Ask HN: How do you beat depression or total burnout state? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you beat depression or total burnout state?

22 pointsmnopqrs33 comments

(Throw away account)

50-60% through building MVP for my startup - currently alone.

But I am going through a state of depression since last 6 months. Reason I say this : I have noticed that I have total absence to any emotions. Even when I get good news: I feel like I am not even close to feeling happy.

I find it hard to even get up and put good 100 lines of code a week in this state.

To beat blues :I somehow barely managed myself to do some weigh training this week and in the process have managed to sprain my back. More rest.

How to beat a state like this in life ?

Any advise is highly appreciated.

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I have suffered from depression and still have those downer phases every once a year or something. For me these are what worked:

- Find people who love you and like to be with you unconditionally. People who do not need you to be at your best all the time. For me these are my parents, brothers, my wife and my in laws. All these people are just so happy being with me. When I visit home, I can tell my parents are having the time of their life just having me and all my brothers and the kids together. Its so liberating knowing nobody is expecting me to be the oh-so-perfect programmer or manager or even the perfect son or brother or husband. Also, 2 of my friends. I only have 2 great friends. But it's amazing when we are together. Too bad we are now in different countries.

- Learn to keep an eye on your emotions. Over-analyzing? Immediately try to reason and convince yourself to just live in the moment.Tell yourself that everything is ok. We came in this world without anything and everything we have including relationships is what we got later.

- Exercise. When you notice that week after week you make tangible improvements like lift more weight, run longer, or simply breather better- it does wonders to how you feel

- Take it easy- Its alright to fail.

- Nature- May be live near some greenery or lake etc. Take a walk in the woods. Just try to spend time with yourself, preferably in some place natural.

Something I must add: Try to build relationships. Good relationships with family and friends really take the edge off the hardships in life. Doesn't have to be 100 facebook friends, just a few solid ones.

I am at work and wrote this quickly. Sorry about grammar/spelling mistakes

This is great. And true.

It's hard to fully analyze your situation in this small paragraph.

1. Acceptance is the starting point or in the case acknowledgement of the problem 2. Talk Therapy / Counseling works. I would personally stay away from any pharma drugs, unless truly warranted. 3. I liked that you mentioned some weight training! Any regular exercise routine never hurt anybody. I have fought off depression with hitting the gym hard. It was what I needed at the time. 4. Can you smell what the Rock is cooking! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dwayne-johnson-the-rock-...

Thank you for your points.

Depression is a serious disease and very rarely can you "do better try harder" and actually conquer it. Treat your mental state like your injured back: you need time, rest, self care and possibly professional help.

Maybe this is "just stress" but "just stress" adds up over time to produce adrenal fatigue and other physical effects in your body. Maybe there's also some brain chemical stuff going on, in which case no amount of thinking or willpower will get you out. Needing medication, if indeed you do, is not a sign of your personal failure. Needing professional help of any kind for depression is not a sign of your personal weakness, it's a sign of your personal strength that you're willing to reach out when you need help.

Thank you very much. I will seek help.

Like so many here have said: Take the time to speak to a Therapist. If you need help finding one, I'll be more then happy to give you a hand. Hell if you just want a "sounding board of sorts", I'm game too. And if you are able too, find a "workout buddy." (Personally for me - this helped greatly for motivation to get to the gym.)

Also: This is a good first step that you know there is a problem and you want to start correcting it. A sizable portion don't even know/care there is emotional problems with themselves until it's too late. But please know that this will take time, there is no quick fix. (That is one of the many primary reasons why people don't seek out treatment.)

Is your product going according to plan? 6 months by yourself without releasing is a very long time without feedback or validation of any sort. That kind of uncertainty can wear you down.

Is it possible to release a cut now? Actually meet people or customers for feedback before going further?

On the other hand, if it is not going as per plan, may be it is time to let go. Try to tell to yourself it does not matter anymore and spend a few days away from screens and keyboard. Sleep well and eat healthy. Once you are well rested, go out and meet friends or strangers, who will not remind you of your project. Take as long as you want as mental and physical well being is so much more important than a startup. At the end of the break, you will be able to decide what direction to take.

It could also be that you have a more lucrative/interesting idea on mind and the current project is a blocker. That can make your current project feel more and more like a dead weight around your neck. In such case, you will need to decide what your priorities are and pivot accordingly.

Sometimes, just doing some market research to validate the need for your product can also do wonders to your morale.

If none of these help, pl consult a professional. Do not be afraid. Burnout, just like any other symptoms of illness, is just another indication that for the time being, we need to bring our focus back to us, in our life.

Thank you so much for your words.

Project going according to plan ? It has slipped towards no unfortunately. But I keep telling myself that a 'better me' can do it (alas). But I need fresh perspective - agree with your advise.

Hi, I feel you. In my case, a project that was supposed to take 2 months, Took nearly a year to complete. By the time I completed it I almost couldn't stand it. It is not a case of not being a better me/you.

That is just the nature of the beast. Each software project/business is unique. So it is impossible to make accurate estimates. New features will keep cropping up. An integration that was supposed to be straight forward would fail because library A does not play well with library B. To hold yourself responsible for something beyond your control will obviously hurt you.

This is just an experience for you to learn that feature creep is real. Working alone is different from working in a team. In a team, gathering requirements, making estimates, development, marketing, sales, support are each shouldered by different teams. Each team would have multiple people. So any individual ends up with a small share of the responsibility pie. They have the luxury to draw a line on how much stress they would like to handle or move out.

In a single person company, one person gets to handle all the responsibilities and there is no way out short of giving up. The way you manage it is entirely different and that is what you really learn the first time you start a company. It took me nearly 3 projects to understand this. This is the rite of passage for Everyone who goes the solo route because there is nothing in the corporate/employee world to prep us for this.

Nowadays, I try to keep the features as minimal as possible. Everytime I ask, is this truly needed for the first release. I go to local meetups when ever possible to be among like minded techs.

Happy Producing.

>> managed myself to do some weigh training this week and in the process have managed to sprain my back

You just described my on/off relationship with the gym.

>> 50-60% through building MVP for my startup - currently alone. But I am going through a state of depression since last 6 months

Did your depression start when you started your MVP? Or did something else change a around the time you started feeling this way? For me personally, I have felt quite crappy when I forced myself to operate in/under some circumstances.

>> Social life: nothing really (answered in another thread)

If you wanna do some remote pairing, or in person if you're in San Francisco,CA, with full permission to vent about whatever you wanna verbalize, I'd be happy to make some time to do that with you. I'll just listen and/or chat about code.

>> How to beat a state like this in life?

It helped me to learn that my feelings didn't need to be coupled my actions. And also accepting that it is OK to be depressed. Looking for smaller solutions is also a heck of a lot easier than trying to escape depression in one monolithic effort. When I am bummed out, big efforts are too hard.

I'm in the same situation you are, dealing with the exact same depression issues. I think what Ive slowly come to learn is that I simply needed to get away from my startup for a while to refocus and think about how to continue.

Exercise also seems to help beat the blues. My happier days are when I take a day off of work and walk around the exploratorium.

Take breaks, and get some physical activity.

Thank you. I am coming to a conclusion whilst replying that I need to get out of house more.

Mine occurred during a culmination of overworking and family acting outside of my expectations at my expense.

Here's the harsh truth. Burnout is going to cost money and time to fix. It's not simple. It's likely your brain is saying that things aren't right in your world representation. The best long term solution is understanding yourself and learning to explain what your subconscious is telling you.

Maybe your startup is taking more time to develop than you thought. Maybe your anxious about the market impact, the usefulness, or something else related to your timeline. Or you might just be watching too much CNN. You have to identify the variables that are contributing to your state(disbelief in your own world model will do it).

I don't believe that the root cause of depression is always nihilistic, although existential crisis' do exist. That's more about the state of being - and not everyone who faces the truth of reality crumbles.

Thank you for sharing your experience.

Seek therapy. It doesn't happen overnight. Don't mix emotions with business. Have a life outside your business.

I'm also a solo founder writing an MVP, and have been working on it for maybe a year. It can be lonely, but keep the faith.

I think you're right on with hitting the gym. This is what I've done as well. Having people around, change of pace, and doing something that has progress I can see (body, weight) has been helpful.

Another thing that has been helpful is daily journaling to just get it out. I've been to therapy a lot, and while it can help, I find that really the best cure is to learn to help yourself. That starts with learning the actual problem, which it sounds like you need to figure out with some deep introspection.

I'm also a big fan of long walks and road trips to give you some thinking time.

Thank you so much. Your words made me look at my few old notes of mine. I have written few activities which make me happy and I'd made a note to myself to fallback on them. Amongst them one is long walk!

Having people around, I would pretty much like to. But I have to agree that I have been hard on this aspect since having friends kind of chips me away from goal. Background, age and other things are not on my side. And my friends have different priorities going on now. So keeping myself away for now.

It's usually "a good sign" when you're self-aware of your current state and emotional behavior. I'd say seek therapy first, but you might just be going through a down time. You're doing good because you know what's happening to you. Surround yourself with people in your project. I burnt out once and it took me 2 years to recover. I wasn't aware of my emotional state. During these 2 years I almost reached depression. My wife is the one that helped me going back outside, doing normal things. As of today, still looking at the world differently, things aren't that awesome anymore but you learn how to live with these feelings and you just deal with it. One day I hope to be fully recovered.

Seek for help.

Thank you for sharing your difficult experience and words.

Before some advice, a few quick questions: 1. What other things are you doing? Are you sleeping/staying in bed all day? Are you eating normally? 2. What kind of things do you like to do? Have you been doing them over the past few months? 3. What's your social life like?

Okay, now some advice based on what you originally posted: 1. Continue your weight training. If you can afford it, get a personal trainer or start going to exercise classes. Research has shown time and time again that exercise is one of the most important things to do when depressed. But when you're depressed it can be hard to motivate yourself to exercise. Making the gym a validating environment by seeking out a personal trainer or exercise class could motivate you to go! In addition, it is less likely that you would hurt yourself with someone guiding you through proper technique and giving you adjustments. 2. Seek out a therapist. I have been in an incredible amount of therapy and can say from personal experience that it is one of the best things that you can do. If you have the time or finances to seek out a DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) program, I highly suggest doing so. It is far more structured than traditional CBT therapy, by pairing individual therapy with skills coaching that focus on mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance. Through DBT I've become a lot more mindful, so I can recognize when I meet my limits and accept that. DBT is truly life changing. 3. Create a work-life balance. Working 24/7 simply isn't feasible or effective. Find activities that you enjoy doing and make a point to do them on a daily basis. For instance, I love to cook and make meals from scratch. So spending time meal planning/researching and cooking is a huge stress reliever and I get a daily "chore" done! 4. Change your mindset. View each bump on the road as a chance to improve and learn. Approach rather than avoid and face your fears. If at first, you don't succeed, analyze what went wrong and how you can improve for next time. Never give up. Validate and celebrate your accomplishments.

Go to therapy. Try different styles and different therapists until you find one that is the right fit.

First up, thank you so much.

Social life: nothing really (answered in another thread) Staying in bed all day: for last couple of days - yes. Otherwise not - mostly in front of screen. Im eating ok I think. Am I doing things I like (apart from work) - not really. (answered in another thread to do those) DBT - I would look up on this information.

Learn how to play an instrument you've always wanted with a teacher: it will be harder than building the MVP, more stressful, you will feel you are shit for a lot of time... but it will take you back to reality.

This is such an important and common issue for many of us. And there is a wealth of experience in here. It should be in the FAQ. (If we had one)

Dr. Rhonda Patrick explains how inflammation and depression are related. Might find these videos useful: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rhonda+patrick+...

Accept reality and you'll be halfway where you want to go. One such realities is that you are no longer who you used to be, and won't become that person ever again. Who you will be in the future, is still mostly decided by you alone and no one else.

Have you thought about whether you really want to do this alone (i.e. without co-founders)? There's a reason YC has a higher bar for accepting startups with a single founder.

Also, why are you building it alone? Nobody find it interesting? You lack the leadership skills? What is drawing you back from getting people to help you?

If you want, feel free to contact me.

From my abundant experience, go to a Therapist, then exercise as much as you can, everyday would be ideal

Seek therapy.

Running hard. Pain is a gift :)

ALL startup founders go through this (similar) stage. You are not alone! I know many founders personally who have experienced this and I have noticed this a recurring theme in many startup stories I have read… I have personally come very close to burnout / depression, but was lucky / fortunate to have come across people and resources that helped me manage it.

You are experience a Dip. You might be able to get out of this mode / phase fairly quickly, if you “change your perspective” on life. As a founder in a startup, you have to worry about a lot of things and most of the time you are doing this alone, at least until you find a good co-founder. Even with co-founders, it sometimes feels extremely lonely and depressing, especially when things slow down or grind to a halt.

Here are some tips & tricks:

1. There is nothing wrong with your situation. You are not alone. Almost every startup founder goes through this. Push through it, you will come out a stronger founder. Keep saying this to yourself as a mantra: “This is just part of the startup grind. You are stronger than this, you can push through this, you are going to make it!”

2. Keep in mind that eventually when your team grows from one to many, and the company experiences another dip like this one, you will have first hand knowledge on how some of your teammates might be feeling and you will be able to guide them out of it. So, think of this as an opportunity to learn.

3. Ask for help. There is nothing wrong in opening up to close friends and family about this. Try to make friends who are in other startup companies. (big small or just getting started… they will be able to relate to your situation and sympathize with you much better than friends or family who have no clue about how startups work / how startups are created)

4. Read books. (at least one every week) Biographies and business books that dive into startups. This is a great way to ground yourself in reality and see that you are not alone, many founders before you have gone through similar phases.

5. Take a break- do something that stimulates your mind positively. This is very different for everyone. Try to cultivate a new hobby or learn a new skill. Something different from your project.

6. Change in environment (location, people and problems) might be all you need. Try working from a library or coffee shop for a couple hours a day. Go to meetups or other startup events… see if you can find a startup co-working space. Try to help others, listen to their problems. I have personally noticed that when I help others solve their problems, I sometimes end up realizing solutions for my own…

7. Exercise, sun and fresh air. Go on a long walk / jog / bike outside (preferably in the morning) Listen to the wind and birds, take in the fresh morning air.

8. Meditate. This really helps me clear out the “noise”. Try to meditate at least 20 minutes a day. Focus on the process of pushing away thoughts. Once you get a hang of how you can “push away” thoughts and noise, apply that technique when you start feeling like things are getting “out of hand” or when your brain gets foggy / mope.

9. Break the problem into bite size chunks and CELEBRATE every time you successfully solve a bite of the problem. Having a sense of progress goes a looong way in keeping the motivation levels high. Track your progress and award yourself for hitting goals. You have to win many battles to win the war. Don't try to fight them all at once. Live to fight another day. You are in a marathon and not a sprint. So take it slow and steady. knock out one part of the problem at a time and before you know it you will have momentum again!!

Good luck! (May the force be with you!)

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