Ask HN: What's the best way to recover from burnout?

I tried traveling, I tried picking up new hobbies, I tried not working at all.

2 things that helped the most:

1. seeing a therapist regularly -- wish i started this sooner in my career. 2. taking a break and traveling with a group called unsettled - group of 30 people who are in transition in some way... leaving job, starting new job, switching careers, wanting to leave job, wanting to start a company, starting a company, etc. unsettled gets you a shared house and coworking space. Being around people from all over the world is inspiring and gives you new perspective. There are other companies that offer this remoteyear, etc. but unsettled attracts people in transition which i found to be a good fit for me. see here http://beunsettled.co

1. set aside a month for planning; to-do, to-read, etc. try to get a jump start to see what works and what doesn't work. 2. come EOM, are you excited about what you've got lined up? if so, take it month-by-month and keep some record of your progress. if not, you may want to talk to someone - perhaps a therapist. 3. when you do reenter the professional world, try to maintain a strict balance between work and personal time (and space!). too much bleed here burns the candle from both ends, and not in a good way.

If you're at the point of quitting - just be honest. Tell your Boss that you're burning out and thinking of quitting. You would like to just take a month off or six weeks to recover. You can phrase it as something else entirely to a different part of the team, but be honest with your boss and see if you can get approval for the time off (even unpaid) so you don't spend your time off worrying about finding a job when you get back.

Then take it, worry free. Don't make any decisions in the first 10 days. If you manage to make it 7 days without touching work things, then start thinking about it. Think about whether you liked what you were doing, whether you want to go back.

I've found this strategy has worked for the handful of people who have tried it.

I spent the first month of that trying to “figure things out” until my girlfriend got sick of me and suggested I just try and have some fun. That’s what I did for the last two months and, surprise, the burnout went away and my passion returned.

Depending on how bad your burnout is you may need more or less time off. But after much reading the consensus seemed to be that three months is the bare minimum.

Edit:

I should mention that for the “having fun” part I went out of my way to try new things, travel a bit, and basically do my best to disrupt any ruts I had built for myself.