Are you stressed, or are you burned out?
Two distinct constructs, one screen. Perceived stress captures how unpredictable, uncontrollable, and overloaded your life has felt over the past two weeks. Personal burnout measures cumulative physical, emotional, and existential exhaustion across all life domains. Two scores on a 0–100 scale, six facets, four severity bands, five archetypes — in about six minutes. Constructs aligned with the published literature (Cohen et al. 1983; Kristensen et al. 2005); items are LBL-original.
Answer honestly.
Each item updates your score in real time. Nothing is submitted, stored, or sent — the calculation runs entirely in your browser. Your answers stay between you and your device.
There's more on my plate than I can reasonably finish.
New problems show up before I've finished dealing with the last ones.
I'm running behind on too many things at once.
What's being asked of me is more than I have the time or energy to give.
The things that affect me most are decided by other people.
Includes: schedules set by others; logistics decided without you; rules you have to follow.
I'm reacting to my life more than I'm directing it.
Includes: responding to crises instead of planning; feeling led by events rather than setting direction.
The outcomes that matter aren't really in my hands.
I trust myself to handle whatever comes up.
Includes: confidence in your problem-solving; trust that you’ll find a way through.
I feel keyed up or on edge, even when nothing is wrong.
My mind keeps running and won't switch off.
Includes: racing thoughts; replaying or rehearsing; trouble winding down.
I'm carrying tension in my body — tight jaw, shoulders, chest, or stomach.
Includes: clenched jaw; tight shoulders; knots in your stomach; shallow breathing.
I feel calm and settled.
Includes: feeling relaxed; able to switch off; at ease in your body.
My emotional reserves feel low even in easy moments.
Includes: less patience than usual; feeling drained for no specific reason; smaller things bothering you more.
My body feels heavy in a way that rest doesn't fix.
The exhaustion has settled into who I am right now.
Things that used to feel easy now take more out of me than they should.
I'm going through the motions without really being present.
Includes: doing tasks on autopilot; showing up without engagement; feeling absent from your own life.
I've stopped caring about things I used to care about.
Includes: hobbies, people, or work that used to engage you now feeling flat.
I find myself wondering whether what I do even matters.
Includes: questioning the point of your effort; wondering whether it makes a difference.
A part of me wants to stop carrying everything I'm carrying.
Includes: wanting respite from your responsibilities; longing for a break from being needed.
I doubt I'm getting anything meaningful done.
I feel less capable than I used to be.
However hard I try, it doesn't seem to make a difference.
I still feel effective at the things I take on.
Includes: still good at what you take on; able to get things done well.
Your stress & burnout profile.
This is the shape of your responses across the perceived stress and personal burnout dimensions. The result is a screening signal — not a diagnosis.
Low stress
Your appraisal of recent life events suggests fewer feelings of overload, unpredictability, and uncontrollability than the LBL-SBI moderate threshold. This is a good window to invest in resilience practices for higher-stress periods later.
Low burnout
Cumulative exhaustion is not a primary concern at this score. Energy reserves appear largely intact.
The Profile
Your archetype description will appear here.
Where your signal sits.
Where you sit on the stress × burnout map.
Two scores, one position. The horizontal axis is your perceived stress (past two weeks); the vertical axis is your personal burnout (past two weeks). Both scores are on a 0–100 displayed scale. The five colored zones are the LBL-SBI archetypes (Compounded, Pressured, Depleted, Mixed, Steady). Construct anchors: Cohen 1983 for stress; Kristensen 2005 for burnout.
Four pathways for your archetype.
These are not generic recommendations. Each pathway is calibrated to your archetype and grounded in published evidence — peer-reviewed citations included.
What else often travels with stress and burnout.
Stress and burnout are correlated with — but distinct from — anxiety, depression, and sleep dysregulation. A single screen rarely captures the full picture. These four conditions overlap most.
Perceived stress and anxiety (GAD-7) share moderate-to-strong correlation in published research (Bai et al. 2017, Spearman r = 0.57). Distinct constructs — stress is appraisal of demands, anxiety is anticipatory worry — but they often co-present.
Take Anxiety Test →14-sample meta-analysis (Bianchi et al. 2021, n = 12,417) found exhaustion-depression correlations approaching unity after disattenuation. High burnout warrants a depression screen.
Take Depression Test →Burnout-insomnia correlation r = 0.39 (Membrive-Jiménez et al. 2022 meta-analysis). Söderström 2012 prospective cohort: insufficient sleep predicts clinical burnout 2 years later. Bidirectional.
Sleep Optimizer →High perceived stress associated with 27% relative-risk increase for incident coronary heart disease (Richardson et al. 2012 meta-analysis, n = 118,696, ~10-year follow-up) — magnitude comparable to a 50 mg/dL LDL increase.
Buffer with sleep →Turn this screen into a recovery plan.
A personalized report that reads your stress and burnout together, maps where the load sits, and gives you a four-week recovery plan built around your pattern.
- Your two scores, read against each other
- A load map of which facets drive each score
- Four stress-science lenses on your result
- A four-week recovery plan, sequenced to you
A well-cited idea from the labs, a tool worth trying, and one move to make — once a week, a three-minute read. Free, unsubscribe anytime.
The science behind the Stress & Burnout Index.
The LBL Stress & Burnout Inventory (LBL-SBI) measures two related but distinct constructs: perceived stress and personal burnout. Items are LBL-original (24 self-statements across six facets, designed and originality-audited by the LifeByLogic editorial team). Construct definitions align with the published literature — most directly the Perceived Stress Scale by Cohen, Kamarck & Mermelstein (1983, Journal of Health and Social Behavior) for the stress construct, and the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory Personal Burnout subscale by Kristensen et al. (2005, Work & Stress) for the burnout construct.
The full methodology — including item development, scoring with reverse-coding details, LBL-original severity-band derivation, archetype thresholds, care-aware escalation logic, the planned post-launch convergent-validity study, limitations, and references — is documented on the tool methodology page.
What is Perceived Stress?
Perceived stress is the experience of current life events as unpredictable, uncontrollable, and exceeding one’s resources. It is not a diagnostic category — there is no diagnosis of "stress" in DSM-5 or ICD-11. Rather, the perceived-stress construct quantifies subjective appraisal of demands and is robustly associated with downstream health outcomes (cardiovascular risk, immune function, mental-health symptoms) when sustained over time.
The LBL-SBI v2.0 uses 12 items across three facets — Overload, Loss of Control, and Tension — each rated on a 5-point frequency scale (0 = Never, 4 = Almost always). Items 8 and 12 are reverse-coded (positively worded efficacy and calm statements); the tool handles the reversal automatically. The Perceived Stress score is the average of the 12 items, displayed on a 0–100 scale for interpretability.
Higher perceived-stress scores have been associated with measurable downstream health consequences in published research — including poorer immune function, cardiovascular risk markers, vulnerability to depressive symptoms following stressful life events, and slower wound healing. Perceived stress is a measurement of appraisal, not of objective stressor count; the same external pressure can produce different perceived-stress scores depending on coping resources and context.
Construct anchors: Cohen, Kamarck & Mermelstein, 1983 — JHSB; psychometric review in Taylor 2015 — Psych AssessmentWhat is Personal Burnout?
Personal burnout is accumulated physical, emotional, and existential exhaustion that persists across life domains. The construct was operationalized by Kristensen and colleagues in the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (2005), specifically for use in everyone — employed, unemployed, retired, students, caregivers — without requiring the respondent to be in a job with clients or customers. This distinguishes personal burnout from the occupational-only definition in ICD-11 (QD85), which applies only to chronic workplace stress.
The LBL-SBI v2.0 uses 12 items across three facets — Exhaustion, Detachment, and Inefficacy — on the same 5-point frequency scale (0 = Never, 4 = Almost always). Item 24 is reverse-coded (a positively worded efficacy statement). The Personal Burnout score is the average of the 12 items, displayed on a 0–100 scale for parallel comparison with the perceived-stress score.
The six facets and their items.
In LBL-SBI v2.0 each subscale breaks into three substantive facets. Perceived Stress splits into Overload (demands exceed capacity), Loss of Control (low agency over what happens), and Tension (the felt, bodily arousal of stress). Personal Burnout splits into Exhaustion (cumulative depletion), Detachment (disengagement and distancing), and Inefficacy (a reduced sense of accomplishment). This six-facet structure is more diagnostic than a single total: two people with the same subscale score can have very different facet profiles — one person’s stress may be overload-driven while another’s is tension-driven — and the facet breakdown appears in your results.
The Overload facet captures the felt sense that demands exceed the time and energy available — too much to finish, falling behind, new problems arriving before the last are cleared. All 4 items are LBL-original.
The Loss of Control facet captures low agency over what happens — outcomes decided by others, reacting rather than directing, events that feel outside one’s hands. Item 8 is a reverse-coded efficacy statement (high endorsement lowers the stress score); the tool handles the reversal automatically. All 4 items are LBL-original.
The Tension facet captures the felt, bodily side of stress — keyed-up arousal, a mind that won’t switch off, and physical tension. It is new in v2.0 and closes a gap in appraisal-only stress measures, which capture what a person thinks about their demands but not the activation they feel. Item 12 is reverse-coded (feeling calm lowers the score). All 4 items are LBL-original.
The Exhaustion facet captures cumulative physical and emotional depletion that rest does not resolve — low reserves even in easy moments, a body that feels heavy, weariness that has settled in. All 4 items are LBL-original.
The Detachment facet captures mental distancing and disengagement — going through the motions, no longer caring about things that once mattered, questioning whether one’s effort makes any difference. Item 20 is a clinical sentinel: endorsement at “Often” or “Almost always” triggers a care-aware banner regardless of total score. All 4 items are LBL-original.
The Inefficacy facet captures a reduced sense of accomplishment and competence — doubting that one is getting anything meaningful done, feeling less capable than before. It is new in v2.0 and represents the third widely-recognized component of burnout alongside exhaustion and detachment. Item 24 is reverse-coded (feeling effective lowers the score). All 4 items are LBL-original.
How your scores are computed.
Step 1 — Item scoring: Each of the 24 items is scored 0–4 (Never → Almost always). Three items (8, 12, and 24) are reverse-coded efficacy/calm statements: a raw response of 0 contributes 4, and a raw 4 contributes 0. The tool handles every reversal automatically — answer each item as you actually experience it.
Step 2 — Perceived Stress total and bands: Average the 12 stress items (after reverse-coding items 8 and 12) and multiply by 25 for a 0–100 displayed score. LBL-original severity bands: Low 0–34, Moderate 35–54, Elevated 55–74, High 75–100. These are LBL-original interpretive thresholds for this instrument, not normative percentiles from any published scale.
Step 3 — Personal Burnout total and bands: Average the 12 burnout items (after reverse-coding item 24) and multiply by 25 for a 0–100 displayed score. The same four severity bands apply, so the two subscales are directly comparable.
Step 3b — Facet sub-scores: Each of the six facets is the average of its 4 items × 25 (0–100). These appear in the sub-dimensional breakdown and identify the dominant driver of each subscale — for example, two people with the same Perceived Stress total may be overload-driven versus tension-driven, which points toward different responses.
Step 4 — archetype assignment: Five LBL-SBI archetypes (Compounded · Pressured · Depleted · Mixed · Steady) are assigned by a first-match-wins decision tree over the two 0–100 scores. Both ≥ 55 → Compounded. Stress ≥ 55, burnout not also ≥ 55 → Pressured. Burnout ≥ 55, stress not also ≥ 55 → Depleted. Both ≤ 34 → Steady. Anything else → Mixed.
Step 5 — care-aware banner: Triggers when Personal Burnout ≥ 75, OR Perceived Stress ≥ 75, OR item 20 (the detachment sentinel: “A part of me wants to stop carrying everything I’m carrying”) is endorsed at “Often” or “Almost always.” These thresholds correspond to the upper LBL-SBI severity bands, levels at which professional consultation is warranted, not optional.
Citing the Stress & Burnout Index in academic or professional work
If you reference this tool in a paper, presentation, or clinical setting, please use one of the standard citation formats below. The LBL-SBI is an LBL-original instrument with transparent methodology; construct definitions align with the published Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen 1983) and Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (Kristensen 2005) literature — see the references section for primary sources.
The peer-reviewed evidence base.
Every claim on this page is grounded in peer-reviewed research. Items in the LBL-SBI are LBL-original; construct definitions align with the Cohen 1983 (Perceived Stress) and Kristensen 2005 (Personal Burnout) literature cited below.
Primary instruments
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A global measure of perceived stress.Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 24(4), 385–396. doi.org/10.2307/2136404 · Construct source for LBL-SBI Perceived Stress
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The Copenhagen Burnout Inventory: A new tool for the assessment of burnout.Work & Stress, 19(3), 192–207. doi.org/10.1080/02678370500297720 · Construct source for LBL-SBI Personal Burnout
Validation, norms, and psychometrics
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Who's stressed? Distributions of psychological stress in the United States in probability samples from 1983, 2006, and 2009.Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 42(6), 1320–1334. doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2012.00900.x
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Psychometric analysis of the Ten-Item Perceived Stress Scale.Psychological Assessment, 27(1), 90–101. doi.org/10.1037/pas0000049
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Further psychometric support for the 10-item version of the Perceived Stress Scale.Journal of College Counseling, 9(2), 135–147. doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-1882.2006.tb00100.x
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The German version of the Perceived Stress Scale — psychometric characteristics in a representative German community sample.BMC Psychiatry, 16, 159. doi.org/10.1186/s12888-016-0875-9
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Psychosocial work characteristics as predictors for burnout: Findings from 3-year follow-up of the PUMA study.Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 47(10), 1015–1025. doi.org/10.1097/01.jom.0000175155.50789.98
Stress, burnout, and downstream health
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Stress, adaptation, and disease: Allostasis and allostatic load.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 840(1), 33–44. doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1998.tb09546.x
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Effects of stress throughout the lifespan on the brain, behaviour and cognition.Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 434–445. doi.org/10.1038/nrn2639
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Meta-analysis of perceived stress and its association with incident coronary heart disease.The American Journal of Cardiology, 110(12), 1711–1716. doi.org/10.1016/j.amjcard.2012.08.004
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Stress and cognition.WIREs Cognitive Science, 4(3), 245–261. doi.org/10.1002/wcs.1222
Burnout-related comorbidity
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Is burnout a depressive condition? A 14-sample meta-analytic and bifactor analytic study.Clinical Psychological Science, 9(4), 579–597. doi.org/10.1177/2167702620979597
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Relation between burnout and sleep problems in nurses: A systematic review with meta-analysis.Healthcare, 10(5), 954. doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10050954
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Insufficient sleep predicts clinical burnout.Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 17(2), 175–183. doi.org/10.1037/a0027518
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Job burnout.Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 397–422. doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.397
Theoretical foundations and intervention evidence
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Stress, appraisal, and coping.Springer Publishing Company, New York.
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The effect of mindfulness-based therapy on anxiety and depression: A meta-analytic review.Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 78(2), 169–183. doi.org/10.1037/a0018555
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The Brief Resilience Scale: Assessing the ability to bounce back.International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 15(3), 194–200. doi.org/10.1080/10705500802222972
About the Stress & Burnout Index.
Is this a clinical diagnosis?
No. The Stress & Burnout Index is an educational self-inventory, not a diagnostic instrument. There is no diagnosis of "stress" in DSM-5 or ICD-11; "burnout" is recognized in ICD-11 as an occupational phenomenon (QD85) but is not a clinical disease in the broader Kristensen sense used here. Stress, burnout, anxiety, and depression are clinically related but distinct, and only a qualified mental health professional can sort one from another after a comprehensive evaluation. A high score on this tool is a reason to consider professional support, not a label.
What does the tool measure for stress?
The 12 stress items measure perceived stress across three facets (overload, loss of control, and tension): how unpredictable, uncontrollable, and overloaded a respondent finds their life over the past two weeks. The construct was originally operationalized by Cohen, Kamarck & Mermelstein (1983) in the Perceived Stress Scale and has been one of the most widely studied appraisal constructs in psychology since. LBL-SBI items are LBL-original; the construct definition aligns with the published literature.
What does the tool measure for burnout?
The 12 burnout items measure personal burnout across three facets (exhaustion, detachment, and inefficacy): cumulative physical, emotional, and existential exhaustion across all life domains. The construct was operationalized by Kristensen, Borritz, Villadsen & Christensen (2005) in the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory, specifically for use in everyone — employed, unemployed, retired, students, caregivers — without requiring the respondent to be in a job with clients or customers. LBL-SBI items are LBL-original; the construct definition aligns with the Kristensen literature.
What does my archetype mean?
Five LBL-original archetypes integrate your perceived stress score with your burnout score: Compounded (both high), Pressured (stress high, burnout low), Depleted (burnout high, stress normalized), Mixed (in-between or asymmetric), and Steady (both low). Archetypes are first-match-wins on the displayed 0–100 scale — the quadrant plot on the results page shows your exact position.
Are the items the same as the published Perceived Stress Scale and Copenhagen Burnout Inventory?
No. The 24 LBL-SBI items are LBL-original — designed by the LifeByLogic editorial team and audited for zero verbatim or close-paraphrase overlap with the published Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen 1983), Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (Kristensen 2005), DASS-21 (Lovibond 1995), Maslach Burnout Inventory, and Oldenburg Burnout Inventory. What is shared with those published instruments is the underlying constructs (perceived stress, personal burnout) — not the specific item wording. Construct definitions are field-standard and not copyrightable; item wording is.
Are my answers stored?
No. The tool runs entirely in your browser. Your individual answers are not transmitted to any server, are not stored in cookies or local storage, and are erased the moment you close or refresh the page. There are no accounts and no tracking of individual responses. The only analytics data captured is anonymous, aggregate page-view information via Google Analytics 4 with IP anonymization enabled.
What if I score in the highest band?
If your Personal Burnout score is 75 or above (displayed 0–100 scale), OR your Perceived Stress score is 75 or above, OR you endorsed the existential-weariness item (“A part of me wants to stop carrying everything I’m carrying”) at “Often” or “Almost always” frequency, the results page will show a prominent care recommendation. These thresholds correspond to the upper LBL-SBI severity bands. Persistent high scores deserve evaluation by a primary care doctor or mental health professional, not self-diagnosis.
How is this different from the Anxiety Test or Depression Test?
Anxiety (GAD-7), depression (PHQ-9), and stress/burnout are related but distinct constructs. Stress is about appraisal of demands; burnout is about cumulative exhaustion; anxiety is about anticipatory worry; depression is about persistent low mood. Many people score elevated on multiple — these tools are designed to be used alongside each other, not as substitutes. The comorbidity panel above shows the empirical correlations.
Tool identifier: LBL-STR · v1.0
Last reviewed: May 2026