5 ms·

* Take a break * Treat sleep like it is your full time job. Aim to be in bed early enough you don’t need an alarm. THIS is the big one that will turn things ar

by graeme 5y ago

* Take a break * Treat sleep like it is your full time job. Aim to be in bed early enough you don’t need an alarm. THIS is the big one that will turn things around * Eat well and exercise. This sounds trite but it’s very important. Cook meals rather than takeout. If you don’t have time for the gym, a 7 min bodyweight workout each day is easy and effective. Fit in walks * Time. Burnout is basically breaking yourself. Doing the above and then just waiting will give your brain space to heal. But it takes a certain length of time * Close loops. If you have stuff worrying you, handle it. Like, if the shower is leaky, get it fixed. Desk messy, clean it up. Don’t give your brain stuff to worry about * Actively find relaxing stuff to do that actually relaxes you. Like some leisure is junk food and some refreshes you. Figure out which

astrea 5y ago
Thank you for this. I am definitely going to try these bullets. My sleep has been pretty poor as well as other habits having been trapped in my apartment for 1.5 years (my city/state locked down especially hard).
- hanniabu 5y ago
  Also realize it'll take months to recover, not just a few weekends. Me personally I left my job 8 months ago and just starting to feel better but have more to go, but I was at an extreme case of burnout.
- graeme 5y ago
  Do they keep you from walks too? I found that extra hard, though only had brief periods fortunately. I forgot to mention a few things: * I found this app absurdly effective. Only used it like 3 times but it had a big impact: https://wuju.app/ https://wuju.app/ * Square breathing helps. Inhale four seconds, hold four seconds, exhale four seconds, hold four seconds, repeat. Can do it as two second instead of four as well. Especially helpful if you feel stress. * Pay attention for stress signs and process them. When I had some burnout it was like my stress response was oversensitive. So noticing I felt stress and either processing it (e..g someone cuts you off, you feel tension —> “They merely walked in front of me, relax, that is not a threat”) or using the breathing technique can help retrain your stress response. Good luck! It does get better, just takes time and good habits. Also random thing that helped once: consciously blowing off everything non essential and diving deep into Hades for a couple weeks. I think it was being totally focussed on a thing, and having a sense of progress, that helped. Would not recommend as first step. Take care of small irritants and get good habits first. But then just totally letting go to some fun hobby can be an important part of the cure. For me it was Hades. For others it could be woodworking or pottery, whatever tends to immerse you.
racl101 5y ago
> Treat sleep like it is your full time job. Well said. More time off and/or WFH will not cure what a shitty lifestyle of going to bed late, eating badly and not exercising does to one's life. Ironically, coming back to the office, has forced me to better choices than the ones I had when WFH. Even though I spend more time commuting and have less time to myself, I am getting more done now by sheer virtue of going to bed early, spending less on junk food cause I plan my lunches, have lost weight and have better stamina from just having to walk my ass off to and from train stations to get to work early. More discipline will set you free. It sounds paradoxical but it does.
frereubu 5y ago
There's nothing quite as delicious as slowly waking up without an alarm.
- yepthatsreality 5y ago
  You sleep-ate your alarm clock?
- dntrkv 5y ago
  I would like to suggest that if anyone here is still using a classic alarm that begins to blare at full volume as soon as it hits your wake up time, please, do yourself a favor and get a gradual alarm. Personally, I use Sleepcycle, which allows you to select a 30 minute period you would like to be woken up. Additionally, it tracks your sleep and does it quite well. I also have 2 Hue lights that gradually turn on in the beginning of this 30 minute cycle. In the winter, I have a heater that begins warming my room up about an hour before I wake up. The combination of the light, heat, and sound slowly wakes me up and it has legit been life changing. You don't have to do all that, but even just an alarm that gradually turns up the volume on a pleasant sound will do wonders for your mornings. Instead of jolting you awake, you will be gradually woken from your sleep. I was camping the other week and a friend forgot to turn his phone alarm off and it was the most unpleasant morning experience I've had in years. I did not realize people still use those. Get a gradual alarm, you will thank me.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    I use the radio (BBC R4). I occasionally recollect 'a really interesting conversation I had'.. before realising it was 'with' Melvyn Bragg on In Our Time. Sundays can be, er, alarming though! (Hint: at least, for someone not often awake in time to physically attend an early mass.)
  - joshmanders 5y ago
    Actually the best thing I did for this was get a Eight Sleep mattress and enable their vibration alarm.
    - 5y ago
salixrosa 5y ago
I think these things are important to have as tools in your life, regardless! Life can get overwhelming in all kinds of different ways; knowing how to put your head down and take care of yourself in these ways is incredibly valuable. Unfortunately, after a while doing all the above and more, I realized my feelings towards my coworkers and company had nothing to do with burnout. Sometimes you realize everyone is miserably bad at their jobs and you don't want to keep dealing with an increasingly shitty work environment. Another valuable thing is putting yourself in the position to be able to leave.
lurker619 5y ago
Great comment. Reiterate the last point - watching netflix shows or reading Blind or spending time with social climbers - that stuff looks like leisure but doesn't really recharge you (atleast in my experience). Find out what works for you and what doesn't!
jfoutz 5y ago
I'd throw one more in there * cut back or cut out recreational drugs Having a beer or six has a pleasant way of making problems tomorrow problems. But it's a vicious circle.
- jolmg 5y ago
  This might fit with point 6, which I think is about selecting leisure activities that refresh instead of just kill time.
tinyhouse 5y ago
I actually always use an alarm even though I can wake up even at 10 in the morning if wanted. Not using an alarm is ideal if you sleep well at night. But if you don't, then setting up an alarm ensures you wake up at the same time every day. For me it also means that when I don't sleep well at night, I don't compensate for it in the morning by sleeping in. This one is important to maintain my routine and making sure I will be tired the next day at my bed time. The alarm wakes me up every day at 6:30am and I never continue sleeping after that (I go to bed at 11pm so 6:30 works for me).
- graeme 5y ago
  That’s fair! I recommend no alarm for people at the start because the average person’s sleep problem is they don’t sleep enough. But as someone with trouble maintaining a steady sleep cycle, I totally support purposefully using an alarm like that as long as you have the bedtime sorted too. And once you know what full sleep feels like. (Bedtime and a bed routine turned out to be the key for me and now my sleep cycle is regular enough)
ssss11 5y ago
This ^ Also think about what about your career/work that you enjoy. You could change something up, a change is as good as a holiday as they say - try a new company, an adjacent role, hell if you don’t like your responsibilities could you step down a rung on the ladder? (I’ve done that)

by graeme 5y ago

astrea 5y ago

Thank you for this. I am definitely going to try these bullets. My sleep has been pretty poor as well as other habits having been trapped in my apartment for 1.5 years (my city/state locked down especially hard).

hanniabu 5y ago
Also realize it'll take months to recover, not just a few weekends. Me personally I left my job 8 months ago and just starting to feel better but have more to go, but I was at an extreme case of burnout.
graeme 5y ago
Do they keep you from walks too? I found that extra hard, though only had brief periods fortunately. I forgot to mention a few things: * I found this app absurdly effective. Only used it like 3 times but it had a big impact: https://wuju.app/ https://wuju.app/ * Square breathing helps. Inhale four seconds, hold four seconds, exhale four seconds, hold four seconds, repeat. Can do it as two second instead of four as well. Especially helpful if you feel stress. * Pay attention for stress signs and process them. When I had some burnout it was like my stress response was oversensitive. So noticing I felt stress and either processing it (e..g someone cuts you off, you feel tension —> “They merely walked in front of me, relax, that is not a threat”) or using the breathing technique can help retrain your stress response. Good luck! It does get better, just takes time and good habits. Also random thing that helped once: consciously blowing off everything non essential and diving deep into Hades for a couple weeks. I think it was being totally focussed on a thing, and having a sense of progress, that helped. Would not recommend as first step. Take care of small irritants and get good habits first. But then just totally letting go to some fun hobby can be an important part of the cure. For me it was Hades. For others it could be woodworking or pottery, whatever tends to immerse you.

racl101 5y ago

> Treat sleep like it is your full time job. Well said. More time off and/or WFH will not cure what a shitty lifestyle of going to bed late, eating badly and not exercising does to one's life. Ironically, coming back to the office, has forced me to better choices than the ones I had when WFH. Even though I spend more time commuting and have less time to myself, I am getting more done now by sheer virtue of going to bed early, spending less on junk food cause I plan my lunches, have lost weight and have better stamina from just having to walk my ass off to and from train stations to get to work early. More discipline will set you free. It sounds paradoxical but it does.

frereubu 5y ago

There's nothing quite as delicious as slowly waking up without an alarm.

yepthatsreality 5y ago
You sleep-ate your alarm clock?
dntrkv 5y ago
I would like to suggest that if anyone here is still using a classic alarm that begins to blare at full volume as soon as it hits your wake up time, please, do yourself a favor and get a gradual alarm. Personally, I use Sleepcycle, which allows you to select a 30 minute period you would like to be woken up. Additionally, it tracks your sleep and does it quite well. I also have 2 Hue lights that gradually turn on in the beginning of this 30 minute cycle. In the winter, I have a heater that begins warming my room up about an hour before I wake up. The combination of the light, heat, and sound slowly wakes me up and it has legit been life changing. You don't have to do all that, but even just an alarm that gradually turns up the volume on a pleasant sound will do wonders for your mornings. Instead of jolting you awake, you will be gradually woken from your sleep. I was camping the other week and a friend forgot to turn his phone alarm off and it was the most unpleasant morning experience I've had in years. I did not realize people still use those. Get a gradual alarm, you will thank me.
- OJFord 5y ago
  I use the radio (BBC R4). I occasionally recollect 'a really interesting conversation I had'.. before realising it was 'with' Melvyn Bragg on In Our Time. Sundays can be, er, alarming though! (Hint: at least, for someone not often awake in time to physically attend an early mass.)
- joshmanders 5y ago
  Actually the best thing I did for this was get a Eight Sleep mattress and enable their vibration alarm.
  - 5y ago

salixrosa 5y ago

I think these things are important to have as tools in your life, regardless! Life can get overwhelming in all kinds of different ways; knowing how to put your head down and take care of yourself in these ways is incredibly valuable. Unfortunately, after a while doing all the above and more, I realized my feelings towards my coworkers and company had nothing to do with burnout. Sometimes you realize everyone is miserably bad at their jobs and you don't want to keep dealing with an increasingly shitty work environment. Another valuable thing is putting yourself in the position to be able to leave.

lurker619 5y ago

Great comment. Reiterate the last point - watching netflix shows or reading Blind or spending time with social climbers - that stuff looks like leisure but doesn't really recharge you (atleast in my experience). Find out what works for you and what doesn't!

jfoutz 5y ago

I'd throw one more in there * cut back or cut out recreational drugs Having a beer or six has a pleasant way of making problems tomorrow problems. But it's a vicious circle.

jolmg 5y ago
This might fit with point 6, which I think is about selecting leisure activities that refresh instead of just kill time.

tinyhouse 5y ago

I actually always use an alarm even though I can wake up even at 10 in the morning if wanted. Not using an alarm is ideal if you sleep well at night. But if you don't, then setting up an alarm ensures you wake up at the same time every day. For me it also means that when I don't sleep well at night, I don't compensate for it in the morning by sleeping in. This one is important to maintain my routine and making sure I will be tired the next day at my bed time. The alarm wakes me up every day at 6:30am and I never continue sleeping after that (I go to bed at 11pm so 6:30 works for me).

graeme 5y ago
That’s fair! I recommend no alarm for people at the start because the average person’s sleep problem is they don’t sleep enough. But as someone with trouble maintaining a steady sleep cycle, I totally support purposefully using an alarm like that as long as you have the bedtime sorted too. And once you know what full sleep feels like. (Bedtime and a bed routine turned out to be the key for me and now my sleep cycle is regular enough)

ssss11 5y ago

This ^ Also think about what about your career/work that you enjoy. You could change something up, a change is as good as a holiday as they say - try a new company, an adjacent role, hell if you don’t like your responsibilities could you step down a rung on the ladder? (I’ve done that)