Burnout. Burn out? Whatever, it sucks.

Burnout is a pretty confusing thing made harder by our naive reactions being things like “just try harder” or “grit your teeth and push through”, which usually happen to be exactly the wrong things to do. Burnout also isn’t really just one thing, it's more like a collection of distinct problems that are clustered by similar symptoms.

Something something intro, research context, this is what I’ve learned / synthesized blah blah blah. Read on!

Models of burnout

These are models of burnout that I’ve found particularly useful, with the reminder that these are just models with all the caveats that that comes with.

Burnout as a mental injury

Researchers can be thought of as “mental athletes” who get “mental injuries” (such as burnout) the way physical athletes get physical injuries, and we should orient towards these mental injuries in the same way [...]

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Outline:

(00:41) Models of burnout

(00:52) Burnout as a mental injury

(02:17) Burnout as a deficit of activation energy

(03:25) Sources of burnout

(04:23) Physiological + Psychological

(04:56) Broken steering / responsiveness

(06:17) Permanent on-call

(07:04) Mission doubt

(08:19) Lightness and heaviness

(10:06) Early warning signs

(11:42) Coping mechanisms and solutions

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First published:
May 3rd, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/n27jK9PJNJMrTgYFT/untitled-draft-wq43

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Navigating burnout” by gw

LessWrong (30+ Karma)