Stop Looking for Answers. Learn to Rest: 3 Ways Out of Burnout

I'm not sure if it's the cold snap this week or the fact that I pushed too hard recently, but the past few days I've been hit with a wave of burnout.

Monday I was still trying to figure out what to write about this week, but my head was empty. Nothing useful surfaced.

I really wanted to skip this week. But that's not allowed. Maybe just write something? Hmm, that doesn't feel right either.

It's like my brain got frozen along with my hands and feet by this cold weather.

This empty, drained, burned-out, low-point feeling — it's not the first time I've felt it, and I've already got plenty of ways to deal with it.

Short version of my conclusion: when you hit a low point, hunting for answers is usually wasted effort. Letting your body and brain rest is more practical.

Concretely, three things — catch up on sleep, take a Gap Month to step away, and recognize sunk costs so you stop pouring more in. I'll break down how each of these works below.

Stop looking for answers. Learn to rest.

A friend of mine recently posted that he'd been going to bed at 8pm and waking up at 6am, feeling fantastic.

That's extremely hard for me. My brain comes alive at night, so I "love" writing late at night.

The latest issue of Good Morning Jason's newsletter also mentioned this — he's another early-to-bed, early-to-rise type, and he's pushing everyone to wake up at 6am.

So this Tuesday night, I went along with it and turned in at 10:30pm, woke up at 7am, and yeah — felt great.

But I only managed it on Tuesday. The rest of the week, getting to bed before midnight is already a win XDD

Since I'm someone who has to eat the moment I wake up before I can do anything, I went straight to the breakfast place nearby.

By 8am I was at a café near the MRT station (highly recommend!) reading a book. Lots of foot traffic, lots of foreigners, lots of takeout customers.

Coffee aroma, greetings in different languages, machines whirring — a lovely way to start the day.

But still, no real inspiration. I kept thinking — maybe I should just write about the slump itself?

I've been through plenty of slumps, burnouts, hollow stretches in my life. Maybe it'd be useful to someone?

And just like that, the first headline came to me: Stop looking for answers to a slump that may not even have answers. Learn to rest.

Muscles need rest to recover. So does your brain.

There was a stretch where I followed a fitness-obsessed doctor (KOL) called One Minute Fitness Class and read his stuff.

He once shared that there was a period where, no matter how he trained, he just felt off — but his body wasn't actually unwell.

He figured his body might just need rest, even though he couldn't pinpoint why. So he stepped away from training for a bit.

A week later, he went back. His state was excellent — he hit new personal records, broke past his previous lifting limits.

Sometimes that "off" feeling is just your body sending a signal. Something feels weird because you need more rest.

Same with mental state. My Human Design coach Viola once reminded me: when your stomach hurts or your chest tightens, that's a sign you're forcing yourself.

After that, I started paying close attention to my body. When my chest gets tight, that means whatever I'm doing is stressing me out, and I should turn it down.

Modern workplace pressure is brutal — sometimes you even get PUA'd by your job, and it's easy to fall into self-doubt. Stepping out, at the right moment, is necessary.

In a slump? Try a Gap Year or Gap Month.

A Gap Year or Gap Month means pausing your current studies or work to do something completely different.

Through that "interruption," you get to feel the world fresh again. Give yourself a chance to start over. Rethink where you stand in life.

Obviously, the prerequisite for any Gap Year or Gap Month is that you have enough money to live on.

When I exited my company in June 2023, I went through a period of feeling lost — like my 10-year plan had collapsed and the years of effort I'd put in had been negated.

I gave myself a 2-month Gap Month. During that time I went to Thailand for two weeks of honeymoon, sat on an island, watched the sea, and thought.

Things you can't figure out, you just can't figure out — no matter how much you turn them over. Better to read more and shift your headspace.

I read three books during that stretch:

The Art of the Good Life
The $100 Startup
The Minimalist Entrepreneur

The first is by Rolf Dobelli, the author who first opened my mind to a thinking-based approach. He's a writer and entrepreneur.

The second is by serial entrepreneur Chris Guillebeau, profiling multiple low-cost, bootstrapped founders and their stories.

The third is by Sahil Lavingia, founder of Gumroad, on his perspective and methodology around minimalist entrepreneurship.

You'd think — here I am on a beach, but I dragged three startup books along. Love doesn't lie XD

I think most of us are like that. Even when I'd already left that environment, I couldn't help but look back.

It's like — wherever you fell, you have to go back and fall again, then climb back up.

Looking back now, I feel a bit sorry for myself. Why did I have to? Maybe I just didn't want to admit defeat.

But human nature is like that. I get stuck without realizing it, can't let go. I've let go of that one now though.

The upside of a Gap Year or Gap Month: you'll always find a moment to let things go. Really. Try it out.

After I finished two of those three books, I let go of the failed-startup thing, and started moving toward a new direction in life.

I still ask myself: was it worth it? But we just need "time" to make peace with things — especially when we put so much in.

The scary thing isn't the slump. It's sunk cost.

Maybe what really keeps us from letting go isn't that we can't find answers — it's that we can't bear how much we've already put in.

I spent so much time at the company. The company can't just shut down.

I spent so much time learning this industry. How can I just switch? Wouldn't that mean I learned all that for nothing?

I poured so much time into this project. How can the boss just stop it? We'll lose so much money!

I put so much money into this stock. If I cut my losses now, my money won't come back! (But not cutting could lose even more?)

The Sunk Cost Fallacy is when we let how much we've already invested — instead of rational evaluation — drive our decision about whether to "keep going."

The point is just one thing: past investment makes your current thinking irrational.

There's a classic everyday example of the sunk cost fallacy:

You paid $200 for a 2-hour movie ticket today. 30 minutes in, you realize the film is terrible. Truly awful!

Statistically, many people will keep watching to the end because they're "afraid of wasting" the money.

But your $200 is already spent. If you keep watching, you'll waste another 1.5 hours on a bad movie.

Your mood will probably get worse from sitting through it. Net negative.

Cutting your losses is the only real answer. But cutting losses hurts. It really hurts. I get it.

I've cut losses on stocks before. It took me a long time to get past the psychological barrier — endless internal dialogue, endless reflection.

In different contexts, "cutting losses" might mean: closing the company, quitting, breaking up, switching careers.

The more reluctant you are to lose what you have now, the easier it is to fall into the contradictions of a slump.

You clearly don't fit the company culture, but because it's a famous foreign firm with great pay, you stay — and grind yourself into a mental health condition.

You clearly need an extended break, but your company culture doesn't allow long leave, and you don't want to quit. Examples like this are everywhere.

If you've got nothing else, sleep more.

Yes, sleep more. At least 8 hours a day. From 10pm to 6am.

Not from 1am onward. Not from 6am to the afternoon.

In my experience, a lot of people's slumps have nothing to do with luck or behavior — they're a sleep duration and quality problem.

Some people treat staying up late like a medal. Treat overtime like a trophy. Push themselves to 3am and feel like they're working hard.

Like when I was writing my thesis, I treated watching the sunrise as proof of my effort, and even checked in on Facebook about it.

Don't kid yourself. You just can't go to bed on time and ship progress on schedule. You can't "function normally."

When I stay up, I also want to write a venting post. But I know that's just my procrastination talking. It's definitely not a badge of honor.

Up to now, every time I've collaborated with someone whose sleep schedule is broken, it's been a disaster.

Their emotions are unstable. Work quality is unstable. Time management is a mess. And then they say their mood has been bad lately.

See where the problem is? Sleep more, no big deal. Maybe after a good week of sleep, the problem solves itself.

A few references:

On people who love staying up late, read this.
Long-term sleep deprivation breaks your brain. Read this.

It's freezing out, so I'm already planning to take a sick leave for this. You all — get to bed early. Goodnight.

FAQ

Q: Do you have to take a Gap Year or Gap Month to get out of a slump? A: Not necessarily. I personally used a 2-month Gap Month, and it worked great — but only because I could afford it financially. If you can't, start with smaller forms of stepping out: catch up on sleep first, completely unplug from work on weekends.

Q: How do I tell if I'm actually tired or just don't want to do this? A: My read: if your work quality, mood, and decisions all noticeably improve after a week of rest, you were tired. If you're still stuck after resting, it's a motivation or direction issue — not a stamina issue.

Q: I know I'm trapped in sunk costs, but I just can't let go. What now? A: It took me a long time to get past it. What worked in practice: write down all the costs you've already invested as "tuition fees," acknowledge it's already spent, then evaluate separately whether "continuing to invest from this moment forward" is worth it. Separate the past from the future.

Q: Does going to bed early really help? My mind is sharpest at midnight. A: I'm a night owl too — I get it. But almost everyone I've worked with whose sleep was a mess had unstable output. Try one week of 10pm to 6am first. Then we can talk about "nighttime inspiration."