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Comment by Swizec | Hacker News Reader

You need stress to grow.

Burnout happens when stress isn't followed by rest. When stress feels endless. And when stress feels like it's pointless.

The solution therefore is to make sure you always know why you're working so hard, build in reward for your hard work, and take a break after a specific period of stress.

Always have the end in sight. Always know your goal. Always make sure you feel progress toward the goal.

Crucially, when the specified period of stress comes, take a fucking break. Whether you're done or not. Very important.

I myself often fail to follow these lessons. So I write them here to help me remember :)

PS: for a more in-depth exploration of these 3 rules, read Peak Performance. It helped me a lot.

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I disagree; I believe burnout comes when labor isn't followed by expected reward, you learn to associate labor with negativity. I haven't burned out in about six years; and one thing is that taking a break after major stress could be exact the worst thing you can do. Take breaks at predetermined time points that are required to happen regardless of your labor situation.

Edit: oh I see now your suggestion is to craft an invariant as reward for your labor after a specific period of expected stress whether or not it's successful. That's probably not a bad choice, as long as the choice to go on a break precedes the stressful period

Im with you. I burned out 3 years ago, after working on a project where the customer was a major pain to work with, did not recognise developer effort and made sure to always point out issues in demeaning manners. Every sprint I started to dread the sprint demo more, as I knew what was coming.

The whole "stress causes burnout" thing is gravely misguided.

There's a whole sub-type of burnout which comes about even in relatively low stress environments.

Perhaps we define stress differently. How can burnout happen if you love every little second of your day and everything you do fills you with joy and energy?

The opposite of stress isn't a rosy life. It's absence of stress.

Literally no one lives like that.

If you or anyone you know feels like that, then it's a serious outlier condition worthy of academic study.

> Literally no one lives like that.

Why not? Let's bet a few people do. There are certainly people who live their life in a permanent joyous state, no matter what. Rare, perhaps but I wouldn't dismiss their experience as a condition.

Or drugs. That literally sounded like living being constantly high.

You can work in relatively low stress job, but not love it.

It can be boring, mundane, unfulfilling, uninteresting, repetitive, etc... That doesn't generally produce a traditional "stress" but does wear on you emotionally.

Good point. E.g. I have never seen a wave surfer or mountaineer with a burnout, though they probably put their body and mind through a lot of stress.

Then you've never been an athlete at a high level. I don't mean that negatively, but I can assure you that even people who love every second of what they do, like many professional and even college athletes, can suffer burnout. Exhaustion and stress can cause burnout in anybody.

That kind of burnout could also be caused by the element of competition.

Michael Phelps seemed that way on his last olympics. He wasn’t really enjoying it even though he was setting historic records.

You can hate what you do, yet still not be stressed.

If do continue to do something you hate, you're inducing a stress response in the body every time.

Not really. I've had jobs that I hated, but that weren't stressful at all, because it was just a thing I had to do to get money, not something that mattered.

In fact jobs I loved and cared about have often brought much more stress exactly because I cared about the outcome, and when I failed to live up to my expectations at that job it felt like a personal failing and I was letting everyone down.

I believe we have a different understanding of the term hate. Hate is a strong word, and it's something you really want to avoid if you can.

I think you can give up and accept that’s what it is, too. Basically continuing doing it, but stopping hating it.

Honest question however, is that truly accurate? I'd be interested to know if that's actually the case.

I'd add that stress is experienced during a period of adaptation. However... in some modern high-pressure corporate environments (AKA office jobs) you can can never fully adapt, never get on top of things. The pressure is relentless and the environment de-humanising.

Human brains arnt built to withstand the onslaught of meaningless emails and endless reports and presentations. Offices are just awful in many instances.

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