The discussion thread about burnout is full of good advice (change food, exercise a lot, etc.) but the key to end a burnout lies somewhere else: 1. There is al

The discussion thread about burnout is full of good advice (change food, exercise a lot, etc.) but the key to end a burnout lies somewhere else: 1. There is always ONE cause for the burnout, removing it removes the burnout instantly—it's usually not wrong food or missing exercise 2. When having a burnout, wrong food and missing exercise makes a burnout really worse, they "accelerate" the burn-out, especially alcohol and any other drug; but right food and daily exercise won't remove the burnout—they make the day with a burnout just more bearable which is important to endure the burnout; but the burnout will stay forever even with perfect nutrition and daily workouts if you don't find and remove the real cause This one cause is often about issues out of your control, about dependencies which cannot be cut, regularly about people and situations you cannot easily escape from/you are dominated by for a longer period. Identifying this one cause is a problem because after a while burning out everything annoys you and you are not able to track down the real reason anymore. Removing the cause is the hardest part because of strong dependencies (you cannot just stop/quit/leave this situation). That and an unconscious, always present awareness of the hopeless situations lead basically to the burnout. Easiest cure is changing your situation, totally—meaning to change everything: job, significant other, friends, apartment, etc. Then you make sure you removed the burnout cause as well. But the older you get the harder or rather impossible is a full change because of more interdependencies between potential causes (e.g. job => money => family => significant other => etc.) and/or long-term obligations to yourself and/or others. Easiest prevention is to avoid dead-lock situations, strong one-to-one dependencies by spreading risk and having always more than one option. If you are already "locked" in a burnout this won't help of course.