TACOMA, Wash. — Your job is a drag, your co-workers are baboons and your favorite movie is "Office Space."

Ever considered that you might be the one with the problem?

Work burnout — that persistent, nagging feeling that you loathe between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. — may not be a clinical disorder, but it is serious: About three-fourths of workers will experience it at one time or another, according to some studies, said Dr. Alan Shelton.

He should know. Shelton was doing everything he was supposed to: He had an active life, enjoyed great relationships, worked as the medical director for the Puyallup Tribal Health Authority and was a faculty member at Tacoma Family Medicine Residency program for doctors in training.

Then, gradually, he lost his energy and enthusiasm.

"I felt like it was a struggle to go to work. I was cranky, I didn't have compassion for my patients, and I was getting resentful," he said.

To sum it up: "I wasn't ... very nice to work with," he said, laughing.

So he did more of all the things he was supposed to: He tried taking a vacation, changed his hours, ramped up his social life. Nothing worked.

His burnout got so bad that a co-worker scheduled him an appointment with an American Indian healer without telling him. He learned of the appointment only minutes before.

Not finding an excuse (and he did try), he went to the appointment. He was surprised that the "healing" consisted of one question, some stories and a chant.

He was even more surprised when, despite his healthy level of doubt, Shelton returned to work that day feeling like he was finally "back."

"I was how I used to be when I was a good doctor," he said.

But, as you'd expect, it wasn't so easy: About a month after his session, he had slowly faded back to his burned-out state.

That time, he'd had it. Convinced he needed to make a change, he took a leave of absence so he could study his problem and learn how to deal with it.

Work burnout can have many causes: stress, long hours, lack of a life outside work, the accumulation of general negativity or even underlying health problems.

Shelton also writes that it's often experienced by people who feel a lack of control, those who have to suppress emotion at work (caregivers, for example) and workaholic types who strive for perfection. The three main symptoms, Shelton writes in his book, "Transforming Burnout," are exhaustion, withdrawal and lack of job satisfaction.

When health problems are ruled out, it's important to assess if you're doing everything you can to avoid or cut off burnout.

"It often comes from actually being out of balance: Too much of one thing, not enough of the other good things in your life," said Phillip Prudhomme, a Tacoma mental health counselor.

"That's why we have vacations or we take up hobbies. It's something to shift that focus."

Prudhomme said it's also important not to compare yourself to others — whether at work or in your personal life — but to establish reasonable goals for yourself.

But Shelton was doing all those things. When he started to study the problem, something the healer had said stuck with Shelton. The healer had told him he needed to do something to tend to his spirit.

At the time, Shelton thought he was doing just fine. But later, he considered it: He kept his body fit, his mind sharp and his relationships healthy but wasn't doing anything consistently to take care of his spiritual side.

He compared being spiritually connected with maintaining physical fitness. "You can't go work out once a month; it needs to be something daily," he said.

During his time off, he found that meditation and prayer were both good ways to nurture his spirit. He was also surprised to find how much damage he was doing every day.

"Those kind of things, over time, erode the spirit," he said.

So he reversed his thinking. When the alarm went off, he reminded himself it was the start of a new day. When it rained, he tried to appreciate that it takes rain to live in the lush, forested Pacific Northwest.