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Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?

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Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?

#71

Post by nautl »

nautl wrote: post #67

All good advice here around sleep, physical fitness and diet. Really look at your diet. I went through a period where I was finding it harder and harder to stay focused at work, and I attributed it to burnout. Then I started taking fish oil capsules for vitamin D and the problem magically went away. I;m not saying that will work for you, but I am saying diet makes a HUGE difference to mood, ability to concentrate and…

For sleep, go and find Andrew Huberman's podcast on Spotify and listen to them in order.

Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?

#72

Post by trentgreene »

taylorhou wrote: post #54
tinyhouse wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you only eliminate sweets, chocolate, etc. or also bread, pasta, and all other things that break into glucose.

body treats everything carbs (except for dietary fiber and sugar alcohols) as glucose eventually. getting under 50g net carbs a day is fairly easy. staying under 20g net is harder but not impossible these days.

Yeah... but that "eventually" is metabolically relevant. Anecdata, but 250g / day of complex carb felt very different to 125g simple carb + 125g complex carb / day. As an athlete, and at one point a keto based athlete, I'm confident that carbs per se were not the enemy.

Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?

#73

Post by giantg2 »

cassianoleal wrote: post #44
whitesilhouette wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very good list. I'll add my to 2 cents to this. 1. Don't do any addiction. Alcohol, Psychedelics nothing. That's another spiral you won't be able to climb out from. 2. Taking some time off is the easiest way to figure out your l life. You will soon be able to realise your priorities in life. I'd say 2 months is good enough a time. But the most important thing is to not attempt doing any work stuff during th…

Psychedelics are generally not addictive [0], and if used correctly can help very much with burn out. [1][2] > They are generally considered physiologically safe and do not lead to dependence or addiction. [0] [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4813425/ [1] https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/how-to-cure-burnout [2] https://www.friedtheburnoutpodcast.com/post/dr-randi-raymond Edit: add references [1] an…

It depends. Sure, they are generally not forming chemical dependence. Psychological addiction can still be an issue for people in this situation.

Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?

#74

Post by burntoutfire »

_moof wrote: post #19
babyshake wrote: post #3

Out of curiosity what are the symptoms of severe occupational burnout? How would you differentiate it from something like depression?

From the ICD: "Burnout is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterised by three dimensions: 1) feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; 2) increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and 3) a sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment. Burn-out refers specifically t…

> 1) feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; 2) increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and 3) a sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment.

That's a description of most of my career. However, as long as they keep paying me well, it doesn't matter that much if I'm burned out or not - the money keeps coming in either way, and stash grows every month. I've never been fired either, so it looks like my performance while burned out is still enough to meet expectations.

Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?

#77

Post by cassianoleal »

giantg2 wrote: post #73
cassianoleal wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Psychedelics are generally not addictive [0], and if used correctly can help very much with burn out. [1][2] > They are generally considered physiologically safe and do not lead to dependence or addiction. [0] [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4813425/ [1] https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/how-to-cure-burnout [2] https://www.friedtheburnoutpodcast.com/post/dr-randi-raymond Edit: add references [1] an…

It depends. Sure, they are generally not forming chemical dependence. Psychological addiction can still be an issue for people in this situation.

Did you even read the phrase I quoted? It specifically says "do not lead to _dependence_ or _addiction_".

Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?

#78

Post by tibbar »

I experienced this last year as well. It was very difficult and unpleasant. What ultimately worked for me was taking significant time off, changing jobs, and moving to a new city. I also started reading some books like Atomic Habits which gave me some insights into how to short-circuit some destructive feedback loops I was participating in. I'm not entirely back to normal but I'm having fun at my job again and have much better rhythms now.

Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?

#80

Post by HideousKojima »

tinyhouse wrote: post #38
HideousKojima wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't comment one way or the other on Whole 30, but my wife and I have drastically reduced our sugar consumption and it's made us feel significantly better. Eliminating it entirely is a huge pain, but choosing the lower/no sugar options whenever they're available has helped us cut out probably ~90% of our sugar consumption, and even just that has had a noticeable effect on our health.

Did you only eliminate sweets, chocolate, etc. or also bread, pasta, and all other things that break into glucose.

We tried keto for a month or so but it was a pain to keep up with (and getting more expensive because of meat price inflation).
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