Have you suffered from burnout, and how did you recover?

[R Erasmus]

Stop people pleasing and have boundaries. At the end of the day you career suffers more from burnouts than it does from not having them if it makes any sense. We are our own worst enemies at the end of the day. The difference between you (having burnouts) and the next person (not having burnouts) is you.

"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." << please vote!! >>

[SortaCore]

bjoernen wrote:

I'm curious to learn how others dealt with it

Seriously? Religion. Divine healing + omnipotent being caring for your future = no stress It's free, but it's not cheap. Still, there are amusing moments: "You missed the deadline!" "God is in control." "The client's not happy." "Well, that's because he's not a Christian. Christians rejoice in trials." People at work aren't sure how to treat me, since I have no stress even if overloaded, or if urgent problems arise.

[BobJanova]

Any kind of mental effort makes me tired very quickly, and my mind is constantly "cloudy" without ability to think very clearly

I get this a lot, I thought it was just part of not being young any more. It sounds like you need some way of knowing when to stop, either a partner who will enforce 'no more than X hours/day' or some kind of deliberate routine whereby you stop at 5pm and don't touch 'work' again that day, even if you 'want' to carry on.

[Michael Haines]

The first time I burned out I started my own business as a fishing guide. About five years afterwards, money starting getting tight, so I took what I thought was going to be a temporary gig writing software again. I loved this temporary gig so much that I became the team lead - and they pay me pretty good too. Perhaps, it's just a change of scenery and perspective you need. It worked wonders for me. "I am rarely happier than when spending entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that it would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand." - Douglas Adams

[BillMillerGTC]

After 30+ years in software development, I can honestly say, the day you retire, and become a greeter at Walmart, is when you recover from burnout!

[kerem ispirli]

That's my dream. Have my own farm, work with soil out there; have my office inside and work in it other times. I may be wrong but I expect to have enough free time from both of them to satisfy the other. You already have the experience, so what do you think? Would that be an alternative for you or am I dreaming too much? "The primary trait of a good programmer is laziness. Nobody works harder to do nothing than a good programmer." - MehGerbil

[web0architect]

Hi Bjorn, If you have mental cloudiness and found that cocaine helped then you might want to check out adrenal fatigue and how to fix it.

[C Grant Anderson]

Hi Bjorn, Some suggestions of things to try: 1. Remove Nutrasweet from your diet. Many people are allergic but don't realize it. Maybe 12%+. I'm highly allergic to it. Gives me severe headaches. It is chemically similar to rattlesnake venom. 2. Remove all artificial sweetners and additives from your diet. They often cause all sorts of weird problems. 3. Try rotating different food groups into and out of your diet each week. I have a theory that some people have difficulty metabolizing certain proteins, amino acids, etc. and suspect that because they are not properly metabolized they then act to in effect toxify a person's metabolism. 4. Check for some sleeper type infections/problems such as Lyme disease which is often misdiagnosed. 5. Have a heavy metal and toxic compound screen. You might have been exposed to some in the past. And it can take many years before the symptoms manifest. 6. Check for severe sleep apnea. Do you wake up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason? Do you have trouble sleeping? Your biological clock may also be out of wack with the normal day-night cycle on this planet. 7. Pushing your body beyond it's limits will cause it to complain more and more. Determine where you need to be to stay within your body's limitations and develop a daily/weekly schedule to remain in that zone. 8. Learn to meditate. Helps the body with stress. Almost any method is good to start. Zen is one of the best but is also the hardest. But well worth it. 9. How much time do you spend in Nature? The body came from Nature and needs regular communing with it. 10. Experiment and determine what activities cause more symptoms (may be days later) or less symptoms. Then avoid those that cause and do more of those that nurture. I'm not sure that you have burnout. Sounds more like your body is over stressed and thus complaining. And needs to heal. Burnout typically occurs during prolonged high stress, low sleep, bad diet, no exercise, no Nature periods when the body becomes exhausted and the adrenal glands and other hormones become exhausted. Best recovery procedures are to withdraw from the combat situation and rest and recover. If you find that a vacation really helps then this is highly likely that it's burnout/over stress. Best wishes, - Grant PS: If you find that you can concentrate on certain things without headache and symptoms but not on some things like programming then it's probably psychological burnout where you're really sick and tired of the same old

[dg6yhw11]

I showed your post to my wife who instantly said - "Thyroid". My wife has the symptoms of mind being cloudy, inability to think clearly and inability to exert mental effort as well. In her case she doesn't have a thyroid gland (cancer) and has to rely on medication. These symptoms appear when the thyroid is too low. Perhaps you need to have a thyroid test. Good luck. Murray

[RandyWester]

Look up Rudyard Kipling's "Hymn of Breaking Strain". Everyone will break, if subjected to enough stress. The amount we each can tolerate is different, and it doesn't seem to matter whether it's self-inflicted or from the environment. Most think we're above average, half of us aren't. Maybe also read / listen to "Undoing Depression" by Cr. Richard Conner. The book is as much about sudden and chronic stress as it is about anything else. One thing I noticed when doing Cardio with a desired heart rate, was that when I listened to good comedy, or watched BlackAdder, the machine would have to dial up the resistance 10-20% to get my heart rate to 130. Quite literally, when my stress went down, I got more work done. It might not feel productive to go for a half hour walk instead of spending that time bashing away at an intractable problem, but do it. I've recently come out the other side of a 3 year long stressful (toxic co-worker) situation. It wasn't just the 3 years lost, it probably shortened my life by an additional year or two. Never again.

[john morrison leon]

We routinely solve problems that others don't even know exist. We have performed a miracle but we are perceived as having simply carried out a task. This leads to lack of appreciation that we try to rectify by performing yet more miracles. We become quite good and seek to prove this by taking on something truly large and complex. We drive ourselves into it on the basis that we can see that it can be done and how. We then work relentlessly to realise our vision and we are in trouble. We are now constantly compensating for complexity that we didn't anticipate by trying to get the extra work done unseen. We shoulder this extra burden because we want to see our vision realised and prove that it will work. While you are immersed in this it quite likely that some of your colleagues may be moving against you. They may resent your intention to produce a spectacular miracle that could overshadow their work or the freedom you may have been given to burn yourself out at home and you haven't been devoting much time to office politics recently. Our enthusiasm combined with a wish to please and be appreciated get us into trouble. You have to let enthusiasm flow when it is there but we should be very measured about our wish to please and be appreciated. Ideally I like an intense project of about 4 months and then 8 months rest. That way, each project is fresh and new. It is important to understand that skills don't rust. You can take a long break and they will still be there but you may find that you now make more mature use of them.

[Lost User]

What the others said: self-employment. That; and Zen Buddhism: thoughts are only thoughts; obsessing over them is where the problems start. You are not your thoughts.

[obermd]

Backpacking. This allows me to go where Verizon doesn't. :) Seriously though, in addition to Backpacking I really do turn my cell phone off every few weekends and just take a me day. I garden to relax.

[Robert g Blair]

It may be medical Bjorn. I started getting similar symptoms to you (not the ants on the forehead tho) and "self-diagnosed" sleep apnea, and had tests done. Sure enough, it was. You can't cure it, but you can minimize the symptoms dramatically with drugs and devices.

[Charles Ferguson]

I haven't suffered a burnout as such and I don't have the physical symptoms you have but I regularly become stressed through my work patterns unless I monitor it carefully. I have pattern of staying at the keyboard (i.e. don't leave the seat) working on a single task all day if not interrupted. I almost always end up staying back in these cases so I can work undisturbed. Doing this over multiple consecutive days invariably results in getting physically run down. This didn't used to be the outcome, but now I'm 47 about 2-3 weeks of this is all it takes before I come down with some kind of illness. The big problems with this: * like most people my actual productivity plummets when I work in this mode * when I have the most to do (ie under the most pressure) I am least likely/able to break out of it At the micro level I found the Pomodoro technique very, very useful. It helps me get focus and makes it easier to manage my time before I get into "hyperfocus mode". As above, when I most need this I am least able to make myself enforce it, but it helps. At the macro level: * walking the dog at least 5-6 days a week. I do it in the mornings before work. The dog needs to get out, and 20 mins daily exercise drastically changes my outlook. * meditation has had a major change in my outlook. Again the challenge is putting aside the time and keeping it regular, but it's greatly enhanced my ability to keep my life in balance.

[User 10530599]

I have found this particular magazine's article to be relevant, and would be useful for you: Visit www.jw.org ; go to the magazines section, look for and read/download the September 2014 Awake. That issue of the magazine deals with the topic you raised.

[User 10530599]

Hi bjourn, I found d direct link. www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/g201409/ Wish you the best.

[bjoernen]

Thanks Randy, will look up that stuff!

Bjorn

[bjoernen]

It depends on how practical of a person you are. Farming is a lot less glamorous than most people think. Its a lot about digging ditches and being out in the rain. And it is time consuming, so I'm not sure if you can manage software development at the same time. Plus if you want to do it commercially you will be competing with lots of people who don't have a choice but be farmers, and they usually settle for less pay. If I were you I would keep my job in the software business, and buy a cottage in the country side, and do a little gardening in the weekends.

Bjorn

[bjoernen]

I'm very suspicious of stuff that's not accepted by science, and adrenal fatigue one of those things. But thanks for the concern.

Bjorn