It sounds like you need to hold onto your job for the time being. I would:
Set boundaries (9 to 5, 8 to 3.. whatever you need them to be). When you're working, concentrate on work. When you're not working, don't accept calls / texts / work stuff. Go do something physical .. like walk for an hour or two, especially right after work. Put your health and yourself above your company.
Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?
21–30 of 277 posts
Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?
#22Start sleeping 10+ hours a day for a while.
I have horrible insomnia and would be thrilled with 4+ hours/day. Your notion that one could just sleep any amount at will is a wilder fantasy than the ones I have about Scarlett Johannson. Nothing helps: drugs, meditation, quitting caffeine, dietary changes, exercise, etc.
Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?
#23First, I'd highly recommend you get a Swedish massage. I know it sounds frivolous, but the massage will work like a magic pill on you right now. There's been some research on it – but basically persistent stress makes your body tense, and then even if your mental stress is gone, your body's tenseness keeps you on fight or flight mode. You shouldn't make any decisions in this mode. A 60 minute massage will untangle th…
+1
About 7 years ago I got a massage and went to a store in a location that usually caused me a ton of stress due to the driving and the parking and how overcrowded the store gets. After the massage I did not experience any stress; 0, none, zip, zilch. My muscles were completely relaxed and had 0 stress in them.
At that moment I realized that stress doesn't cause tightness, but tightness causes stress, for me. Relaxed muscles relaxes my mind.
Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?
#24Take at least 3-4 weeks off.
If you can exercise or do other physical activities like going for a walk. Disconnect completely after work, get a feature phone. A lot of people having burnouts due to being over connected and even more so with remote work.
Walk really slow and try to be in the actual moment.
Do things you’ve been putting off for ever due to feeling burned out. That book that’s been sitting on the shelf for a year, that lego set or doodling book or the guitar you swore you were going to learn.
See people for a coffee, drink or other activity.
Avoiding burnout is often about learning the painful lessons of separating your professional life from your actual life and it’s not an easy task.
We tend to forget to stop and smell the roses.
Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?
#25My recommendations:
Mental Health
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Get on an anti-anxiety medication if you can / want to. They can be really helpful to take the edge off for a while until you return to normal.
My therapist is the one I info-dump and bitch about work to. I don't have any particularly deep psychological trauma. I just want to pay someone to complain about work to, so they can give me feedback and things to try. It isn't fair to your friends and family to constantly be absorbing your pain.
I learned this the hard way after losing friends because I was "too negative and whiny."
Hobbies
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I read a book called "atomic habits" and I liked it a lot.
Basically, when I have a hobby, I track TIME, not "goals." Goals are too nebulous. Time is something I can keep track of easily and more time === more good at hobby. ( Kind-of. It is at least a decent metric to track. )
I picked up guitar, beer making, smoking meat, running, game development, all during the pandemic. I hear you! I just jumped around until I found something that stuck. Don't give up on finding a hobby! But don't stick with you you aren't enjoying.
Work
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I wouldn't tell your work you are "burned out." People... can suck. And do you really need a bunch of opinions and attention around how stressed out and tired of the job you are? No, not really.
Maybe reach out to individuals privately if you want some support but also: see section 1: Your friends/coworkers are not your therapist.
As for specific reasons... for me it is other people. The work is fine, but dealing with personalities, and boredom, and stress... it gets exhausting.
Try to identify the people who are causing you the most stress and try to interact with them as little as possible. Keep a journal. If they are being outright abusive, write it down in the journal, and eventually you will have something you can present to justify your request to be distanced from them.
Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?
#26This is a good blog on the subject by a friend of mine: https://ravik.substack.com/p/focus-flow-and-burnout
Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?
#27You need a reason beyond money to do what you are doing. Without that you burn out quick and it takes a long time to recover. Find the reason and if there isn't one do something else.
Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?
#28I was in the same boat at my first startup (a series of 70-100 hour weeks and I was completely fried by year 2.)
I had accumulated (and untouched) vacation time, so I wrapped up anything critical, drove to SFO, got on a plane to Mexico, and stayed for two weeks. I did not bring my laptop. I did nothing but swim, go to the beach, read (physical) novels and have nice meals at restaurants.
Exercise and sunshine pulled me out of a truly devastating spiral; it may not work in the same way for you, but could it hurt?
Good luck: I really feel for you.
Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?
#29The bad news is it’s going to take a long time to heal. The good news is you can come back happier than you can imagine. In an ideal scenario you would quit working entirely to focus on your health, but I’m guessing this is not an option. You need to focus on the body first. The most important is sleep, but that is also difficult to address directly, so it’s best to focus on diet and exercise. You’ll likely have to d…
Can't comment one way or the other on Whole 30, but my wife and I have drastically reduced our sugar consumption and it's made us feel significantly better. Eliminating it entirely is a huge pain, but choosing the lower/no sugar options whenever they're available has helped us cut out probably ~90% of our sugar consumption, and even just that has had a noticeable effect on our health.
Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?
#30> Think of senior engineer in a typical DevOps-y SaaS startup.
This stands out to me. If I thought of my work as "typical", I'd ask myself whether what I'm doing is worth my time. Whether it's fulfilling and has purpose. Whether I'm having an impact on the work and whether the work has an impact on whatever problem is being solved. That on its own is enough to cause me feeling burnt out, especially over a multi-month period of time.