Have you suffered from burnout, and how did you recover?
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Thanks Marc, I've experimented with staying away from different foods, but it doesn't seem to matter. I wish there was a safe drug that just zapped away the metal clouds. I rarely ever drink alcohol by the way, because I hate how it makes the mental clouds even thicker. Uppers like caffeine doesn't help either, except cocaine, but that would ruin my health pretty quickly. It's very clear that I should get out of software development, but I just don't know of anything that is as exciting.
Bjorn
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.
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I've suffered multiple times, and I'm curious to learn how others dealt with it. Recovery programs? Medication? Change of profession? Change of attitude? Shrink sessions? I should have switched profession a long time ago, but my biggest passion is still software development, and it is hard to give it up. I now have permanent damage to my nervous system. Any kind of mental effort makes me tired very quickly, and my mind is constantly "cloudy" without ability to think very clearly. Add to this the phantom sensations of ants running over my forehead and similar nerve issues. I have lived with this for 10 years. First time it happened I took three months off. Second time I needed 9 months of professional rehabilitation. In those days I worked for a consultant company, no surprise. Nowadays I run my own one man show, pretty much doing what ever I please each day, but I still keep running into the ground, so this affliction never seems to go away. Sorry about the depressing topic, and I'm not looking for sympathy, on the balance I have a very good life. But I am curious how other people have dealt with this. I'm sure it is more common than most people think.
Bjorn
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
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I've suffered multiple times, and I'm curious to learn how others dealt with it. Recovery programs? Medication? Change of profession? Change of attitude? Shrink sessions? I should have switched profession a long time ago, but my biggest passion is still software development, and it is hard to give it up. I now have permanent damage to my nervous system. Any kind of mental effort makes me tired very quickly, and my mind is constantly "cloudy" without ability to think very clearly. Add to this the phantom sensations of ants running over my forehead and similar nerve issues. I have lived with this for 10 years. First time it happened I took three months off. Second time I needed 9 months of professional rehabilitation. In those days I worked for a consultant company, no surprise. Nowadays I run my own one man show, pretty much doing what ever I please each day, but I still keep running into the ground, so this affliction never seems to go away. Sorry about the depressing topic, and I'm not looking for sympathy, on the balance I have a very good life. But I am curious how other people have dealt with this. I'm sure it is more common than most people think.
Bjorn
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
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Thanks Bill. Yea I have. I've also suffered from migraines since I was a teenager, and they did several detailed studies (CAT scans, etc). So my problem is neurological in general. Now at 47 yrs luckily my migraines have almost gone away, but the burnout symptoms unfortunately have become chronic. It is possible there is an underlying cause for all this that can be found, some kind of chemical imbalance or similar, but it seems that doctors aren't skilled enough to find it. I do regular health checks and the numbers are always really good. Officially I am a really healthy subject, but that's certainly not how it feels. One thing that I lack is the ability to see when I push myself too hard, and that is probably what got me into this mess. There is no alarm in my body that goes off and makes me take a step back. When it comes to mental tasks its very subjective, so how can you know if you really reached your limit? But when I started measuring my heart rate while doing my usual cardio training, it turns out that I spend a great deal of time at heart rates that other people find intolerable. Those heart rates (+90% of HRmax) reliably lead to injury or general damage to the body. I always thought I was a high performer, above average in most things I do, when it turns out I'm probably of average intelligence and physique, but with an ability to push myself way beyond what is healthy. However, just telling myself to "take it easy" doesnt seem to matter anymore.
Bjorn
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.
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I've suffered multiple times, and I'm curious to learn how others dealt with it. Recovery programs? Medication? Change of profession? Change of attitude? Shrink sessions? I should have switched profession a long time ago, but my biggest passion is still software development, and it is hard to give it up. I now have permanent damage to my nervous system. Any kind of mental effort makes me tired very quickly, and my mind is constantly "cloudy" without ability to think very clearly. Add to this the phantom sensations of ants running over my forehead and similar nerve issues. I have lived with this for 10 years. First time it happened I took three months off. Second time I needed 9 months of professional rehabilitation. In those days I worked for a consultant company, no surprise. Nowadays I run my own one man show, pretty much doing what ever I please each day, but I still keep running into the ground, so this affliction never seems to go away. Sorry about the depressing topic, and I'm not looking for sympathy, on the balance I have a very good life. But I am curious how other people have dealt with this. I'm sure it is more common than most people think.
Bjorn
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.
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I've suffered multiple times, and I'm curious to learn how others dealt with it. Recovery programs? Medication? Change of profession? Change of attitude? Shrink sessions? I should have switched profession a long time ago, but my biggest passion is still software development, and it is hard to give it up. I now have permanent damage to my nervous system. Any kind of mental effort makes me tired very quickly, and my mind is constantly "cloudy" without ability to think very clearly. Add to this the phantom sensations of ants running over my forehead and similar nerve issues. I have lived with this for 10 years. First time it happened I took three months off. Second time I needed 9 months of professional rehabilitation. In those days I worked for a consultant company, no surprise. Nowadays I run my own one man show, pretty much doing what ever I please each day, but I still keep running into the ground, so this affliction never seems to go away. Sorry about the depressing topic, and I'm not looking for sympathy, on the balance I have a very good life. But I am curious how other people have dealt with this. I'm sure it is more common than most people think.
Bjorn
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I've suffered multiple times, and I'm curious to learn how others dealt with it. Recovery programs? Medication? Change of profession? Change of attitude? Shrink sessions? I should have switched profession a long time ago, but my biggest passion is still software development, and it is hard to give it up. I now have permanent damage to my nervous system. Any kind of mental effort makes me tired very quickly, and my mind is constantly "cloudy" without ability to think very clearly. Add to this the phantom sensations of ants running over my forehead and similar nerve issues. I have lived with this for 10 years. First time it happened I took three months off. Second time I needed 9 months of professional rehabilitation. In those days I worked for a consultant company, no surprise. Nowadays I run my own one man show, pretty much doing what ever I please each day, but I still keep running into the ground, so this affliction never seems to go away. Sorry about the depressing topic, and I'm not looking for sympathy, on the balance I have a very good life. But I am curious how other people have dealt with this. I'm sure it is more common than most people think.
Bjorn
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I've suffered multiple times, and I'm curious to learn how others dealt with it. Recovery programs? Medication? Change of profession? Change of attitude? Shrink sessions? I should have switched profession a long time ago, but my biggest passion is still software development, and it is hard to give it up. I now have permanent damage to my nervous system. Any kind of mental effort makes me tired very quickly, and my mind is constantly "cloudy" without ability to think very clearly. Add to this the phantom sensations of ants running over my forehead and similar nerve issues. I have lived with this for 10 years. First time it happened I took three months off. Second time I needed 9 months of professional rehabilitation. In those days I worked for a consultant company, no surprise. Nowadays I run my own one man show, pretty much doing what ever I please each day, but I still keep running into the ground, so this affliction never seems to go away. Sorry about the depressing topic, and I'm not looking for sympathy, on the balance I have a very good life. But I am curious how other people have dealt with this. I'm sure it is more common than most people think.
Bjorn
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.
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I've suffered multiple times, and I'm curious to learn how others dealt with it. Recovery programs? Medication? Change of profession? Change of attitude? Shrink sessions? I should have switched profession a long time ago, but my biggest passion is still software development, and it is hard to give it up. I now have permanent damage to my nervous system. Any kind of mental effort makes me tired very quickly, and my mind is constantly "cloudy" without ability to think very clearly. Add to this the phantom sensations of ants running over my forehead and similar nerve issues. I have lived with this for 10 years. First time it happened I took three months off. Second time I needed 9 months of professional rehabilitation. In those days I worked for a consultant company, no surprise. Nowadays I run my own one man show, pretty much doing what ever I please each day, but I still keep running into the ground, so this affliction never seems to go away. Sorry about the depressing topic, and I'm not looking for sympathy, on the balance I have a very good life. But I am curious how other people have dealt with this. I'm sure it is more common than most people think.
Bjorn
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.
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I've suffered multiple times, and I'm curious to learn how others dealt with it. Recovery programs? Medication? Change of profession? Change of attitude? Shrink sessions? I should have switched profession a long time ago, but my biggest passion is still software development, and it is hard to give it up. I now have permanent damage to my nervous system. Any kind of mental effort makes me tired very quickly, and my mind is constantly "cloudy" without ability to think very clearly. Add to this the phantom sensations of ants running over my forehead and similar nerve issues. I have lived with this for 10 years. First time it happened I took three months off. Second time I needed 9 months of professional rehabilitation. In those days I worked for a consultant company, no surprise. Nowadays I run my own one man show, pretty much doing what ever I please each day, but I still keep running into the ground, so this affliction never seems to go away. Sorry about the depressing topic, and I'm not looking for sympathy, on the balance I have a very good life. But I am curious how other people have dealt with this. I'm sure it is more common than most people think.
Bjorn
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.
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I've suffered multiple times, and I'm curious to learn how others dealt with it. Recovery programs? Medication? Change of profession? Change of attitude? Shrink sessions? I should have switched profession a long time ago, but my biggest passion is still software development, and it is hard to give it up. I now have permanent damage to my nervous system. Any kind of mental effort makes me tired very quickly, and my mind is constantly "cloudy" without ability to think very clearly. Add to this the phantom sensations of ants running over my forehead and similar nerve issues. I have lived with this for 10 years. First time it happened I took three months off. Second time I needed 9 months of professional rehabilitation. In those days I worked for a consultant company, no surprise. Nowadays I run my own one man show, pretty much doing what ever I please each day, but I still keep running into the ground, so this affliction never seems to go away. Sorry about the depressing topic, and I'm not looking for sympathy, on the balance I have a very good life. But I am curious how other people have dealt with this. I'm sure it is more common than most people think.
Bjorn
Hi bjourn, I found d direct link. www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/g201409/ Wish you the best.
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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.
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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
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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
I can totally relate to this John. Before my second burnout I was in a high profile project, and one of the key people there. As I hit the wall, people had a hard time believing me, as if I was making this up. "You left the project at crunch time, that's not fair to the team". Some people to this day still think I was traitor. I was even fired for this, although they didn't explicitly say it, because it would have been illegal. "We couldn't see that your had any problems". "It was not showing on you, you looked just normal". Funny how people suddenly become expert psychologists when something like this happens, and disregard my early warnings as laziness. I have never met a person who works harder than me (and that's of course part of the problem). The last day I worked, I couldn't even put letters together to form words anymore. I would see b, o, o and k, but could not compute that it said "book". Then followed nine months of rehabilitation before I was somewhat ok again. No need to feel sorry for me personally, I'm happy right now. But I wish that other people afflicted with this are taken seriously.
Bjorn
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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.
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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.
I'm also 47 and I can relate to your description of getting "hypnotized" and focusing on one thing too long. I used to do that a lot, and when you have a perfectionist mindset its hard to not do it. But I break way from those sessions nowadays. I only work 4 hours a day, have my own business, and only take projects that I like. It is the perfect setup, but I'm still f*cked up in the head. If believed god existed, this would be the sign from him that should be in a different business.
Bjorn