Ask HN: How do you *actually* recover from deep technical/founder burnout?
Beyond the standard advice of "take a vacation," what practical strategies, mental shifts, or changes in routine helped you get your spark back after a long period of burnout?
Looking for real stories from developers, founders, or anyone in a high-intensity role.
I've been here. Taking a vacation never helped, because I'd be stressed during the vacation thinking about "work" in an active manner.
What really helped me was fully disconnecting and shifting my mindset to think about work passively: I don't forbid myself from thinking about my work, but I do not action on it. Instead, I keep a physical scratchpad and write ideas and thoughts down continuously. This helps me refactor my perspective and shift it from "active building" to "passive expansion".
I've come to realize burnout is a function of expectation mismatch, and I think of it from thermodynamics perspective. Burnout operates like a pressure differential system where the gap between internal expectations and external reality creates unsustainable energy expenditure. In a closed system, energy imbalance leads to heat loss or system failure. Similarly, when your mental model of "what should be happening" constantly fights against "what is happening," you're burning cognitive energy just to maintain equilibrium.
The passive approach allows me to transform that pressure into potential energy. Instead of forcing immediate resolution (active building), you're allowing ideas to exist in a low-energy state (passive expansion). This mirrors how heat dissipates naturally rather than through forced cooling - it becomes a capacitor, storing energy for later use rather than demanding immediate conversion.
So the answer, for me, is "disconnect from doing while staying connected to thinking". This helps me recover much more efficiently, while keeping myself sharp and free of expectations of doing anything.
"I've come to realize burnout is a function of expectation mismatch"
This. No amount of break will solve the issue until you adjust your expectations, especially from yourself. I have been burnt out as a founder and taking time off made it worse because I still have a business to run and you cant just switch off as a founder. Can work for employees but not for founders. Only way is to stop expecting too much from you but still jeep the balance of keep moving forward.
Really hard to do. I struggle every day but I cannot quit doing it because i cannot do anything else (EDIT: I mean other than being a founder).
What do u mean you cannot do anything else?
Sorry I should have been more clear. I meant that I cannot do anything else other than being a founder and run my own thing. With that, comes the burnout that cannot be solved by taking time off because you cannot just switch off like a regular employee can. So you have to solve the burnout differently.
I've suffered this several times over my now 25-year career, and the best answer I've found is therapy. Find a good[*] therapist and work with them, preferably every week, until you feel better.
[*] I like this definition of "a good therapist", from a book I read many years ago:
> Here’s what you should look for in a good therapist.
> Some good signs are:
> * Someone you know says this therapist has helped them with a similar problem in concrete ways.
> * The therapist offers a plan that focuses on helping you reach the goals you’ve set, and it’s clear to you how what the therapist does will help you reach your goals.
> * This therapist uses a variety of methods depending on your problem and who you are.
> * You have an ongoing sense that this therapist is more often than not helping you feel better in your life and helping your life work better.
> Some bad signs are:
> * There’s no change in your life or how you feel or what you do after four sessions, or things actually get worse.
> * The therapist seems uninterested in the concrete realities of your current life.
> * The therapist is focused exclusively on ways you’ve been damaged, instead of on your needs or strengths.
> * The therapist seems to have one all-purpose theory or “answer” that explains everything.
I hope this helps! Burnout is real, you're not alone, and I'm glad you're taking some steps towards recovery!
I hit deep burnout after ~3 years of nonstop startup grind. What helped wasn’t small fixes — it was stepping away completely for a few weeks. It took time just to stop thinking in “crisis mode.” I stopped feeling guilty about rest, reconnected with things outside work (walking, cooking, reading), and talked with other founders who’d been there. Almost all had the same story. When I came back, I rebuilt around sustainability - fewer hero sprints, clearer boundaries. Burnout wasn’t failure; it was feedback that the way I was working wasn’t sustainable.
When I’ve burned out on work, a break away from the normal work, coupled with some other project I find interesting and rewarding, that isn’t tied to any performance metrics or expected deliverables, has helped.
At work, I usually keep a little side project going that is helpful, but that no one else gets involved with. When I need a break or a win, I pivot over to that project to do something fun and easy, which gives me a quick win and my sense of control back.
It does have its limits. I feel like I’ve been burnt out for several years now. But was diagnosed with autism last year, so I think it’s autistic burnout, which would be separate from the technical burnout.
When I’ve burned out at work for technical or political reasons, I’ve normally been able to recover in a few months. This autistic burnout seems to be lasting forever. I’m not sure what to do about it.
Why do you think the standard advice is incorrect? It isn't. No changes in routine or other tricks will resolve true burnout. You need time off. You can make changes in your routine when you come back to avoid burning out again, but you cannot shortcut recovery.
Maybe they mean standard advice is good, but what else to layer on top? Vacation plus therapy? What sort of Vacation? Travel the world, beachy relaxing Vacation, volunteer?
Take a relaxing vacation, preferably one where you dont have to think/stress too much. After that anything else you do will only marginally improve your situation
Appreciate the reply. I'm looking for the "marginal improvements" you mentioned. What are they? My post is really about the practical changes people made when a big vacation wasn't an option, or what they did after they got back.
Sometimes you can withdraw from the one thing that bugs you most, and that can make a world of difference.
If you can't do that, the next best thing, or maybe even better, is to slow down enough to fix that one thing like you haven't had time to do earlier.
For that you do really have to slow down, so what would have been more work before is very approachable, but the clear goal is the satisfaction once the worst annoyance is behind you, hopefully for good.
You may still be doing technical work, but on the whole your tech/non-tech balance can lean strongly toward the non-tech goal of reduced annoyance & stressors, and that's where progress should be maintained.
One problem can be when tech goals are so overwhelming it actually requires halting all other efforts. This can be essential to overcome some obstacles.
But you can't do this forever.
Or endlessly, which seems like forever, and you're not a wimp for when your strength crumbles at different times, for different reasons or in comparison to others. Nobody can actually take it, and everybody is a different camel sometimes lugging large amounts of straw on their back more than others.
Maybe what helps is attitude adjustment and building up a tolerance to things that most others would not, that might even be what it takes a lot of the times to accomplish things that others would not.
You just can't do it in a way that takes an intolerable toll.
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From my experience and talking to other founders/engineers ...
1) It's good to analyze what's the source of the burn-out. In many instances, it's not exactly exhaustion per se, but lack of meaning in what they are doing beyond the money. There are acute stressors, like coming out of an intense sprint, and chronic stressors, like not knowing why you're even doing this. If you had fuck-you money, what would you be doing long-term instead? beyond take a vacation, buy a house, etc.
2) Learning to say no to things. Let go of "hero" mode. Good enough for now is good enough for now. Cut down on complexity to reduce cognitive load. Really assess which things you do are real and which are performative.
3) Better understand how work fits in your long term goals. Having worked in VC, a lot of advice for founders are very investor-centric. The core of the thinking is that some sort of exit will solve all your problems, and is worth grinding for. I see many founders become entrepreneurs to "work for themselves" and not be a corp wage-slave, just to become a VC grind-slave. Their health falters, their personal life implodes (divorce/breakups), and they've no genuine friendships (just business acquaintances). When they do get to a good financial exit, they're still miserable. Do try to make the company/product building process enjoyable too. Sometimes it means slowing down, smell the roses, think things through to avoid problems.
Overall, the right advice is very situational. The most important part may be talking out loud to someone you trust about it. Sometimes just verbalizing it helps.
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