The psychology of stress and burnout • Hacker News Board

Re: The psychology of stress and burnout

#91

Post by scarecrowbob » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 4:54 PM UTC

clifanatic wrote: post #82

I'm in one of those (inescapable) open-office nightmares right now. All day, every day, people are talking right next to me, making it impossible to concentrate. They're not even talking about work, they're talking about cars, or kids, or movies, or inane bullshit. I don't care that they're talking (and apparently management doesn't either, because since we're in a panopticon, if I know it, they know it too), but whe…

One of the elements of a panopticon is that it only has to be possible to be observed.

That's why you have fewer guards in that system.

It breaks down when folks stop getting 'caught'.

But for my part, I don't know how you'd work under those conditions. I have a hard enough time working from home with my wife on the other side of the house teaching kids violin. I have both over the ear headphones and IEMs, though... that might help?

Re: The psychology of stress and burnout

#92

Post by ddorian43 » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 4:55 PM UTC

scarecrowbob wrote: post #91

clifanatic wrote: post #82

I'm in one of those (inescapable) open-office nightmares right now. All day, every day, people are talking right next to me, making it impossible to concentrate. They're not even talking about work, they're talking about cars, or kids, or movies, or inane bullshit. I don't care that they're talking (and apparently management doesn't either, because since we're in a panopticon, if I know it, they know it too), but whe…

One of the elements of a panopticon is that it only has to be possible to be observed. That's why you have fewer guards in that system. It breaks down when folks stop getting 'caught'. But for my part, I don't know how you'd work under those conditions. I have a hard enough time working from home with my wife on the other side of the house teaching kids violin. I have both over the ear headphones and IEMs, though...…

What's IEM ? It's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-ear_monitor

Re: The psychology of stress and burnout

#93

Post by rubicon33 » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 4:57 PM UTC

clifanatic wrote: post #82

I'm in one of those (inescapable) open-office nightmares right now. All day, every day, people are talking right next to me, making it impossible to concentrate. They're not even talking about work, they're talking about cars, or kids, or movies, or inane bullshit. I don't care that they're talking (and apparently management doesn't either, because since we're in a panopticon, if I know it, they know it too), but whe…

I couldn't tell if your post was satire or not but, assuming it's not, why are you still working there?

Re: The psychology of stress and burnout

#94

Post by koga-ninja » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 4:59 PM UTC

Burnout happens when you're doing what you don't like. Grinding down, going against the grain. The techniques I use to deal with stress are: Zazen - Japanese Zen meditation. If it was good enough For Japanese samurai fighting duels, then my life is So easy compared to this. Painting - very relaxing and fun, but then you need to like It. Mileage may vary.

Re: The psychology of stress and burnout

#95

Post by clifanatic » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 5:08 PM UTC

acron0 wrote: post #90

clifanatic wrote: post #82

I'm in one of those (inescapable) open-office nightmares right now. All day, every day, people are talking right next to me, making it impossible to concentrate. They're not even talking about work, they're talking about cars, or kids, or movies, or inane bullshit. I don't care that they're talking (and apparently management doesn't either, because since we're in a panopticon, if I know it, they know it too), but whe…

Quick answer: Headphones and music/white noise. Long answer: If you really feel this strongly about your working environment then you should seriously consider telling your manager. It's in their best interests that you're happy/comfortable/working as smoothly as you can. If they can't or won't change your situation, look for another employer. Ten years, Christ.

> look for another employer. Ten years, Christ.

Actually I've had 3 over the past ten years. They're all the same. You've never noticed?

Re: The psychology of stress and burnout

#96

Post by simosx » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 5:12 PM UTC

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #6

Swizec wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acute stress is good (adrenaline -> fight or flight), chronic stress is bad. So, worrying about money or being fired or all day every day will wear you down and limit your ability to reason. There's not much brainpower left over. This is why it's, for example, difficult to be super productive at work when you're going through a divorce or dealing with a breakup. And why it's never a good idea to launch a new product…

> Acute stress is good (adrenaline -> fight or flight) citation needed

The purpose of stress is to quickly adapt the body to survive a fight. A set of changes happen to the body.

For example, the blood becomes thicker in order to clot faster when you are bleeding. However, with chronic stress, this can cause thrombosis.

Under stress, the stomach stops the digestion so that the energy goes into running to flee the danger. With chronic stress, your stomach is messed up and you get all sort of indigestion.

And so on. Many examples of changes that have a simple explanation but are hazardous in chronic stress situations.

For reference, read the Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers or anything by Robert Sapolsky.

Re: The psychology of stress and burnout

#97

Post by simosx » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 5:14 PM UTC

known wrote: post #10

Drink hot water and go for one hour early morning walk;

These are empirical remedies and there are many of them.

As discussed in other comments, stress has a very simple and intuitive explanation.

Re: The psychology of stress and burnout

#98

Post by toast_coder » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 5:16 PM UTC

CocaKoala wrote: post #81

agumonkey wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's well known that food industry is stressful, but maybe the nature is different. It's more physical and less mental. Also more social (you interact with customers, kids, families, birthday cakes paint a different mindset) One of the hardest job I took, digging trenches (summer) which made me cry the first week, was one of the less stressful mentally too.

There's plenty of mental stress working in a bakery. You have a 100# mix of french bread, and it isn't rising properly. Will it continue to rise if you leave it in the proofer long enough, because the water it was mixed with was too cold? Maybe the guy doing the mix forgot the salt, or the yeast (because trust me, unless you're doing the mixes yourself, those things are going to happen). If the mix will rise eventual…

Point taken, but....

Humans have been baking bread for thousands of years. At this very moment I could find 100 sources of information, free and for sale about the specifics of baking bread. I could get these in the context of baking at home, baking for a group, or baking for commerce.

Contrast that with the poster's problem of implementing an architecture for an identity access management system. (I have experience with this).

There is no way to relate the tasks involved in baking for profit to designing and building a working technical system that likely is highly unique to the technologies and circumstances of his environment.

I quite sure IBM could set out to design and build 500 profitable bakeries with their own people and be successful on upwards of 90% of cases. Those people setting out to build 500 different would fail upwards 50%.

I'm not saying running a bakery is easy, but I am saying running a bakery is less stressful than implementing a functioning computer system.

Re: The psychology of stress and burnout

#99

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 5:18 PM UTC

freelancezombie wrote: post #65

dig1 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Good to hear you found your way. I'm getting burned out on freelance.

[deleted]

Re: The psychology of stress and burnout

#100

Post by allemagne » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 5:22 PM UTC

woliveirajr wrote: post #2

> Dealing with stress over time can break down the body’s ability to deal with short bursts of stressful situations, he says. For what I could get from the article, under (mild) stress your thinking becomes sharper, but as it lasts longer, it breaks you down and you can't handle stressful spikes. So, perhaps, not being stressed all day long is the key? I mean, just surf the stressful spikes, don't have a light stress…

The implication I see (I am not an expert) is that stress was/is used to get our ancestors and other mammals out of short-term problems, i.e. to escape a predator. It's not useful or healthy as a lifestyle, or else evolution would have favored the "baseline" of modern humans to be closer to what our "stressed" state is.

It seems to follow that stress is useful when it's really needed to make you sharper, but one should prioritize getting out of that state as soon as possible.