Ask HN: Feels like my brain doesn't want to work anymore

[testpass]

Since I've gotten back from my last internship, it has been feeling like my brain has been refusing to work.

Over the last 10-12 months, I got extremely burnt out from a team that was rushed to finish a product - that included staying late often (4AM late). I was then only recommended for another internship, not a full time job. Feeling pretty defeated, I came back to school and took another heavy course load, which seemed to make brain not want to work part even worse.

I remember 2 years ago, I was coding projects in my spare time, had the enthusiasm of a 5 year old, and was just a generally happy guy. I used to love life! Now a simple task seems to take ages. My brain, when reading, doesn't actually read in the data. It feels like it caches it, and then throws it out when the next thing comes along.

Has anyone ever gone through something like this? What has helped you? So far, it seems like video games (i haven't played them in years) and going to the gym, and overall relaxing and taking things one step at a time has been helping. But... it's not the 100% capacity I know I can exhibit.

[imd23]

I Will tell you something I wish my psychology would had told me: go some weeks to the coolest hostel you can. Don't go with your laptop, go just to have fun, meet people, to enjoy your present, that you are fucking alive. In fact if the hostel is good, you will be able to make at least 20 new "friends" almost fucking instantly. You will hear so many different life stories and you will tell yours. This year I went to one with some friends after living a big depression of the same "working" feeling and just by the second day I was feeling "fuck I wish I had done this way before ". I overstayed alone for two more weeks than my friends. I even ended working in and from the hostel and staying for free. Hope it helps you as it did for me.

[Yaa101]

I can advise the same, but without all the fuck words... ;-)

[junto]

Life is a balance. This persistent lack of sleep, stress and over-exertion needs to be given back. Your mind and body are trying to tell you something. You need to listen.

Take some time off if you can afford it. Travelling is a good way to get away from everything related to work. No computers and mobile phone.

When you come back, you'll have lots of new perspectives, new ideas and feel refreshed.

I'm not sure where you live, but if you are in the US, try a flight down to central America with a backpack and a good pair of walking boots, keep your mind open, watch your back and you'll have a blast.

The backpacking trail through central America is awesome. Depending on how frugal you are, you can live pretty cheaply.

[jason_slack]

Although probably frigid cold now, the US has the Appalachian Trails, over 2000 miles, from Maine to Georgia.

There was a movie featuring it recently too: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1178665/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

[jlangenauer]

It takes time to recover from burnout - sometimes months. The best thing for you to do is just let that take its course, and not try to push yourself back to 100%. That will only bake in the burnout, and it'll take longer for your to recover.

So go on holidays, meet with friends, read fiction, find some new hobbies. Whatever gives you pleasure, and isn't work, or an attempt to push yourself.

And with time, you will find yourself returning to how you were.

[thenomad]

Just in case the occasional anti-games mentality rears its ugly head around here: whilst there are lots of good suggestions coming up, games are certainly a pretty solid way to relax too.

In the last couple of months I've been recovering from mild-to-moderate burnout symptoms myself, and a lot of how I've been doing that is playing The Witcher 3. It works. (It probably helps if the game you're playing is one of the most astonishing artistic creations of the last couple of years, to be fair.)

The big thing is this: you can't force it. One plausible explanation for burnout is that it's a defense mechanism from your subconscious against excessive delayed gratification: if you're very self-disciplined and work very hard on something that you think will give you rewards in the end, but doesn't whilst you're doing it, then don't get those rewards, after a while you start building up subconscious resistance to doing that again.

It sounds like you're not too long away from the death-march project. If so, just give it some more time of not trying to do things (counter-intuitive and often scary for highly motivated people, I know), and see how you're doing in a month or two.

[violentvinyl]

I'd like to add my 2 pence to the notion of gaming to relax.

For someone who isn't a regular gamer, it isn't a relaxing thing to do. It's frustrating to have to master new controls, and every new game mechanic requires some kind of mental gymnastics, not to mention the hand-eye co-ordination to master.

For people who have, or do play games with some regularity, it is a great way to relax. New control schemes have a very shallow learning curve, and it's rare that a regular gamer encounters an entirely new game mechanic.

For example, my father in law was playing a COD game after not having played video games for many, many years, and was stuck at a certain point. After watching him sit through a brief cut scene, and then furiously mash the buttons on the controller, I intuitively realized what he was doing wrong. He was trying to "play the game" as he normally did, but didn't notice the little button icon at the bottom of the screen to signify a quick time event, and had never seen one before either. As a result, he was hitting the wrong button, only to watch the cut scene finish with his character dieing (he admitted to having sat through this 20+ times).

I myself, will often play games for a few hours after my wife has gone to bed, and on more than one occassion, I've complained about not having the energy to do anything prodcutive after the evening meal, and she likes to say something to the tune of "but you play video games for hours?". For her, playing video games is a tense, mind racing activity that requires lots of thought and manual dexterity. For me, it's little more than an interactive story with the occassional challenge (and they're usually bested after a second attempt, even at harder skill levels) and allows me to tune out for a bit before bed.

[stuxnet79]

Yes, there's a lot of bias against gaming, which to me isn't right. However, I find that playing video games feels either too dry or too much like work these days. I spent a significant amount of money building a gaming PC just to get back into the gaming life but I never play the damn thing because the games I have are either too boring or too hard to play in short bursts. I've pretty much burned out on gaming ... lool. What was initially a recreational hobby became too serious and time consuming and it sucked all the joy out of it. So moral of the story is, try to balance your life a bit more.

[brianwawok]

Gaming is a great way to blow off some steam!

For me personally the trick is to console game. I must prefer PC games, I prefer mice, I prefer RTS.. but I spend WAY too long on my computer. I physically cannot do it to "relax". So its off to the living room and play the PS4.

[askafriend]

Just don't play League of Legends. It's a game to play only if you want to get extremely stressed out and angry at everything in life :)

[ionised]

PC gaming is absolutely one of the main ways I relax in my spare time. It always will be because it's so effective (and fun).

[onion2k]

But... it's not the 100% capacity I know I can exhibit.

That'll be the 100% capacity that you did for a while and it burnt you out, right?

No one can work at "100% capacity" forever. You need to rest, to relax, and to do things that aren't work and aren't "productive". That downtime is recuperative and informative. As counterproductive as it might sound, taking time away from your computer to do other things makes you a better developer.

Working at what feels like 90% all the time is better than working at 100% for 6 months and then working at 40% for the following 6 months when you're burnt out.

[Outdoorsman]

This can be a crazy profession that will willingly chew people up...

Realize that....when money's to be made some will drive you until you can no longer function....

There's a lot to life...part of it is fast-lane, part of it is slow-lane...different parts have their purpose...

What matters is which lane is right for you right now...choose wisely, and take care of yourself...

[sharmi]

If travelling is not your cup of tea, doing a little creative art work ( or anything that can be done is a short time and have a tangible result to show for it) can do wonders.

One of the causes of burnout is putting in long hours to finish something that later amounts to nothing (because it never gets released or the end product is much below your expectations). All work and no satisfaction.

In such cases, small work that can be accomplished in a few hours can give back the oomph factor and infuse some energy into one's life. Glass painting worked marvels for me. Nowadays I find it fun to just take my time and colour a picture with crayons :) Yep I have kids.

A cross country hike or some carpentry maybe?

[greeneyedpea81]

I am currently in the same position you are in except with school. I love learning but I am burned out from reading chapters on top of chapters and writing "novels". My brain is definitely on strike and the quality of work I am producing is not the best. Not to mention, I am averging about 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night.

I decided to take a break for a few months after this last class I am in. I did not want to, however at this point it is very necessary. I can't wait to just do nothing for a day or two.

I hope you find balance and are able to find some time to step away from everything to reset.

[cabraca]

you are like a battery. if you need to work 100%, you also need time to recharge. take a vacation, without laptop, without phone, far away from tech. take some friends with your and just clear your head.

[911]

same