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The psychology of stress and burnout

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Re: The psychology of stress and burnout

#31

Post by gerbilly »

emilburzo wrote: post #7

It's all in your head, for better or worse. Extreme sports or intense physical exertion have been key, for me, in dealing with daily stress. And no, I'm not some superstar adrenaline pumped athlete, just an amateur that loves skydiving/paragliding/fast motorcycles/hiking/etc over the weekend. I didn't realize how much these activities help me, until I had to take a break from them for whatever reason (e.g.: winter wh…

>Extreme sports or intense physical exertion have been key, for me, in dealing with daily stress.

But intense physical exertion _is_ stress, so this approach can backfire when your stress load is too high.

Re: The psychology of stress and burnout

#32

Post by oarsinsync »

snarfy wrote: post #28

Burnout is caused by a series of failures. Your brain is quick to pick up patterns and will assume your next attempt will be a failure. To get over burnout, you need a series of successes. Create small, attainable goals and complete them. Engineers in particular need a sense of accomplishment. This way you will look forward to you next endeavor instead of dread it.

My personal experience here disagrees. I had a series of failures resulted in me feeling like I was on tilt, and after identifying that, designed a series of simple easy wins which helped get over that.

Those easy wins then made it easier to focus and successfully complete a major 9 month infrastructure overhaul without any downtime(!), and while the sense of accomplishment from completing that successfully was huge (and the bonus wasn't bad either), the stress during that period was extremely high, and the resulting burnout was very real. A few months later, as that became obvious, I quit my job. It took more than 15 months off work before I began to feel even slightly recovered.

EDIT: and to tie this in to my other post[0], it's also worth noting that all I was doing during this period was "sleep, work, drink, repeat", which no doubt contributed to it.

# [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12986124

Re: The psychology of stress and burnout

#33

Post by toothbrush »

madaxe_again wrote: post #23

A large part of why I left my business after eleven years six months ago was because I mismanaged stress to the degree that it had severe consequences upon my health. At the time, like a frog in warming water, I constantly normalised it - working 20 hours a day for a year isn't stressful, it's heroic! I enjoy this! I thrive on stress. The booze? Oh, that's just to help keep me awake. About four years ago I stopped ea…

Wow, thanks for sharing. I hope your recovery goes well, that sounds harsh.

Re: The psychology of stress and burnout

#35

Post by emilburzo »

gerbilly wrote: post #31
emilburzo wrote: post #7

It's all in your head, for better or worse. Extreme sports or intense physical exertion have been key, for me, in dealing with daily stress. And no, I'm not some superstar adrenaline pumped athlete, just an amateur that loves skydiving/paragliding/fast motorcycles/hiking/etc over the weekend. I didn't realize how much these activities help me, until I had to take a break from them for whatever reason (e.g.: winter wh…

>Extreme sports or intense physical exertion have been key, for me, in dealing with daily stress. But intense physical exertion _is_ stress, so this approach can backfire when your stress load is too high.

I don't know, for me, there's something different between the stress of carrying a 20kg (44 pounds) paraglider up 750m (2460ft) over a 5-35% grade mountain to the launch site in a hurry to catch the noon thermals versus the daily worries that you may, or may not, have any control over.

Probably because one is achievable and you know more or less how much you've got to go and the other is pretty abstract.

Maybe also the fact that one ends pretty soon (not to mention you can stop at any time) and the other goes on for way longer (and maybe you can't stop it).

Re: The psychology of stress and burnout

#36

Post by dig1 »

quickben wrote: post #24

I have a friend that is to damn good as a developer and allowed one of the big Canadian companies failed projects to burn him out thoroughly. He is looking into opening a bakery now, and by the look of it, no amount of convincing is going to change his mind. So no matter what you do, your mental robustness and coherency comes first. Don't let anybody every come close at touching that. Btw opening a bakery is an amazi…

As someone who's been there, it all depends how hard it was. You can recover from light burnouts quickly (by traveling, taking sports), however, hard burnouts change you for life - you'll be lucky to not end up as alcoholic or drug addict.

For me, it took couple of years and few failed jobs until I got on track. Today, I'm more than happy to be my own boss as freelancer.

Re: The psychology of stress and burnout

#38

Post by emilburzo »

Kenji wrote: post #19

I love how people are like "go for a walk" or "work out" or "sleep more" or "it's all in your head" (maybe you should tell someone who has pancreatic cancer "Oh it's all in your belly"). It seems to me like most people don't understand the incredible destructiveness and pain of an actual burnout. How trapped you are and how you do not see any way out anymore. I nearly got there and I have seen people who have been cr…

> (maybe you should tell someone who has pancreatic cancer "Oh it's all in your belly")

Well... isn't it?

I actually phrased it as "it's all in your head" to highlight that you _can_ do something about it, unlike cancer, it's something you can control by power of mind/will (not saying it's easy).

- formerly burned out.

Re: The psychology of stress and burnout

#39

Post by 0xmohit »

From DOES16 London - Better Faster Cheaper .. How? (slide #29) [0] [1]:

  Recipe for burnout is inverse of recipe for success

  Word Overload: Job demands exceed human limits.
  Lack of control: Inability to influence decisions that affect your job.
  ...
Also: Understanding Burnout [2].

[0] http://www.slideshare.net/botchagalupe/does16-london-better-...

[1] https://imgur.com/a/5yrMm

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kLPyV8lBbs

Re: The psychology of stress and burnout

#40

Post by alexgotoi »

emilburzo wrote: post #7

It's all in your head, for better or worse. Extreme sports or intense physical exertion have been key, for me, in dealing with daily stress. And no, I'm not some superstar adrenaline pumped athlete, just an amateur that loves skydiving/paragliding/fast motorcycles/hiking/etc over the weekend. I didn't realize how much these activities help me, until I had to take a break from them for whatever reason (e.g.: winter wh…

What if you are afraid of extreme sports? What alternatives would you recommend?
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