First, breathe. There's no single answer for you - and no answer that works for everyone. Everything ebbs and flows - and you'll find different things that wo

First, breathe. There's no single answer for you - and no answer that works for everyone. Everything ebbs and flows - and you'll find different things that worked for you in the past, don't work at the current juncture (and vice versa). That being said, here are things that have worked for me at different times. I'm currently more engaged in some than others. Personally, I think it's all about finding time to just 'zen out' somehow. It's never easy feeling like the walls are constantly closing in. But every single item here is about just taking a small pause, and resetting. By no means do them - do your equivalent. * Play a musical instrument - It's not about the music, it's about the mind-clearing process time, while I try (and fail!!!) to play some music. * If you're into religion (I am) - take some time, whether it's weekly or daily to study or pray, whatever works for you. At the beginning your mind races to work, your heat rate increases... all the bad things happen. I can also attest that (for me) it becomes a very Zen thing, and it's how I start my day. * Swim/bike/lift weights at random / etc. - It's not about health benefits. The goal again, is a period of mind-clearing time. Do whatever thing you do such that you HAVE to focus on the action at hand. * Play with some other technical thing - I do this all the time. It feels like you're not working.. but the reality as I've said before, is that I frequently carry ideals from my random projects back to the office. That just happened today, we're literally going to change how we manage a task distribution across a network, based on something that came out of one of my 'huh, mmm?' sessions. * Book time with yourself - I'm awful at this, I literally fail at it every single day. But the ideal would be to book some 'you' time and just be. Eat breakfast, make coffee, do whatever thing you want to do.