Exclusive Poll: More People Now Using Cannabis To Cope With Burnout

Many of us are feeling burnout or stress in one form or another as a result of the events of 2020. Between the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 election and the stress of everyday life, many Americans are dealing with more stress than ever before.

Verilife, which is a chain of Marijuana dispensaries that operates in 6 states across the country, recently surveyed 2,000 Americans to ask them about their experiences with burnout, symptoms of burnout and how they cope with stress and exhaustion in 2020. They also analyzed Google search trends to determine the most common search terms related to burnout in every state country during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What is burnout?

Burnout can be defined as “a state of emotional, physical and mental exhaustion caused by excessive or prolonged stress”. The feeling of burnout is not necessarily a new phenomenon for many Americans; however, the term has become more recognized within the last year with because of a combination of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the WHO categorizing burnout as a “syndrome” that can be traced back to stress in the workplace for many Americans.

The most common types of burnout in America

Verilife started their analysis by looking at the most common search terms related to burnout in every state in America based on search trends data from Google.

Search terms related to burnout in the workplace were the most common with a total of 20 states most commonly searching for occupational burnout terms or phrases. During the COVID-19 pandemic, search terms related to burnout within the healthcare industry were particularly common, including “healthcare worker burnout,” “nurses and burnout,” “nursing burnout,” and “nurse burnout prevention.” California, Oregon, Kentucky, Virginia, and Indiana were among the top states seeking remedies for burnout.

Signs of burnout

Burnout impacts a majority of Americans daily lives. The survey from Verilife found that 92% of respondents reported some form of burnout affecting their everyday life. 80% of Americans believe that life is more stressful today than it was for previous generations. 73% feel that life has become overly complicated.

So, what is causing all this burnout in America? Listed below are the top responses from the Verilife survey:

COVID-19 (72%)
Work related burnout (69%)
Finances and money (67%)
Politics (47%)
The news (39%)
Social media (38%)
Civil unrest (34%)
The lack of socializing during the COVID-19 pandemic (30%).

Burnout in the workplace

As mentioned above, workplace-related burnout was the 2^nd most popular cause of burnout. For many Americans, the scope of their job has shifted drastically in 2020. Many workers are dealing with a shift to full-time remote work while others have dealt with job less, furloughs and pay cuts throughout the year. Many Americans have also been forced to work more hours because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

80% of those surveyed say burnout has prevented them from fully focusing on their job while at work. 67% already feel burned out from working remotely during the pandemic. 57% report working longer hours while working remotely.

Listed below are the most common causes for work burnout according to the Verilife survey:

The pressure to put in extra work during the pandemic (41%)
Not taking enough PTO (36%)
Working remotely as opposed to in the office (35%)
Fear of furloughs or layoffs (34%)
Having a stressful manager or boss (28%)
Having stressful coworkers (24%)
Toxic work culture or environment (24%)

Coping with burnout with cannabis

We covered above that burnout impacts 92% of Americans everyday lives. So how do Americans cope with burnout in stress in 2021? As it turns out, many Americans are turning to cannabis and CBD to cope with burnout and COVID-19 related stress.

39% of those surveyed said that have used cannabis to cope with burnout. Another 37% said they have used CBD to cope with burnout. Another 29% have considered consuming cannabis to ease burnout.

Listed below are the 10 most common ways Americans cope with burnout: