Burnout Recovery - Freya's Notes

Source: I went to burnout rehab, most of this is from my notes from that time ## Sleep Sleep is **by far** the most important part of fixing burnout. Almost nothing else you try to get better, will help much at all, until your sleep is in order. Only then should you get the other things sorted as well - You need 7 to 9 hours of *uninterrupted sleep* every day to start recovering - Less than 7 and your burnout will be unmoved, less than 4 and you'll actively damage your mental health - It does not matter when during the day you sleep. Whether you're an early riser or someone who stays awake until sunrise, as long as you get the hours in - If you only got 4 hours of sleep over night, take a nap to catch up, ideally before 3pm to avoid disrupting sleep rhythm. This is much better than forcing yourself to stay awake - Don't drink caffeine within 8 hours of going to bed, unless you're completely unaffected by it, which, you might not know if you are or not if you haven't experimented with going on/off - But I'm not tired when I go to bed - This is almost certainly because you are in a chronic state of stress with elevated cortisol and adrenaline levels. Your body is in fight or flight mode and keeping you awake - Enable night light auto-dimming on all your screens, computer, phone, tablets, TVs, as well as the lights in your house/apartment, if you have smart/dimmable lights, nearing your usual bedtime - Avoid stressful situations/conversations/exercise just hours before bedtime - Make sure your bed is only used for sleep, not daytime activities like watching TV or playing games or reading or eating or whatever. This helps your brain associate bed with sleeping - Try melatonin, in case you haven't already. It's the hormone your body should release naturally when you're getting close to bedtime, but burnout can disrupt this. - Take it 1h before bedtime, max 5mg. Probably start with 1mg or so - It doesn't work for everyone, but I nearly cried when I rediscovered what being tired at night felt like - Worst case - lying in bed awake is generally bad if it goes on for longer than 20 minutes. if you're wide awake despite having been completely relaxed and with closed eyes, get up and do something very calm like reading in dim light, until you get tired - But I wake up early feeling rested - This is because you, again, wake up in hecking fight or flight mode, regardless of how little sleep you got - If you wake up too early or have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, make your out-of-bed time as short and calm and dark and asocial as humanly possible - Waddle to the bathroom in darkness with mostly closed eyes - Avoid turning on lights - Go to bed immediately after - For the love of brain health do NOT touch your phone bc you **will** see a notification and "just look at it for a bit" and then 10 minutes have passed and now it's impossible to fall back asleep (...this is me speaking from experience) - When waking up in the morning, don't pick up your phone first thing, unless it's just to check the time. If you notice you haven't gotten enough hours in, try to fall back asleep for ~5-10 minutes. Although if it doesn't work, then you might as well just get up