The psychology of stress and burnout
It&#x27;s all in your head, for better or worse.<p>Extreme sports or intense physical exertion have been key, for me, in dealing with daily stress.<p>And no, I&#x27;m not some superstar adrenaline pumped athlete, just an amateur that loves skydiving&#x2F;paragliding&#x2F;fast motorcycles&#x2F;hiking&#x2F;etc over the weekend.<p>I didn&#x27;t realize how much these activities help me, until I had to take a break from them for whatever reason (e.g.: winter where it&#x27;s cold enough that you can&#x27;t do most sports, but with not enough snow to go skiing or something).<p>I could almost measure the effects: the longer the break, the lower the threshold for daily stress -- from feeling slightly irritated to almost angry over the simplest triggers, if enough time had passed.<p>Then I&#x27;d do one skydive and it would make all the difference in the world, whatever daily stressful thing would happen &quot;in the real world&quot; it just felt like it didn&#x27;t register as dangerous&#x2F;stressful in the brain.<p>My feeling is that you can raise your tolerance threshold for what counts as stress, you just have to find out what works for you.<p>I&#x27;m guessing it also has something to do with these activities being very focused, so you&#x27;re kinda disconnected from what&#x27;s happening in the world and just truly &quot;in the moment&quot;.<p>Maybe that pause from stress is what does it?<p>Has anyone else had similar experiences?