India, Dec. 12 -- Familiarity with everyday health issues does not mean we are used to recognising the first signs of trouble.

It is often the subtle shifts in our moods and appearance that we ignore that point to a deeper underlying issue.

Dr Saurabh Sethi, California-based gastroenterologist trained in AIIMS, Harvard, and Stanford, took to Instagram on December 12 to share the six instances when the earliest symptom of health breakdown is easily overlooked.

While burnout and exhaustion have come to be considered synonymous, the latter is not the first sign of the former, shared Dr Sethi. Rather, it is "getting irritated over small things" that shows that our stress threshold is dropping. This is because emotional burnout makes its ef...