Feel your feelings and reconnect with past passions: how to recover from burnout | Well actually

What do you do when you come to a sudden stop? When work becomes too much, even friendships feel like a burden and you feel like you just can’t continue with your life as it currently is?

For Emma Gannon, the answer was extreme but non-negotiable: a whole year with nothing – or almost nothing. Gannon, the London-based author of fiction, nonfiction and the Hyphen newsletter, collapsed in late 2022. During a spa weekend with a friend, she had a panic attack, her first ever.

Gannon notes the irony of having “a nervous breakdown in a luxury hotel”, but his apocalyptic sense of fight or flight seemed to warrant extreme measures. After being diagnosed with anxiety and burnout, she reduced her life and commitments to the bare minimum and spent the next 12 months recovering.

Looking back, Gannon says, his burnout was triggered by a tendency to people-please, which derailed him. In his new book, A Year of Nothing, Gannon reflects on the lessons of this transformative “fallow year,” forcing him to learn to rest, build resilience, and reconnect with what matters.

Here she shares her tips for getting back to life after burnout.

When your body tells you to stop, listen

When burnout struck Gannon, she was experiencing success in her career, had strong relationships, and didn’t feel like her reserves were dwindling. “It really surprised me,” she said.

But looking back, there were signs that she had reached her limits, she said. That summer, on vacation, she found herself glued to her phone, desperate and unable to relax or have fun.

Back home, she was reluctant to see her best friends, even on New Year’s Eve, and was disproportionately irritated by the fireworks. His eyes hurt, his body looked like a “big, heavy mass” and his hairline showed signs of thinning.

After that first panic attack at the spa, Gannon began experiencing regular seizures, as well as “completely out-of-body” feelings of dissociation, forcing her to confront her exhaustion.

“We all have a performative identity that we display every morning – it’s that side of me that was running the show,” she says. “This little voice inside me said, ‘This is not the life you want, and we’re going to end it.'”

Get back to basics

After receiving the diagnosis, Gannon canceled all but essential commitments, even abandoning the hit podcast she had hosted for six years and pulling out of a childhood friend’s wedding.

Being able to step back was a privilege, reflecting her financial cushion and control over her career, she says – but the experience also transformed her attitude towards money and what she saw as a necessary expense. One day, Gannon recalls, all she did was walk to the supermarket, buy a bouquet of daffodils for £1 and walk home. “When you’re going through this, keep everything very small,” she says. “There will be a time when you can be big again.”

If you can’t afford to take time off, cutting back on your spending and building a savings buffer can broaden your options, she says — for example, in case you need to work part-time or look for another job.

“What can you do in life to reduce your overhead costs? Even now, I don’t want to spend money on clothes, because I’d rather save money to do nothing.”

Stop drinking – even if just for a moment

Gannon stopped drinking alcohol after noticing how she used it to numb herself. She found that alcohol cast a “chemical blanket” over her unhappiness and the parts of her life that weren’t working, as well as over the particular pleasures of socializing and special occasions.

“There’s nothing wrong with having a glass of wine, but if you feel like you’re blocking things out, I think not drinking a little is a good place to start,” she says. In addition to avoiding the depressive effect of alcohol, “it’s also about learning to take care of yourself,” says Gannon.

Diet was the cornerstone of her recovery, she continues: “Would you invite your friend over and just treat them to a packet of Pringles for dinner? Probably not, because you love them… You would make them really good soup and buy the best bread – so make it yourself.”

Create a playlist of sad songs

Having been in survival mode for so long, Gannon found that it took him a while to connect with his emotions. What helped her open up was music. Listening to Max Richter on one of his many long, aimless walks allowed him to “feel all my feelings, for the first time in ages,” Gannon says.

She had previously struggled to play the song through – a sign of her isolation, she suggests.

Now, Gannon recommends creating a playlist of melancholic, reflective, or meaningful songs that can help bring out those repressed emotions: “You create space to be nostalgic and reconnect with the side of yourself that you’ve essentially lost track of.” »

If you’re having trouble crying, a playlist “puts that on hold,” she adds: “I think there’s courage in that: ‘I’m not going to block anything out for a while.’ »

Just “being” with a friend

One of the unexpected benefits of Gannon’s burnout was the clarity it gave her about her friendships, she says. Without the social lubricant of alcohol, some connections faded.

The people Gannon cherished most during this time were the ones she felt comfortable doing nothing with. “I only hung out with people who were just accepting of where I was,” she says — sweatpants, unwashed hair and all.

One day, one of her best friends came over and watched both Sister Act movies in near-silence, before going home. “And it was incredible,” Gannon recalls.

What mattered was the non-judgmental presence and ambient support, she says: “It’s the opposite of trying to fix someone…I came out of burnout really knowing who my friends were.” »

Reconnect with your past passions – and with yourself

During her “year of nothing,” Gannon spent time at the family home and revisited her teenage haunts. It helped her reconnect with her youthful hopes, dreams and hobbies that had been abandoned.

Now, Gannon tries to accommodate his youth by keeping his favorite books from his childhood on the shelves in his office and displaying his personal knick-knacks near his bed. “I like to open my eyes and remember what I want to do with my life,” she says.

Recently, Gannon went alone to see Incubus, a somewhat “thug” band she had loved as a teenager, and was struck by the emotion that ran through the crowd. “You remember that this 15-year-old girl is still there and you can communicate with her whenever you want, even if your tastes and your life change,” she says.

Find a new view

Even when “being in nature” seemed too broad or ambitious, Gannon found she benefited from a change of scenery. “Is there water near you or a park? Is there a hill you can climb and stand on for a while?” she said.

“Taking height” and changing perspective in particular was refreshing, she said, dovetailing with findings about the impact of fear on mental and emotional well-being: “It does something to the brain and makes you think things are possible, if you feel stuck.” »

Even the densest cities have pockets of greenery that can offer respite, Gannon adds: “It’s almost like we forget. »

Explore movement and touch

Gannon freely admits to being “pretty woo-woo”; she explored many alternative therapies during her recovery, including reflexology. Your mileage may vary, but yoga, other gentle exercises, and even massage can help give your mind a break, release your emotions, and bring you back to your body.

Although Gannon “just can’t do” yoga, she says, she has experienced many emotional moments during massages, bursting into tears unexpectedly or having a sudden moment of clarity. This could be due to the kindness and care of the practitioner, the power of human touch, the placebo effect, or simply the opportunity to take a break.

Now that her burnout is behind her, Gannon says, she’s more resilient, better at listening to signs that her energy is depleting, and she responds more quickly.

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When life doesn’t provide permanent protection against burnout, becoming aware of these individual physical and psychological signals is half the battle, she says: “Every week or so, I do a little check-in: ‘How are you feeling? What’s going on?’ – I sort of talk to myself like a friend – because we can lose track.

A Year of Nothing by Emma Gannon is available from 22 January