[malux85]

I have had burnout in the past, and I’m sorry to say 4 weeks is likely not enough.

For me it was about 1 year to recover.

Sure I could have returned to work after a month or two, because I would no longer have been “exhausted” physically, but going straight back into it would have burnt off that top layer of rest, and still revealed the ruined core within, to truly heal it took a year, then my excitement for programming came back, the excitement about not being able to sleep because there’s so much to enjoy, and the pure joy of creation

I hate that it took a year to come back, being hyper industrious this long period killed me. But I am grateful that it came back.

I appreciate not everyone has the financial ability to take a year off. I didn’t either, but I was lucky that I could adapt a simple, frugal existence to survive. I support UBI or whatever form of support anyone can give people who burnout because it’s real and it’s painful.

I wish you all the best in your recovery, and wrote this to tell you there is light at the end of the tunnel

[rhombocombus]

I took 6 months off after a bad case of burnout and I think you are spot on at 1 year. About 6 months after going back to work (and clearing my plate of a lot of superfluous BS) I finally felt like I was beginning to hit my stride again. It was a big financial hit, but in the grand scheme of things it would have been far worse on my long term career prospects had I not taken that time away. Six months was, in my opinion, the bare minimum for the kind of burnout I was experiencing.

[lioeters]

I've also burnt out, a couple times really deeply, in the last decade or so. Everything broke down then, and I ended up taking about a year off, with occasional part-time work to sustain me.

Emotional and psychological trauma have a way of affecting you "forever", skewing who you are inside. I believe it's a life-long practice to learn your own physical and mental limits, to develop a habit of continuous improvement and awareness.

Fortunately, after I came back to the workforce, I eventually found a situation where I can pace myself, take a step or two back as needed, to keep an eye on my mental condition and ensure a smooth, consistent productivity.

Your mention of UBI was surprising in the context of burnout, but it totally makes sense. Not everyone can afford to take time off work, especially for mental health, which is not widely understood, as a "taboo" subject in some cultures.

I barely made it financially through my burn-out recovery, and it would have saved a ton of grief if there was a safety net that ensured at least food and shelter, while I focused on rehabilitation.

[numpad0]

Just a showerthought, could it be like everyone accumulate mental “age” at a constant rate from birth, such that people of same generation has roughly same mental age, and so burnout state is observed when those ages become mismatched?