Do you ever feel burn out?
How often do you just relax and lounge around? Do you struggle with relaxation guilt? Burnt out and don't know how to relax
My therapist made me realize I was burnt out. I am an entrepreneur and I work 9-5 but when I go home, even when I'm not on my PC, I dont stop thinking about how I can improve work flow etc. Its been such a long time since I stopped thinking about work. I dont know how to fully relax.
I tried watching movies, but it doesnt give me extreme enjoyment.
What are some ways you do to relax on your own? It can be both indoor or outdoor activities. Recommendations are appreciated! I don't know how to relax and live in the moment. All I do is stress about the future. Even when I'm done with whatever I'm doing, I can't stop stressing about stuff that is weeks away. And I don't do anything about it either. I'm on my phone while being really stressed. I just want to change that. Do you ever feel like you're too relaxed about life?
I'm 17 years old, going through High School, and I'm usually happy all the time, I've got a good life. I'm the kind of guy who's usually prancing around with a smile on his face.
I'm just kind of worried that my positive way of being is gonna run out sometime, what if I don't really like my life and the way I am is just a defense mechanism?
Do you ever truly relax?
What are some activities in which you feel totally relaxed?
I find that I’m almost never relaxed bc I’m always thinking about what I could be doing that’s more productive. For example, I know I should be meditating, or reading this or that book that’s been sitting on my shelf, or whatever else, but I convince myself that I don’t deserve it or have time, despite the benefits that my relaxation time would give me. Run on sentence, wooo!
Are you ever really here and now, and content with your current activity, not always planning your next?
It's weird stuff. I have a problem were i am unable to relax or to empty my mind and I am in a constant state of worry and I am 18 years old. I have always been like that and I always have something in my mind. I really want to change that. Does anyone else feel like they don't know how to relax?
DAE Questions
I feel like I'm making strides in dealing with anxiety, but I still have no concept of relaxing. It's like I constantly need to problem solve or worry. Wondering if anyone else feels the same. What’s the optimal amount of time to relax every day?
We’re not robots; we’ve gotta allow ourselves to sit down and enjoy life without worrying about being productive. But how much is too much?
5 minutes in front of the TV isn’t enough time to decompress, but what is? What’s enough time to sit and actually enjoy playing a video game or watching a Netflix show without going overboard? Do you feel guilty when you're relaxing?
MBTI Theory
Like when I'm watching a movie or playing a video game, I start to feel really anxious and guilty that I'm wasting my time. I can't ever enjoy myself... The thought of everything I have to do later starts bugging me. It's sort of like how Insomniacs can't sleep because their brain thinks too much at night... I have the same problem during leisure time.
I'm going to guess this is an Ni thing. Does anyone else feel this? Do you ever feel guilty for enjoying your free time?
I'm asking this while I sit watching youtube videos at midnight, actually enjoying the content of what I'm seeing and realized I never usually feel like this. For some reason, it's been instilled in me that any free time I have has to be used to work, or do chores, or study, all the time, and anything that's recreational is a "waste". I wonder if maybe that's why I use to feel so burnt out and tired, as I would know anytime my free time was up it would be back to work and I shouldn't get too interested in anything that's not productive. I hope that made sense..like no matter what I do now, I could be doing something better or with meaning.
When you need to relax and chill out, what music or songs do you listen to?
Has anyone else had a hard time enjoying themselves be it watching a show or playing some music? How would you describe it? Why do you think you had/have a hard time relaxing and not feeling guilty or burnt out? What's the most relaxed you've ever felt? How do you take a day off to relax?
It may seem like an off-topic, but I think in order to be productive, a person needs to be able to set some time to relax.
I can't relax or do nothing.
I thought that I was relaxed, calm and content, but I recently realised I'm none of these things. I can never sit still, I always fidget. I get bored easily, I can't sit and do nothing, and I hate awkward silences in groups. I have a really annoying habit of twitching or flexing a part of my body all the time (eg my thumbs or legs) and I shake a lot when I feel physically or psychologically uncomfortable. I think my basic problem is that I always need stimuli, so I never want to go to bed because I can't sleep easily because I'm always bored and need something to occupy myself. Annoyingly, I don't transfer this need for stimuli into productive sources; when I'm bored, I tend to go on reddit or facebook or youtube etc instead of studying.
Right now it's the twitching that's bugging me most, I can't stop nervously twitching. What can I do?
I am studying Master's and also work a study-related job. That puts me at around 20-25h work and 30h for lectures/reading/homework. I try to move as much of my reading/homework to weekends, so I am more productive and less tired at work.
This puts me in a weird situation where I am not able to take a day off on the weekend and relax. I may manage to do everything in time, but still feel the urge/necessity to do something productive. I feel bad and anxious when I am watching a movie, because it feels like I am wasting my time. As a result, I was wondering how does one actually relax? How do you just chill and don't think about all the stuff you have to do? Anyone feel like they can't genuinely relax during days off?
Just curious on the community's thoughts here. I've been working a Monday through Friday office job for several years now. During the weekend I feel like I have an enormous amount of pressure to constantly "go go go". I feel this desire to be extremely productive - or I have to be out of the house in order to not feel frustrated with how my day off is going. I have taken adderall off and on the past decade, could that play any role in my brain chemistry and this constant desire to be doing something? My biggest struggle with having adhd is the constant guilt I feel whenever I have too much downtime.
How do you deal with not feeling like you're wasting time when relaxing?
I'm in my mid 30's. I have a 40+ hour job that pays well enough for my area. I do door dash on the side as "play with money". I take care of my sick mom and pay all my rent and bills. My days are full and productive. Sometimes I feel like I just need a break but when I sit down to watch a movie or play a video game I feel like I'm wasting time and being unproductive. I feel like I can't enjoy my down time I feel like I should be doing something productive.
I would describe my wife as a workaholic. She always has to be doing something. Lately I've been feeling like it's really hurting our relationship.
She doesn't take breaks. Her job has a reasonably heavy workload, which I get she doesn't have much control over. But she is constantly taking on extra projects that she doesn't have to, she voluntarily works unpaid overtime, and she never ever pushes back even a little bit when she is being overworked.
I could accept this if it was just work, which again I know she doesn't have much control over. But when she's not working at her job, she instantly starts working on something else. She'll do housework, or work on personal projects, or anything she can find. Which would be fine in moderation, but she fills almost every waking minute on work.
I've tried taking some stuff off her plate, in addition to the housework I do myself. But she doesn't take the extra time to relax or take a break, she'll just fill it with more work. And I feel like I have to match her workload so I'm not lounging around playing video games while she's scrubbing the kitchen floor.
Our schedule is like this: we both have full time jobs. We get home, one of us makes dinner (usually me) while the other works (she usually has work from her job she needs to finish). We eat dinner, then back to work doing any and all available housework until it's late. Then we go to bed. Repeat every day. On weekends we get up and both start doing housework, or we run errands. After errands we keep working. We break to eat meals and watch an episode of a TV show.
I desperately want to be able to say, hey, we've done all the urgent housework (dishes are clean etc.), let's take the rest of the night off. Or, let's say Saturday is a chill do nothing day. But she always says she has too much to do. I tell her that there will *always* be something to do. If you wait until there's nothing to do to relax, you will never have time to relax. She usually just dismisses this as lazy.
The workload she puts on herself makes her stressed and irritable, too. She loses her patience with me more quickly, she's grumpy, she's too focused on her tasks to talk about our day. I feel like when we're together we're just quietly cleaning the house, or we're burned out and staring at our phones before we go to bed.
I don't know how to talk to her about this, every time I try to bring it up she makes me feel like I just want to be lazy. Or she'll tell me that it's fine, I can go play video games or whatever, meanwhile she's angrily organizing our closet or wiping down our tables or working overtime late into the night. I'm just kind of exhausted.
How do you combat this?
Sundays happen to be one of those days where I try to relax and not make any plans for the day. I just can’t seem to shake off the bad thoughts that I’m lazy. Any time I just want to lay in bed all day or take a nap my brain says “you’re being lazy, you should be doing something better with your time!”. Like for example, I can usually only watch a few hours of a tv show before my brain is telling me to get up and do shit. Does anyone else struggle with this? I’m curious if there’s a way to work with my brain so I don’t feel so badly on my days off. I just want to relax. 😕Every meditation guide and such say that you must do a body scan, relax your muscles etc, but I. Just. Can’t. I’m a very depressive and anxious person naturally, and my muscles are tensed 24/7, I never feel comfortable or relaxed in my own body. Thinking about it makes me feel hopeless and spoils my pre-meditative mindset completely. Wtf is wrong with me? I realized that I'm stressed and anxious 90% of the time and I can't see how beautiful life I have
I think I need help. I'm really into mindfulness and meditation and when I became more aware of my internal feelings, I realized there is a constant tension inside my body near my stomach and chest. You know that feeling when you have to say something in front of group of people? I feel it almost all the time.
It's terrible, honestly, especially in a long-term. I have problems with my digestion no matter if I'm eating healthy or not, I can't see beauty of everyday life and I just can't relax.
I will explain you what is happening in my head. I have constant feeling that my time on Earth is limited. My main life goals are quite precise:
- I want to find eternal peace
- I want to earn enough money to buy myself freedom (retire before 50)
- I want to be totally healthy until the end of my life
- I want to leave a valuable mark in this world (probably in IT section, but who knows)
As you can see, I'm quite ambitious person. I spend a lot of time on reading and learning. I learn programming, I learn trading on market, I read about self development, spiritural development, mindfulness, I do bodyweight training etc. Sounds pretty good, isn't it?
Well, it's not. I have a feeling that day is definitely too short. I feel bad when I wake up too late, when I caught myself on procrastinating, it's also so annoying to me how much things I have to do daily that are not related to my "higher goals" like cleaning, cooking, laundring etc. Actually, I feel bad when I'm doing almost ANYTHING that isn't related to my "higher goals". That's why I just can't relax. I can't enjoy the nice weather, I can't enjoy beauty of nature, it's sometimes even hard to enjoy spending time with my girlfriend. I feel relaxed when I'm drinking or playing, but it's not literally relaxing, it's more like escapism. I've already cut my drinking by ~90%, mostly because I was seriously sick (mononucleosis), but I think that this sickness saved me from alcoholism. I also worry a lot about my future. I often can't be present, because I make a lot of calculations and predictions in my head, make future plans and I really like doing it, but I think's it's harmful in the long term. My expectations are definitely too high. I also have problem with my empathy. I just don't care a lot about other people, but I know that I have to feel love and compassion to find internal peace. There is no other way aroud. I think I described most of my problems. I'm preparing for new way of meditation that is connected with affirmations binaural beats and letting go, but I also want to know your point of view. Maybe I'm missing something important. If I won't see any improvements in my internal feelings until the end of the year, I'm going to meet a psychologist. How do you know when to relax?
Right now I struggle with setting up "Free" time for myself, and in previous time it led to "burn out". As you can relate work sometimes show up in a time that you do not plan for.
Any advices would be welcomed. So how do you know when to relax and how do you prevent burning yourself out? So I’ve been gaming for years ever since I was a kid on the ps2 and ps3 and I have to say my love for gaming always comes from the fun of them. And for me hard isn’t fun I don’t know what it is but I enjoy fun and simple games with great music,characters,and story. Not for how hard it’s going to push me. Don’t get me wrong I’ve played my share of hard or survivor or nightmare what ever the hell they call it. And I’ve enjoyed it and beaten it but it’s always after I play the game on normal calmly first. And I only enjoy those modes on FPS and action adventure games not RPGs or anything else. Does anyone else share this feeling? Like you just play games to relax and have a good time and maybe earn some achievements along the way because I don’t know about you but I love collecting those digital achievements. I don't really understand the concept behind "Relaxing".
I think I might be a little burned out. I'm a second year postdoc way behind schedule and I would like to hear other people's experiences with burnout. How did you feel and how did you overcome it? All opinions welcome and thank you for the responses. So this semester I'm taking a lot of college classes, and spending a great deal of time helping to run a volunteer program. For the past three years, I've maintained a 4.0, and that lasted through most of the semester. When I began to have three or more tests / papers a week, though, my grades started to slip. I got a B in one class's exam, and a C+ in another. I didn't have time to do my readings because I was too busy writing papers, and sometimes I was missing classes to write or study for other classes.
Now things are calming down a bit, but I know I have to keep on them or else the slide will continue and I'll end up with C's or worse, but I feel exhausted. It's hard for me to persuade myself to go anywhere, so I'm constantly late to group meetings, I sleep way too much, I procrastinate, partially out of fear of getting more bad grades- after getting straight A's for so long, getting a C+ was devastating to my self esteem and I can't handle thinking about turning in something like that again. The stress is also making various sicknesses keep popping up, which isn't helping.
I started full time corporate work about 6 months ago. I love my job and my life, but I’ve noticed that I’m not able to focus as long as I used to or lift as much weight in the gym, etc. I have enough time in the day to see friends be alone, and sleep so I didn’t think I was burned out. Now I realize that I’m mentally exhausted but I don’t see how I can make things better given that I have to keep up with work, the gym and friends. What would you suggest?
What have you guys done in situations like this to pick yourself back up for the home stretch? I think that if I honestly work hard and do my best, I can at least achieve B's, but right now, I'm often not doing it. Honestly, the situation should not be that stressful, but I cannot stop stressing myself to the point that I can't get anything done and I'm making myself sick, which further hinders my productivity. Any ideas on how to fix this?
Is it not doing anything? Just staring at the wall, essentially wasting time?
I have a fairly demanding job where I have to learn all the things, which is part of why I chose this career - because I love learning and climbing the knowledge ladder. I had minor burnouts throughout 2020 where I had to take breaks from studying for maybe a week and then I would be able to get back in the game.
I have been putting medium to low effort in studies over the past week but have been sorting immense amount of stress and anxiety as well and lately I feel very fatigued as if there is no energy left in me...so can stress and anxiety cause burnout as well? Or is it just me finding an excuse for laziness?
There's something different about this time though. It's been...over a month now and I can't do anything after work still. I learned nothing today, made no plans for furthering my career much less my life. I've been sitting on reddit or just listening to music and staring at the ceiling. Typically I binge eat when stressed but I've gone the other direction and stopped eating much at all. I'll notice I'm hungry and do nothing about it. I thought I might actually be happier than normal for a while there because studying can be a way of compensating for anxiety/imposter syndrome, but I really do need to get back to it.
I went overkill studying thinking ‘ oh, well the lockdowns and restrictions can come in handy and I can study more etc’ and just went all out studying as many things as I could and putting a lot of pressure on myself. My thought process was that I could hopefully absorb more and get ahead with more time spent, since that’s what people say.
But I’ve been finding myself feeling massively burned out the last couple weeks/ month to the point where I can’t summon much energy to study. But then I watch things and am always finding new things I don’t understand and I know I need to figure it out, but due to the burnout I can’t find motivation.
Has anyone been in this spot and what did you do about it? Just lay off for a while and let the want to study come back? What about those of us here with perfectionist tendencies- any suggestions?
I think something might have snapped in me. Did too much too fast for too long. Anybody else get through something like this before?
Is it doing the things I love doing, even if they were stressful? Why do I need to relax? Why is relaxing considered important? Wouldn't the time spent relaxing be better spent doing something efficient? I left my last job because I was woefully underpaid and overworked. I worked probably 7-12 6 days a week. Promised a lot and given jack shit. Desperately wanted to get out before I was 100% burnt up. Interviewed a ton and finally left for a 60% raise. Fantastic.
My therapist made me realize I was burnt out. I am an entrepreneur and I work 9-5 but when I go home, even when I'm not on my PC, I dont stop thinking about how I can improve work flow etc. Its been such a long time since I stopped thinking about work. I dont know how to fully relax.
I tried watching movies, but it doesnt give me extreme enjoyment.
What are some ways you do to relax on your own? It can be both indoor or outdoor activities. Recommendations are appreciated! I don't know how to relax and live in the moment. All I do is stress about the future. Even when I'm done with whatever I'm doing, I can't stop stressing about stuff that is weeks away. And I don't do anything about it either. I'm on my phone while being really stressed. I just want to change that. Do you ever feel like you're too relaxed about life?
I'm 17 years old, going through High School, and I'm usually happy all the time, I've got a good life. I'm the kind of guy who's usually prancing around with a smile on his face.
I'm just kind of worried that my positive way of being is gonna run out sometime, what if I don't really like my life and the way I am is just a defense mechanism?
Do you ever truly relax?
What are some activities in which you feel totally relaxed?
I find that I’m almost never relaxed bc I’m always thinking about what I could be doing that’s more productive. For example, I know I should be meditating, or reading this or that book that’s been sitting on my shelf, or whatever else, but I convince myself that I don’t deserve it or have time, despite the benefits that my relaxation time would give me. Run on sentence, wooo!
Are you ever really here and now, and content with your current activity, not always planning your next?
It's weird stuff. I have a problem were i am unable to relax or to empty my mind and I am in a constant state of worry and I am 18 years old. I have always been like that and I always have something in my mind. I really want to change that. Does anyone else feel like they don't know how to relax?
DAE Questions
I feel like I'm making strides in dealing with anxiety, but I still have no concept of relaxing. It's like I constantly need to problem solve or worry. Wondering if anyone else feels the same. What’s the optimal amount of time to relax every day?
We’re not robots; we’ve gotta allow ourselves to sit down and enjoy life without worrying about being productive. But how much is too much?
5 minutes in front of the TV isn’t enough time to decompress, but what is? What’s enough time to sit and actually enjoy playing a video game or watching a Netflix show without going overboard? Do you feel guilty when you're relaxing?
MBTI Theory
Like when I'm watching a movie or playing a video game, I start to feel really anxious and guilty that I'm wasting my time. I can't ever enjoy myself... The thought of everything I have to do later starts bugging me. It's sort of like how Insomniacs can't sleep because their brain thinks too much at night... I have the same problem during leisure time.
I'm going to guess this is an Ni thing. Does anyone else feel this? Do you ever feel guilty for enjoying your free time?
I'm asking this while I sit watching youtube videos at midnight, actually enjoying the content of what I'm seeing and realized I never usually feel like this. For some reason, it's been instilled in me that any free time I have has to be used to work, or do chores, or study, all the time, and anything that's recreational is a "waste". I wonder if maybe that's why I use to feel so burnt out and tired, as I would know anytime my free time was up it would be back to work and I shouldn't get too interested in anything that's not productive. I hope that made sense..like no matter what I do now, I could be doing something better or with meaning.
When you need to relax and chill out, what music or songs do you listen to?
Has anyone else had a hard time enjoying themselves be it watching a show or playing some music? How would you describe it? Why do you think you had/have a hard time relaxing and not feeling guilty or burnt out? What's the most relaxed you've ever felt? How do you take a day off to relax?
It may seem like an off-topic, but I think in order to be productive, a person needs to be able to set some time to relax.
I can't relax or do nothing.
I thought that I was relaxed, calm and content, but I recently realised I'm none of these things. I can never sit still, I always fidget. I get bored easily, I can't sit and do nothing, and I hate awkward silences in groups. I have a really annoying habit of twitching or flexing a part of my body all the time (eg my thumbs or legs) and I shake a lot when I feel physically or psychologically uncomfortable. I think my basic problem is that I always need stimuli, so I never want to go to bed because I can't sleep easily because I'm always bored and need something to occupy myself. Annoyingly, I don't transfer this need for stimuli into productive sources; when I'm bored, I tend to go on reddit or facebook or youtube etc instead of studying.
Right now it's the twitching that's bugging me most, I can't stop nervously twitching. What can I do?
I am studying Master's and also work a study-related job. That puts me at around 20-25h work and 30h for lectures/reading/homework. I try to move as much of my reading/homework to weekends, so I am more productive and less tired at work.
This puts me in a weird situation where I am not able to take a day off on the weekend and relax. I may manage to do everything in time, but still feel the urge/necessity to do something productive. I feel bad and anxious when I am watching a movie, because it feels like I am wasting my time. As a result, I was wondering how does one actually relax? How do you just chill and don't think about all the stuff you have to do? Anyone feel like they can't genuinely relax during days off?
Just curious on the community's thoughts here. I've been working a Monday through Friday office job for several years now. During the weekend I feel like I have an enormous amount of pressure to constantly "go go go". I feel this desire to be extremely productive - or I have to be out of the house in order to not feel frustrated with how my day off is going. I have taken adderall off and on the past decade, could that play any role in my brain chemistry and this constant desire to be doing something? My biggest struggle with having adhd is the constant guilt I feel whenever I have too much downtime.
How do you deal with not feeling like you're wasting time when relaxing?
I'm in my mid 30's. I have a 40+ hour job that pays well enough for my area. I do door dash on the side as "play with money". I take care of my sick mom and pay all my rent and bills. My days are full and productive. Sometimes I feel like I just need a break but when I sit down to watch a movie or play a video game I feel like I'm wasting time and being unproductive. I feel like I can't enjoy my down time I feel like I should be doing something productive.
I would describe my wife as a workaholic. She always has to be doing something. Lately I've been feeling like it's really hurting our relationship.
She doesn't take breaks. Her job has a reasonably heavy workload, which I get she doesn't have much control over. But she is constantly taking on extra projects that she doesn't have to, she voluntarily works unpaid overtime, and she never ever pushes back even a little bit when she is being overworked.
I could accept this if it was just work, which again I know she doesn't have much control over. But when she's not working at her job, she instantly starts working on something else. She'll do housework, or work on personal projects, or anything she can find. Which would be fine in moderation, but she fills almost every waking minute on work.
I've tried taking some stuff off her plate, in addition to the housework I do myself. But she doesn't take the extra time to relax or take a break, she'll just fill it with more work. And I feel like I have to match her workload so I'm not lounging around playing video games while she's scrubbing the kitchen floor.
Our schedule is like this: we both have full time jobs. We get home, one of us makes dinner (usually me) while the other works (she usually has work from her job she needs to finish). We eat dinner, then back to work doing any and all available housework until it's late. Then we go to bed. Repeat every day. On weekends we get up and both start doing housework, or we run errands. After errands we keep working. We break to eat meals and watch an episode of a TV show.
I desperately want to be able to say, hey, we've done all the urgent housework (dishes are clean etc.), let's take the rest of the night off. Or, let's say Saturday is a chill do nothing day. But she always says she has too much to do. I tell her that there will *always* be something to do. If you wait until there's nothing to do to relax, you will never have time to relax. She usually just dismisses this as lazy.
The workload she puts on herself makes her stressed and irritable, too. She loses her patience with me more quickly, she's grumpy, she's too focused on her tasks to talk about our day. I feel like when we're together we're just quietly cleaning the house, or we're burned out and staring at our phones before we go to bed.
I don't know how to talk to her about this, every time I try to bring it up she makes me feel like I just want to be lazy. Or she'll tell me that it's fine, I can go play video games or whatever, meanwhile she's angrily organizing our closet or wiping down our tables or working overtime late into the night. I'm just kind of exhausted.
How do you combat this?
Sundays happen to be one of those days where I try to relax and not make any plans for the day. I just can’t seem to shake off the bad thoughts that I’m lazy. Any time I just want to lay in bed all day or take a nap my brain says “you’re being lazy, you should be doing something better with your time!”. Like for example, I can usually only watch a few hours of a tv show before my brain is telling me to get up and do shit. Does anyone else struggle with this? I’m curious if there’s a way to work with my brain so I don’t feel so badly on my days off. I just want to relax. 😕Every meditation guide and such say that you must do a body scan, relax your muscles etc, but I. Just. Can’t. I’m a very depressive and anxious person naturally, and my muscles are tensed 24/7, I never feel comfortable or relaxed in my own body. Thinking about it makes me feel hopeless and spoils my pre-meditative mindset completely. Wtf is wrong with me? I realized that I'm stressed and anxious 90% of the time and I can't see how beautiful life I have
I think I need help. I'm really into mindfulness and meditation and when I became more aware of my internal feelings, I realized there is a constant tension inside my body near my stomach and chest. You know that feeling when you have to say something in front of group of people? I feel it almost all the time.
It's terrible, honestly, especially in a long-term. I have problems with my digestion no matter if I'm eating healthy or not, I can't see beauty of everyday life and I just can't relax.
I will explain you what is happening in my head. I have constant feeling that my time on Earth is limited. My main life goals are quite precise:
- I want to find eternal peace
- I want to earn enough money to buy myself freedom (retire before 50)
- I want to be totally healthy until the end of my life
- I want to leave a valuable mark in this world (probably in IT section, but who knows)
As you can see, I'm quite ambitious person. I spend a lot of time on reading and learning. I learn programming, I learn trading on market, I read about self development, spiritural development, mindfulness, I do bodyweight training etc. Sounds pretty good, isn't it?
Well, it's not. I have a feeling that day is definitely too short. I feel bad when I wake up too late, when I caught myself on procrastinating, it's also so annoying to me how much things I have to do daily that are not related to my "higher goals" like cleaning, cooking, laundring etc. Actually, I feel bad when I'm doing almost ANYTHING that isn't related to my "higher goals". That's why I just can't relax. I can't enjoy the nice weather, I can't enjoy beauty of nature, it's sometimes even hard to enjoy spending time with my girlfriend. I feel relaxed when I'm drinking or playing, but it's not literally relaxing, it's more like escapism. I've already cut my drinking by ~90%, mostly because I was seriously sick (mononucleosis), but I think that this sickness saved me from alcoholism. I also worry a lot about my future. I often can't be present, because I make a lot of calculations and predictions in my head, make future plans and I really like doing it, but I think's it's harmful in the long term. My expectations are definitely too high. I also have problem with my empathy. I just don't care a lot about other people, but I know that I have to feel love and compassion to find internal peace. There is no other way aroud. I think I described most of my problems. I'm preparing for new way of meditation that is connected with affirmations binaural beats and letting go, but I also want to know your point of view. Maybe I'm missing something important. If I won't see any improvements in my internal feelings until the end of the year, I'm going to meet a psychologist. How do you know when to relax?
Right now I struggle with setting up "Free" time for myself, and in previous time it led to "burn out". As you can relate work sometimes show up in a time that you do not plan for.
Any advices would be welcomed. So how do you know when to relax and how do you prevent burning yourself out? So I’ve been gaming for years ever since I was a kid on the ps2 and ps3 and I have to say my love for gaming always comes from the fun of them. And for me hard isn’t fun I don’t know what it is but I enjoy fun and simple games with great music,characters,and story. Not for how hard it’s going to push me. Don’t get me wrong I’ve played my share of hard or survivor or nightmare what ever the hell they call it. And I’ve enjoyed it and beaten it but it’s always after I play the game on normal calmly first. And I only enjoy those modes on FPS and action adventure games not RPGs or anything else. Does anyone else share this feeling? Like you just play games to relax and have a good time and maybe earn some achievements along the way because I don’t know about you but I love collecting those digital achievements. I don't really understand the concept behind "Relaxing".
I think I might be a little burned out. I'm a second year postdoc way behind schedule and I would like to hear other people's experiences with burnout. How did you feel and how did you overcome it? All opinions welcome and thank you for the responses. So this semester I'm taking a lot of college classes, and spending a great deal of time helping to run a volunteer program. For the past three years, I've maintained a 4.0, and that lasted through most of the semester. When I began to have three or more tests / papers a week, though, my grades started to slip. I got a B in one class's exam, and a C+ in another. I didn't have time to do my readings because I was too busy writing papers, and sometimes I was missing classes to write or study for other classes.
Now things are calming down a bit, but I know I have to keep on them or else the slide will continue and I'll end up with C's or worse, but I feel exhausted. It's hard for me to persuade myself to go anywhere, so I'm constantly late to group meetings, I sleep way too much, I procrastinate, partially out of fear of getting more bad grades- after getting straight A's for so long, getting a C+ was devastating to my self esteem and I can't handle thinking about turning in something like that again. The stress is also making various sicknesses keep popping up, which isn't helping.
I started full time corporate work about 6 months ago. I love my job and my life, but I’ve noticed that I’m not able to focus as long as I used to or lift as much weight in the gym, etc. I have enough time in the day to see friends be alone, and sleep so I didn’t think I was burned out. Now I realize that I’m mentally exhausted but I don’t see how I can make things better given that I have to keep up with work, the gym and friends. What would you suggest?
What have you guys done in situations like this to pick yourself back up for the home stretch? I think that if I honestly work hard and do my best, I can at least achieve B's, but right now, I'm often not doing it. Honestly, the situation should not be that stressful, but I cannot stop stressing myself to the point that I can't get anything done and I'm making myself sick, which further hinders my productivity. Any ideas on how to fix this?
Is it not doing anything? Just staring at the wall, essentially wasting time?
I have a fairly demanding job where I have to learn all the things, which is part of why I chose this career - because I love learning and climbing the knowledge ladder. I had minor burnouts throughout 2020 where I had to take breaks from studying for maybe a week and then I would be able to get back in the game.
I have been putting medium to low effort in studies over the past week but have been sorting immense amount of stress and anxiety as well and lately I feel very fatigued as if there is no energy left in me...so can stress and anxiety cause burnout as well? Or is it just me finding an excuse for laziness?
There's something different about this time though. It's been...over a month now and I can't do anything after work still. I learned nothing today, made no plans for furthering my career much less my life. I've been sitting on reddit or just listening to music and staring at the ceiling. Typically I binge eat when stressed but I've gone the other direction and stopped eating much at all. I'll notice I'm hungry and do nothing about it. I thought I might actually be happier than normal for a while there because studying can be a way of compensating for anxiety/imposter syndrome, but I really do need to get back to it.
I went overkill studying thinking ‘ oh, well the lockdowns and restrictions can come in handy and I can study more etc’ and just went all out studying as many things as I could and putting a lot of pressure on myself. My thought process was that I could hopefully absorb more and get ahead with more time spent, since that’s what people say.
But I’ve been finding myself feeling massively burned out the last couple weeks/ month to the point where I can’t summon much energy to study. But then I watch things and am always finding new things I don’t understand and I know I need to figure it out, but due to the burnout I can’t find motivation.
Has anyone been in this spot and what did you do about it? Just lay off for a while and let the want to study come back? What about those of us here with perfectionist tendencies- any suggestions?
I think something might have snapped in me. Did too much too fast for too long. Anybody else get through something like this before?
Is it doing the things I love doing, even if they were stressful? Why do I need to relax? Why is relaxing considered important? Wouldn't the time spent relaxing be better spent doing something efficient? I left my last job because I was woefully underpaid and overworked. I worked probably 7-12 6 days a week. Promised a lot and given jack shit. Desperately wanted to get out before I was 100% burnt up. Interviewed a ton and finally left for a 60% raise. Fantastic.
