[HN Gopher] Demystifying burnout - A deep dive into its symptoms...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Demystifying burnout - A deep dive into its symptoms and remedies
        
       Author : ochronus
       Score  : 70 points
       Date   : 2023-06-26 15:53 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (leadership.garden)
 (TXT) w3m dump (leadership.garden)
        
       | paulcole wrote:
       | One of the things nobody ever mentions is that burnout (by any
       | definition) isn't necessarily bad.
       | 
       | It could just be that you don't want the job you have anymore -
       | and that is often good! You get to find a job you do want and
       | your employer gets to find somebody who wants to do your job more
       | than you do.
        
         | boesboes wrote:
         | yeah, hard disagree. Once you burn out, you are way too late to
         | just find a new job.
         | 
         | I'm currently going though something close to a burn out,
         | things like making coffee can make me cry. Haven't slept more
         | than 3 hours in a month and can barely form a coherent sentence
         | half the time. But hey, at least now i know i need to find a
         | new job! Sure that is gonna go great.
        
           | nonrepeating wrote:
           | Good lord. That sounds like a living death, and I'm sorry to
           | hear you're experiencing that. I can think of ten different
           | optimistic aphorisms to spout at you right now, but instead
           | I'll respect you enough to simply acknowledge what you're
           | going through and agree that life should be better than that.
        
         | outworlder wrote:
         | > One of the things nobody ever mentions is that burnout (by
         | any definition) isn't necessarily bad.
         | 
         | That is completely missing the point of what burnout actually
         | is. Some people take years to recover - good luck starting a
         | new job.
         | 
         | Dissatisfaction with the current job is a signal to go
         | somewhere else. Being on the verge of completely stopping to
         | function as a human being is necessarily bad.
        
         | swayvil wrote:
         | Seriously. If your lifestyle is making you feel bad then that's
         | a sure sign. No mystery there.
        
         | lisasays wrote:
         | Right, but only in the sense that depression and anxiety aren't
         | "bad", they're just "pain signals".
         | 
         |  _You get to find a job you do want and your employer gets to
         | find somebody who wants to do your job more than you do._
         | 
         | As if the root problem is that you just don't want to really do
         | your job. (As opposed to the far more likely: you absolutely
         | _did_ when you started out -- until the employer started
         | getting in the way. And telling you to take more yoga classes
         | as a way of coping).
        
           | paulcole wrote:
           | > As opposed to the far more likely: you absolutely did when
           | you started out -- until the employer started getting in the
           | way
           | 
           | You can be the thing that changed as well.
        
         | wonderwonder wrote:
         | Burn out follows you from job to job. I burned out 3 jobs ago
         | and am still fried. I take it you have never burned out as it
         | seems you dont understand to complete mental wall that it
         | erects in your mind that crushes everything in both your work
         | and pesonal life.
        
           | swayvil wrote:
           | In your 3 jobs, was the work the same or different?
           | 
           | I mean, was it all computer stuff or did you change it up
           | with ditchdigging?
        
             | wonderwonder wrote:
             | The same, software. Can't really afford to take the massive
             | paycut that comes from starting a new career now.
             | 
             | I actually did it once ~15 years ago. Left software due to
             | burn out and took a 50% paycut. All my stress disappeared.
             | White collar non sales jobs are pretty easy coming from a
             | software background if you have some complementary people
             | skills. The complexity is much lower so it's easier to
             | shine. Was great for a few years then decided to have kids
             | so I needed more $ and went back to software. The stress
             | had just been waiting for me the whole time :)
        
         | mistrial9 wrote:
         | one thing people don't realize is, serious injury on the job
         | isn't necessarily bad!
         | 
         | It could be that the job was just too dangerous and difficult
         | for you. You will be removed from the jobsite, and maybe that
         | is what you wanted all along. Someone else that wants to have a
         | job can take the one you left. And your employer gets a benefit
         | from getting a fresh, uninjured person.
        
         | grugagag wrote:
         | Burnout is bad. I recovered after a bad episode but feel I lost
         | some faculties because of it, can't tap into some skills I used
         | to have any longer. Maybe im more resilient now but that's
         | because I won't let burnout build up anymore and enter a don't
         | give a shit mode to protect my sanity.
         | 
         | And all this to make more bucks for some rich arses.
        
       | thenerdhead wrote:
       | Recently I read the book "The Stress of Life" by Hans Selye and
       | had this obvious connection that work is such a primary source of
       | stress that it makes you more than what this article talks about.
       | That it can make you chronically ill without you knowing because
       | you're too busy trying to...survive.
       | 
       | GAS or general adaptation syndrome explains burnout quite simply.
       | There's an alarm reaction that happens in us. Next a resistance
       | phase where our bodies try to fight it off. Finally, an
       | exhaustion phase where we let the stressor take its course(aka
       | burnout).
       | 
       | "It is not stress that kills us, It is our reaction to it" - Hans
       | Selye
        
       | bad_username wrote:
       | From my experience, burnout happens in a prolonged situation
       | where stakes are high, but one's capacity to influence the
       | outcome is low. In such situations the great emotional investment
       | is not rewarded by results; so not only the person becomes
       | emotionally exhausted, but they are subconsciously incentivized
       | to stop caring much.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | JimtheCoder wrote:
       | I'm not sure this really classifies as a "deep dive"...more like
       | a brief overview into a complex psychological and physiological
       | issue with relatively...unhelpful...remedies for people actually
       | experiencing real burnout.
        
         | systems_glitch wrote:
         | Yeah reads like something HR puts out as required reading when
         | they know they've been running everyone too hard.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | quechimba wrote:
       | I've burned out a few times. Every time was different. First time
       | was the worst. It took me about one and a half years until I
       | could work again. Long-term stress is dangerous. Toxic workplaces
       | are dangerous. It's not worth it.
        
       | uxcolumbo wrote:
       | What about the feeling of stagnation and not growing and not
       | having the ability to change your situation? Some call it
       | boreout.
        
       | anotherhue wrote:
       | Listen, I've gone very very deep down this rabbit hole, let me
       | summarise my lessons:
       | 
       | 1. Fluffy pieces like this abound, and they are worthless. It may
       | help you to draw similarities between articles espousing the
       | urgency and importance of tackling climate change and the
       | deafening silence of actions and consequences that follow. Why is
       | this so? Because talk is cheap, and feigned concern is much
       | cheaper than expensive change.
       | 
       | 2. Why is there burnout? Because corporate incentives are
       | antagonistic to human needs and corporations are more important
       | than we are. This manifests every time some over-elevated micro-
       | despot demands deadlines and urgency from their underlings. Much
       | as banks lending against fractional reserves is the true source
       | of money creation, emotionally stunted 'leadership' making
       | misguided plans for the future is the true source of stress.
       | Remember always that their goal is to be promoted into a higher
       | strata of distance from effort, and your toil will be forgotten
       | the moment that happens.
       | 
       | 3. Gaslighting you into thinking more yoga will improve your
       | working environment further increases the problem, as it
       | recontextualises the problem from one of their making to one of
       | your failing. If you're stressed or burned out, it's obviously
       | your fault.
       | 
       | 4. Meaningful change _was_ possible, but is likely no longer as
       | the labour market has shifted back in favour of the corporations.
       | Most people are currently more interested in keeping their job
       | than causing a fuss. Unions are an obvious fix here but until
       | they become more palatable by a) improving their significantly
       | outdated image and practices and b) overcoming the stigma imposed
       | on them by corporations, then they'll be forever waiting in the
       | wings.
       | 
       | 5. Cross-timezone work is fundamentally inhumane. There is no
       | right to one's circadian rhythm but to suggest it's not important
       | is a biological fallacy. However as corporations do not sleep it
       | is inconvenient for their workers to do so. Conference calls from
       | PT to India are common, no one is happy in that arrangement. This
       | could be solved by partitioning work into same or very-similar
       | timezones but that would be a burden to the leadership so it does
       | not occur.
       | 
       | 6. Work outside of working hours is entirely to the company's
       | benefit and your personal detriment. A quote I read recently said
       | it best "In ten years, the only people who will remember that you
       | went above and beyond for your job are your kids.". If you are
       | working for yourself or have a >10% equity then this does not
       | apply, you do you.
       | 
       | 6a. Given the above, your reachability outside of working yours
       | is a direct attack on your life, yet we all install the corporate
       | messaging app on our phone and check it like a drug habbit. Slack
       | repackages your availability as a product and sells it. If any
       | company was serious about work-life balance then they would
       | simply turn off slack at the end of the work day.
       | 
       | I have more of course but these are probably the best.
       | 
       | Coda: If you want to learn about the actual science, then I
       | suggest listening to Dr. Maslach who literally created the field
       | (and was responsible for stopping the Stanford prisoner
       | experiement)
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQy1Zc37Bd0
       | 
       | Edit 2: Here's the timezone overlap between SF and Mumbai, in
       | case you were not aware:
       | https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingtime.html?iso=...
        
         | outworlder wrote:
         | > 5. Cross-timezone work is fundamentally inhumane. There is no
         | right to one's circadian rhythm but to suggest it's not
         | important is a biological fallacy. However as corporations do
         | not sleep it is inconvenient for their workers to do so.
         | Conference calls from PT to India are common, no one is happy
         | in that arrangement. This could be solved by partitioning work
         | into same or very-similar timezones but that would be a burden
         | to the leadership so it does not occur.
         | 
         |  _sigh_
         | 
         | Yes, yes it is. That's made worse by companies that don't care
         | about that at all, so you end up with meetings at 7AM and 11PM
         | in the same day. It's pretty difficult to compartmentalize when
         | your work has a follow the sun rotation.
         | 
         | > 6. Work outside of working hours is entirely to the company's
         | benefit and your personal detriment.
         | 
         | If you are a 'salaried' employee in the US, the whole concept
         | of 'working hours' is thrown out of the window.
         | 
         | On Slack: it can make an existing problem worse. I do prefer
         | some quick discussions over Slack than being forced to check
         | email threads outside 'working hours' to see if there's
         | anything relevant to me. Or, worse yet, getting actual phone
         | calls. Slack _can_ create entirely new problems, but it's
         | usually just amplifying a bad situation.
        
         | lawn wrote:
         | This is not complete as burnout isn't always caused by your
         | job.
         | 
         | Family situation, school or even internal stress that you
         | create for yourself because you have 100 hobby projects can all
         | cause a massive burnout too.
        
           | anotherhue wrote:
           | Of course! Long term family (or self) illnesses are
           | devastating, especially anything degenerative. Thankfully
           | those are mostly special cases, which I say as someone who's
           | been through it.
           | 
           | Contrariwise, I've heard of people stress out about how large
           | their Steam backlog has grown.
        
           | grugagag wrote:
           | To me school was a big culprit and can track the beginning of
           | stress in my life. A lot of times it was just stress for the
           | sake of getting used to it and I get that but it's quite
           | cynical
        
         | thor_molecules wrote:
         | You pretty much summarized what I've been thinking about for
         | the past couple years.
         | 
         | Question is, what can we do about it? Thats where I really
         | start to feel powerless, the challenge seems insurmountable.
        
           | lusus_naturae wrote:
           | I am thinking of just working in non-profits and foss after
           | my phd.
        
             | parpfish wrote:
             | i don't think nonprofits are the right path if you're
             | trying to avoid burnout. you might agree with a big-picture
             | mission, but it's only a matter of time before the low pay
             | and huge workload combine with a sense of futility to
             | create burnout.
        
               | lusus_naturae wrote:
               | I am not concerned with achieving anything, so I think
               | I'll be fine.
               | 
               | To clarify, I am taking a stoic stance on this, not a
               | detached or unconcerned one.
        
       | anotherhue wrote:
       | Things companies can actually do:
       | 
       | 1. Turn off async comms outside of working hours.
       | https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-16314901
       | 
       | Things companies actually do:
        
         | foobiekr wrote:
         | Isn't the asynchronous aspect meant to allow this? Just have
         | people muted off hours.
        
           | throwaway292939 wrote:
           | Right. Article is from 2012 as well. The communication
           | landscape arguably has evolved a lot since then.
           | 
           | With Slack, for example, you have so much fine grained
           | control. I don't know if it makes sense to implement a
           | blanket "shut off communications after hours" policy
        
           | parpfish wrote:
           | i agree. send emails/chats whenever you want and it's up to
           | the recipient to manage their notifications to prevent them
           | from getting sucked in after hours.
           | 
           | - i'd rather log in at 9am and see a bunch of late night
           | emails than logging in at 9am and then seeing a deluge of
           | auto-sent messages flood my inbox at 9:01.
           | 
           | - there needs to be some 'core' working hours, but people may
           | be in different time zones or may do their best work in
           | different parts of the day. if you're a night owl, we
           | shouldn't do anything to stop/discourage you from doing work
           | at 1am.
        
             | kzrdude wrote:
             | I still don't think Android has a nice feature for this.
             | I'd like to have a group of apps muted by a specific
             | schedule, with the option to flip between states. None of
             | the similar features do this in a simple way.
        
           | ElevenLathe wrote:
           | If you really didn't want employees to answer email in the
           | middle of their night, you would configure the company mail
           | server to not deliver things in the middle of their night.
           | Some companies actually do this.
        
             | parpfish wrote:
             | how do you handle multi-timezone teams or international
             | companies with people spread around the world?
             | 
             | it would be counterproductive to tell a team in london team
             | that they can't message each other because the the email
             | server server only sends things during california working
             | hours.
        
               | grugagag wrote:
               | Could be solved with a simple expectation for reading
               | emails during work hours company wide. Btw, I don't check
               | my email when outside workhours and don't care what
               | anyone thinks... There's an emergency path directly to my
               | phone but that isn't to be abused or gets banned away. It
               | hasn't happened in years...
        
               | ElevenLathe wrote:
               | Don't deliver mail to a London recipient if it is
               | midnight in London. If it's noon on a weekday for another
               | recipient, go ahead and deliver it to them. Also, there
               | would be no need to have restrictions on sending -- email
               | is store-and-forward already. Send all you want, it will
               | get delivered when the receiving party is available.
               | 
               | These used to be the default expectations around email:
               | your recipient will see it during business hours, when
               | they next dial in. Broadband and always-on internet
               | creeped up without us really examining this, so Outlook
               | is now just a chat client with a weird UI.
        
       | ShroudedNight wrote:
       | This article provides no citations; it's hard to tell if it's
       | based on rigorous research or folk knowledge.
        
       | starbugs wrote:
       | Yea nice article and all, but let's be honest: This is pretty
       | much backed into the cake of how we handle things currently as a
       | society. People are seen as a means to an end. You are
       | disconnected from what you do and the positive effects it might
       | have at best, and, at worst, your work might not have a positive
       | effect at all. You might in fact feel that the whole tech thing
       | has become toxic.
       | 
       | And now we call this burnout? While in reality, it may just be
       | exactly the other way around. Mass psychosis ousting those who
       | dare to wake up.
       | 
       | Now, you can call me cynical, but I'd invite you to think about
       | who's really cynical here.
       | 
       | Just a thought.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | systems_glitch wrote:
         | You are the fuel or you are the fireman :/
        
         | haswell wrote:
         | As someone about a year into a sabbatical to recover from
         | burnout, I tend to agree.
         | 
         | I had a series of expectations about the role of the break I
         | was about to take, and how it would serve as a recharge to
         | enable me to jump back in. Instead, it's been a gradual process
         | of waking up to the systemic reasons that led to the burnout,
         | many of which had nothing to do with the (legitimately
         | stressful) work environment I was in.
         | 
         | It's hard to summarize this in a comment, and I'm currently
         | working on an outline for an extensive series of blog posts
         | exploring these realizations in depth. But a few of the big
         | things were (and I should emphasize that the following points
         | just scratch the surface):
         | 
         | 1. I am not my thoughts or feelings. It's surprising how far
         | this one will take you
         | 
         | 2. If work is your support system, your life exists on shaky
         | ground
         | 
         | 3. Personal struggles become work struggles and vice versa. You
         | can't draw a clean box around grief and loss, or pretend that
         | work stress can stay at work
         | 
         | 4. There were major gaps in my life in terms of social
         | connections, time spent in nature, finding artistic outlets,
         | etc.
         | 
         | 5. Focusing on real self-care/improvement as one's primary
         | purpose in life open doors internally and externally
         | 
         | As I transition back to work, it won't involve picking up where
         | I left off, but something completely different and oriented
         | around these deeper realizations about myself and helping other
         | people find the same insights for themselves.
         | 
         | These things are nearly impossible to see while in the midst of
         | a burnout state.
        
           | throwuxiytayq wrote:
           | Can I follow you somewhere?
        
             | haswell wrote:
             | I'm currently trying to decide how/where to publish, and
             | haven't decided whether or not I'll use a pseudonym when
             | publishing (a lot of my personal stuff stems from family
             | issues that I'm cautious to go into publicly).
             | 
             | But I will put a link in my HN profile when I get things up
             | and running, and if you shoot me an email (address in
             | profile), I'd be happy to ping you when I get this off the
             | ground. I expect this is at least a few months out, but I'm
             | hoping to do most of the writing while the experience is
             | fresh.
        
           | EatingWithForks wrote:
           | Can you clarify no 1? What are you if not your thinking and
           | your feeling? I'm not trying to be snarky, i am actually
           | legit curious about how to develop a sense of self that
           | doesn't have to do with, y'know, sensing.
        
             | starbugs wrote:
             | You are the one who sees (or 'hears') the thoughts and
             | feels the feelings. The reason this distinction makes sense
             | is that, arguably, most if not all of 'your' thoughts and
             | feelings are actually preconditioned from the outside. This
             | lets you disidentify from an outside programming.
        
               | EatingWithForks wrote:
               | But how do you define yourself outside of thinking and
               | feeling? Even the thought to disidentify is a thought,
               | no? I don't understand.
        
               | starbugs wrote:
               | The thought 'disidentify' is just a word for describing
               | the process of understanding it.
               | 
               | Think about it like this: As long as you believe that you
               | are your thoughts, you are identified with them. They are
               | you. Can you control your thoughts? No? Ok, there's the
               | problem.
               | 
               | But you are not your thoughts, actually. You are able to
               | 'hear' your thoughts. If it weren't so, who would be
               | unable to control their thoughts in the thought
               | experiment above?
               | 
               | Did you ever walk down the street and suddenly have your
               | mind comment on something you see without you having
               | asked for it? Where did that thought come from? Did you
               | intentionally cause it? Or did it just happen and you
               | recognized it happily (or sadly) talking inside your mind
               | for no good reason?
               | 
               | Try the following experiment: Ask yourself what will be
               | your next thought? What happens? If you really are your
               | thoughts, then you should be able to know what the next
               | one will be, no?
               | 
               | Edit: You asked how do you define yourself? For me, it's
               | easiest to think of me as the one who thinks or feels, or
               | better "the one who can hear thoughts or feel feelings".
               | Ultimately, I believe this is just another thought that
               | helps deprogramming a conditioning. In reality, your
               | 'self' does not even exist. It's a concept made up by the
               | mind.
        
               | pjohri wrote:
               | Excellent question, it is a long process to start
               | understanding that you are not your mind. And learning to
               | live in that mode. Lookup talks by Osho if you want to
               | get started.
        
             | haswell wrote:
             | The question that helped me make sense of this was: if I am
             | my thoughts and feelings, then who/what is aware of those
             | thoughts and feelings?
             | 
             | I lived most of my life feeling wholly identified with my
             | thoughts. I was also taught at a young age that some
             | thoughts are good, and some thoughts are evil, and that
             | having evil thoughts makes people bad. Typical religion
             | stuff.
             | 
             | But what started to open this up for me was to practice
             | mindfulness for a few minutes/day. This practice trains you
             | to pay close attention to sensations in the body, and
             | eventually to thoughts and feelings.
             | 
             | Over time and with practice (~10 minutes/day is where I
             | started, and I spend 20 minutes now), my perspective has
             | shifted from _being_ my thoughts, to being the space in
             | which thoughts occur. Gaining this space is extremely
             | helpful if you have the type of brain that generates a
             | _lot_ of negative thoughts, as mine tends to do.
             | 
             | It also helps you see and short-circuit certain negative
             | thought patterns as they happen. This has been a
             | fundamental ingredient in accomplishing real habit change.
        
           | dheera wrote:
           | > 2. If work is your support system, your life exists on
           | shaky ground
           | 
           | This is why I despise it when the likes of Jack Ma, Elon
           | Musk, et al try to promote a culture in which staying at work
           | till 9pm or later and coming in on weekends is normalized,
           | and tell everyone in their 20s that that's the only right way
           | to live. It's horrible advice and incredibly short-sighted.
           | 
           | Then you have the likes of TikTok who have meetings late into
           | almost every evening and blame it on the time zone difference
           | between USA and China, when they could have planned better,
           | drawn lines, and have more reasonably-planned meeting times
           | that fit both time zones. Employees in their 20s who don't
           | know better just drink this Kool-aid and get burned out.
           | 
           | Those people will never have time to make real friends
           | outside of work, date healthily, or otherwise find a real
           | support system that can emotionally support them without a
           | conflict of interest with the workplace.
           | 
           | The way you find that healthy support system is precisely by
           | having evenings and weekends to yourself so you can go to
           | venues where you can meet people outside of work.
        
             | FooBarWidget wrote:
             | Yes big money exploit workers. What else is new?
        
           | foothrowaway wrote:
           | [dead]
        
           | throwawaymaths wrote:
           | Hate to say it but depending on your long term objectives
           | taking a sabbatical _might_ have been the worst thing to
           | recover from burnout. You want to reassociate effort with
           | reward, and the best way to do that is to work on small
           | things related to what caused your burnout that will
           | "guarantee wins with low expectations". By pivoting to
           | something different you reinforce the association of the
           | previous form of effort with failure (in the negative space
           | of rewarding yourself for not doing it).
        
             | haswell wrote:
             | The levels of stress I was enduring started causing
             | physiological symptoms that eventually forced me to take
             | medication to calm things down. It was also severely
             | disrupting my sleep, which was causing other health
             | problems.
             | 
             | Setting aside any discussion of rewards, there were red
             | flags everywhere telling me I had to take a step back, and
             | fast (my doctors agreed).
             | 
             | But beyond the physical health, this is all a matter of
             | perspective and framing. If measured on the traditional
             | metrics of reward vs. effort (shipping things, happy
             | customers, compensation, respect of peers, interesting
             | problems, etc.), I had no reason to burn out.
             | 
             | The trouble is that most people are conditioned to believe
             | without question that those are some of the the primary
             | metrics/rewards that matter. For me personally, part of the
             | burnout was due more to a misplaced emphasis on things that
             | most people would classify as "wins", but from which I
             | derived no personal satisfaction.
             | 
             | Going deeper, much of the burnout wasn't related to work at
             | all.
             | 
             | And deeper still, some of the burnout was due to a deep
             | misalignment between the work I was doing and my core
             | values. What I really want out of life.
             | 
             | Pivoting might be the worst thing for continuing down the
             | path I was on, but to me that's a feature, not a bug.
        
           | mahathu wrote:
           | "When I start working again, it won't involve picking up
           | where I left off, but something completely different and
           | oriented around these deeper realizations and helping other
           | people find the same insights for themselves."
           | 
           | Such condescending drivel. The first "realisation" is what is
           | commonly taught within the first 5 sessions of cognitive
           | behavioural therapy. The fifth seems like a move in the right
           | direction for a person who considers (2) and (3) to be so
           | enlightening to justify teaching other people about them, but
           | ultimately coming up with purpuses for your life and ranking
           | them sounds like setting yourself up for a lot of
           | disappointment once the inevitable days where such self-
           | proclaimed purposes can't be achieved come.
           | 
           | Envisioning dedicating an entire blog to enlighten others
           | about these "realisations" people generally have before
           | turning 20 just makes you sound like a narcissist.
        
             | haswell wrote:
             | > _The first "realisation" is what is commonly taught
             | within the first 5 sessions of cognitive behavioural
             | therapy_
             | 
             | This is something I learned early and explored regularly in
             | my therapy journey of many years, but I never directly
             | _experienced_ it until I had time off to explore it more
             | deeply (mindfulness meditation, time in nature, photography
             | all helped here). It 's one thing to understand this
             | conceptually. It's another thing entirely to experience it
             | directly, and it's that delta that seems worth exploring.
             | 
             | My goal in writing all of this out isn't to enlighten
             | people, or to claim I've found the one true path, or to
             | proclaim novel findings about the nature of self. But
             | rather, to re-explore the interesting parts of the break
             | and what worked/didn't work for my own clarity, and in case
             | that information resonates with someone or helps them
             | through their own stuff. In short: "this is what worked for
             | me, might not work for you, do with that what you will".
             | I'm certain it won't resonate with everyone, and I'm ok
             | with that.
             | 
             | To be honest, one of the biggest things that has made me
             | think twice about this project is that I don't want people
             | to think I'm taking myself too seriously.
             | 
             | But your comment helped me realize that I'm not actually
             | concerned about naysayers, so thank you for that!
        
           | starbugs wrote:
           | Thank you for this.
           | 
           | Now that I have ranted enough in the parent comment, here are
           | my 2 maybe constructive cents:
           | 
           | 1. Learn what it means to be relaxed again and make this your
           | first priority. F** everything else, if necessary. Anxiety
           | and stress don't have a chance if you aren't tense.
           | 
           | 2. Go out into the sun and spend a lot of time in nature. If
           | you can't get out of bed in the morning, make it a habit to
           | go out first thing in the morning for an hour or so. Force
           | yourself if need be at first.
           | 
           | 3. When anxiety or self-blame start to emerge, feel it and
           | focus on the feeling itself intensely. This makes it
           | impossible for it to take over your mind.
           | 
           | 4. Make fear a positive experience by using it for something
           | positive, e.g. learning how to focus on your feelings or
           | reframing it as thrill.
           | 
           | 5. Try all methods you can find to cope. Everyone is
           | different and not all methods work for everybody.
        
             | haswell wrote:
             | +1 to all of the above. Especially "try stuff".
             | 
             | Going along with 3 and 4, realizing how much worse
             | avoidance was than embracing anxiety and the causes of it
             | was a game changer.
             | 
             | The book "Flow" also applies here.
        
         | smcleod wrote:
         | Absolutely. Just like the fact that companies will make as much
         | profit as they can get away with - they will treat their
         | workers with as much, or near to as much as they can get away
         | with.
        
       | scotty79 wrote:
       | > cynicism
       | 
       | Why the cynicism is perceived as something wrong or even a
       | symptom?
       | 
       | Cynicism is just the most probable approximation of reality
       | stripped of forcibly uplifting false narratives.
        
       | swayvil wrote:
       | Implicit in the term "burnout" is that it's good and healthy to
       | do this (rather inhuman, intense) thing in these vast quantities.
       | That to get sick from it is somehow this weird aberration.
       | 
       | But if you consume too much of pretty much anything you'll get
       | sick. Even good stuff. That's perfectly normal.
        
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