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Comment by gk1 | Hacker News Reader

For me the critical moment was recognizing I had burnout. It happened when I saw this post on HN, whose list of symptoms almost perfectly matched what I was feeling: https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2022/03/29/how-people-fall-ap...

I’ve obviously heard of burnout and experienced it before, yet somehow I failed to recognize what was happening until then.

So thank you for posting this. Hopefully it’ll help someone out there realize they’re burned out and start addressing it.

View on HN

> Rego emphasized the need to lean into life “with your hands, senses and via others.” To allow the prefrontal cortex to rest, he suggested doing hands-on activities, such as arts and cooking, and indulging the senses — especially in nature — and talking to people often.

In my hardest semester at college, I wound up spending a somewhat unreasonable amount of time in nature. I would walk 3-5 miles a day and up to 20 miles on the weekend. I had a wetlands preserve across the street (well, highway) from my apartment, and a great state park about 10 minutes away. My workouts got more intense as I was more stressed as well.

It all seemed to balance out and I've been trying to get back to that sort of balance of activities since I graduated.

Studies of ecotherapy support your experience:

https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/ecotherapy

This article really hit home for me as well. But this sentence leaves me in possibly more distress than before reading the article.

> The Cornell study found that after a month of reduced stress, these effects disappeared.

I do not believe I will ever be able to experience “a month of reduced stress” until the day I die. But maybe that’s just the burnout talking.

I am burnt out from work currently and am in the recovery process now. I told my work I was taking a leave of absence, and used my short term disability insurance to be able to afford the time off. If your company or state offers it, please take it. I am protected by FMLA laws so they can't lay me off while I'm gone. My therapist recommends that I stay out of work up to 3 months. I'm on week 2 and it's already taken a huge weight off of me.

I’m in my first month of my new job so it’s not really an option. Appreciate it though.

> I do not believe I will ever be able to experience “a month of reduced stress” until the day I die.

Read your sentence again, so you can see how ridiculous it is. What do you have to do that is so incredibly important that you have to throw away your entire life for it?

Provide for my family.

There are billions of people who provide for their families without being stressed out until the day they die. You should ask one of them how they do it.

Or you are using your family as an excuse for your self destructive patterns.

Please tell me how as an average American I can take a month off work.

You blaming me for the capitalist hellscape I happen to have been born into is hilariously absurd. I have some very not nice things I’d like to say to you, but I’ll just leave it at that.

Would you actually listen if I tried to help you? Or do you prefer being insulted that somebody does not admire your plight?

If you have a real suggestion on how I can not work for an entire month, I’m all ears. But I think you prefer to just think you’re smarter than everyone, but have no actual idea of how the world works.

No, I don't think so. I have no idea how your life is, because you haven't told me. But taking one month away from work is not something impossible, it is something common for people to do. Also for people who earn less than you and for people who are less intelligent than you.

You could ask your boss for a month off as a first step, if that's what you want.

Well, you better watch out, because with enough stress you can get burnout.

At which point I guess at least you will not be able to do whatever stressed you any more.

But then also there's no (complete) coming back from burnout, even after years of reduced stress :

https://web.archive.org/web/20230607211423/https://www.econo...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12234937

Damn, this article is describing me.

I’ve always been an eloquent speaker in meetings but recently it seems like I can’t respond at all, I have these thoughts and then when I go to speak nothing comes out. I’ve began to doubt my skills and abilities even though I’ve been a senior dev for almost 20 years.

The past several weeks I get in front of my screen at work and just stare, sometimes for hours… it’s as if I have waking sleep paralysis or something.

Everything feels fake, like I’m observing myself from the outside and the person I’m seeing is someone else.

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