I'm a little late to the party but since I've just been right in the middle of going through all this, I thought I'd add my perspective.

About 6 months ago I quit my job at a big-name software company to take a year of personal leave. Up to that point my career had been on a steady upward track, so I never thought I'd find myself taking such a relatively sudden step. To make a long story short, while it might have looked to others like I had it together on the outside, my mental and physical health were suffering and I was headed in a downward spiral. I knew I needed to step back and figure things out.

For several months after I quit, I fell back into my usual patterns. With more time on my hands, I started working on a side project that consumed nearly as much of my mental energy as my day job had. Unsurprisingly, my health didn't improve much. I was still dealing with anxiety, sensitivity to stress, obsession over my work, anger issues, burnout and depression among others.

The main reason I had quit my job was to work on myself. I was in fact doing somewhat better, having moved outside the city, calmed down my pace of life, and so forth. I'd been able to travel a little, spend more time on my hobbies, etc. But my sabbatical seemed like a ticking time bomb, in that eventually I'd have to go back to work and then things would not be much improved, if at all, over what they had been before. I had the unpleasant feeling that I was hiding from reality -- postponing an inevitable reckoning. Ultimately I knew I was still bound up by the same negative habits that had weighed me down on the job.

My boyfriend eventually got fed up with me and he confronted me, making me realize that I truly was wasting my break. I began, at last, to make a serious effort to work on myself. I'm making progress now, and I think my turning point has to do with a combination of factors. Others have already mentioned a few of these, so I will just summarize the main ones: getting more sleep; waking up on schedule every day; meditating in the morning; planning my day out; picking one or two social activities every week. Also doing yoga every day; limiting my work sessions to focus blocks; interspersing with less cognitive activities like taking walks, running errands etc.; supplementing my diet to address mood issues (this has been huge); improving my relationship with my boyfriend; and greatly limiting sources of negativity in my life.

I think it's worth noting that I'm having to go through several iterations of the above list to be successful. To name some random examples: a lot of the popular meditation apps didn't work for me. It took me a while to find one that did work and that I would use every morning. I also discovered that not all kinds of exercise work for me. I'm still actively trying new workouts, yoga and stretching routines to increase my mobility and reduce pain caused from working at the computer. I initially intended to reduce or eliminate my caffeine intake, but I ended up combining it with a supplement (L-Theanine) to moderate its side effects instead. I found that too much social activity in a given week was an energy drain for me, but that going to one or two events -- like a weekly Meetup -- turned out to be a good balance. And so on.

I'm definitely still in the process of experimentation. But I can say that things are finally starting to improve and that I'm enjoying nearly every day now, which is a huge gain for me. I'm experiencing less everyday stress, anxiety, negativity, and work obsession. I'm actually starting to looking forward to going back to work again.

Burnout is a complex topic and it's possible that I'm oversimplifying the factors that started to bring about change for me. I also know that I'm fortunate having the opportunity to step back completely from working, in order to take the time I need to overcome it. But for anyone else going through this I wanted to share my experience, and say that there definitely is hope for us!