When considering burnout, many people may think of causes like overworking; however, a different origin, such as a lack of meaning, may trigger burnout symptoms. Research has demonstrated that decreased levels of fulfilment and existential meaning are related to higher levels of burnout.(Riethof & Bob, 2019) 

Dr. Nivedita Nayak, a clinical psychologist with over twelve years of experience helping multidisciplinary digital health professionals, such as developers, designers and QA leaders, found a different trend regarding burnout among these professionals. Some of the symptoms that Dr Nayak had seen among their patients include persistent low mood, irritability, and emotional exhaustion. 

A developer from a startup company once stated, “I’m not even sure why I’m doing this anymore. I used to feel like my work actually holds value in real life and that I am doing something productive. But honestly, it’s just writing some letters and fixing bugs.” In several sessions, the patient explained his motivation to work in Healthtech, helping improve access to early cancer detection and how that vision had become distant. “We don’t even hear how our tools are being used. It’s just deadlines now.”  

Exclusive case study by Dr Nayak

A 34-year-old backend engineer from a diagnostics-based healthtech startup presented to therapy with complaints of persistent low mood, irritability, and emotional exhaustion. While he denied acute stressors like long working hours or interpersonal conflict, he reported feeling “detached” from his work and described a chronic sense of disengagement.

He stated, “I’m not even sure why I’m doing this anymore. I used to feel like my work actually holds value in real life and that I am doing something productive. But honestly, it’s just writing some letters and fixing bugs.”

Clinically, there were no signs of major depressive disorder, but the client exhibited symptoms of low-grade burnout including cognitive fatigue, reduced sense of accomplishment, disrupted sleep, and emotional blunting. Importantly, these symptoms did not stem from physical overwork but from purpose erosion, a loss of psychological connection between his daily tasks and the broader healthcare impact he once valued.

In early sessions, he spoke about his initial motivation to work in healthtech helping improve access to early cancer detection and how that vision had become distant. “We don’t even hear how our tools are being used. It’s just deadlines now.”

Intervention Approach:
Treatment focused on restoring value alignment using a meaning-centered cognitive approach. Ms. Nayak guided the client to identify specific values that originally drew him to healthtech. From there, she worked on helping him:

• Re-establish impact visibility through informal conversations with product teams who interacted with clinical users.
  
• Practice cognitive reframing, associating small technical improvements with downstream patient benefits.
  
• Explore boundary-setting and micro-recovery routines to reduce cognitive overload and increase emotional clarity.
  

After six sessions, the client reported improved emotional engagement at work, reduced irritability, and increased energy levels. While his external workload remained the same, the reconnection to purpose served as a psychological buffer against emotional fatigue.

Ms. Nayak notes that this presentation is increasingly common among mid-career professionals in India’s digital health space. Unlike traditional burnout, which is often linked to overwork, this variant is rooted in invisible emotional labor and meaning detachment. Recovery, therefore, depends less on reducing hours and more on reintroducing psychological purpose into workflow narratives.

From Passion to Pressure 

Jackie Carroll, a Career and Mindset Coach, sees this dynamic firsthand from working with healthcare tech professionals from mid-level contributors to senior leaders. She shares: “I coach value-driven people believing in their work, but they are burning out.” Her perception speaks to the troubling reality that many professionals enter Healthtech driven by their desire to make a difference. However, they slowly disengage when the workplace wellness in healthtech fails to reflect or support values that initially drew them in: “When purpose turns into pressure instead of support, that’s a red flag.” 

The issue is not a lack of purpose. It’s the mismatch between mission statements and lived experience day-to-day. The internal culture may feel transactional, performance-obsessed, and emotionally unsupported, for organizations often celebrate being “purpose-driven” on paper. 

Mental Overload Without Meaningful Recovery 

Monica Bermudez, a Healthtech entrepreneur, highlights another contributor to this burnout: persistent mental overload, lacking structured relief, and a background in science and technology. She describes 2025 as “the most stressful” year yet because demands increased since analytics pressure was high, without real opportunities for mental breaks. She explains, “Many workplaces want to push people with more tasks and with mental overload.” The problem, however, is that they don’t have a real method to give people a mental break. 

For creative outlets and for team-based activities that restore mental health balance are advocated by Monica. She notes a growing pattern too: many workers frequently leave corporate climates short of affective support by choosing business routes better matched to their own liberty and core desires. 

Empathy, Structure, and Recognition in Action 

In contrast to this crisis, proactive steps some leaders are taking foster engagement through human-centered practices. Mimi, owner and acting HR manager at Cafely, runs a global, fully remote team as well as consistently checks in also schedules flexibly to stress importance. A clear structure is a part of her approach. Emotional responsiveness is included too. “After successfully incorporating AI to automate routine tasks,” she shares, “we had to appreciate their efforts.” Their labor warranted recognition. 

Mimi shows how effort recognition and autonomy preservation go together by offering team members a choice to rest privately or celebrate casually. Due to the fact that she chose to adjust the task expectations and to communicate in an open manner, she has fostered a workplace that will prioritize health before output, and she has measurably increased motivation. This can very well replicated as a framework for workplace wellness in healthtech 

Purpose Alone Doesn’t Prevent Burnout—Culture Does 

Leadership expert and international bestselling author Philippa White, who is CEO of TIE Leadership, reinforces the idea that organizations need to embed psychological safety in addition to empathetic leadership into the entire structure of their DNA. Because of the fact that she has two decades of experience for the purpose of helping global companies build agile and resilient teams, she explains, “When people are engaged, businesses are 23% more profitable. And on the other extreme, if people are quitting all the time, that’s expensive.” 

Philippa cautions that simply displaying values upon office walls or celebrating a mission through company websites does not suffice. She says, “If I care about where I work, I will show up.” According to her, that is what she says. That care must be mutual however, reflected in how people are empowered, supported, as well as treated daily. Her philosophy regarding leadership focuses on using humanity for business gains. It shows us all that emotional investment and commercial performance are simply not opposing goals, for they truly are deeply interlinked. 

Leadership styles and work environment factors greatly influence psychological well-being and employees’ sense of meaning. Employee motivation, engagement, and a sense of purpose promote meaningful work via autonomy-supportive and transformational leadership. Social contexts that are supportive, along with management practices that are participative, improve jobs plus employees’ experience of autonomy and impact similar to meaning-givers. Additionally, a positive work climate that satisfies psychological needs—autonomy, competence, and relatedness—contributes to workers feeling well and finding work meaningful. These factors improve job satisfaction and thus make employees more engaged. Also, this can make employees more committed to the organization (Martela et al., 2021). 

Key Findings from Clinical Practice 

1. Invisible Emotional Labour: Backend Engineers and QA professionals often suppress distress, especially in high-performing startup environments where emotional honesty feels unsafe.
2. Psychological Insulation Function: Teams that often see end-user impact display improved mental toughness. This exposure happens through stories or feedback in case reviews.
3. Wellness programs will gain traction only in situations where direct managers normalize setting boundaries and modelling emotional authenticity: Leadership Vulnerability Matters.
4. Workload Doesn’t Need to Change—Narrative Does: When we restore value alignment through cognitive reframing and show its impact, emotional engagement can improve greatly.

 Practical Recommendations 

Mindfulness and cognitive-behavioural strategies reduce stress among critical care professionals by fostering self-care, improving emotional regulation, and enhancing resilience. These methods help individuals cope effectively and diminish their mental susceptibility to job-related pressures. Emotional exhaustion and depersonalization can be alleviated through acceptance and present-moment awareness, as mindfulness encourages both. Cognitive-behavioural techniques tackle maladaptive thought patterns, reducing anxiety and depressive symptoms in high-stress environments like critical care. These mechanisms contribute to improved well-being and also help minimize burnout among healthcare professionals. (Adnan et al., 2022). 

Healthcare organizations can integrate professional well-being to improve their performance metrics. This regularly measures key aspects such as burnout, engagement, and emotional health using standardized tools with national benchmarks. Regular assessments should be conducted to track trends, and leadership must actively communicate to support these efforts. Organizations work to promote clinician health in just this way. The result is stronger institutional success overall.(Shanafelt & Noseworthy, 2017) 

• Integrate clinical impact stories and usage data into the town halls or retrospectives in sprint planning.
• Mission alignment can be reinforced through encouraging dialogues between engineers and product/clinical users.
• Train team leads in supporting micro-recovery strategies and acknowledging emotional bandwidth.
• Transfer mental health initiatives to manager-led actions. HR should not act alone as the leader for such initiatives.

Adressing Burnout Through Purpose: Comprehensive Worksheet & Action Guide 

 🔍 Core Problem Identification 

Traditional vs. Reality-Based Burnout Causes 

Common Assumption	Research-Based Reality
Overworking causes burnout	Lack of meaning and fulfillment triggers burnout
More purpose = Less burnout	Purpose without supportive culture creates pressure
Individual problem	Systemic leadership and culture issue

Key Symptoms Observed in HealthTech Professionals 

• Persistent low mood 

• Irritability and emotional exhaustion 

• Loss of connection to work’s value 

• Feeling disconnected from end-user impact 

• Focus shift from mission to deadlines 

 📊 Key Clinical Findings 

1. Invisible Emotional Labour

• • Who: Backend Engineers and QA professionals 

• • Issue: Suppressing distress in high-performing startup environments 

• • Root Cause: Emotional honesty feels unsafe 

2. Psychological Insulation Function

• • Benefit: Teams seeing end-user impact show improved mental toughness 

• • Method: Exposure through stories or feedback in case reviews 

3. Leadership Vulnerability Matters

• • Requirement: Direct managers must normalize boundary-setting 

• • Action: Model emotional authenticity for wellness programs to succeed 

4. Narrative Over Workload

• • Insight: Workload doesn’t need to change—narrative does 

• • Method: Restore value alignment through cognitive reframing and impact demonstration 

 🛠 Evidence-Based Solutions 

Mindfulness & Cognitive-Behavioural Strategies 

Benefits: 

• Reduce stress among critical care professionals 

• Foster self-care and improve emotional regulation 

• Enhance resilience and coping mechanisms 

• Address anxiety and depressive symptoms 

Organizational Integration Approach 

Measurement Focus: 

• Burnout levels 

• Engagement metrics 

• Emotional health indicators 

• Use standardized tools with national benchmarks 

• Conduct regular trend assessments 

 ✅ Practical Implementation Checklist 

For Leadership Teams 

•  Integrate clinical impact stories into town halls 

•  Include usage data in sprint retrospectives 

•  Facilitate dialogues between engineers and product/clinical users 

•  Train team leads in micro-recovery strategies 

•  Acknowledge emotional bandwidth in planning 

•  Transfer mental health initiatives from HR to manager-led actions 

For Individual Professionals 

•  Practice mindfulness techniques for stress reduction 

•  Engage in cognitive reframing exercises 

•  Seek connection to end-user impact 

• Communicate emotional needs to direct managers 

•  Participate in team-based mental health activities 

•  Set and maintain professional boundaries 

For Organizations 

•  Measure well-being metrics regularly 

•  Create psychological safety in team environments 

•  Ensure mission alignment is lived, not just stated 

•  Provide structured mental health breaks 

• Implement recognition systems for meaningful work 

•  Foster autonomy-supportive leadership styles 

 📈 Success Metrics to Track 

Quantitative Measures 

• Employee engagement scores 

• Burnout assessment results 

• Turnover rates by department 

• Productivity metrics alongside well-being indicators 

• Participation rates in mental health initiatives 

Qualitative Indicators 

• Frequency of impact story sharing 

• Quality of manager-employee emotional check-ins 

• Team discussions about workload and boundaries 

• Employee feedback about mission connection 

• Observable changes in team dynamics and morale 

References 

1. Adnan, N. B. B., Dafny, H. A., Baldwin, C., Jakimowitz, S., Chalmers, D., Aroury, A. M. A., & Chamberlain, D. (2022). What are the solutions for well-being and burn-out for healthcare professionals? An umbrella realist review of learnings of individual-focused interventions for critical care. BMJ Open, 12(9), e060973. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2022-060973  
2. Martela, F., Gómez, M., Unanue, W., Araya, S., Bravo, D., & Espejo, A. (2021). What makes work meaningful? Longitudinal evidence for the importance of autonomy and beneficence for meaningful work. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 131, 103631. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2021.103631  
3. Riethof, N., & Bob, P. (2019). Burnout Syndrome and logotherapy: Logotherapy as useful conceptual framework for explanation and prevention of burnout. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00382  
4. Shanafelt, T. D., & Noseworthy, J. H. (2016). Executive leadership and physician well-being. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 92(1), 129–146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2016.10.004