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Burnout and Mental Health

stephaniehurlburt.com

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Re: Burnout and Mental Health

#51

Post by devy »

In my own opinion, job responsibility and stress level are proportional.

A year ago, I was burned out from a VPE level job for two years before and after moving down to a Engineering Lead (developer) job, responsibility greatly reduced, so were the stress level. I am able to take care more on myself and my family. So for the pay-cut and title downgrade, it's a good tradeoff so far.

Having said that, by no means responsibility is the only factor, I also feel that the work culture is also geographical. For instances, from my anecdotal experiences, same type of company in U.S. and Japan are working longer hours than the ones in Canada or France. A startup job in S.F. may seem a bit more stressful than a similar job in the Midwest/South. Your milage may vary.

PS: 8-hours of sleep is a great way to help me wean off the heavy coffee-drinking lifestyle. I remember reading an article recommended by my Jawbone UP wristband app about the quality of sleeping - REM sleeping is the key for brain consolidate memories. [1] [2]. As as aside, I love Jawbone's health awareness content. Too bad, they are going under :(

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-michael-j-breus/whats-in-a-...

[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15560767

Re: Burnout and Mental Health

#52

Post by eknkc »

Oh this is too real.

I spent 3 years of my life, working ~100 hours a week on the same project. It was a startup (local one) and I can't remember the details of that time. I went to 2 vacations, only to spend my time working on my laptop, just by a pool rather than at the office. I carried my laptop to everywhere. Kept my phone accessible 7/24. Even got stressed on ~1 hour flights I had to take, because I'd be offline. I planned to quit but never acted on it. That mental state somehow locks you in.

As far as I can remember, my only comfort was my cat. He'd sleep on my lap while I was working at home. Like a stress reliever.

Then he died one day without a warning. I just went ahead and quit my job the next day.

Best decision of my life. I had some stock in the company and sold it during a later investment round to our older VC. Spent 6 months doing absolutely nothing. Then started a new company, started working healthy hours. Started cycling, eating healthy. Lost a ton of weight. Taking care of yourself makes everything work much better in long term. Later, even found a cat with a broken rib on the street, barely breathing. He's now sleeping next to me.

Please, please if you are in a similar situation, just stop. Doesn't worth it.

Re: Burnout and Mental Health

#53

Post by badwolf »

eknkc wrote: post #52

Oh this is too real. I spent 3 years of my life, working ~100 hours a week on the same project. It was a startup (local one) and I can't remember the details of that time. I went to 2 vacations, only to spend my time working on my laptop, just by a pool rather than at the office. I carried my laptop to everywhere. Kept my phone accessible 7/24. Even got stressed on ~1 hour flights I had to take, because I'd be offlin…

That's pretty much right on the nose. Right down to my chihuahua sleeping in my lap right now...

Re: Burnout and Mental Health

#54

Post by dhruvkar »

rimantas wrote: post #14
dhruvkar wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having seen people close to me experience this, I feel for you. However, I haven't heard any success stories that have made it any OTHER way. It's usually in looking back, that people say burn out was wrong and I probably shouldn't have done it that way. What's the alternative?

Basecamp? IIRC DHH mentioned he was working like 10 hours a week on it.

Is there a link for this? Would love to read about it.

Re: Burnout and Mental Health

#55

Post by tyleraland »

netule wrote: post #43
nul_byte wrote: post #33

I hope I don't sound conceited here, but this was me and I resolved the issue. Meditation. 15 minutes a day is all it takes, and I get myself to that place of not giving a care in the world and feeling all the stress just drop away. The only way I can describe it as, is like when you go on a beach holiday and you're lying in the sun, not sure what day it is (Saturday, Wednesday?) and feeling content. Its now become v…

Can you recommend any resources for beginning meditation?

I've tried and really like the guided meditations (audio) from https://www.headspace.com/

There are some very short ones for free, longer ones cost money

Re: Burnout and Mental Health

#56

Post by m4x »

It's really important to pay attention to symptoms of burnout and deal with them as a possibly life changing injury. Never ignore it. Never think "I'll deal with it after this project"

I didn't realise this when I was younger and suffered three burnouts. The first two sucked but were reasonably short term problems. The third destroyed my ability to think clearly and I'm only now starting to regain the ability to think as I used to - after a ten year break in a completely different career.

Don't ignore burnout!

Re: Burnout and Mental Health

#57

Post by jgritman »

netule wrote: post #43
nul_byte wrote: post #33

I hope I don't sound conceited here, but this was me and I resolved the issue. Meditation. 15 minutes a day is all it takes, and I get myself to that place of not giving a care in the world and feeling all the stress just drop away. The only way I can describe it as, is like when you go on a beach holiday and you're lying in the sun, not sure what day it is (Saturday, Wednesday?) and feeling content. Its now become v…

Can you recommend any resources for beginning meditation?

The Calm app is what got me hooked https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/calm-meditate-relax-guided/i...

Re: Burnout and Mental Health

#58

Post by [deleted] »

xyience wrote: post #48
jondubois wrote: post #12

This sounds like the past 10 years of my life. I can't even enjoy normal life activities anymore... And I can't afford to take a long enough break to recover (if that's still possible?). I don't even care about memories anymore - I'm in survival mode; I'm just a bullet moving towards its target. It's like I've been running through a tunnel as fast possible for a long time and I can finally just see the light at the e…

What's your burn rate? That is, if you stop doing any income-producing activities, how long can you live off of savings? Considering burning through them all for a long period of no work. Or if you think you can manage for longer, try to get to the magic number where 4% of your investments (assuming at least 5% annual ROI) covers your expenses, thus making you 'retired'. Recovery (at least partial) is still possible,…

[deleted]

Re: Burnout and Mental Health

#59

Post by funkymike »

seibelj wrote: post #27
billmalarky wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"no responsibilities except work" I assume this also means the responsibility to keep one's health in check is sacrificed for additional workload? I can't imagine keeping up an exercise routine working that many hours.

I don't think it's that crazy, it's five 12 hour days and then 10 hours over the weekend. It's a lot of work, but without kids and other responsibilities it's doable. 70 hours of working is usually only 40-50 of real programming / hardcore thinking, there's always internet surfing, lunch, chit chat, etc. mingled in.

From my own experience I think it's ultimately unhealthy to justify working long hours with "internet surfing, lunch, chit chat, etc. mingled in." While it's easy to rationalize staying late thinking "yeah, but I took a long lunch, chatted with so-and-so, ..." at the end of the day you have that much less downtime away from work. I find I am much happier when I can keep those distractions to a minimum, then force myself to go home. I get more done outside of work and sleep better, resulting in being more focused and productive when I am at work. Allowing work and the rest of my life to blend together both makes me less productive at work and results in having less time for everything else.

Re: Burnout and Mental Health

#60

Post by phinkle »

netule wrote: post #43
nul_byte wrote: post #33

I hope I don't sound conceited here, but this was me and I resolved the issue. Meditation. 15 minutes a day is all it takes, and I get myself to that place of not giving a care in the world and feeling all the stress just drop away. The only way I can describe it as, is like when you go on a beach holiday and you're lying in the sun, not sure what day it is (Saturday, Wednesday?) and feeling content. Its now become v…

Can you recommend any resources for beginning meditation?

I listen to guided meditations. They are easy to find online and sometimes only take ~15 min. Here are some of the websites that I use:

https://www.tarabrach.com/guided-meditations/

http://self-compassion.org/category/exercises/#guided-medita...

http://www.mindfulselfcompassion.org/meditations_downloads.p...

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