[lvturner]

I really hate the advice "Take six months to a year off"

Not everyone is in such a financially advantageous situation that they are able to do so at a minimum we should preface such advice with "Ideally" or "If you are able to"

In fact, when I've faced burn out in the past, one of the major reasons for it was BECAUSE I wasn't in a situation to take such time off and my gosh do I wish it was advice I was able to action!

[didgetmaster]

Taking 6 months to a year off from programming to give your brain a rest does not mean that you have to sit on the couch watching game shows or travel around trying to 'find yourself'.

Plenty of 'Help Wanted' signs are up looking for people with few skills or intelligent people who can learn a skill quickly. It might be much more labor intensive than your current job, but that might be exactly what you need as a change of pace.

Few, if any of those jobs pay as well as programming, but millions of people earn a living wage doing them every day. If you don't have some good savings, then you might have to give up some luxuries that you have gotten used to, but that isn't the end of the world either.

[xlii]

And yet this is advice targeted towards developer with 15 years of experience.

If someone is in position of working in the field, having a lot of experience and still having issue with putting some cash aside to take few months off then it might hint that not the field but particular work place is root cause.

[lvturner]

It’s folly to infer someone’s financial situation and make assumptions about their capabilities based on it.

One medical issue or a family member with one could scupper a savings account, this is a precise reason why I hate this advice it’s tantamount to victim blaming.

[xlii]

Just as losing money on bad investment or getting robbed or drained by ex-wife etc etc. But let’s call on Occams Razor and don’t focus some edge cases. Software development is well paying industry. We can’t bend over every single outlier situation which would be known to close friends only.

While maybe not obtainable for individual taking time off is still sound general piece of advice.

If you have bad tooth going to dentist is a a good advice. If you can’t afford dentist than it doesn’t make such advice bad.

For burnout recovery one has to get time off. There are some drugs that can help but they come with a lot of side effects and can actually worsen situation (depending on class of medication there is heightened risk of suicidal behavior or fired on the spot kind of).