Toward a theory of a more sustainable work-life balance
By Benjy Hansen-Bundy, GQ
Somewhere along the path to the techno-utopia future promised to us by Silicon Valley, we took a wrong turn: Instead of developing meaningful relationships with artificially intelligent earbuds carrying the melodic voice of Scarlett Johansson, we e-mail into the wee hours of the morning, our smartphone clattering onto our nose when, finally, we fall into the fitful, restless sleep of the overworked.
It's not too early to declare 2019 the Year of Burnout. Or maybe it's the Year of Complaining About Burnout. The chorus of disillusionment is growing louder. We've heard recently about how small tasks have become insurmountable. Or how we glamorise workaholic culture on social media. Or that one about the very pregnant Lyft driver who snagged the opportunity to pick up a quick fare on her way to the hospital to give birth.
For an increasingly vocal group of workers, participating in the economy now means extending your work day to its logical conclusion, i.e. the moment you go to sleep. The line between work and life disappears, which is exhausting. And then, instead of reintroducing some balance, we just put our heads down and keep grinding.
Thing is: There’s no obvious recourse. Exhausted or not, we’re all going to be back at our desks tomorrow, shovelling salad sluice out of bowls into our yawning mouths while trying to work up the energy to do something mundane. So, short of moving to France, where it's illegal to e-mail after hours, what can you do about burnout?
Jesse Israel has some ideas. The founder of the mass meditation group The Big Quiet, he’s responsible for gathering huge crowds of people to listen to music, connect, and, yes, meditate. He’s also got more than a little experience with burnout. In college, Israel started a record label, signed a band called MGMT, and by his early 20s had reached a point of perpetual exhaustion. Ironically, his new career isn’t burnout-free, either. (Turns out making everyone relax can be stressful, too.)
We asked him how he avoids burnout and how he recovers from it when, despite his best efforts, it catches up with him anyway.
Somewhere along the path to the techno-utopia future promised to us by Silicon Valley, we took a wrong turn: Instead of developing meaningful relationships with artificially intelligent earbuds carrying the melodic voice of Scarlett Johansson, we e-mail into the wee hours of the morning, our smartphone clattering onto our nose when, finally, we fall into the fitful, restless sleep of the overworked.
It's not too early to declare 2019 the Year of Burnout. Or maybe it's the Year of Complaining About Burnout. The chorus of disillusionment is growing louder. We've heard recently about how small tasks have become insurmountable. Or how we glamorise workaholic culture on social media. Or that one about the very pregnant Lyft driver who snagged the opportunity to pick up a quick fare on her way to the hospital to give birth.
For an increasingly vocal group of workers, participating in the economy now means extending your work day to its logical conclusion, i.e. the moment you go to sleep. The line between work and life disappears, which is exhausting. And then, instead of reintroducing some balance, we just put our heads down and keep grinding.
Thing is: There’s no obvious recourse. Exhausted or not, we’re all going to be back at our desks tomorrow, shovelling salad sluice out of bowls into our yawning mouths while trying to work up the energy to do something mundane. So, short of moving to France, where it's illegal to e-mail after hours, what can you do about burnout?
Jesse Israel has some ideas. The founder of the mass meditation group The Big Quiet, he’s responsible for gathering huge crowds of people to listen to music, connect, and, yes, meditate. He’s also got more than a little experience with burnout. In college, Israel started a record label, signed a band called MGMT, and by his early 20s had reached a point of perpetual exhaustion. Ironically, his new career isn’t burnout-free, either. (Turns out making everyone relax can be stressful, too.)
We asked him how he avoids burnout and how he recovers from it when, despite his best efforts, it catches up with him anyway.
'It feels like there's this bar that's been set for the output that is expected of us'
GQ: You say you’ve experienced burnout before—what was that like?
Jesse Israel: I started my own record label when I was a sophomore at NYU. We signed MGMT. The band took off. By the time I graduated, I was fried. At the time, I didn't realise that it was burnout - it was just very low energy. Even relatively small tasks felt almost impossible. “I’m procrastinating because I don't feel like I've got the life force in me. Just the thought of hanging out with friends feels exhausting.” I pushed myself to a breakdown stage and started having panic attacks, questioning my identity, my career, and my existence.
There is a spectrum around stress and demands in our world. The starting point on that spectrum has a healthy amount of tension that can exist in our lives to push us forward. Then there's this point where that healthy stress gets pushed past into what starts to become a red zone, and that red zone can then go into a state of exhaustion. That state of exhaustion is where the body is not able to do it anymore. Instead of stopping, I continued to push through that state of exhaustion. That's when the panic attacks kicked in.
There is a spectrum around stress and demands in our world. The starting point on that spectrum has a healthy amount of tension that can exist in our lives to push us forward. Then there's this point where that healthy stress gets pushed past into what starts to become a red zone, and that red zone can then go into a state of exhaustion. That state of exhaustion is where the body is not able to do it anymore. Instead of stopping, I continued to push through that state of exhaustion. That's when the panic attacks kicked in.
It seems like the boundaries between work and play have eroded. We feel guilty anytime we're not working.
It feels like there's this bar that's been set for the output that is expected of us, the level at which we're supposed to always be working, connected, in touch, sharing our lives online. Because of e-mail, because of texts, because of Slack, there are really no boundaries.
A lot of science shows that the fight-or-flight mechanism, the sympathetic nervous system, is constantly being triggered. Especially in cities and modern suburbs. When we get a bad e-mail or when a taxi honks at us or when a sports team that we love loses a major game - the actual physiological experience that our body has to those things is the same one it had when a saber-toothed tiger would jump out on a path when we were hunter-gatherers. It’s a good response if you're being attacked by a saber-toothed tiger but it’s not good when it happens, on average, 25 times a day.
A lot of science shows that the fight-or-flight mechanism, the sympathetic nervous system, is constantly being triggered. Especially in cities and modern suburbs. When we get a bad e-mail or when a taxi honks at us or when a sports team that we love loses a major game - the actual physiological experience that our body has to those things is the same one it had when a saber-toothed tiger would jump out on a path when we were hunter-gatherers. It’s a good response if you're being attacked by a saber-toothed tiger but it’s not good when it happens, on average, 25 times a day.
From a comment on Instagram.
Exactly. When our body goes into survival mode, our digestive system shuts off and our reproductive system shuts off so our body can use energy towards focusing on survival to help get out of the situation with the saber-toothed tiger. The blood in our system becomes acidic so if we get bit by that tiger, we don't taste as good. Our arteries get tighter. They actually shrink so if we do get bit, less blood comes out of our system. All of these things that happen are really helpful in the moment. You know, muscles tensing up, so we can focus all of our attention on extreme power.
"'Burnout is essentially physical and mental breakdown caused by overworking and feeling over stressed'"
So how can you structure your life so that you're not careening towards burnout?
The most important piece is self-awareness. As wellness-y as that might sound, I truly believe that the critical piece is being able to see what we're doing in our lives and to see when we're starting to enter that red zone. This is part of why I love meditation, not only because of what it does from a physical or mental standpoint, but just the fact that meditation is probably the most meaningful tool for increasing self-awareness.
How does meditation help?
It turns off the fight-or-flight response, and it turns on the parasympathetic nervous system, which is referred to as the “relaxed response.” If we're able to trigger that more regularly, our body starts to be in more of a natural state, so when the e-mails come in, you don't have as much of that reaction. When the taxi horn goes off, you're much calmer in the face of it and your body, from a physiological standpoint, is having a very different experience.
Okay, but the economy is not going to restructure itself to solve burnout. How do you still answer the e-mails and have a high-octane career, and not be in fight-or-flight all day?
There are some baseline things that people can practice to work towards that balance. Having a regular meditation practice is the first thing. But meditation is never gonna be a cure-all.
The second thing is around boundaries. The author and academic Brene Brown has written some cool stuff on vulnerability. She talked about how the most compassionate leaders that she has seen within large corporations, within communities, are the leaders with the clearest boundaries. It's understanding when we turn our e-mail off and leave it off; when we say no to a meeting or a phone call; when we make a decision to not go into the office. [We need] to honour those boundaries, to set those boundaries and have the courage to introduce these to our peers.
Sit down with a boss and say, “I'd like to take two weeks to show that if I don't e-mail after 7:00 p.m. and I'm only e-mailing during the day that I'll be able to be as effective - maybe more effective - because I'm actually having adequate time to rest, to disconnect from work.” I've seen that it can actually teach a boss a better way to lead and have a better work culture.
The third thing is to take the time to get clear about your priorities in life. So much of my energy used to go towards what I felt like looked like success based off of what I saw on Instagram and in comparison to my peers.
The second thing is around boundaries. The author and academic Brene Brown has written some cool stuff on vulnerability. She talked about how the most compassionate leaders that she has seen within large corporations, within communities, are the leaders with the clearest boundaries. It's understanding when we turn our e-mail off and leave it off; when we say no to a meeting or a phone call; when we make a decision to not go into the office. [We need] to honour those boundaries, to set those boundaries and have the courage to introduce these to our peers.
Sit down with a boss and say, “I'd like to take two weeks to show that if I don't e-mail after 7:00 p.m. and I'm only e-mailing during the day that I'll be able to be as effective - maybe more effective - because I'm actually having adequate time to rest, to disconnect from work.” I've seen that it can actually teach a boss a better way to lead and have a better work culture.
The third thing is to take the time to get clear about your priorities in life. So much of my energy used to go towards what I felt like looked like success based off of what I saw on Instagram and in comparison to my peers.
"'We have to give ourselves permission to start cutting back and prioritising space to rest, guilt-free'"
It seems like you need to create space in your life for processing, and play, and things that aren’t work. And then you need to enforce that space to the point where you can be bored so that your brain can power down and just recharge.
Burnout is essentially physical and mental breakdown caused by overworking and feeling over stressed. The best thing for burnout is rest, hands down. We have to give ourselves permission to start cutting back and prioritising space to rest, guilt-free: more time to sleep, to chill, to not work. This is so hard for us, especially for people who are prone to experiencing burnout, who really want to work and crush it and hustle. But the only way that you can really recover from burnout is through making space to experience deep rest. That means, again, having boundaries. It means maybe taking three months to be okay with the fact that you may make a little less money, you may have to say no to a few more projects than you'd like to so you can have more space to take care of yourself to get back up on your feet.
Is there a quick fix?
The one that's really helpful for me is to get in nature. Every year, for the past few years, I take anywhere from four to eight days and I go rent a cabin or a little house, and I don't have my phone, my computer, no screens. I don't interact with any people. I'm fully by myself for that period of time.
You wake up when the sun comes up, you meditate, you make yourself some breakfast, you go on a nature walk, you free write for a while - whatever comes up, just let it out - do some reading, take a nap, make lunch, go on another nature walk, come back, write for a while, take a bath, make dinner, make a fire, read, go to sleep early, repeat the next day.
You wake up when the sun comes up, you meditate, you make yourself some breakfast, you go on a nature walk, you free write for a while - whatever comes up, just let it out - do some reading, take a nap, make lunch, go on another nature walk, come back, write for a while, take a bath, make dinner, make a fire, read, go to sleep early, repeat the next day.
What do you when you get lonely out there?
You sit with it. You just allow it. There are moments that can be really tough. I'll have a day - it's usually the second day in - where things are coming up for me, like three, four relationships past that are coming up and feel really awful. I'm experiencing all this emotional dissonance and I'm in nature without distraction. I sit with it, I feel it, I'm just there with it, and then it passes.
On the other side of that, almost always, comes these deep insights and creative visions. Something leaves the body and then I have this moment of connection and excitement. I start writing and some big idea will come out. It's up and down like that for the whole week. When I did my eight-day one, by the eighth day, I'd never felt so inspired and clear about what I'm here to do and how I was gonna do it.
You think about how rare it is to really just be with ourselves truly in this day and age. To have that space in nature. That's a nice way to jump start or accelerate the burnout recovery process. But, unfortunately, I don't believe that there is a shortcut to getting out of burnout.
On the other side of that, almost always, comes these deep insights and creative visions. Something leaves the body and then I have this moment of connection and excitement. I start writing and some big idea will come out. It's up and down like that for the whole week. When I did my eight-day one, by the eighth day, I'd never felt so inspired and clear about what I'm here to do and how I was gonna do it.
You think about how rare it is to really just be with ourselves truly in this day and age. To have that space in nature. That's a nice way to jump start or accelerate the burnout recovery process. But, unfortunately, I don't believe that there is a shortcut to getting out of burnout.
