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Once again about emotional burnout

For more than 12 years now I’ve been burning. I work, burn out and go into binge for a week. Then, with pain and titanic efforts, I return to life, to clients whom I did not manage to lose in weeks of nonexistence and the cycle repeats. More than 12 years.

This is not customary to speak about publicly, but I have no other choice. I am sure that one of you has the same problems, and you are alone with yourself, you do not know what to do about it. You are burned, exhausted, whoever knows how to relax and returns to this squirrel wheel ... again, and again, and again.

Jumping off it seems unrealistic. If only because of bills, family, mortgage for 2000 years, and the desire to comply. You, a resident of the metropolis, want to be no worse than a neighbor, than the parents of other children, than a childhood friend, and ultimately be on top of the mountain, looking down on everyone. No? But you work hard anyway up to your bulging eyes, forgetting about health, then about friends, then about the fact that life around exists outside of your monitor. You identify with the work, and all the energy goes into it. You are a workaholic and probably you are burned out at work, just like me.

Let's figure out where the legs grow from. Namely, what to do if you are burned out, how to get out of this state. And how to maintain a balance of life and work, so as not to fall into this trap again. In the post there are opinions of psychologists, alien and personal experience.

Sculpture
12



It all started a long time ago, before my birth. Like all of us, my parents were born and raised in the USSR. The spirit of collectivism, the glory of work, you give the five-year plan for four years, only forward - at any cost, at the cost of human life. And do not care about the person. You are either the right screw that spins at the right speed in the general mechanism, or a parasite and an outcast. In our kitchen I often heard such phrases: “You know that labor into life is the most important thing. Why are you not doing anything? ”,“ The boss is always right ”,“ The initiative is punishable. ”

This mentality was taught in schools and institutes. And already a graduate of the university was stitched for the sake of the system and ready for work and defense. Step left, step right - shooting. And I do not exaggerate, the parents of my parents are still afraid that the NKVD will come for them at the mention of the leader of the peoples.

But back to the local events in my family, which, it seems to me, contributed to the formation of an excellent student syndrome in me, always be the first and never lose.

My father was a semi-professional soccer player. He played for the factory where he worked and quite successfully. His professional career did not work out, although he showed great promise, and many of the children from his children's team became future world football stars who won the Champions League and European Championship. Therefore, even before my birth, it struck him that I must certainly become a professional footballer. Yes, not ordinary, but the best. By the way, he named me after the player who scored a goal in the USSR-France match on my birthday.

Having barely learned to walk, they threw me the ball so that I hit it. Already at the age of 5-6, we regularly went outside and my father taught me how to play football. He taught until I get green and fall without strength. Having learned how to quickly run, beat and circle players, we began to pump skill - “one against all” .

A crowd of children gathered from the yard, my father stood at the gate, and I was the only field player in our team. That is, father and I, against 8-10 boys. And that is characteristic, a goal could be scored only by circling all opponents, and if it didn’t work out, then how the shuttle needed to run to defend its gates. It was at that time that the first version of such software was installed in me:

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You understand that with such software, people around you characterize either as a daffodil, or as an egoist or an egocentric. But you are convinced to be the best in any case, so do not care at all. Otherwise, why would you be here.

Years passed. I played football quite successfully for the youth team of our city, of course I was the captain and leader, I had no other way.

But this is bad luck. The child, I was quite painful and feeble. So thin that it blew off the wind. Weighed about 40 kilograms with a height of 160 cm.

It so happened that I was already lacking in physical condition for the whole match. And the older we got, the faster I died out on the field.

See the link to the post title? In sports, this is called endurance, and I did not have it. 15 minutes passed the match at the pace "I am alone against all, and here and there," and the remaining 75 minutes hung like a sausage without strength. So from the captains and leaders, I slipped into the second
squad and left football altogether. He left just at the moment when he met with PC and programming and realized that it was mine. The trouble was that the OS and software remained the same.

Freelance


And then began a successful career in IT. No, of course not immediately. Dozens of programming books were studied by cavalry. As befitting, its own calculator, its toy programming language, were written. And already entering the university, he was prepared for 3-4 years in advance in the specialty. Yes there, I started working from the first year. And he wrote candidate works on order already in the third.

In the fourth year, I went to university mainly to pass the session and exams. And then in my life freelance appeared. In my small town where I lived, there was no work for the developer in the early 2000s, so I was delighted that I would find application of my skills working with foreign customers.

And then the first symptoms of burnout began to appear ...

Psychologist Evgenia Streletskaya in his video identifies 4 stages of burnout:

Video


1. Hyperactivity . When we are completely absorbed in the idea and do not notice anything around. We devote all our time to this project and work. At this stage, we are furiously spending our resources in sprint mode, not noticing fatigue, not paying attention to sleep and rest, nutrition and all other areas of life. The end is a little predictable, and we will certainly find ourselves at stage number 2.

2. Fatigue . Chronic stress At this stage, you may have severe irritability, hypersensitivity to loud noises, craving for fatty / salty / sweet foods, alcohol, and smoking. By the way, stages 1 and 2 are clearly observed in people with bipolar personality disorder (BAR). They alternate manic enthusiasm and complete apathy with impotence.

3.Reversible exhaustion . Those who are prone to depression begin to experience depression. Those who are prone to psychosomatics begin physical illnesses of still reversible stages. Hysterical symptoms (conversions): the arm, leg are taken away, injuries of an inexplicable etiology occur, which do not lend themselves to traditional methods of treatment and do not go away for a long time. Visual impairment, blindness, memory lapses. Deterioration of concentration.

4. Irreversible exhaustion . Professional deformation, a sense of the meaninglessness of work, hatred of work, employees, customers. You feel like a gloomy unsociable person. Alcoholism. Deterioration of life in all areas, relations with friends, family are collapsing.


I do not fully agree with the irreversibility of the fourth stage, which is why I am writing this post to summarize my experience and everything I saw on the topic of emotional burnout. But that is, that is. When projecting these stages onto myself, I get the following event-time scale:
stage 1. A new project or a new interesting task appears. I accumulate all the strength and all the attention to this task. I can work 10-16 hours a day, and even fall asleep thinking about a new project, making notes on the phone, opening one eye. Especially “sticking out” if this is a new technological stack or a promising client on freelance. I also jump headlong into the realization of my own grandiose ideas, but alone I have enough crush
for a week or two.

2nd stage.Fatigue, apathy and chronic stress usually occur 2-3 weeks after the first sprint. You feel the weakness, the irritability mentioned at home, you try to avoid people around, because they are also annoying, and you are weakened. There is such a word “necessary” - they repeated to me in childhood and on my teeth I stretch for several more weeks. With the help of psychologists, self-help groups, you can stretch this period to a maximum of 4 months. The end will come anyway, if you do not rest and identify your fatigue at the very beginning.

3rd stage. Exhaustion. I have it manifests itself in such a way that the brain stops thinking. Just refuses to work at all. It’s fog in my head to connect a few words is a problem. No strength no matter what. If you are lucky, you can run the weekend and extend your torment for another week. Then again.
But the toggle switch is already on, and the brain flashes again at the “2% charged” mark. If you don’t radically stop, it will be ...

4th. Hard drinking

Psychologists opinions


The video from Eugenia would be comprehensive, if not for the two facts that break me. Namely, she claims that the only way to get out of the 4th stage is to change the profession. And being on the 3rd, you need to take the Sabbatical .

Both options are not suitable for me, for the reason that the work completely suits me, and it is unlikely that I can change my occupation to something other than IT. But sabbatics in freelance cannot be by definition. At the very least, you need to collect a round sum for all possible expenses in the next month or two. Therefore, we continue to dig further.

For example, Zoya Skobeltsyna came out of a state of burnout after spending 3 months in Thailand, not taking a minute to work, but focusing on her recovery.

Video


I think this method is most effective, in fact, being a sabbatical for the self-employed. But there are conditions that must be observed: 1) There is a financial airbag for half a year 2) There are no children who are attached to a school or kindergarten 3) Clients or superiors will be sympathetic to your NOT-sudden long-term vacation. Or there is someone who will take on your tasks.

As for point 3, in freelance, in my opinion, it is easier to jump off than on a permanent office. The main thing is not to be in the middle of a project that you mutually agreed to complete. I now have just such a case, and the item with the children is also present. Therefore, the abyss in another country right now is not an option for me. But if you have the opportunity and you feel exhausted, then you should not even doubt it.


Another video from the psychotherapist Pavel Bukov:

Video


In a 15-minute video, he talks about how he discovered the problem of exhaustion in himself and how he solved it. For him, the way to charge is his own suburban farm, where he spends time from Friday to Sunday, distracting from all the troubles of the metropolis.

Another good advice from Paul. To recover from brain strain you need to do something with your hands. Thus, the cerebral hemisphere responsible for mental work will be disconnected and another person responsible for motor skills will turn on. Classes can be any. As for the geek, I look towards the assembly and soldering of the Arduino, it is possible to assemble models of starships or something from robotics. This also includes drawing, embroidery, repairs in the apartment and more.

The same effect can be achieved by swimming 20 lanes in the pool, intensive walking for 2-5 km, running, physical activity. I know how sometimes it is difficult to force yourself to move somewhere when you are already in a deep energy minus. Then give a fight so that Karosi does not happen. Therefore, advice is more likely for the stage when we can still do something. If we can’t, then we simply lie and stupid. Or we go to the psychologist / psychotherapist / psychiatrist, depending on the degree of neglect.


Psychologist Svetlana Komissaruk recommends shaking yourself if you are emotionally exhausted

Video


She compares strong emotional experience with defibrillation. When the patient's heart stops, only a strong shock can cause the heart to beat again. And there is some truth to this.

Where can we experience strong emotions? Skydiving, downhill skiing, fast riding, team games, possibly e-sports and virtual reality. In general, any new environment will cause stress. I personally decided to spend the weekend in other countries and cities where I had never been before.


Videoblogger Thomas Frank gives tips for recovering from burnout.

Video


As in the previous videos, the first thing Tom did was take a full vacation, protecting himself from work. He also dropped some of his obligations in order to have a freer schedule. In my opinion, this is one of the main factors of rapid depletion - a strong pressure of obligations and deadlines to customers or superiors. In any case, running a marathon in sprint mode will not work.

3 tips from the video:

1. Think about how to reduce the number of commitmentsif you feel that you can’t do it. This can be a delegation, or a direct conversation with the manager. Write out all your obligations and decide what you could sacrifice. For example, Tom calculated how much he would earn if he reduced the number of videos released from four to two per month. It turned out that with such a scheme, his business would not be unprofitable and could well exist.

Drawing parallels with freelance, we can calculate how many working hours or clients we need for a normal existence. For the last half a year I have been working in parallel for 3 clients, including weekends. It turned out up to 110 working hours per week. This is even more than was written on the first t-shirts of Apple employees. You understand what sensations a person has worked without a break for about 400-500 hours. Although for life and paying bills, I have enough and 20 working hours a week.

2. You cannot create all content on the same ideal level . The psychologist Svetlana Komissaruk spoke about the same thing in the video above.

The post-Soviet mentality is geared towards doing everything perfectly. Either 100%, or not at all. While in the West, few people are soared if they do 70% of the possible. Perfectionism is another major reason for the rapid discharge of your battery. Our man, may never finish the project to the end due to excellent student syndrome.

3. Keep a balance between work and life. I’ll add a note about the well-known “wheel of life balance” from myself.

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Just take and honestly rate each area of ​​your life on a scale of 1 to 10:

  • Health
  • Money
  • Career / Business
  • Environment / Friends
  • Love / Family / Children
  • Personal growth
  • Hobbies and entertainment
  • Spirituality

Spheres may have other names, but in general, these 8 parts make up our lives. For example, workaholics have a clear bias towards Money and Career, and a plus or minus one in the remaining parts. Ideally, all parts should be harmoniously developed, and not necessarily perfectly.

Summary


I want to summarize and collect all the information about emotional burnout in one block.

  • IT employees and people in creative professions are highly prone to burnout. The reason is a high load on the brain. We give more than we receive. Work in conditions of uncertainty and deadlines.
  • The brain needs a lot of time to recover, unlike physical fatigue. This condition is not easy to catch, especially if you are passionate about work.

Short-term recovery methods:

  • Turn on motility - turn off the head. Do something with your hands.
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I freelance in a frantic rhythm for over 12 years with rare interruptions. As I wrote above, all this time, I suffered from overwork and burnout. He "rebooted" in a destructive way, pouring alcohol into his powerlessness bordering on insanity. This year he reached a boiling point, and firmly decided that this could not continue.

It all started with setting a goal for the year - "Become more confident and sociable." As a result, I came to the conclusion that the first step towards fulfilling the goal is to stop burning at work and spend time on ourselves.

Despite all this, he again took a tasty new project and plunged into it with his head. As a result, after 3 weeks, hands fell again and there was no strength no matter what. Starting to study this issue, I found what I’m sharing with you. Despite the new project and the deadlines, in a week I will fly to Central Europe for 3 days off. Then a week later to Spain, also for a few days. At the end of the working day, I will definitely walk, at least 2-3 km. with tracker. I go to the pool and gym. I’ve occupied evenings with virtual games, but I’m going to change it to something more useful.

Take care of yourself.

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