Dunno how else to call it. Got me a job. It’s not a bad job. I like the work I do, I tolerate the people there, the hours are not long, it’s unionised so they can’t harrass me when I’m off the clock, it pays the bills I got.
… But god damn. Once I’m home I lack the drive to do literally anything.
I’ve stopped going to gym, I often eat junk cuz I just don’t wanna cook, even my hobbies are being left to gather dust. After working my 9-to-5 I just wanna lie down and rot until it’s work time again.
So the question is, how do the better-adjusted adults handle this?
There’s a lot of good advice to improve things by changing your behaviour. It is also worth checking your health. I have had similar issues but it got better after I was treated for vitamin B9 deficiency. I was just plain exhausted but after a blood test confirming the issue and a few weeks of supplements prescribed by my doc, things got so much better. Depression and burn out have also been mentioned and it is definitely worth asking for a depression test if you see a doctor. That shit is so exhausting. When I was depressed, I could sleep like 10h a night and I still had zero energy.
Or long covid. So many people have long covid it ain’t funny.
Very true! The list of causes to fatigue is long, including matters related to physical and mental health, and it is definitely worth seeing a doctor to check this before relying on walks or hobbies to find more energy (not that these are not great solutions if there’s no health issues but painting does not cure anemia).
Consider you might be depressed. Professional help could be in order. No shame in seeking help.
Quit, then nothing is post work because everything is.
Everyone sharing their own coping mechanisms in the comments makes me want to question the whole thing itself. Why are we living like this? And why do we need to force ourselves to go through all this? What is the end goal? Are there no better ways to live? Why, why, whyyyy…
We live in a society
Capitalism. The answer is capitalism.
There are better way to live. But we’re used to a certain level of comfort, that includes not doing the many, many upkeep tasks to grow food, maintain home, clothing, etc. so we trade some time for currencies, that is then traded with other people, and the leftover currency allows us to indulge in fun things that are also complex and high maintenance, so they’re done by other.
Well, that’s the theory. In practice, working a full-time job barely, if even, covers the minimum expanses required to live, which keep going up anyway, so you have to work more to barely go by, which thankfully will let you forget that you won’t make anywhere near enough money for leisure time. Good thing you won’t have any, eh?
sigh knowing we have the technologies, right now, to cover all basic needs, including food and housing, for cheap, but still do with the charade of inflation so that a few select individual can extract all our time from us is really sad.
Why are we living like this?
No one is going up to people and offering them a better alternative. Literally that’s it.
On a less flippant note, The people who represent us, care more about the orhanizatins who give them money than they do about the needs and wants us the people they are representing.
If you aren’t producing value to pursue who can offer you a better life, then there is no reason for then to offer it to you.
Now add in tradition, culture, religion and a host of other competing morals and opinions, and we have the world of today
Food is literally free, it just grows out of the ground. If we weren’t such dickheads we could just take it in turns picking potatoes or whatever and spend the rest of our time fucking about doing whatever we want. Probably
Food is free, but farming takes effort and resources (such as fertilizers and tools) and acquiring the resources also takes effort and resources and…
At the end of the day, we all just want to get more out of our time than what we’d get by doing everything ourselves. And the capitalists of course get the most out of their time, if they even actually spend their time doing anything productive. Many don’t
Personally my biggest hurdle is getting started on something. When I get home I NEVER feel like drawing, but if I sit down and force myself to start I slowly get more energy and focus.
Action precedes motivation. It sucks but it’s true.
This.
The first 10 minutes of any activity after work are by far the hardest, but once you clear that hurdle it’s easy to keep going
If you’ve started this job recently, that sounds completely normal, at least to my neurodivergent ears.
You’re learning how to ride a bike, except it doesn’t require so much physical practice as mental practice. You’re putting in a lot of mental effort all day every day, and it’s exhausting. For me, this period at a new job can last three to six months, sometimes more. Eventually, you get the hang of it, and you don’t have to put in nearly as much mental effort to do your job well. Then you can get back to your other life shit.
It’s been about 5 months, idk if that counts as ‘recently’ (but I’m also VERY nd, so maybe you got a point :p)
I’d count it. It’s been a long while since I really changed jobs, but that was absolutely a thing for me. Part of the way I have survived is by working a nap in somewhere every day. I used to go to my car at lunch and listen to NPR.
Viagra
Now I’m horny as hell, but have no motivation to do anything about it.
As others have said in this thread: don’t go home after work. Go somewhere else. That’s it.
If you wanna start doing a workout routine, join a gym close to your work and go straight there instead of going home. Want to learn to dance? Find something to do away from home until it is time to go to a dance class that happens every week. Have hobbies you would normally do alone at home? Start a group dedicated to doing those hobbies together in a public place, and meet there regularly.
If you feel really exhausted after your workday, almost universally you can use this technique: go to the next place you are going to be, find somewhere to sit or lay down, then set a timer for 15 minutes and just close your eyes. You can meditate if you want, but that’s not what this is about. You are literally just sitting there, doing nothing, resting your eyes. The hardest part is dealing with the fact that you feel bored and want to look at your phone - don’t. Being bored is a way to mentally recover from your stress. Looking at your phone doesn’t do this.
Then, work on building up a schedule of events in your life for your after-work time. These should be things that:
- Are fun. They are things you actually want to do. They are goals you chose for yourself because they are personally meaningful.
- Are social. You are spending time with other people with the same interest, who you enjoy spending time with. You can reasonably expect that they will be happy to see you, and that you will be happy to see them.
- Are regularly scheduled. You should be showing up to the same place at the same time every day or week.
Gradually build up a schedule like this for 4-5 days out of the work week, and possibly on the weekend. Leave one afternoon per week open for life admin - laundry, cleaning, groceries, etc.
You only need to cook one day a week to have good meals.
Make a whole roast chicken on Sunday. You can have that bird all week. Ceasar salad with chicken; chicken tacos, chicken sandwich.
Get a big pot and make a giant stew. Freeze it in pint size containers. Right now I’ve got chili and lentil soup sitting in the freezer, waiting to be nuked.
Keep plenty of fresh fruit and quality cheese on hand. An apple with some sharp cheddar is a great snack.
Angel hair pasta takes about five minutes to cook; put any sauce you like on it.
You don’t have to go to the gym to stay fit.
Use this manual, 15 minutes a day.
https://leisureguy.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/rcaf_xbx_5bx_exercise_plans_text.pdf
If you have a good job that’s not too demanding and are still feeling this, then you might think about it as a health issue and look into it with your doctor. You have two paths:
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look for some treatable malady - perhaps depression
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focus on wellness and fitness: exercise more, get your electrolytes, fix your diet
Either of those two paths may lead to more energy. I don’t know how old you are but this kind of thing doesn’t get any easier with age so I highly recommend getting ahead of it as soon as you can.
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Probably not helpful but when I was roofing and at work for 11-12 hours a day, getting home and going for a short run really helped out (~4 miles). Something about that cardio gave me more energy and would guarantee I’d at least take a shower after. I think I was only running 3-4 days a week then.
It’s also a great time to decompress, just being alone with your thoughts a little. Then for a while after your heart rate is elevated and you’ve got some extra energy.
My back just stopped me from walking down one stair (and I barely made it back from trying) and here you are calling ~4 miles a “short run.”
I don’t begrudge you that, it’s good that your body is capable, but jeez it’s hard not to be envious.
If you force yourself to run a little bit one day, then a little bit more each day after that, then eventually 4 miles will feel like a short run.
I respect that, but I broke my ankle and it never healed properly. Apparently I subsequently injured my back (I have a severely bulging disk; not sure whether this is the result of my body or something I did). I’m not saying I’m not lazy - I am - but in this case my complaint is not the result of laziness.
That said, you basically paraphrased BoJack Horseman, and I approve of that.
I mean, I broke my hand and it never healed properly, I have pretty bad tendon damage in one ankle, I got shin splints like crazy when I started running, and I have previously herniated a disk, though not that major.
I’m not saying every single major injury is recoverable from, but look at the history of most athletes and you’ll see a lot of major injuries that they were able to recover from.
Again, not saying this is the case necessarily for your back, but I know people who have gotten relatively minor injuries, gotten terrified of them and/or used that as an excuse not to do any more exercise on that body part ever, and then got severely injured again because now the muscles and muscle control for that body part is severely undeveloped, putting more strain back on the tendons / ligaments.
The general recommended approach for most injuries is not to avoid them forever, but to do physio; i.e. reducing your exercises back down to zero weight, but still doing them, and continuously adding weight to re-build and strengthen those muscles and joints.
That’s a fair assessment.
My ortho has recently requested that I have some imaging done on my back, but anticipates a surgery to fuse my vertebrae will be needed. After that, from what I’ve been told, I’ll primarily have to conquer psychological barriers.
I highly recommend working on the psychological barriers before surgery. Surgery is never risk free, has a long recovery period, and is often unnecessary. Many people with bulging discs in their spines live completely pain-free. Back pain, in general, is the focal point of a lot of research around chronic pain because it is so common, and the general consensus in the field of pain research is that most back pain is best treated via psychosomatic interventions, not via drugs or surgery.
As someone who has dealt with chronic pain quite a bit in my life, I really recommend getting a copy of the book The Way Out and using the techniques outlined in it. The book was a total game changer for me, and issues I’d been dealing with for years disappeared basically overnight. Seriously. Read the book, start practicing the techniques, and start returning to normal activity and exercise.
Just wanna give this a +1 as someone who went through two years of back pain, then was cured inside a week after reading Sarno’s Healing Back Pain.
I’d tried months of PT, dozens of yoga classes, corticosteroid injections, NSAIDs, etc. and had no luck. The book guidance is what did finally did the trick and has kept issues at bay ever since.
try to do some beginner back excercises for a bit, it helped me
edit: oh i just saw you got injured, but still give it a go imo, unless it’s painful
edit2: i did these https://cl.pinterest.com/pin/485544403581516708/ (sorry for pinterest link)
It’s funny that this is about work life balance because I’m trying to catch some sleep before my fourth twelve in a row and my acute psych nurse brain just went nooo nooooooo oh noooooooooooo but assuming you never experience significant mania, psychosis, or delirium, I LOVE that for you.
Fuuuck we got an Amish patient one time, manic as hell (and you have to be pretty damn hyperreligious for your Amish family to get you committed) and EVERY time we had to tussle security would come out of it like “DAMN we were NOT expecting that from a first glance!” Wiry little thing but once you’d had to deal with it first hand you found out a few things about old-fashioned farm work!
Pure fucking willpower, don’t let yourself sit down when you get home right away.
It might be worth it to try a 10min power nap after work and see if that helps.
My neighbour doesn’t even go inside when she comes back from work, she parks her car, ditches her bag in the bike shed, hops on her bicycle and tears off into the distance. I’ve seen her on her racing bike in a suit.
So, don’t give yourself the chance to veg out, do something on the way back home or go for a walk before you go in?
I go pretty much straight from work to yoga, make supper at a civilized hour afterwards, and take Wednesdays off workouts to, as you say, flop.
Gardening I do in the morning before work.
Cooking I do because others depend on me, that’s been true for 30 years now, before that I didn’t remember to eat, just when hungry. Don’t keep junk in the house if it tempts you, make your easy stuff healthier. Hummus, boil eggs on the weekends so you have those, fruit, bagged salad greens, make it easier to eat nutritious food.
I want to say suck it up and go to the gym, you will be glad you did. 9-5 is pretty nice hours, here it’s 8-5 or 9-6. Exercise is one non-negotiable for me. I have gotten up at 5 to run when that was the only option, and have gone to the gym at 20:30 after night classes after work when that was the only option. You will feel better if you just GO and work out even if you don’t want to.
Habit>willpower. Commit to 6 weeks, and by then your schedule will probably settle out. Personally I put exercise ahead of healthy eating because I know my body.
I have no self control but I know this. So if its in the house I will eat it. Don’t buy it or hide it
