India, Nov. 7 -- It is a malfunction of the heart, said the 13th-century Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

His wasn't the only evocative descriptions of burnout.

Some medieval writers called it the "noonday demon", or the urge to take one's hand off the plough. Others likened it to standing helpless and unmoving in a river, as the water rushed past one's legs.

Elisabeth, a Benedictine nun in 12th-century Germany, wrote in her memoir that she had always loved being a nun. Until one day when she turned up to mass and was unable to sing. Back in her cell, she tried to read but couldn't get through a page. "I felt like I was walking in shadows in comparison to the light I used to experience," she wrote, in a passage that feels oddly familiar t...