credit card debt rises. Savings shrink. People live one interest-rate hike away from crisis. The more they consume to feel better, the more enslaved they become in jobs they hate but can’t afford to leave. The race for status drains more than wallets—it drains the soul. Comparison breeds anxiety and frustration, driving people to escape in any way they can. The cycle repeats until burnout feels ordinary and real meaning fades from view. The Illusion of Normal The system is buckling. Burnout is widespread, talent is fleeing, and disengagement runs deep. The mental health crisis isn’t a side effect of our economy—it’s the inevitable result of it. We’ve been living like this for so long that dysfunction has become the baseline. The industrial age taught us to equate discipline with virtue, productivity with morality, and rest with laziness. Those beliefs still dominate our work. People accept them because they’ve never been shown an alternative. We were raised inside this system—it feels natural even as it grinds us down. The result is a quiet epidemic of resignation. Workers comply, managers escalate expectations, and society congratulates itself for efficiency while mental illness rates soar. The system is sophisticated and self-perpetuating: people are too busy working to question the structure of work itself. When people are burnt out and exhausted, they become easier to influence, persuade, and control. A weary population is more likely to comply and less likely to rebel—a state of passivity that any totalitarian regime depends on, because its greatest fear is an awakened public willing to act. Escapism’s Hidden Costs When stress becomes chronic, the body and mind pay dearly. People eat poorly, sleep less, and move even less. This combination leads to fatigue, foggy thinking, and emotional volatility—conditions that quietly erode performance long before anyone calls in sick. Productivity loss from “presenteeism,” where employees show up but can’t focus, far outweighs absenteeism. Every tired meeting and missed insight compounds the collective drain. Escapism also feeds corporate profits. Entire industries—from fast fashion to streaming platforms—capitalize on our exhaustion. Marketing thrives on the promise that one more purchase, one more indulgence, will restore a sense of control. It never does. The temporary relief keeps the cycle intact, allowing companies to monetize distraction while workers lose both time and meaning. This is not just a health issue; it’s an economic feedback loop. As stress drives escapism, escapism drives consumption, and consumption drives debt and dependency on one’s employment, tightening the very noose that caused the stress in the first place. Breaking the Cycle The good news is that change is possible. There are real, practical steps we can take to rebuild a healthier relationship with work and with ourselves: 1. Wake up to the system—think critically, speak loudly, and build community The first step toward healing our mental health crisis is awareness. We must recognize that the system itself is broken—not the people inside it. Most employees sense this imbalance but rarely voice it, fearing judgment or job loss. That silence protects the status quo. The antidote is critical thinking—and conversation. We need to question the assumptions that work should consume most of our waking hours, that exhaustion equals dedication, and that endless growth is the only measure of progress. Talk about it at home, at work, and in public forums. Debate it. Write about it. Refuse to normalize the suffering. The more people who call out the problem, the harder it becomes for organizations and policymakers to ignore it. Change starts with one voice but grows through many. Building community turns awareness into action and solidarity into strength. Shifts happen when awareness becomes collective—when people no longer whisper about burnout behind closed doors but demand a healthier model of working out loud. Most importantly, individuals must recognize their agency. The system may be large, but participation is voluntary. Every decision to set a boundary, question a norm, or choose meaning over status chips away at the illusion that this is “just how it is.” 2. Build a “go-to-hell” account Financial freedom is mental freedom. Having three to six months of savings gives people the power to walk away from toxic jobs, set boundaries, or start something new. It replaces fear with choice, which is the cornerstone of psychological safety. 3. Choose entrepreneurship—build a life you love The surest path to freedom from the broken system of work is to step outside it. Entrepreneurship is not just a career choice; it’s an act of reclamation, a rebellion. It allows people to turn their values, skills, and passions into something of their own making—to design work that serves life, instead of life serving work. 4. Practice mindfulness and emotional integration The modern workplace teaches suppression: hide your frustration, ignore your fatigue, smile through the chaos. But unprocessed emotions don’t disappear; they resurface as anxiety, irritability, or illness. Mindfulness and other contemplative practices give people tools to pause, breathe, and process pain before it causes burnout. This isn’t about perfection—it’s about presence. 5. Explore new frontiers of healing Psychedelic-assisted therapies, such as guided psilocybin sessions, are showing promise for treatment-resistant depression, trauma, and anxiety. They’re not a shortcut, but the early research is clear: these medicines, used carefully and intentionally, can help people reconnect with themselves and dissolve patterns of fear and detachment. They remind us that healing isn’t just chemical—it’s relational, spiritual, and deeply human. A Call to Awareness—and Action The mental health crisis will not be solved by slogans or mindfulness apps. It will be solved when we rebuild the conditions of work to honour human limits and potential. That means restoring balance between production and rest, between earning and living, between surviving and thriving. It starts with honesty: the crisis isn’t just inside our heads—it’s embedded in how we work. If we want healthier minds, we must fix the environments that break them. Work can be humane, creative, and purposeful. But only if we stop pretending the system is fine and start redesigning it for what it should be: a place where people thrive doing what they love. Dr. Jeffrey Overall is a professor of conscious entrepreneurship and a consultant who supports entrepreneurs.