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Thank you for sharing this. I've been experiencing these exact symptoms for several months now and I've struggled to understand it. I don't like talking about

Thank you for sharing this. I've been experiencing these exact symptoms for several months now and I've struggled to understand it. I don't like talking about it at work because I don't want to be seen as damaged/ineffective, but it's really weighing on me these days.

graeme 8y ago
No problem. It can be a hard and long problem to solve, but it gets better with time and space. Everyone's experience is different, but one thing I can say is this: the size of a problem is not necessarily proportional to the effect it will have on you in this state. For instance, I had a reduced ability to multitask. Multitasking is one of those things where holding even three simple things in your head can be hard. So, don't beat yourself up if an apparently simple situation is causing you stress. What seems simple may not be, given how humans are wired. And you have a reduced capacity while burnt out. What you can do is look for things that trigger situations. Then see if you can reconfigure things so that the trigger is eliminated. It's also helpful to look for physical signs. For example, in my case, I would get a tension in my neck, when inhaling. This happened after a stressor. Paying attention to this let me identify stressors and deal with them. I also was able to work on it from the other end. Basically, my system was identifying minor threats as larger threats. So, I did something called square breathing. Basically: Stressor --> awareness --> hold breathe, count to 4 --> exhale, then inhale --> hold breathe while inhaled, count to four. Repeat if necessary. It was like a pattern interrupt. The body wanted to go "minor stressor --> red alert!!!!!!". The breathing interrupted this and demonstrated to the body "see, no threat. Cancel the alarms". After doing that for a few weeks I basically no longer have to do it, except in rare cases. Though that was some time in to the burnout, so some other stuff may have fixed itself in the meantime. YMMV, including with the specific way in which you do breathing. Another thing: sleep as if your life depends on it. Good sleep helps every other thing and especially burnout. I recognize that saying this can make the problem worse. So: if you are awake at night, and can't sleep: don't sweat it. Don't sweat the one offs. Instead, look for causes and solutions. I improved my sleep by working on light exposure. I wrote more on that here a couple of days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19507938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19507938 Working on the general environment helped fixed my sleep. I still have occasional off nights, but the rhythm is better. Sleep may not be your issue. The point is, to the extent you're able, get outside of a situation, analyze it, look for stressors, and consider the full rational situation. Basically your job is to teach your body to align its (presently damaged) threat response systems to the actual situation, which is presumably not an acute threat. Some or much of this may not apply to you, so take the bits that do apply. And good luck!

graeme 8y ago

No problem. It can be a hard and long problem to solve, but it gets better with time and space. Everyone's experience is different, but one thing I can say is this: the size of a problem is not necessarily proportional to the effect it will have on you in this state. For instance, I had a reduced ability to multitask. Multitasking is one of those things where holding even three simple things in your head can be hard. So, don't beat yourself up if an apparently simple situation is causing you stress. What seems simple may not be, given how humans are wired. And you have a reduced capacity while burnt out. What you can do is look for things that trigger situations. Then see if you can reconfigure things so that the trigger is eliminated. It's also helpful to look for physical signs. For example, in my case, I would get a tension in my neck, when inhaling. This happened after a stressor. Paying attention to this let me identify stressors and deal with them. I also was able to work on it from the other end. Basically, my system was identifying minor threats as larger threats. So, I did something called square breathing. Basically: Stressor --> awareness --> hold breathe, count to 4 --> exhale, then inhale --> hold breathe while inhaled, count to four. Repeat if necessary. It was like a pattern interrupt. The body wanted to go "minor stressor --> red alert!!!!!!". The breathing interrupted this and demonstrated to the body "see, no threat. Cancel the alarms". After doing that for a few weeks I basically no longer have to do it, except in rare cases. Though that was some time in to the burnout, so some other stuff may have fixed itself in the meantime. YMMV, including with the specific way in which you do breathing. Another thing: sleep as if your life depends on it. Good sleep helps every other thing and especially burnout. I recognize that saying this can make the problem worse. So: if you are awake at night, and can't sleep: don't sweat it. Don't sweat the one offs. Instead, look for causes and solutions. I improved my sleep by working on light exposure. I wrote more on that here a couple of days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19507938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19507938 Working on the general environment helped fixed my sleep. I still have occasional off nights, but the rhythm is better. Sleep may not be your issue. The point is, to the extent you're able, get outside of a situation, analyze it, look for stressors, and consider the full rational situation. Basically your job is to teach your body to align its (presently damaged) threat response systems to the actual situation, which is presumably not an acute threat. Some or much of this may not apply to you, so take the bits that do apply. And good luck!