The psychology of stress and burnout

I think it boils down to this: The more you value your out-of-the-office life and the more enjoyment you gain from it, the less negative impact your job can have on your life. Of course that's dependent on having a job that permits you to have a life outside of work, being able to schedule regular out of work activities, and if not, finding the motivation to go do random stuff ad-hoc.

Now I visit a farm every week for ~30mins to see some animals, go ice skating regularly, gym regularly, and give my friends a break from parenting by taking their kids to the park to play.

When I stopped going to the gym regularly, when I started going to bars after work more, drinking more, and my life became more "sleep, work, drink, repeat", my mental state deteriorated, my ability to cope with bullshit at work reduced. Getting something resembling a routine of Good Things I Enjoy outside of work resulted in a near instant turnaround.

Thank you for posting this, I love reading other people having similar life experiences as myself, and I hope you feel the same from this too.

Perfect summary.

> Of course that's dependent on having a job that permits you to have a life outside of work

It probably explains the increased demand for flexible hours.

Although a lot of employers view that as a signal that the employee is a slacker, when I'm actually incredibly more productive if I can just take a break randomly in the middle of the day, do Outside Stuff and continue later.

> Thank you for posting this, I love reading other people having similar life experiences as myself, and I hope you feel the same from this too.

Definitely feeling the same.

One thing I have noticed is that some activities raise that bullshit threshold waaay more than others, and I can't really understand why, it's definitely not because one is more pleasant than the other.

Have you noticed anything similar?

The first thing I recommend to anyone that shows early signs of depression is: take care of eating/sleeping/exercising.

Besides giving a concrete plan of action, if you take care of those, quality of life greatly improves, and you can "build" on that, getting out of the rut.

Or desire to not have flexible hours, but go back to rigid 9-5 and to know you'll always be free after 5pm unless the business is burning down (rather than constantly on-call dealing with more bullshit every other day)

> One thing I have noticed is that some activities raise that bullshit threshold waaay more than others, and I can't really understand why, it's definitely not because one is more pleasant than the other.

Not sure if pleasant is the right word, but rather, internally rewarding.

Going to the gym is unpleasant, and whatever muscle group I've worked that day aches for days due to the intensity of the workout, but the end result (looking in the mirror) is hugely rewarding. Going to the farm isn't always very pleasant given the smell of animal droppings, but for some reason, by the time I leave the farm I'm feeling great. Ice skating is also gruelling, I fall a lot, I can't go more than 2-3 times a week as invariably I do something to damage my leg or ankle one of the days, but I still come out feeling great despite the pain.

Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment, and have gone from being punished at work (high stress, high deliverables, high reward, followed by burnout) to similar outside of work.

Then again, I've discovered a love for musical theatre which is no pain but still huge gain (for me).