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neurodivergentie onderzoek uitputting werkstress feedback
Why 'just fitting in' drains your battery
Karolien Koolhof •
Neurodivergent individuals often have a keen sense that their brains process the world just a little bit differently. In the workplace, this can have consequences for their energy: they become stressed or exhausted more easily. Why is a normal workday an absolute endurance sport for them? And what happens to your brain when it constantly has to adapt to a standard that isn't yours? I researched this.
To understand why this specific group struggles with such deep, lingering fatigue, we need to look at how our brains allocate capacity. Within psychology, the so-called Resource Allocation Theory sheds an illuminating light on this. View your attention as your smartphone's battery. During your work, you divide that energy between two processes: the task itself (for example, writing a report) and self-regulation (filtering stimuli, managing your emotions, and assessing how you come across socially).
For a neurodivergent brain, an average open-plan office is often an overstimulating environment. As a result, a disproportionately large part of the battery is depleted by that self-regulation by default. The working memory is already full of heavy background apps that are constantly running just to get through the day.
On top of that, there is another psychological mechanism, described in the Feedback Intervention Theory. Unsolicited feedback immediately draws your attention away from your task and redirects it towards yourself. For a brain that is already pushing the limits of its processing capacity due to all the office stimuli, such an unexpected remark feels like a heavy system update that temporarily causes your entire computer to freeze.
Stress versus exhaustion
Does the workplace actually affect this group differently than people with an official medical label? To complete my bachelor's degree in psychology, I decided to test this phenomenon scientifically. I surveyed over 500 working professionals about their perceived work stress, level of exhaustion, and the amount of unsolicited feedback they received. In doing so, I made a crucial distinction: I compared people with a formal diagnosis to the group who merely identified themselves as having neurodivergent traits.
The results revealed a striking pattern. Surprisingly, the amount of unsolicited feedback did not prove to be a direct culprit for extra stress, but something else was at play. People with an official diagnosis reported significantly higher levels of work stress in the data. But for the people who only knew it about themselves, a very different picture emerged: they struggled primarily with extreme exhaustion.
Adapting
How can we explain this gap between stress and exhaustion? The answer lies in the consequences of recognition. Those with an official label often work openly. You have to have a conversation with your manager about a quiet workspace, an adjusted set of tasks, or clear communication. That takes effort and sometimes causes clashes within a team. That visible struggle causes active stress. You may be under pressure, but you are at least on the radar.
Those without a label often stay quiet. Without formal language or a doctor's note, there is frequently a lack of legitimacy to claim accommodations. What follows is an invisible survival strategy: you try to act exactly like your colleagues all day long and hide your overstimulation. You avoid conflicts, so you experience less acute stress. But this psychological camouflage is exhausting. Your battery slowly drains due to the constant urge to comply with a neurotypical standard.
The insights from this research are an important lesson for organizations. We need to look at vitality in a fundamentally different way. Companies and HR departments should no longer wait to adjust the work environment until a burned-out employee hands in a medical certificate. A truly inclusive workplace offers all employees the space to optimally utilize their brains. Think of standardizing quiet zones and normalizing focus blocks without unexpected (feedback) interruptions. That way, everyone has energy left for the work itself.
About the author
- Karolien Koolhof is a coach voor introverts and gifted individuals
- Author of the book Introvert Leadership
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