
Burnout - How it happened to me - geon
http://geon.github.com/Personal/2012/04/07/burnout/
======
mtkd
People will tell you to take a break or find a hobby - but you may be like me
and have to build stuff all the time - so they're not really viable options.

I burnt out in 2001/2 - it took a while to get over it - here are some things
that stopped it happening again:

\- Don't stress about issues out of your control

\- Don't self-medicate with alcohol etc.

\- Eat something healthy for everything unhealthy (I now bake a lot of
sourdough bread and cure meats which is a hobby I guess)

\- Get some exercise, even if it's just 15 mins walk

\- Buy the best bed and covers you can afford - and try to get 7h sleep

(it took me 15 years to work these things out for myself)

~~~
kls
_People will tell you to take a break or find a hobby - but you may be like me
and have to build stuff all the time_

I too build stuff all the time, but a _new_ hobby is very good for breaking
burn out, a lot of developers naturally crave learning, and burnout many times
sets in when a developer starts to peak and realizes that learning new things
in development take little effort. When you can pick up a new language in a
week because you have picked so many up, the learning experience and reward
mechanics are dampened to an extent.

For me when I notice the tell tale signs of burn out I set out to learn
something completely new. piano, guitar, mechanics, making circuit boards,
sewing, welding anything some of them I learn to a moderate level others I go
pretty far in, some I drop after the burn out passes others I find that I am
extremely interested in. The trigger for me and burn out is lack of challenge
in learning so learning something completely new helps. For others it may be
different but for me learning something new can snap burn out in as little as
30 days.

As well I am surprised that no one mentioned it but take vitamin D. As a
profession that works inside many of us do not get a lot of vitamin D and it
plays such a crucial role in depression which burn out is a moderate form of.

~~~
holri
People eating healthy food and living a healthy livestyle (outside as much as
possible especially during winter, go by foot instead of driving etc.) do not
need any extra vitamins at all.

If you need them you do something wrong.

A healthy livestyle improves live much more than superficial vitamins can ever
do.

~~~
pyre
Depends on where you live. There are places like the Pacific NW that get very
little sunlight, and going outside during the winter isn't enough to satisfy
your Vitamin D needs.

~~~
dualogy
There are no eggs, seafood or liver in the Pacific NW?

~~~
pyre
The parent post was saying that the only thing necessary to get enough Vitamin
D was to 'just go outside.' I'm failing to see how this validates that
premise. Attempting to eat more eggs/seafood/liver to gain more Vitamin D
would seem not that far off from attempting supplementation if the only reason
that you're eating them is for their Vitamin D content.

------
jmcgough
I had a really difficult period of burnout in 2010/2011. I was a junior
undergraduate, doing Neuroscience and computer science. I had three research
positions, I TA'd, I worked as a tutor through the university, and I was
completing an honors thesis in Neuroscience. I was obsessed with getting into
a top PhD program, due to feelings of personal inadequacy. There was one
semester in particular where I overloaded to 23 credits (12 being full-time)
in order to graduate on time. I withdrew from friendships - some people
thought that I'd transferred or graduated. I routinely worked 16 hour days,
including weekends in the lab, and started having health problems that I
didn't have time to properly address. Eventually, the quality of my work badly
deteriorated. I somehow defended my thesis, and got interviews from several
top-50 PhD programs. After flying out and visiting one program for a weekend,
I realized that I needed a break from academia, at the very least.

I withdrew from my obligations at university (I had plenty of credits to
graduate), and moved to San Francisco. I feel so much more like my old self
after a month of programming for fun with friends - my creativity and
excitement are back.

My advice: be aware of how you feel about your work. You can only loathe it
for so long before it begins to take a toll on you. You're a human, not a
machine, and you need to take care of yourself. Exercise regularly and spend
time socializing with friends and meeting new people :)

------
rpeden
Thanks for sharing that.

Burnout is sneaky. Since it seems to be a condition that accumulates over
time, it can take a long time to realize it is happening to you.

I dealt with this exact issue recently. I felt as though the harder I tried to
get work done, the harder it became to actually do it. Even thinking about
work brought on a sense of dread. It wasn't the fault of my company, or even
the job I was doing. I had to deal with a lot of illness and death in my
family this year, and combined with the pressure of work, it led me to end up
in a state where it felt like I just couldn't get anything done.

So, I resigned two months ago. Trying to work while I seemed to have lost the
ability to be productive didn't seem fair to myself or my employer. At first,
I wasn't sure that I'd ever want to write another line of code again. I'm just
at the point now where I'm interested in working on some side projects to
build up a decent portfolio that I can use to start looking for work again. On
that note, do any HN readers have favourite meetups in Toronto for developers?
I've recently returned here after living in Ottawa, and I'd like to get to
know some other devs in the city.

In the end, I feel that even if I have to work a retail job for a while before
I end up working as a developer again, I made the right choice. It's hard to
put a price on health and happiness. Having been though this once, I now know
what to watch our for in the future.

~~~
alex_tucker
I think of the best meetups in Toronto is JavaScript Hack Night:
<http://www.meetup.com/torontojshackers/>

I start started running the PHP Software Craftsmanship meetup and if PHP is
your bag I'd love to see you come out! <http://www.meetup.com/PHP-Software-
Craftsmanship/>

~~~
rpeden
Thanks for the suggestions! I'll definitely come to the next PHP Software
Craftsmanship meetup.

------
singular
Great piece, very much sharing something very painful from the heart.

Potentially off-topic but I have to say, some of the comments on the actual
blog post are horrendous. particularly:-

"You sound like just a weak person."

"You should try farming some time. What you described is what a farmer would
think of as 'retirement'"

I've found that sort of nastiness (totally invalid nastiness to boot)
extremely distressing. These commenters are fucking idiots who have no idea
what they're talking about, passing on their own frustrations to others.

Sometimes I feel like no longer doing anything on the public internet knowing
that kind of person lurks out there. Seems to be particularly bad in our
profession.

It actually makes me feel like I don't want to admit to my own weaknesses, nor
risk making mistakes which might make me look stupid in case the internet
tough guy bullies get involved.

/rant

~~~
geon
I've been on Reddit a long time. I'm kind of desensitized to harsh and abusive
comments.

On the other hand, the comments might be honest. To someone who havent
experienced or heard about burnout, it is the expected reaction (minus the
resent).

"You sound like just a weak person."

Well, yes. That was the point of my post. The pressure was more than I could
handle, and I got sick from it.

"You should try farming some time. What you described is what a farmer would
think of as 'retirement'"

I know farming means lots of hard work and little free time. My grandfather
was a milk farmer, and could hardly ever get away from home. The cows needs
milking every day of the week, early in the morning.

They also are under a lot of stress from events out of their control.
Particularly the weather.

The greatest difference might be that farming is not necessarily a very
creative field (pun intended). Most of the tasks are rather mindless, while a
programmer simply can't produce if the min is not clear.

------
paulsutter
Self-employment is very difficult, especially the first time.

When I was working at Apple in 1990 a friend left to start his first business.
A few months later he confided in he that he was scared to death, he felt like
he was operating "without a net". I naively thought he was being melodramatic.

A year later I left to start my first business. And I felt exactly the same.
It was frightening, the phrase "without a net" summed it up perfectly. My
friend's reaction hadn't been melodramatic at all. His reaction was perfectly
normal.

It may be impossible for someone who has never tried it to understand the
emotional challenge of starting a business. That stress is layered on top of
all the normal stresses of your work as the sole developer.

And perhaps multiplied further by underestimating the schedule? It's easy to
fall into the trap of saying "I will be superman. I will get this done
quickly". I've done it 100 times.

Thanks for posting, and be kind to yourself. You'll work it out.

~~~
wpietri
Yes, definitely. The number one thing I tell people who want to go solo is to
have plenty of money in the bank so that they can weather the ups and downs
without freaking out.

Samuel Johnson captures it well: "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is
to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." One
normally has more runway than a fortnight, but the feeling is definitely
similar.

One related thing that seems relevant: Steve Blank writes perceptively about
how a lot of founders have dysfunctional childhoods:

[http://steveblank.com/2009/05/18/founders-and-
dysfunctional-...](http://steveblank.com/2009/05/18/founders-and-
dysfunctional-families/)

The theory is that if you're already used to living in chaos and being near
the edge of disaster, working without a net seems almost reasonable.

------
daleharvey
Yeh this is mirroring other replies, but the 2 main things for me are:

1\. Exercise, I used to run, but I find it much easier to go out for a cycle
now, sports are also great

2\. Some Perpective, The fact is if you dont finish X library or fix X bug,
the world is going to keep spinning, I remember reading somewhere that its a
pattern for people to make themselves feel incredibly busy almost entirely due
to their ego, when you feel like you just have to get a bunch of stuff done
you feel important. I noticed that in myself and when I looked at what I just
needed to get done, most of it really didnt matter that much, I am now in the
process of learning how to prioritise in a way that doesnt assume 200% of my
time

~~~
skore
> 2\. Some Perspective

Indeed - Stressing out because you failed, for instance, (your own) deadlines
is useless. The concept of a deadline is just too abstract for your mammalian
brain for the stress to have any useful impact. I used to get _very_ stressed
over deadlines, thinking that the stress would help me align better, at least
next time.

Turns out that _not_ stressing out had only a single result: I was stressed
out less often. Just the thing I wanted to achieve by stressing out _more_.
Brains are weird, but sometimes they are just bloody simple.

------
zainny
Thanks for sharing. I've been through a somewhat similar experience and wrote
about it recently, as well as how I got my mojo back:
<http://www.earthtoneil.com/2012/03/restarting-fire.html>

Interest that you mentioned knowing someone who still hasn't recovered after
five years. As you'll see from my story above, that was precisely me until
recently.

Ultimately, I don't think recovery is just something that happens by taking a
few weeks off, or making trivial other changes. You've got to address the root
cause of why you're unhappy or it will surface again later.

~~~
AznHisoka
Thanks for posting this article. I love how you explained strengthening the
casual link between effort and reward. I guess that's why I'm such a SEO-
freak. I love how the harder you try to build links, and create content, the
more traffic you get.. the rules were so simple and SEO was a game I could
win!

Then Google Panda came along and took away what I loved most in life =(

------
tferris
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.

------
mgl
Many thanks for sharing your story.

I think this may happen or is even happening to most of us now, many of us are
too just scared to admin it in front of themselves. Just like you was.

We live in crazy times. And it's sometimes hard to keep this awarenees that we
are just humans living their lives and at end of the day your health,
happiness and self-comfort is vastly more important than money, business deals
and pleasing others. I don't say the latter are not important but they are
less important than you because our live is a one-time experience and it is
going to end one day. And still - we know how to produce money but we are
helpless trying to extend our lifespan.

I really liked the response of your co-workers, it's good to find them being
more friends than just co-workers, isn't it?

------
Swizec
This is a great story, thanks for sharing.

Most of it sounds strangely familiar. It took being kicked out of a startup I
started just over a year ago for me to start doing something about my burnout
- even though I didn't realize at the time that's what the problem was. Guess
life sorted it out for me and forced me to get some rest.

These days, what I do is try to make sure I lock myself away from the internet
with a good book every couple of days - preferably in a coffee shop devoted
just to this shutting off.

It helps.

------
johnkchow
In retrospect, I too went through a short burnout period. I was the only
server engineer in my startup, working 10-12 hours 6 days a week. On top of
that, I was leading a personal project to help college student organizations
stay more organized. It became too much, as all the little micro-failures just
rolled up into a giant ball of frustration and stress.

My bosses at my startup immediately recognized it and told me to take several
days off. Since then, I've consistently made personal time everyday to keep my
perspective in check: read a book in the morning, workout in the afternoon,
meditate for 5 minutes, and leave work promptly after the expected amount of
hours.

To get myself back into "beast mode" (which others would call "the zone"),
I've done what some other commentors suggested: learn something new. For me
personally, I decided to take on essentially low priority micro-projects
within my startup that are interesting problems (i.e. integrating DynamoDB
within an EventMachine process). I've built up my confidence back to near what
it was before, and I'm feeling damn good these days.

------
lkrubner
There is a different way to interpret these events. I've been through exactly
the same thing, so I've thought about this issue a lot. What I've noticed is
that this happens to me in the winter but not in the summer. I have started to
think that I have some very mild version of SAD (seasonal affective disorder),
such that I don't suffer depression but I do suffer a loss of energy.

2 things in his account jump out at me:

>The fall of 2011.... By December, I felt anxiety when thinking about work.

So, this happened to him as the days got shorter.

> Low productivity caused me to try to compensate by > working longer hours,
> routinely 10-12 hours a day, > with the occasional saturday thrown in.

He doesn't say if he's worked 10-12 hours a day in the past, so we have no
idea if this is unusual for him. But for me, 10-12 hours a day is no problem,
during the summer. It is murder for me during the winter.

Some hours I've worked in the summer:

1.) Worked 20 hours, slept for 3 hours on the couch in the office, and then
worked for 20 more hours. And these were highly productive debugging sessions
in which myself and my co-worker felt we made huge progress.

2.) Worked 26 hours straight to get a project ready to show a client. Felt
great about being so productive.

3.) Worked 16 hours every day for 2 weeks.

In retrospect, I've realized that I never have these amazing bouts of hyper-
work during the winter. Only during the summer. And I suspect the problem is
getting more intense as I get older, because I don't recall this pattern when
I was younger, or somehow I am so stupid that I went many years without seeing
it.

But I see it now. And I am reshaping my work life to account for it. I now
know that I can work 60 hour weeks during the summer, but even 40 hours is
difficult for me in the winter.

~~~
tsunamifury
Its called Seasonal Affective Disorder and its why I moved to California.

~~~
wpietri
Even in California I notice the seasonal effects, especially when it gets
cloudy. This winter I experimented some with a SAD light (in particular the
Phillips GoLite BLU) and better lighting (near a window at work, bed near a
window at home, an alarm clock that turns on lights) and it made a big
difference for me.

~~~
reneherse
My experience is very similar. I use a "SunRay" lamp, and also take 5000 IU of
Vitamin D3 every day. It doesn't completely eliminate seasonal symptoms for
me, but makes a huge difference. Also, the more regularly I get exercise, the
better.

------
smcl
I felt something similar last year, and negotiated with my boss a few months
off work. I went travelling round Australia, NZ and SE Asia and completely
removed work from my mind. I just returned this week and I'm feeling enriched,
refreshed and eager to get stuck into work again.

Time off like this really helps with burnout, I cannot recommend it highly
enough.

~~~
mgl
How long have you been away?

~~~
smcl
I was away for just over three months (16th December to 1st April)

------
darksaga
During the dot com boom days, I sustained an epic burnout. I quit playing
hockey and soccer to concentrate on a buddies startup. It was the worst thing
I could've done. Within months I was consumed by the work, when the crash
came, I was too deep to dig out - like in the article, I knew my sanity was at
stake and almost had a nervous breakdown.

I took a job for six month in a totally unrelated industry (a high-end home
audio company) and got back to playing sports and working out. It was a slow
process, but after six months, I had the itch to get back into the tech world
again.

What I realised is that its important to listen to your body. When you ignore
those signals, it can start impacting all facets of your life. Also, no matter
what, you need to exercise. Run, walk, play sports, it doesn't matter but do
something to get those endorphins humming and the blood flowing. It makes all
the difference, trust me.

------
AznHisoka
"Another one haven’t fully recovered still over five years later. Take care"

Just curious, what happened to that person? Recurring panic attacks or
permanent psychological damage?

~~~
geon
Sleeping problems, difficulties to handle stress, tired a lot.

------
jroseattle
Self-employment can be a very difficult thing to manage in this business.
While many of my colleagues have considered moving on from their cushy
corporate gigs to working on their own, I've actually taken the leap.

Many who consider self-employment are (rightfully so) concerned about having a
sufficient amount of work to make it viable. However, the flip side has to be
considered as well -- taking on too much work. It's a candle that burns
mentally on both ends, and it has to be managed.

I've been there before, and the feeling of being overwhelmed can strike in a
moment. And recovery from those feelings don't come from simply getting things
accomplished -- you have to bring your body and mind back to a level of
comfort. It takes time.

My advice to others who might feel this is their situation: start by
communicating with your customers, tell them what's going on, and try to find
solutions that work for both of you. Do it early, don't delay. The sooner
everyone understands, the better. You may well be surprised at how supportive
the most demanding customers can be. Remember, in the end, a healthy you = a
productive you, which means your output has a much greater chance of success.

------
voi6
I've gone through this multiple times. The harder you try to ignore it and
push past it, the worse it gets. Keep pushing anyway? You reach a point where
you won't even be able to follow the plot of Toy Story 3, much less be
productive. You concede to take a break eventually. You get better. You try to
make up the lost time by doing twice as much now that you're invincible again?
Back to analyzing Toy Story 3 for you!

It bothers me that it can all be explained by a deficiency of some nutrient,
say X:

\- burnout starts when you're overworking (X gets depleted faster than it gets
replenished)

\- pushing harder makes it worse (X is getting exhausted)

\- taking a break makes it better (X gets replenished to normal levels during
this time)

\- pacing yourself from then on ensures it doesn't happen again (X isn't
depleted fast enough to be exhausted)

X might be vitamin D, or (-1)stress, or (-1)dopamine/serotonin, or any other
quantity that plays a role in your fragile body, meatbag.

------
coopaq
Sounds like you were working for somebody else rather than youself. Was it a
consulting startup? Did the customer force you to use some technology that was
a burden rather than a boon? I work at big corp and really the only thing that
causes burnout for me is being force fed a technology from on high.

~~~
geon
We worked on our own product, but the first customer to use it, and the one to
finance the development had some horrible technology.

First of all, we focus on interface, ux, usabillity and design, so we had
planned to build a client iPad app for a server backend, developed by a third
party. That third party turned out to be completely incompetent, and we had to
ditch them half way through to build the backend on ourselves (me, that is)
too.

We still had to sync our backend with the clients horrible hack of a CRM.
Using a backwards, badly documented SOAP webservice that was only partially
implemented.

~~~
coopaq
I feel your pain. It's seems some of the most popular work available is based
on some impossible existing code base that some manager wants to make an
"interface" for... yet the existing engineers could not even do it. So the
manager thinks they can call in a specialist to save the day. Maybe the day
can be saved, but if the APIs/Services are unfinished undocumented
inconsistent crap then what... We all need a strong radar detector for this
kind of work.

------
dennisgorelik
Occasionally I feel minor versions of burnout symptoms described in this
article, but it's never that serious.

Perhaps the trick is that I exercise daily (usually 30 minutes running) - no
exception.

------
boilingcustard
Thanks for the posting. I notice some of the symptoms regarding my current
job. Been wondering where my drive went for software development....

------
Deinos
Thanks for posting this. I have been having similar feelings recently, and it
is always good to know you aren't the only one.

