Here is my list for treating burn out: 1. Cortisol and adrenaline are your new arch-enemies. Burn out is caused by loss of control at work and other factors th

Here is my list for treating burn out: 1. Cortisol and adrenaline are your new arch-enemies. Burn out is caused by loss of control at work and other factors that skyrocket your cortisol and adrenaline and keep them high all day long. You must reduce your cortisol throughout the day or you will keep feeling burned out. To end burn out you must replenish your hormones with deeply restful sleep and eliminate the loss of control and health practices that are causing these elevated levels. Cortisol is literally poison, get rid of it. 2. Cut coffee / diet coke and replace with green, herbal or black tea. Coffee / diet coke contain an insane amount of caffeine and it can damage your ability to get truly restful sleep and linger in your system for many hours. If you aren't feeling rested it may be because your caffeine intake is damaging your ability to achieve REM sleep (a known side effect of too much coffee). Tea contains less caffeine and also contains mood-soothing chemicals that take the edge off the buzz and promote calm and focus. Caffeine elevates your cortisol and adrenaline and puts you into a constant state of fight or flight. If you are chugging diet coke and coffee, cut that shit out immediately. 3. Renegotiate your job description. Burn out is caused by feeling like a puppet at work and having too many people with a remote control to tell you what to do. Independence and autonomy and individual decision making are a requirement to be happy. Programmers tend to get treated as factory workers where other people get to dump work on them / drag and drop tasks and they have to do the work. Your manager is supposed to be providing cover for you. You need to get a new deal. Those are the main points that helped me recover recently from burn out.