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Recovering from Burnout and Depression

kierantie.com

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Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#181

Post by abvdasker »

failrate wrote: post #43

My recovery included a regimented sleeping, eating, and exercise plan that I introduced in stages. If you have to pick just one to start with, it is a toss up between going to sleep at the same time every night or going for a walk every day. I also never work overtime anymore. Still not totally okay, but not completely burnt out anymore.

Can you expand on some of the details of your regimen? I'm having trouble getting myself to go to bed at a reasonable hour and I think it is strongly contributing to a growing sense of fatigue at work. Would be particularly interested in how you got started with it.

Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#182

Post by biot »

projektir wrote: post #175
biot wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually the last "why" you get to has the answer: "The biological machinery that comprises my body receives incoming stimuli and the laws of physics causes a cascading chain reaction which changes my internal state. Thus, I'm basically a series of recursive analog state machines and free will is but an illusion." At that point, you lose all motivation for asking any further "why" questions.

Last I checked, the free will question wasn't shut, and I wouldn't suggest basing your entire model of the world on something that pretty much nobody has a good understanding of right now. O.o It sounds like you've simply bought modern "nihilism", i.e., the "everything is meaningless and nothing matters" philosophy that a lot of logical types seem to believe but none actually live (since it's not workable). Digging d…

Oh, I'm not saying that I live under a nihilist viewpoint. Even if free will is little more than an illusion masked by seemingly infinite complexity, I happily buy into the illusion and (for the most part) operate as if I have unlimited agency / free will. My comment was more to say that you have to stop asking "why" at some point and just go with the flow otherwise you descend into meaningless.

Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#183

Post by jgamman »

convolvatron wrote: post #112
michaeltoth wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit off topic, but I'm curious - how did you get started in contracting and how do you go about finding clients? Is it through people you've worked with in the past, or do you somehow advertise yourself? This is something I've considered moving toward but I don't know where to begin. Thanks!

its pretty hard. alot of reaching out. contracts dry up for a wide variety of reasons. so you have to keep the pipe full. body shops will reach out to you - thats usually suboptimal for alot of reasons, but its work sadly, alot of my contracts come from interviews for full time positions where the customer is hiring for some special skill, but its clear there isn't a long term role for me there. that can lead to work…

There is also, if you're lucky, an increased sense of agency ie, direct feedback between your work and the value your customer places on it. Large corp can put you many layers away from that feedback loop and that can increase your sense of powerlessness.

Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#184

Post by failrate »

abvdasker wrote: post #181
failrate wrote: post #43

My recovery included a regimented sleeping, eating, and exercise plan that I introduced in stages. If you have to pick just one to start with, it is a toss up between going to sleep at the same time every night or going for a walk every day. I also never work overtime anymore. Still not totally okay, but not completely burnt out anymore.

Can you expand on some of the details of your regimen? I'm having trouble getting myself to go to bed at a reasonable hour and I think it is strongly contributing to a growing sense of fatigue at work. Would be particularly interested in how you got started with it.

Yes, it is a simple regimen: At least a half hour before bed, turn down all lights and light-emitting objects. This means no computers or television. Do not do anything in your bed other than sleeping or sex. If you want to read until bedtime, move yourself to a different location, like a comfortable couch. If you are having trouble sleeping at a given time, you may try melatonin. I don't have to follow all of these rules now that I've developed the habit, but I find my sleep is significantly improved when I do. Oh, and don't go to sleep drunk, either.

Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#185

Post by erikpukinskis »

kornakiewicz wrote: post #132

One of my favourite quotes from Edward Sapir (known for Sapir-Whorf hypothesis): The major activities of the individual must directly satisfy his own creative and emotional impulses, must always be something more than means to an end. The great cultural fallacy of industrialism, as developed up to the present time, is that in harnessing machines to our uses it has not known how to avoid the harnessing of the majority…

Yet this is one of the central business models of Silicon Valley: build a software apparatus, hire "interchangeable" women to take care of the human side of it, pay them "market rates" which for women's work means "the lowest acceptable wage for at least one woman in the social class your customers expect" (they're interchangeable, any woman could follow the script. The hard part is building The Apparatus that tells them what to do. So we pay men big bucks to build The Apparatus).

It's all built on the fundamental belief that the work these ladies are doing is interchangeable while the men's work is not.

Is that really true though?

And of course sometimes you find a pool of men who will let you treat them interchangeably too...

Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#186

Post by Clownshoesms »

thesagan wrote: post #104
jly wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is more true than many would like to admit. Maybe 'most work' as meaningless isn't the way I would phrase it, but I know many including myself that are often creatively and technically challenged, work an average number of hours, but feel the mental stress of burnout purely because of the guilt and resentment of spending so much time on the specific job function, itself. To put it a little more abstract…

I identify with a lot of what you write, especially about wanting to avoid hurting other people in the pursuit of profits. What has bothered me lately, very much so, is how in-the-minority I feel about this "social crisis" that I feel is occurring: hurting people/ourselves in pursuit of money that we won't personally even see. (In-the-minority from the people that surround me in my work and personal life.) I'm [finis…

> What has bothered me lately, very much so, is how in-the-minority I feel about this "social crisis" that I feel is occurring: hurting people/ourselves in pursuit of money that we won't personally even see. (In-the-minority from the people that surround me in my work and personal life.)

A key point I think. I'm not sure it is a minority feeling, but more a case of active propoganda/cultural influence that keeps 80-90% of people complacent ("We're the good guys! This doesn't feel right, but they just told us we're the good guys! Keep working!").

Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#187

Post by Clownshoesms »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #80
jly wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is more true than many would like to admit. Maybe 'most work' as meaningless isn't the way I would phrase it, but I know many including myself that are often creatively and technically challenged, work an average number of hours, but feel the mental stress of burnout purely because of the guilt and resentment of spending so much time on the specific job function, itself. To put it a little more abstract…

This is one of my big problems with the idea of money being so separated from actual good these days. It also creates huge wealth gaps, and I have no idea what could be done to re-align it. Basically, I believe that the concept of money as it exists today is deeply broken and should be aligned with something which benefits humans vs something which is required in small to moderate quantities to not suffer yet which p…

I think we're showing our evolutionary background, in particular greed. Having our monetary system essentially controlled by powerful private interests is a disaster too.

Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#188

Post by erikpukinskis »

P4rzival wrote: post #8

This is also a huge problem for social workers, especially working with high risk clients. A lot of times the departments are unfunded so the workers also do not get the treatment/counseling they really need.

That job wreaks havoc on your emotions.

Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#189

Post by erikpukinskis »

backpropaganda wrote: post #66

If any of you are suffering from depression, you should seriously try microdosing LSD.

I wish LSD were medically available and studied. It's a powerful, important drug.

But I don't think it's safe in arbitrary settings at a high dose, so I am reluctant to say it's safe in arbitrary setting at a low dose. It can open you to traumatic realities as much as kind ones.

Probably most people with depression are over perceiving the harsh, but some are actually in serious harsh harsh and LSD might make that worse. Don't know. Talk to your shaman.

Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression

#190

Post by projektir »

biot wrote: post #182
projektir wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I checked, the free will question wasn't shut, and I wouldn't suggest basing your entire model of the world on something that pretty much nobody has a good understanding of right now. O.o It sounds like you've simply bought modern "nihilism", i.e., the "everything is meaningless and nothing matters" philosophy that a lot of logical types seem to believe but none actually live (since it's not workable). Digging d…

Oh, I'm not saying that I live under a nihilist viewpoint. Even if free will is little more than an illusion masked by seemingly infinite complexity, I happily buy into the illusion and (for the most part) operate as if I have unlimited agency / free will. My comment was more to say that you have to stop asking "why" at some point and just go with the flow otherwise you descend into meaningless.

I mean... but you do. You just said that if you keep asking, you end up with a "nihilist" view and descend into meaningless. So your overall philosophy right now is that form of "nihilism". That is, after all, why you do not find the value in asking "why".

I strongly disagree with that and I believe this kind of thinking is not actually as logical or as rational as you were lead to believe, and properly asking the why question and answering it is fairly critical to figuring out what should be done.

> go with the flow

Go with whose flow? You realize that this is just you piggybacking on someone else's answer to the "why" and blindly accepting it without any kind of verification? This should be alarming, not calming.

Really, if someone somewhere was able to answer this question well enough that they could create a "flow" for you to go with, you can do the same.

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