- Hi everyone, welcome back to Aspergers From The Inside.
Today's Patron's choice video topic
is depression versus burnout.
What's the difference?
How are they similar?
How can you tell the difference?
What can you do if you find that you're depressed?
And what can you do if you find that you're burning out?
So, these two things are very similar
and in fact, you can actually have a burnout which leads
to depression, or you could potentially have burnout
and depression at the same time.
So, that's why I'm going to break it down
a little bit today and I'm
also gonna share two different methods of regaining energy
that are completely opposite to each other.
So one helps significantly with burnout
and the other one is more effective for depression.
How do they feel similar?
They both feel tired, you might feel tired.
You've got low energy and you don't wanna do anything.
So, whether you're burnt out for too much work
or whether you're feeling depressed, I've also got
a video on autism and depression.
Explaining that being depressed is when your body
is physiologically stuck in sadness, stuck in
a low energy state when nothing is really pleasurable.
And you don't really want to do anything.
So here's the first little difference between
depression and burnout.
When you're depressed, nothing seems appealing
and you don't want to do anything a lot of the time.
At least I know that's the case for me.
So in depression, nothing feels appealing.
I don't wanna sleep, I don't want to go out and have
a good time, I don't wanna meet friends.
I don't wanna my hobbies.
You can tell that something seriously wrong
if an autistic person starts losing interest
in special interest and other kinds of hobbies
that were previously a source of energy.
Burnout on the other hand, if I've worked way too hard
and I know that I need a break
and I'm just completely crushing, the idea of taking
some time off and doing nothing actually sounds really good.
When I'm depressed, what I want is
to just sleep forever until I don't have
this feeling anymore, right.
Not very helpful.
Whereas when I'm burnt out and I've used up all my energy,
it sounds like a really nice enjoyable idea,
to just sit around and do nothing and stare at a wall
for a change.
I was in my engineering job, I felt burnt out at some point.
And I felt like wouldn't it be great to get a job
where I just carry bricks all day?
That would be amazing and I would have fantasies about not
having to look at a screen and just carrying bricks
and getting paid and it would be amazing.
So, that's burnout.
Now, what do you need when you're in depression
and what do you need when you're in burnout?
They're similar but a little bit different.
So, how are they similar?
You have low energy and you need to get that energy back.
In depression, you need to re-energize essentially
and in burnout, you need to recharge.
And there's a slight difference there that hopefully my
this little flowchart is gonna explain a bit better.
So as you might know, previous life engineer.
Love flowcharts, especially this kind of energy
in energy out map.
If this is you, your energy has to flows from somewhere.
It has to come in from somewhere and then it goes out
in the things that you spend it on.
Now, if the energy in is larger than
the energy out, your battery starts recharging.
Great, we love this.
So this means that, there are two ways to get more energy
and to recharge your battery.
The first way, is to decrease your energy out.
So, this is a great strategy in burnout.
I've been doing a lot of work, I've been expending
a lot of energy and what I'm gonna do now is take
a break for a short time and allow the energy
in to keep recharging my battery.
In depression, a lot of the reason we're in depression
is because there is just very little energy in.
The energy just does not seem to build up.
I could sleep all day and still be tired at the end
of the day.
No matter what I do, it seems like the more I rest
the more tired I get, which is really frustrating 'cause
it feels like there's no way I'm ever gonna get out
of this pit, right.
So, in depression it's slightly different in that
what we wanna do is increase the energy in.
So there are some activities that increase our energy
as opposed to just stopping our energy going out.
Have a think for yourself, what are some things
that energize you.
So, common things that energize people
are things like exercise, being creative, getting stimulated
by something, whether it's an idea or an activity.
Sometimes socializing a little bit with the right people
can be really energizing.
Going out and physically using your body
in exercise, especially high intensity exercise
can be energizing.
Some people find things like yoga and meditation energizing
because, whatever it does it kind of unblocks
whatever's going on and then it just allows the energy
to flow more.
I'd encourage you to think about energy, not so much
as a I need to hold on to it, I need
to make sure I don't spend all my energy.
Rather energy is a flow and the more you increase the flow
the more energy you have to use at the other end.
Sometimes, we can get into the trap of trying knowing
that I've got a low amount of energy
and therefore trying not to spend much energy on things.
And that's one side the one side of the strategy
that sometimes it's helpful to look at
the other side as well.
Lastly, difference between depression and burnout.
Depression often lasts a very long time, especially
if you are prone to depression, you might go through periods
of depression regularly or it could even be a chronic thing
in some cases.
More often than not, burnout is for a short time
or at least a shorter time.
And what that usually depends on is, do you get the rest
that you need to actually recharge your battery?
Or do you stay on 5% and then go to zero and then recharge
to five and go to zero and recharge to five and go to zero?
Nowadays, that we have lots of devices
that use batteries, you can see that that's probably not
a good idea.
Every once in a while, you need to fully charge the battery.
And another way that this analogy works is, batteries work
their best when they're fully charged and then fully empty
and then fully charged again.
So that's why sometimes deliberately expending energy
and then deliberately resting can be a way to kind
of boost your energy flow, which is really good
in the long term.
Because then you'll actually have more energy to use
in the future.
I do want to acknowledge that sometimes people can have
a huge burnout, off the order of like
a mental breakdown kind of burnout.
Unfortunately, that's not so uncommon.
But the point about burnout is that,
if we recharge we get steadily better.
And the trap there is that, once we get
a little bit better, all of
a sudden our battery's 10% again, and we go out there
and use it before we've recharged fully.
And so that's the kind of situation where sometimes burnout
can last a very, very long time if we don't get
the adequate rest to adequately recharge.
So, I hope you've enjoyed this video, trying
to distinguish between what depression feels like
and what burnout feels like and some of the strategies
that you might be able to think about
in terms of, getting more energy
in versus using less energy out.
So hopefully, that's been helpful.
Again, this has been a Patreon's choice video voted
by our Patreon family and if you would like
to have your say in next month's video, you can become
a cup of coffee supporter of this channel for less
than $1 a week.
So I'd encourage you to do that,
if you've been thinking about it for a while.
Otherwise again, I hope you've enjoyed this video
and I'll see you again another time, bye.