The Burnout Series, Part 2: Burnout Recovery
Other resources you may like:
Evaluate your life satisfaction (self-assessment)
3-week burnout recovery plan (self-paced guide)
Also, consider using weekly, text-based coaching to set up and stick to a recovery process.
This article is also specifically for those who find themselves in the camp of the burnt out, and who are actively seeking a path to recovery. There are 6 sections:
Taking time to properly rest is non-negotiable
A word on the body’s threat response system and recovery
FAQ: What do I do during my burnout rest/recovery period?
FAQ: Should I leave my job?
Longer-term burnout recovery steps
Recovery tips from people who have experienced burnout
If you are struggling with burnout but unable to take time off from work or change your job, consider these tips for how to navigate burnout at work.
The reality is that burnout is a serious and complex issue, and everyone’s recovery journey is different. Continue your recovery with these additional steps:
Start the free, self-guided 3-week recovery plan
Read stories from people who have burned out discover burnout resources at LearnAboutBurnout.com
Explore how working with a Burnout coach can help
Take this confidential self-assessment to evaluate your current level of burnout
Burnout involves a breakdown in the body’s stress cycle. Learn how the stress cycle works here.
The content in this essay series is not meant to constitute official medical advice, diagnose physiological or psychiatric disorders, or replace the guidance of trained professionals. Please refer to these essays as supplemental information only, and consult the guidance of trained professionals if you are feeling unwell.
Burnout can occur in any industry, but this article is primarily focused on burnout in the business/technology/digital fields.
A brief recap of burnout symptoms and the 12 stages of burnout
To recap, burnout arises when we experience a prolonged exertion of effort and accumulation of stress, with insufficient rest and reward, and is gauged by the presence of 3 criteria: exhaustion, reduced productivity, and feelings of cynicism/depersonalization.
According to Herbert Freudenberger and Gail North (who officially coined the term “burnout” in 1974), burnout plays out on a spectrum of 12 stages.
Read more about the 12 stages here.
Remember: you are not alone in struggling, but the possibility of permanent damage from excessive stress/burnout complications and even death are real. Please, take your health and wellbeing seriously.
Taking time to properly rest is non-negotiable
Burnout is a physiological, chronic stress affliction, which means that recovery must involve reducing stress levels and allowing the body to recover from the negative effects of stress.
The body’s needs are an early casualty of burnout, beginning in stage 3: neglecting needs. Later stages of burnout are effectively the body flipping a mind circuit breaker in desperation to force the mind to stop overworking the body, and allow the body to receive proper rest/recovery time.
Giving yourself time to rest, therefore, is a non-negotiable step in the burnout recovery process.
Without making time to rest and allowing your brain/body a chance to recover from the prolonged exertion and exhaustion, your chances of recovering from a burnout are slim.
If you are burned out, then the idea of taking time off from work may sound threatening. If this is happening for you, consider why you may be reacting so strongly to taking time off. Write down your reasoning, and evaluate whether the rational makes sense. Better yet, read what you wrote to someone you trust, and ask them whether it is a rational reason to not take time off to get some rest.
An inability to realize or an outright denial of the serious risk burnout poses, along with an inability to prioritize one’s own needs are prime factors driving burnout and also clear signs of burnout. If you are not fully familiar, make sure to read this in-depth review of the 12 stages of burnout to clarify your understanding of the progression of burnout.
How much rest is appropriate for your burnout recovery depends on your particular situation — and it might be best to consult a medical professional — but from my own experiences in recovery and in working with others through recovery, 2 weeks fully off from work for burnouts caught earlier-on in the 12 stages, and for more serious burnouts, 1-3 months fully off from work.
The reasons for why longer rest is essential are better explained by a medical professional, but in short: during the first several days to first several weeks of time fully off from work, your body will still be in the high-stress survival mode state that led up to the burnout.
Stress is the body’s survival system. There is no “stressful but not life-threatening” mode.
When activating the stress-response system, our body does not distinguish between a lion trying to kill us and an important deadline/meeting/presentation. The body simply treats stress as stress. When we are in a chronic state of stress, therefore, it is like being in a constant state of survival. Our bodies expect danger constantly and become incapable of properly resting, even during the hours that we are not working. In this perpetual danger-reaction state, your body will need ample time to realize that the threat has passed and that it is safe to actually rest.
In fact, one common regret shared by people who have recovered from burnout, is that they wished they had spent more time away from work resting and recovering, not less. Some even mentioned that not taking sufficient time off to rest/recover left them in a continual state of burnout.
It cannot be stressed enough that taking time off from work to properly rest is non-negotiable in your burnout recovery journey. When it comes to a condition as serious as burnout the more rest, the better. Again, the complications of stress-induced health problems are very real; studies indicate that workplace stress contributes to over 120,000 deaths per year in the United States.
A word on the body’s threat response system
During your rest time, it is important not to engage, even just a little bit, in work or other forms of productivity-focused business, or else your burnout recovery period may be lengthened or halted.
Simply seeing a red or white notification dot, or the email UI, or a person’s name from work can be a fresh threat reminder for your body to activate the stress hormone-producing threat response system. By continuing to engage in work or trying to be productive during your burnout rest period, you continue to keep your body stuck in threat response mode, meaning any “rest” you get will hardly be beneficial at all.
At first, this will be a difficult task. Despite your brain being exhausted and needing rest, the neural nets, or mind patterns habituated to working will still be quite active, despite the damage to your wider brain/body health they are doing. These “neural nets” are actually a net of very strongly connected neural pathways in your brain, which represent specific behaviors or habits, such as answering emails/Slack messages day and night, or working for 10–12 hours per day. Because these neural nets have been reinforced with continuous repetition, they become very ingrained, almost automatic habits that keep you doing those things that have made you feel productive, seeking the release of brain chemicals that are expected as a result of these behaviors in the future.
You may be attacked by negative emotions and thoughts that will urge you to keep trying to feel productive again. These self-criticizing and fear/anxiety-based thoughts/emotions defend the neural net — they arise when the habituated desire for the chemical reward of feeling productive is not met.
The good news is if you can resist these neural nets for the initial start of your rest time, once you do get a true taste of your first good rest in a long time, you’ll probably begin to fully enjoy your time away from work and wonder why you didn’t do it sooner.
In my case, after burning out and winding down my company, instead of taking an actual vacation and unplugging for the first time in 5 years, I immediately picked up other forms of seeking to be productive by consulting, volunteering, and trading stocks and crypto.
Not allowing my body and brain to properly rest caused me initially to fall deeper into depression and extended my burnout by 2 more months before I ultimately did take time fully off and experienced one of the most fulfilling, enjoyable, and stress-free several month stretches of my life.
FAQ: What do I do during my burnout rest/recovery period?
Avoiding work and anything that looks like work during this time is priority #1, but there are actually many activities that can be a healthy part of your rest/recovery process. Here are a few tips:
Address your bodily needs. Start listening to your body again and learning to take better care of it again. Eat fruits and veggies, drink more water each day, do exercises that elevate your heart rate for at least 20 minutes per day (but do not skip the stretch or cool down afterwards), and get a full 7-9 hours of quality sleep (or more)
Focus on activities that deactivate the stress-response mode. This includes things like tensing and releasing all of your muscles, stretching, yoga, or deep breathing exercises, or having a good laugh (joking with friends or seeing a comedy show really is medicine!)
Spend plenty of time in nature. Time in nature is proven to be good for our mental health; studies even show that just 10–20 minutes in green space can be beneficial (but you’ll need much more than that). Try to spend time in immersive nature, such as forests, mountains, deserts, or oceans.
Spend time with friends/family/acquaintances. Quality time with people we care about is a big boost for our mental health, and furthermore, intimate touch or closeness can also release oxytocin and other feel-good, health boosting brain chemicals that can help in the burnout recovery and healing process. Even spending time with animals can help your body reduce stress
Travel. It’s easier to avoid falling into the neural nets if you remove yourself from the surrounding/environment you burned out in, even if that’s your home or neighborhood. Traveling can also give your mind more space to reflect and think creatively. It doesn’t have to be big travel, either — even traveling short distances (a different part of town or a day trip) can help.
Reflect. After fully resting for at least a few days, start reflecting, journaling, and talking to friends/family/community and about your experience.
If your burnout was caused as a result of resorting to work as a distraction from a challenging life event such as the passing of a loved one, a major personal loss, or some other form of exposure to deep loss or doubt, spend time reflecting on that fact and on actually processing those bottled up emotions.
Reflect on what mental patterns or emotions precipitated the burnout, which are still present, and what the costs of continually following those habits were for you. Read this article to help kickstart this process.
Working with a therapist is a highly recommended part of recovery, especially if the burnout was precipitated by a challenging life experience.
Activate your creative side. Paint, draw, try photography, play music, write, or do something else that is just plain fun and creative, without the goal of being productive or earning income from that activity. Exercising this part of your brain that was weakened during burnout will likely not only just feel good, but can also empower your reflections with more honest, expansive thinking.
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FAQ: Should I leave my job?
Many people who burn out do decide to leave their jobs as part of the recovery process: 80% of the people whom I talked to about their burnout experiences ended up changing their job.
If it is clear that your work environment is too toxic to continue on in, or your internal compass has in no uncertain terms told you that your job/company/industry is the wrong direction for you, then be decisive and move on, for your own mental health and wellbeing.
If you do leave your job, it is important to take time off between jobs (1–3 months, or more) to fully recover, and not immediately enter into a new position
If leaving your job is the right move, then focus on choosing a different job, company, or industry where your skills are a better match for producing a reward for your efforts, and the work is more aligned with your personal values.
I’ve created a series of Miro working exercises to support the career or job change process for those who have experienced a work burnout. Email CallMeGabeK [at] gmail.com to request access.
If you are unsure whether or not to leave your job, it’s still critically important to take a signifiant amount of time fully off, to allow your brain to recover and to regain functionality in your decision-making abilities, which will be called on to continue and defend your recovery from relapse.
Deciding to leave your job after some time off for recovery isn’t the right move for everyone. One of the people I spoke with who burned out pointed out how burnout can even happen in a job you like. This can especially be the case for entrepreneurs.
However, if you find that you do actually enjoy your job and want to stay, it is imperative to not plug back into the same job in the same way. Take time to figure out which adjustments you need to make to your own relationship with work and your work-non-work balance, your job responsibilities, your working environment, and the support you receive from your colleagues/organization to help make your workload sustainable moving forward.
Longer-term burnout recovery steps
After taking time off to recover, your burnout journey will shift to not drifting through the burnout stages again, which requires changing behavior. This is where your reflection and revived natural creativity will come into play. Here are some recommendations of other steps to take:
Reconnect with your community and strengthen your social networks with friends, family, acquaintances, partners, and any other relationships that you feel fulfilled in. Social interactions are one of the most important preventions of burnout, and conversely, withdrawal from relationships and people is a big accelerant of burnout and chronic stress accumulation.
Find meaningful pursuits beyond work — your ability to successfully work less will be facilitated if you can find other activities to spend your time on which you enjoy. This is part of learning to live a balanced life, where work is not the only activity that you find meaning in. Here are 25 ideas.
Reassess your working style and expectations to facilitate your continued recovery, including:
Learning not to always try to fix/control/save everything from going wrong
Learning to say no (or negotiate) when saying yes will compromise your mental wellbeing
Improving your ability to delegate work or manage your time, so that you don’t need to resort to compromising on non-work time to catch up on work
Defining what reasonable expectations for your productivity output looks like with yourself, as well as your boss, team, or clients
Learning to prioritize tasks, so that not everything is treated as a high-priority item, and you do not feel the need to cross every item off your to-do list or answer each email/message before signing off.
Learning to challenge harmful narratives, such as those below:
>I’m only as good as my last achievement
>I can’t ask for help or I’ll be seen as weak or an imposter
>If I slow down or take time off, I’ll lose everything I’ve achieved
>I have to prove myself here and now; successful people can do it all and manage fine
>I have to keep performing and being recognized, or else I’ll feel like a failure or loser
If you suspect you may be struggling with ADHD or another neurodiversity issue, seek a diagnosis and start treatment if applicable.
Read the book, Positive Intelligence and take the saboteur assessment to learn more about how to manage the negative thoughts that can threaten to pull you back into harmful neural nets or deeper into the 12 stages of burnout in the future.
Reduce or stop quick-relief activities that have led to binging in the past and were resorted to as relief from burnout stages 7: withdrawal and 10: inner emptiness. This can include the common vices of smoking, drinking, or drugs, but also caffeine, excessive exercise, sex, over-or-under eating, gambling, internet use, social media use, video gaming, and especially relevant: work.
Recovery tips from people who have experienced burnout
“Leaving my job to go travel, therapy, meditation, building a journaling practice, recognizing I’m not alone and connecting with others going through the same thing”
“Changing my job & location, eastern + western medical help, quit drinking, started exercising”
“I quit and I ‘designed‘ a 3-step recovery process:
Rest. Read some fiction, go to beach, sleep, cook and eat simple and healthy meals. I am in a new country so I don’t have a lot of friends, but going out with the ones i got here also helped. The first step is/was about recharge.
Understand what I want to do next. What’s my ikigai? Understand what are my strengths, what are the things I need to learn and what is the value i can add. It’s not about finding my next role, my next job. It’s about getting to know me better and think with a clear head.
Get out there to find that thing!”
Read more comments from people who have burned out at Learn About Burnout.
Thank you for reading. Learn more about how working with a burnout coach can help, read Part 3: Work Burnout Prevention, and please share this essay and the Learn About Burnout site to raise awareness for burnout.
And if you are personally struggling with burn-out, remember:
You are not alone.
You are not damaged goods.
You do not need to be ashamed.
You can make it through this.