What is Burn Out?
[quote]Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed and unable to meet constant demands. As the stress continues, you begin to lose the interest or motivation that led you to take on a certain role in the first place. See: http://www.helpguide.org/mental/burnout_signs_symptoms.htm [/quote]
Raiding Burn Out
Pretty common, caused by pushing yourself too hard, not knowing your physical limits, and using the stress as a driving force too often.
If you must go to the after-raid heroic, or rated battleground, then leave before the happy-rush of the raid success turns sour. You have work, school, and a life to get to in the morning! Three hours sleep never made a good raider. So what if your warlock class leader stays up until 5am and does ALL the weeks heroics in one night?
It can be frustrating when you slip from top dps to second, or your guild is no longer server first. Don’t take it personally. Two hours less sleep will not make you raid better. Resolve to do a little more research before the next raid, to spend another 15 minutes on the dummies practicing, or to play a FPS game pre-raid to sharpen your reaction skills. Tearing your hair out is not allowed. Neither is going to bed with your raid leader’s insults rattling around in your brain. Give yourself wind-down time: reading a book, listening to music, or, ahem, whatever else you like to do in bed before you sleep.
More about Raiding Burn Out on WoWinsider
Gold Making Burn Out
“If it feels more like work than fun, you’re doing it wrong” say my twitter readers.
Whilst true, not very helpful.
Blizzard have introduced no limit on the number of daily quests you can complete. You could be online all day and always find more quests to complete, more mobs to kill, more areas to farm, more hours in the AH.
This list is for my personal benefit, but you might find it helpful too:
- Limit yourself to 2,000 auction items. This includes glyphs.
- Only do the daily quests that you enjoy. Then stop.
- Reward yourself with some PvP, a heroic, or some raiding. Change the scenery.
- Visit some of the beautiful places in Azeroth. Choose Nagrand, Mulgore, Teldrassil, Hinterlands, Grizzly Hills, Hyjal and Jade Forest. Not Silithus, Dread Wastes and Icecrown.
- Give your alts some love.
Your tips are also very welcome in the comments!
What to do
Recognise your limits. Work with them, rather than against them. Recognise that it’s good to have limits, not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of strength to have a truthful knowledge of your abilities.
This site has some good ideas for taking time out and sorting yourself out.
http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/about-us/mental-health-help-you
Picture belongs to The Stoppable Force blog
What not to do
It’s ok to take a break, but don’t let the break take you.
Since my last post on this blog, I let the “break take me”, and wallowed around in self pity for days, feeling overwhelmed and stressed. Er, don’t do this.
Drink
Alcohol is a depressant
Alcohol causes further depression. It seems the easy way out, to veg out in front of the TV with a beer or another bottle of wine. You don’t need to stop drinking forever, just until you feel yourself again. The sooner you put that bottle aside, the sooner you’ll be back to your own self. Just set it aside for a few days.
If you find yourself turning up to a raid drunk twice in a row, then complete the “Challenge Mode” I set: go sober next time.
May I recommend
Limit yourself to 15 minute bursts of activity.
[quote]Anyone can do anything for 15 minutes. Even Argent Tournament Dailies[/quote]
If you don’t want to look silly (like me) and have an actual kitchen timer on your desk, you can use this online timer. http://www.thegoldqueen.com/15m
Once your 15 minutes is up, move on to the next task. Do not continue to kill virmen “just in case” the next one drops that last juicycrunch carrot. It won’t. And if it does, you don’t care, because you can buy one in the AH from all the gold you’re about to make.
Make yourself a checklist. Use my one if you like. I have a free “cheatsheet” that you can get when you sign up to regular updates and newsletters from me.
Keep rewarding yourself. You’re making more gold every day.
About the Author
The Gold Queen is written by Alyzande. With many level 100s, 9 years expertise in making gold, 10 garrisons, 16k achievements, 1505 days played, and over 18m gold earned. The Gold Queen blog teaches you how to make gold playing World of Warcraft using ethical trading, auction house flipping, crafting, reselling snatch lists, and farming gold making.
I”m always amazed when I hear guildmates start to complain because it feels like they have to do a ‘task’ with farming or with dailies. I do my tasks such as cleaning the house, working, writing etc so that I can play Warcraft. When Warcraft becomes a task that I feel I ‘have’ to do then it’s usually time for me to go do something else.
Some of the aspects of Warcraft, like the pet battles and the scenerios have added that flexibility that I can be doing something else other than farming and raiding.
This is an excellent post. Thank you for sharing.
Mojoe
What a sweet post … thanks <3
I do the 15 minute thing, particularly if I’m having a sneaky play during my sons nap. 15 mins gaming, then 15 mins housework! I still manage to get loads done!
Storm Peaks! It is my absolute favourite zone, and it never fails to make me happy. Whenever I hit 78, I PLOW through those K-3 quests as fast as I can so I can get to the good stuff, and I sometimes just fly around looking at the gorgeous scenery and listening to the music…
/happy sigh
Remember, it’s just a game. I know. Repeat many times, it’s just a game 🙂
Not just a game, but a game you play WITH people 😉
Yes, with people. And some forget that we are all human and do need a rest. AND, have Real Lives. Teen aggro, bills to pay, laundry to do, lol. I love it when in a raid and the cat produces something rude on the floor & you tell the guys, ummm, “Sorry! Got a bit distracted, there, pls forgive!” All good, LOL
NO ICC!? But I like that place.
Seriously, I love ICC. I think it’s amazing, but I’m a bit “odd”.
All in all, great advice. Thank you
ICC in moderation 😉
When I feel like this I use to leave the game for some days, then all feels new and refreshing again.