How Do You Deal With Burnout?

[Beerbread]

I'm sure this has been shouted high to the heavens, but how do you guys work through it? I go through major bursts of productivity and then I crash as hard as I worked.

I've been working through it with my therapist, but I'm curious if you guys have ways to prevent it from happening. I think being mindful that it's happening helps, but then I feel guilty that I'm not going 110% like days prior.

 

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[Kokaka]

I'm sure this has been shouted high to the heavens, but how do you guys work through it? I go through major bursts of productivity and then I crash as hard as I worked.

I've been working through it with my therapist, but I'm curious if you guys have ways to prevent it from happening. I think being mindful that it's happening helps, but then I feel guilty that I'm not going 110% like days prior.

Heavy excercise and healthy eating.
I have been diagnosed and recoverd from a burnout and this has helped immensly.
When I was in med-school, I did alot of thaiboxing as a way to handle stress.
Got injured with a burnout that followed.
Recoverd and picked up thaiboxing again and it cured my burnout almost over night.

My advice is to find a sport or activity that you love. Be it running, gym, tennis, fighting etc. The more you work out, the better you will do.

 

[RequisiteRequium]

I'm sure this has been shouted high to the heavens, but how do you guys work through it? I go through major bursts of productivity and then I crash as hard as I worked.

I've been working through it with my therapist, but I'm curious if you guys have ways to prevent it from happening. I think being mindful that it's happening helps, but then I feel guilty that I'm not going 110% like days prior.

This is what writers call writers block in a creative sense or what machinist's call necking in a material. Again, take some time and think why are you doing this, what is your end goal, and what is your motivator? Is there a passion or hobby you have been neglecting you wanted to do, or is your grinding only grinding you passion for the work?
I understand where Kokaka is coming from since it is about dopamine & how you regulate the neurochemistry that you have for satisfaction. Exercise is a way to get your blood flowing, & releasing stress which is why runners & athletes get runner's high when running/exercising. However, sometimes you need to rest, and stop working. If you try and self deceive yourself that you are not working when you know that you are, it is like telling someone who has no idea how to drive a manual car that clutch is also a brake. Imagine how fast they can wreck that car.
Now, there is no way to prevent burnout, but there are ways to slow down the effect of it. By slowing the effects then your body can naturally recover from it day by day. You can choose to go hard on creative adventures, but you then have to accept there will be days where you have to slow down for exercise & just not doing much work. This is why people in a 9-5 will feel burnout, but not as much as someone who does 4 all nighters every week then rest for the rest. No one can be 100% efficient every second especially when working. This is an immutable law of thermodynamics (Thermal efficiency - Wikipedia). If you get really close to 100% every day then you become a robot which is what you want to avoid when being an entrepreneur.
The thing is, you can choose to go 110% and go the way you are, but you have to do the cost benefit analysis. We know the horror stories from the Game Dev industry about crunch, and the burnout they have. That is because they are necking, and are forced to continue on the necking process. This also applies to Asian workers in Japan, Korea, China, and Singapore where they work themselves until they die at their seats. It is up to you to know your stress points, and where you start to burnout. Each human is different in where they break when doing certain tasks while others can sustain more stress than others. This is why Factor of Safety is a thing (Factor of safety - Wikipedia), and why those who are in the field long enough (PE's) can lower it compared to the industry standard. It is because they know more about structures, and how much they can take without breaking.
TLDR: It depends upon you, and how you operate. Your perspective, opportunities, and choices will lead you to experience stress in different ways that changes the tolerance you can hold compared to another person. I would suggest really looking back at the foundations, and find out what is the root cause of the burnout vs treating the symptoms. This can lead to more systemic infection of burnout that you could stop pursuing your dreams all together.