Mental Vacation Articles
Topics by Category
How to Stop Replaying Difficult Conversations (Especially During Burnout)
Learn practical, psychology-backed strategies to stop replaying difficult conversations and feel better after workplace conflict - especially for burned out professionals who feel under attack.
The Role of Cortisol in Burnout: Your Stress Hormone
Learn how cortisol, your stress hormone, drives burnout. Understand the symptoms, health risks, and science-backed steps to restore balance and energy.
Loss of Motivation in Burnout: When Nothing Matters Anymore
Burnout can steal your motivation and make everything feel pointless. Learn why it happens and how to gently find your way back.
Brain Fog Recovery: How to Reclaim Mental Sharpness
What brain fog is, why it happens, and step-by-step strategies to recover mental clarity and focus.
Why Focus Is So Hard:The Science Behind Attention, Distraction, and Burnout
Discover why staying focused is so challenging - even for high performers. Learn the neuroscience of attention, the impact of distractions, and practical strategies for better focus, inspired by "Level Up" by Rob Dial.
Executive Function After Burnout: How to Rebuild Focus
Burnout damages executive function and focus. Learn practical strategies to rebuild organization, concentration, and time management during burnout recovery.
Recovery Setbacks: What's Normal vs. Red Flags
Learn how to handle setbacks in burnout recovery. Find out what’s normal, what’s a red flag, and when to get help.
Movement Hacks for Exhausted Professionals
Discover easy movement for burnout recovery. Walking, dancing, stretching, and yoga for tired people who don’t like the gym.
Nutrition for Cognitive Fog Recovery: What to Eat
Eat your way to clarity. Discover foods that help brain healing, what to avoid, and simple meal ideas for cognitive fog recovery during burnout.
Digital Detox for Burnout Recovery: How to Unplug
Step-by-step guide to digital detox for burnout recovery. Learn to reduce screen time, break phone habits, and manage email without overwhelm.
Decision Paralysis in Burnout: Why It Happens and How to Manage It
Burnout causes decision paralysis. Learn why burned-out people freeze on decisions and practical frameworks to make choices again during recovery.
Memory & Concentration: Healing Cognitive Damage
Burnout damages memory and focus. Learn why cognitive function suffers, how the brain heals, and practical strategies to restore concentration and memory.
How to Sleep Better When Burned Out: Sleep Recovery
Burnout insomnia is treatable. Learn a step-by-step sleep recovery protocol with bedtime routines, environment changes, supplements, and timing strategies.
The AI Paradox: Why Smarter Tools Make Burnout Worse
Nearly 79% of knowledge workers feel isolated at work. Among those urged to use AI, that number jumps to 84%. The tools designed to make us more efficient are
Does Loneliness and Isolation Cause Burnout?
The short answer: not directly. But they're powerful accelerants that make burnout deeper, longer, and harder to recover from.
Burnout vs Depression vs Anxiety: The Executive's Guide
Can't tell if it's burnout, depression, or anxiety? This executive guide explains the key differences, overlaps, and what actually works for recovery.
Recovery Starts With Tuning In
This is burnout. And the thing nobody tells you is that it doesn't start with exhaustion. It starts much earlier, with a single missed signal that you trained yourself to ignore.
Burnout and Conflicts: Why Everything Feels Like a Battle
Burnout turns disagreements into wars. Learn why burnout causes conflict, how emotional dysregulation damages relationships, and how to reduce reactivity.
Sleep and Executive Performance: Why Your Sleep Matters
Sleep is your secret weapon for executive performance. Learn how sleep affects decision-making, creativity, emotional regulation, and burnout recovery.
Burnout Symptoms: The 27 Warning Signs
Recognize burnout symptoms before it's too late. 27 warning signs across 5 stages, from someone who lost everything, and how to recover now.