How to prevent burnout (w/ Master Fixer Guy Winch)

Summary

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Fixable – “How to prevent burnout” (w/ Master Fixer Guy Winch)

Date: April 27, 2026
Hosts: Anne Morriss, Frances Frei
Guest: Dr. Guy Winch, Psychologist and Best-selling Author
Recorded at: TED Conference, Vancouver

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Episode Overview

In this compelling episode of Fixable, co-hosts Anne Morriss and Frances Frei explore the persistent and growing problem of burnout in the modern workplace. Joined by psychologist and author Dr. Guy Winch, they break down the insidious ways work “hijacks” our lives, the science behind burnout, actionable strategies for recovery, and the essential responsibilities of leaders in safeguarding employee wellbeing. Drawing on personal experience, research, and practical “brain hacks,” Dr. Winch delivers a blend of sharp insight and refreshing candor relevant to anyone who struggles to set boundaries between work and life.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Nature of Burnout and “Work Hijacking Your Life”

• Signs Work Has “Hijacked” Your Life

  • Persistent rumination and fantasy arguments about work at home (03:00)
  • Work stress spills over to partners, potentially giving them burnout symptoms (03:40)
  • Hijacks not just thoughts, but relationships, leisure, and emotional intelligence.

  “When you come home after a very challenging, difficult day at work… it's gonna be very natural for you to ruminate about it, to brood about it... That can take hours out of our evening. That's one of the ways work will hijack our thoughts.”
  — Dr. Guy Winch [03:00]

• Warning Signs

  • Approaching work in “autopilot mode,” just getting through the day or week
  • Feeling numb toward once meaningful or exciting work
  • Lack of presence at home, or vegging out for hours “because that's not a very helpful thing to do” (04:30)
  • Exhaustion, cynicism, and feeling jaded even after rest

2. Burnout: Definitions and Experience

• Symptoms of Burnout

  • Emotional exhaustion and lack of motivation
  • Loss of meaning or connection to originally passionate work (06:15)
  • No amount of sleep or weekend rest provides real recovery

  “The main feature is this feeling of exhaustion, of fatigue. You just feel tired and you feel cynical towards what you're doing. And a good night's rest isn't gonna do it... There's something bone tight.”
  — Dr. Guy Winch [06:45]

• Personal Story

  • Dr. Winch’s own rapid experience of burnout in his first year as a psychologist (07:15)
  • “I felt like I'd been doing it for 40 years. I lost all sentiment for it because I was so burnt out, jaded, exhausted.”
    — Dr. Guy Winch [07:20]

3. Agency & First Moves to Address Burnout

• Balancing Structural vs. Personal Agency

  • While systems matter, personal agency is also crucial
  • Even leaders and CEOs experience serious burnout

• The Stress-Performance “Goldilocks Zone”

  • Some stress boosts performance, but excess harms it:

  “There's this Goldilocks area... for us to perform at our best without getting exhausted, overtaxed. But once we pass that area, then we start to mismanage the stress...”
  — Dr. Guy Winch [09:28]

• First Steps Toward Recovery

  • Recognize the problem and consciously “disengage autopilot”
  • Take five minutes to plan your day and recovery periods (“self-management hat”)
  • “The life part [of work-life balance] means being present and putting the kids to bed and having dinner with your partner and hanging out with your friends. Just being present and being able to enjoy that. That's what people start to lose touch with.”
    — Dr. Guy Winch [11:31]

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Practical Strategies & Rituals

1. Detachment and Transition Rituals

• Key Principle:
  In order to recover, you must mentally detach from work after hours.

• Transition Rituals

  • Consciously announce “the workday is over” (16:07)
  • Physical rituals: changing clothes, listening to a transition playlist
  • “Our brain is a prediction machine. You can train it to anticipate what's coming next... I'm supposed to get into home mode.”
    — Dr. Guy Winch [16:54]

2. Recharging Activities

• Recharging Requires More Than Rest

  • Needed elements:
    1. Rest
    2. Recharging activities (force yourself and you gain a “second window”)
    3. Sense of autonomy and control over your time

• Examples: Spending real time with family and friends, activities that feel rewarding once completed

3. Vacation & Breaks

• Shorter, More Frequent Vacations Recommended

  • "Shorter vacations are better because the benefits of a vacation start to fade after a week." [19:19]
  • Plan to arrive at your vacation already rested to maximize the effect (19:48)
  • The “triple dip” strategy: anticipation, the experience itself, and later reliving via photos/documentation (21:39)
  • Schedule time both to be present and to document

• Notable Quote:

  “When you get back, you can relive the entire thing through that media, create little albums... in time, forget the headache... you are relaying down memories.”
  — Dr. Guy Winch [22:03]

4. Leveraging “Brain Hacks”

• Calendar as a Tool:

  • Put rest and leisure proactively into your calendar to signal your brain that it’s legitimate and prioritized (25:54)
  • Explicitly write “enjoy it” as a task in your calendar to cue enjoyment and presence
  • Use mindfulness cues before transitioning into new periods or tasks: “Enjoy lunch now.” [26:34]

  “Our brains, for some reason, take calendars super seriously... So I use my calendar to direct my unconscious mind, my brain, to like, here's what you're doing now... Be present, enjoy this.”
  — Dr. Guy Winch [26:09]

5. For Leaders: Creating Burnout-Resistant Organizations

• Boundaries & Breaks

  • Boundaries around workdays
  • Encourage real breaks, even via nudges like “screens going dark” every hour

• Evaluation Bias

  • Be aware of rewarding inefficient overwork (“Ten hours instead of eight isn’t better” [29:57])

  “Overworking is not helping, it's helping them get burnt out. If that's what you want to do. That's terrific. But it's not really, really helping them.”
  — Dr. Guy Winch [29:59]

• Building Community

  • Foster belonging, esprit de corps, and informal leadership structures ("lieutenants")
  • Start open conversations about what helps people recharge in 5-10 minutes (32:20)
  • Shared “mini-tribes” and social ties are vital for resilience; isolation is “devastatingly bad”

  “Isolation really is our enemy... It is incredibly painful and damaging. People when they feel ostracized at work... will leave.”
  — Dr. Guy Winch [34:14]

6. Societal Scale & Advocacy

• Workplace health remains poor even post-pandemic (2026)
• It’s possible and necessary to challenge unhealthy systems collectively (35:47)

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• Noticing Out-of-Character Behavior as a Burnout Cue

  • “When you find yourself, no matter what the situation, doing something that's out of character, be very curious about what's going on because something is going.”
    — Dr. Guy Winch [23:14]

• Leaders’ Blind Spots

  • “I'm sorry, Mr. Majorly Famous CEO, when's the last time you saw a doctor?... If you don't know, that's a problem. That awareness is something we... need to instill at the top.”
    — Dr. Guy Winch [37:18]

• The High Cost of Burnout

  • “The World Health Organization... says that around 750,000 people a year die from overworking.”
    — Dr. Guy Winch [35:40]

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Notable Segment Timestamps

• [03:00] – How work hijacks our thoughts and relationships
• [06:15] – The emotional signs and definition of burnout
• [07:15] – Dr. Winch’s personal experience of early burnout
• [09:28] – The Goldilocks stress-performance curve
• [11:31] – What genuine “life” means in work-life balance
• [16:54] – The importance of transition rituals at day’s end
• [19:19] – Science of restorative vacations and tripling the benefit
• [25:54] – Using your calendar as a psychological tool
• [29:59] – False reward of overwork vs. actual productivity
• [32:20] – Leadership tips for massive teams, fostering esprit de corps
• [34:14] – The destructive power of isolation at work
• [35:40] – The measurable, global toll of workplace burnout

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Final Reflections

Dr. Winch concludes by emphasizing the need for collective and leadership action to create healthier workplaces, all while being honest about his own rituals—ranging from lunch “announcements” to rooting for the resilient Mets. The episode offers not just a map of burnout’s terrain, but real tools for regaining territory—one ritual, routine, and boundary at a time.

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[End of summary]

Transcript

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[Frances Fry]

Welcome everyone.

[Anne Morris]

I'm Anne Morris and this is Fixable. This is the show where we tackle the problems at work that seems, well, unfixable. Problems like burnout. There was a time when work was a place we went to. Now work follows us home, crawls into bed with us and hijacks our minds. Today's master fixer believes we aren't just working too hard, we're letting our jobs hold our lives hostage. There's some strong language ahead, folks, and for good reason. Dr. Guy Winch is a psychologist, a best selling author, and the man behind three TED talks with over 30, 35 million views. His latest book is Mind over how to break Free when work hijacks your life. We recorded this conversation at the TED Conference in Vancouver, the birthplace of big ideas and some of your favorite TED Talks. Guy and I sat down to deconstruct the autopilot state that leads to burnout, the specific brain hacks that can recharge your battery, and why leadership's greatest responsibility isn't quarterly profits, it's protecting the human beings behind the work. Let's dive in, Guy.

[Frances Fry]

Welcome to Fixable. Please save us from ourselves.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Thank you for having me.

[Frances Fry]

I want to start with this idea of work hijacking our lives, which is such a vivid framing of the problem. How do I Know if work has

[Anne Morris]

hijacked life, like what does it look

[Frances Fry]

and feel like in practice when this happens?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

So some of it we know, but a lot of it we don't realize that's what's actually going on. For example, when you come home after a very challenging, difficult day at work because this irritating thing happened and that frustrating thing happened, and that really stressful thing happened, it's gonna be very natural for you to ruminate about it, to brood about it, to dwell about it, to replay certain things after work when you're home to have fantasy arguments about turning someone off and all the mic drop moments you envision having, which you'll never have. Cause you know if they're gonna do it. But that can take hours out of our evening. That's one of the ways work will hijack our thoughts, right? For example, there's research that shows that if one person is very stressed at work, their partner can develop symptoms of burnout. One of the ways work will hijack our relationships. Work also hijacks our leisure, our coping mechanisms, our emotional intelligence. On and on and on.

[Frances Fry]

Tell me some of the warning signs to look for in ourselves and our loved ones.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

So one of the warning signs to look for in yourself, you know, at work, for example, is do you approach your very difficult work days of I need to get through. This is the day I need to get through. You just put your head down on autopilot and you go from task to task to task. You're not actually thinking in any deliberate or intentional way about, well, how do I manage this day? How do I build in some actual useful breaks, non useful ones, that is social media. And so that, you know, that's one thing when you just feel like days that you have to get through, weeks, periods, entire periods you have to get through, that's a warning sign. When you get home and you're not really present, you're checked out, you really have trouble switching off. Or the opposite thing in that all you can think to do is I need to veg out for four to five hours. Cause I'm drained. Let me just plop myself on a couch and binge screens for however long. That's another sign that something is going wrong. Because that's not a very helpful thing to do.

[Frances Fry]

And why is that not just recovery from a hard day's work? How do I know when it tips into this idea of burnout?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Well, first of all, those are two different questions I want to answer. One at a time, please. Recovery. Actually, the science of how to recover from the workday is a little bit more than just resting. That's one component, and there are two others that you really need to hit. Resting will prevent your batteries from being depleted further, but it won't recharge them. To recharge them, you actually have to do an activity that you find personally recharging. None of those happen on the couch. Yeah. So that's.

[Frances Fry]

Unless we get a little bit more creative with the couch. Yeah, it's not happening.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yes, you can get creative with the couch, and those are recharging things that can happen. But other than those, most things you need to do in a way that you know, the kinds of activities that you feel like, oh, I don't feel like doing that. But when you force yourself, you come back with a second window because they actually recharge you. And the third thing is you need to feel autonomy, like you are in control of your time. And again, if you're mindless on a couch watching screens, you're likely to wake up feeling tired the next day. Burnout is a different thing that we can talk about.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, I want to get to the

[Frances Fry]

definition, and then we're going to get to some solutions. So you described kind of an autopilot mode at work. I'm coming home. I'm not reconnecting with the people that I love. Are there any other signs I should look out for?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yes. The way you feel about your job, if it was exciting, interesting, meaningful, engaging, it's not anymore. You're so overladen that you just want to get through it. You numb out to those sensations and those feelings that actually kept us motivated and going and made it, you know, exciting and something that we wanted to do. This is especially difficult for people who are very passionate about what they do because you lose the passion and then they're questioning. Questioning what they're doing. It's the burnout. It's not that they've lost the touch. They've become numb to it. And the main feature is this feeling of exhaustion, of fatigue. You just feel tired and you feel cynical towards what you're doing. And a good night's rest isn't gonna do it. And even a weekend's rest, if you can get it, is not gonna do it. There's something bone tight. I got burnt out in year one after one year of my profession. Somebody who's an early achiever and wants to achieve quick. I achieved burnout quick for sure. And the thing is, I felt like I'd been doing it for.

[Frances Fry]

This was your first year practicing As

[Dr. Guy Winch]

a psychologist, and I felt like I'd been doing it for 40 years. I felt like, oh, I'm just going to the office again, more of this. But I had just started. I was living the dream that I wanted to have for so long. I lost all sentiment for it because I was so burnt out, jaded, exhausted.

[Frances Fry]

And what I'm feeling, that story and what I'm in touch with is you have made such an extraordinary contribution to the world. Like, the cost of leaving you in that state is a high cost for you and it's a high cost for the rest of us.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Absolutely. I really.

[Frances Fry]

Have you tried to quantify this at all? Like the kind of the stakes of this phenomenon for the world?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Look, I don't know. I haven't done the research in terms of the numbers globally. But I've worked with so many people who are questioning, am I in the right? Am I doing the right thing? And they were doing important work. And actually, people who are doing really important work tend to get burnt out because it's important, because they keep saying yes, because they really want to help and they want to do something meaningful, that they're much more at risk for this burnout. And then they start questioning, does it matter what I'm doing? Yes, it does, but you need to take care of yourself in order to keep going.

[Frances Fry]

When this subject traditionally comes up, we are quick to blame systems and organizations and the leaders of those systems. One thing I love about your message is you are also pointing out that we have a tremendous amount of personal agency, too. So with the power and agency I do have, what is my first move? If I suspect I might be in the state that you're describing? Coach me through it. What's my first step? How do I think about pulling myself out of this?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

I want to be clear with people that I work with. A lot of the employers, with the founders, with the CEOs, they're not having a great time.

[Frances Fry]

Many of them are burnt out.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yeah, they're also burnt out. I mean, it's not like, oh, we don't work and we make a. They're working just as hard or more so. They're also very vulnerable. But one of the things that we need to catch is that when we are stressed out, the bell curve of how we deal with stress and performance is such that it goes, the more stress we have, we start to perform better. Because if there's not enough, we don't have skin in the game. The stakes are low. We don't try as hard. There's this Goldilocks area.

[Frances Fry]

I love that.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

You know, in which kind of like the stress is just right.

[Frances Fry]

Yes.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

For us to perform at our best without getting exhausted, overtaxed. But once we pass that area, then we start to mismanage the stress, then we start to make things worse for ourselves. We start to self sabotage. We don't take the breaks we need to do, we don't recover well. We don't switch off. We allow what we do because we're

[Frances Fry]

in that autopilot state where we're not making good decisions.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Because when we're very stressed out, we need to allocate a lot of our mental and emotional resources towards handling the stress so we don't experience it in the moment, so our emotions don't flood us, so we don't become dysregulated. That leaves less leftover with which to do our jobs. We start making mistakes, we start deferring to automatic coping mechanisms that just, you know, those are the ones that are gonna tell you, oh, you have five minutes, you should look at social media. That will be the right thing to do. It is not. But that's what your unconscious mind is gonna tell you.

[Frances Fry]

And your point, if I'm hearing you correctly, is that we actually don't have the cognitive bandwidth in that state to solve this problem.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

We don't have the awareness that we need to disengage the autopilot if we knew what to do. We take a moment. It takes five minutes before a day to look at your day and schedule like, here's what I need to do here, here's what I need to do there. Here, this will be fun to do. That'll help me recover from that. It takes five minutes. We don't have the awareness, we just want to keep going. But our cognitive and all our abilities start going down the hill during the day. And then, you know, we're much less effective. We start to make mistakes, we're less creative, less productive. So it's not a smart way to manage ourselves, but it's the autopilot way.

[Frances Fry]

So let's imagine a world where I feel myself getting pulled in. It almost feels like a gravitational force that you're describing. I feel this happening. What is my first move?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

First move is understand that you need to put on a self management hat. You need to have a role in your head of let me figure out how to manage myself and manage the stress and take a few minutes from my day, from my evening, the day before, the night before, from the morning to strategize how to get through this specific day, to figure out how to recover well when I'm at home, to really prioritize my life. When you talk about the work life balance, people always say, oh, I added an hour of yoga. And I'm like, okay, that's great, I'm all for yoga. But that's not what the life part. The life part means being present and putting the kids to bed and having dinner with your partner and hanging out with your friends. Just being present and being able to enjoy that. That's what people start to lose touch with.

[Anne Morris]

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[Frances Fry]

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[Frances Fry]

When you've done this research, what are the decisions that you see people make that have the biggest difference when it comes to burnout?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Okay, so first of all, understand that in order to recover from the workday, the first thing that has to happen that you have to detach from work. In other words, if you are thinking about work when you're at home, you're

[Frances Fry]

at work, how do I stop thinking about work?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Well, first of all, be aware that you need to.

[Frances Fry]

Okay.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

And so I mean I have a very strict rule. When I finish my day, I announce to myself the evening begins. And by the way, doesn't have to be exciting at all, but I'm just announcing that the workday is over. So I'm setting up a barrier where I am resistant to the idea of dealing or thinking about work. So first of all, be aware it's not useful for you to do that once you need some time. I develop and I suggest developing a ritual to transition from your work mode, which is battle ready, mindset, fight or flight of the workday, into a relaxed or it can be exciting, but it's not in fight or flight, you're not feeling threatened, you're feeling engaged. So that's different.

[Frances Fry]

One CEO I know used to just walk out of his house, walk around the block, come back in. And that was his ritual.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Great. One element.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah. Okay, so that's A starting place.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Because the ritual, the goal of the ritual is to train your brain. Our brain is a prediction machine. You can train it to anticipate what's coming next and if it knows, oh, when you start doing this, I'm supposed to get into home mode. I'm supposed to relax. I'm supposed to re. Engage with my family duties, my friend duties, my alone duties, whatever they are. But like, that's a different mode. You can teach it. And so you want to involve as many of the senses. Music, sound music is very evocative. Have the song, have the playlist. Change clothes. We are very tactile and clothes are very.

[Frances Fry]

I love that one. Take off your body, your battle gear.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yeah. There's a reason power suits are called power suits. They're supposed to make you. And leisure wear is supposed to make you feel relaxed. But once you switch into that, we're in a different mode. You really have to train your brain to come down because when we're activated, we're in fight or flight. No one leaves the battlefield and switches on a dime into relaxed mode. It takes a while, you know. And so you want to train your brain to do that, to see that that's what's coming. So that ritual is very important as well.

[Frances Fry]

These are end of day rituals, end of day rituals. What have you seen worked for, End

[Dr. Guy Winch]

of week rituals and if weak rituals like, okay, so first of all, what are the things that you know, the recharging activities and they're activities that they're also people. Like, our personal identity becomes shrunken when we're all about work because it's just duty, duty, duty. And we get home and if a parent says duty, duty, duty, where's us? Like, you know, where's the part of you that's funny or goofy or irreverent or whatever. The thing is that you don't get to express during the workday. Who are the people in your life that bring that out of you that you don't have time for anymore? It's not the people you don't have time for. It's aspects of yourself that you are allowing to wither. And so you want to give oxygen to those parts of yourself, of your personality, of your identity, of your life that don't get an expression during the workday. That's what's gonna fulfill you. That's what's gonna create some kind of resistance to stress and burnout. Because there's another part of your life that's robust enough and you are not your work. Yes. Not just your work. It's fine to be devoted to work. Most of us are. But it's not. I say to people, if work was taken away tomorrow, who would you be? Who are you if not work? And a lot of people struggle with that question.

[Frances Fry]

That's a provocative question.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yeah, yeah.

[Frances Fry]

What about longer breaks? How do you incorporate vacation or end of year rituals? How critical is it for me to take, you know, my two weeks off? And how does this fit into your burnout?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Well, there's a whole science about vacations, actually, and how to make them restorative. Shorter vacations are better because the benefits of a vacation start to fade after a week. So if you're taking two or three weeks at once, you're kind of missing out on the benefit of it. So shorter vacations are better, but also give some thought to what you need. A lot of people who have young kids are like, I am so burnt out. I'm taking the kids to some kind of theme park, Disney. And I'm like. And that's.

[Frances Fry]

That's the most stressful. That was the most stressful three days of my life.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

I know, right? I mean, that's not the right thing. The five year olds are not burnt out. Yeah, you're the one that's burnt out now. You need to occupy them. But think of both. But the biggest advice I have to people is that get to your vacation rested. Everyone likes to work up until the last hour to get ahead and this. And they get. I know, I was like that. I got to vaca. It took me three to four days to relax enough to be in vacation mode. I was still so hyped up and thinking about work I couldn't enjoy, really. I didn't feel relaxed now. I relaxed a couple of days before I try to end work early, really have restful evenings pack ahead of time so that I don't have to do it last minute. And it's amazing. When I started doing it the first day of vacation, I felt rested. I'm like, oh my God, I feel on vacation. And it's day one. It usually takes me half the vacation, then it's almost over. So you want to really do that. You want to triple dip on vacations. Vacations can give you three times the pleasure if you get excited about it as anticipate, you know, like, get excited about what you're gonna do, who you're gonna see, where you're gonna see, where you're gonna go. You know, don't get too much spoilers in. Right. If you're going to the Eiffel Tower. Don't look at the panoramic views online. Save those for yourself, but read some of the history. Get excited. Get the kids excited about the animals they're gonna see in the animal park, whatever the thing is. So get the run up. And our brain interprets anticipation almost as good as the event. So you'll feel excited. You'll feel, you know, imagine the beach. Imagine and the quiet and the sea. And, you know, you'll literally start feeling calm. Then build in time to document. If you don't, you're gonna document instead of being present. I've been to so many places where I see people march in, take pictures, and leave. They're not aware of what they saw, why they're there. They didn't get any of the benefit, but they can show it to their

[Frances Fry]

friends, schedule it, and contain it. Schedule present, document.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Now then, document documentation is important because then when you get back, you can relive the entire thing through that media, create little albums. You can print them out. It's not expensive. Or create them online. But when you do that, two things happen. Number one, you have a great memory. And number two, if you had a headache, it's not gonna be in the pictures. You know, if things went wrong at the hotel and you were irritable, you won't see it in the pictures.

[Frances Fry]

So you just quickly romanticize what a great memorial.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

It's not just that you are relaying down memories that will remember the vacation. Without those things, you will literally, in time, forget the headache, the annoying, you know, busboy, whatever the thing is. And you'll just be like, look how happy I was. Because you won't see the irritation. So you're curating your memories. I love that. Not just your experiences.

[Frances Fry]

So take us back to a young Dr. Winch, your first year, and you suspect something is not right. How did you pull yourself out of that?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

What happened was, like, it was literally my anniversary of my first year in my practice. Friday night, get home, and I get in the elevator with a neighbor who is a doctor in an er. And then elevator starts to rise, and then it shudders and stalls between floors. And my neighbor, who does deal with emergencies for a living, went into a panic, and he started hitting all the buttons, there were many, and pounding the door and saying, oh, this is my nightmare. This is my nightmare. And I look at how many buttons. Now I'm gonna have to stop at his floor. And what came out of my mouth was, and this is my nightmare. And it was funny in my head, but it was so cruel. And he looked at me and he was so offended. And I realized, oh wow, that was

[Frances Fry]

very out of character how you became a psychologist.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

It's out of character when you find yourself, no matter what the situation, doing something that's out of character, be very curious about what's going on because something is going.

[Frances Fry]

That's such an important towel.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

And I went home and I was like, what's going on? And I realized I was burnt out. I realized I felt like I'd been doing it for so long, I wasn't enjoying it. I was jaded. I was just going through the motions.

[Verizon Sponsor]

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[Dr. Guy Winch]

And it was one year. But you can get burnt out very, very quickly. And that's what alerted me. And then I realized, oh wow, I really, really need to make changes. I am way too early in this. It took me a while to really figure out that I still liked it, but the minute I wasn't burnt out, I'm like, oh yeah, I love it. But when I was burnt out, I had no idea whether I liked it. Foreign.

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[Dr. Guy Winch]

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[Dr. Guy Winch]

See verizon.com for details.

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[Frances Fry]

Today. Fast forward. What are the rituals and practices that you rely on now to not become burnt out?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

I use a brain hack. That's stupid. Telling you now it's stupid, but it really works. Our brains, for some reason, take calendars super seriously. If it's in. If you say it, not so much, but if it's in your calendar, wow, this is true. It's there.

[Anne Morris]

It's very serious.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

It must mean something. So I will write in my calendar in the evening what the evening's about. And I'll just use an example of one in which there are no plans. And I'll say, watch TV for two hours because you're really, you know, binge the show that you really like for two hours. And then I'll write, enjoy it. That last part's important.

[Frances Fry]

It sounds like the opposite of stupid.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Okay, well, no, it does work. It's smart in that way. But you know, like, really write. Enjoy the TV show.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Because when your brain sees it, it's like, oh, I actually have a task. I have a thing to. Now I know what to do. Because your unconscious mind is like, let's enjoy it. Then, you know, and then it's all game. So I use my calendar to direct my unconscious mind, my brain, to like, here's what you're doing now. Here's, you know, be present, enjoy this. And I do a mindfulness exercise almost in everything I do. I did one before I came in to this studio. Like, enjoy this podcast. We're at TED 2026.

[Frances Fry]

Will you do it with me? Can we do it right now?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yes.

[Frances Fry]

Whatever you did, do it now.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yes. Okay, we're at TED 2026. Do I try to? You may, if it'll help you. Okay, we're at TED 2026. This is our last year in Vancouver. It is a beautiful city. This is a beautiful convention center. This is the start of the week. It's an exciting week. And you're starting with an interview that's gonna be really fun for both of us. So be present, enjoy the interview. This is the kickoff of a really exciting, meaningful week.

[Frances Fry]

Did you speak or you just. That was just an internal.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

I did that. I took a minute before walking in to do it. I always, like.

[Frances Fry]

And you were just thinking these thoughts. You Weren't saying them or you were saying them?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

No, in my head, there are people around. You know, the mumbling aloud doesn't always look good, but if there are people around, you know, sometimes I'll say it aloud. Like, I work from home. There's a door I can close to the office that's a little separate from the rest of the home. And so I will literally say evening time as if I'm announcing an event and they're off. You know, evening time. So good, I announce it. You know? You know what I also announce again? Lunch. I take short lunches, but I really enjoy them, and I make sure to enjoy them. I don't do work during lunch. I really try and recharge. It's midday, and I have lunches that I like and I enjoy. And I'm like, oh, I'm looking forward to lunch. Enjoy lunch now. And I have a certain ritual that I do during lunch. I enjoy it. It's gonna be 15 minutes.

[Frances Fry]

What is the ritual you do during lunch?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

The wordle spelling bee.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

So. And I enjoy it, and it's relaxing and recharging for me, so I look forward to it.

[Anne Morris]

And you will announce lunch.

[Frances Fry]

It's lunchtime, guy.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

I literally announce lunch. I'm like a butler with a bell in my head. Like a tea is served kind of situation.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah, yeah. It's so much more exciting that way. I love it. So a lot of people who listen to this show do have some power inside systems, but what is your advice to people who are responsible and do have some power to change the way we work?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

So, first of all, it's a win win, because the less burnt out your workforce is, the more engaged they are, the more loyal and the more productive. And therefore they will stay longer. You have less retraining, rehiring costs, and all of those things work in your benefit. Right. And so you want to be smart about it. Again, our instinct is to think if you just keep going, like overworking, if you just, you know, there's research, for example, that shows that when employers or managers are looking at two people who do the same task and end with the exact same product, and one of them stayed 10 hours to do it, and the other did IT in the 8 hours allotted. They will evaluate the person who needed 10 hours as a better employee because they put in the work, they're less efficient, so they're not a better employee. So to actually understand that overworking is not helping, it's helping them get burnt out. If that's what you want to do. That's terrific. But it's not really, really helping them.

[Frances Fry]

So really putting boundaries around the workday.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Putting boundaries around the workday. Encouraging breaks within the workday. There are companies, for example, whose screens go dark every 55 minutes. It's useful now. The employees got really annoyed. I was in the middle of something like, you're not embracing the idea of take the five minutes. Don't just sit there frustrated and reboot, you know, like, kind of thing. But because it's useful and we have, you know, two, three, four good hours of deep work in us a day. Like, unless we recover and recharge, it's super important to do. Yeah.

[Frances Fry]

Are you watching the Pit? Do you know this show?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

I am, yeah.

[Frances Fry]

What I think is I love the show. I do think it's directionally how work feels for a lot of people, even who aren't in emergency rooms, that they are good people themselves. They're surrounded by good people, talented people. They're trying to get it right. And they are also at the mercy of forces beyond their control that have a major impact on their experience of work. Does that resonate with you?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yeah. But the thing about the Pit that I'm more interested in, when they get home, how quickly can they switch off? How much rest do they get? How do they recover from those brutal shifts is what really interests me. In an er, you can't really plan your breaks.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

You know, unfortunately, again, there are characters who do the thing of smoking, which is not a good thing to do, but the smoking forces them to go outside and reboot for a minute. They have the excuse they need to go smoke. I wish other characters would go outside without the cigarette.

[Frances Fry]

I think we need a ritual to replace cigarettes. Cause I think that they really played that role inside.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Or it's social also, because there's such pariahs. Unfortunately, you're connected. People are like, so let me talk to you, even though I don't know you, because we have this one thing

[Frances Fry]

in common now more than ever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

And so. But it forces breaks, you know, And I wish we could do without cigarettes.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah. We do a lot of work in healthcare, and head of a ICU nurse came to us the other day. She said, I now have 110, I think, direct reports. A lot of organizations are moving to these flatter organizations where suddenly they have a lot more people that they are technically responsible for. So in her case, and I think it's useful to learn in these extremes and then take the lessons back for the rest of Us. But in her case, how does she even begin to mind over grind her life?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Well, it's much more important for her to do at work. For example, if you have 100 reports, you really want to try and create some esprit de corps, some real, you know, feeling, and then find those people that you can delegate certain things to. You need lieutenants.

[Frances Fry]

You can't do it alone.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yeah, you need lieutenants and you need reliable ones. But if everyone's more bonded, then, you know, people will accept the authority of the lieutenants that, you know, get branded lieutenants, et cetera, et cetera. Lieutenants will want to take on those duties because it helps. You know, there'll be much more of a we're in this together vibe, which in healthcare you are against, you are against regulations, you are against all these different shifting ground that is so difficult to manage. But also, again, take the breaks during the day. Be a leader in doing that. Have an open discussion about what do you find recharging in the book. I have sections about how do we recharge in five minutes? But ask people, what do you do in five minutes that you actually find restful or recharging or revitalizing? Let's share our tips, let's pool our resources. Let's have that as an open discussion so that if you get the five minutes, what do you do with them? If you get 10 minutes, what do you do with it? Like start a conversation, an open dialogue about we are under it, under the gun here, we're under pressure here. Let's help each other manage these pressures because let's pool our resources, let's pool our know how. Like really start working together, which would be good for us because the more bonded we feel, the more belonging we feel in the workplace. It is a great mental health boost to feel that sense of belonging and camaraderie and togetherness. So it works on all fronts.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah. And I think there are two points there that, that are really resonating. One, if you are in that situation, like that head nurse, there might not be formal structure, but you have to add some informal structure below you and put your high performers to work. And then the idea that isolation really is our enemy, when we are deep

[Dr. Guy Winch]

in this experience, it's beyond enemy. It is incredibly painful and damaging people when they feel ostracized at work. Not even ostracized, but they don't feel a part of the group. People will leave. I always say to people, when you're looking to jump, it is the people that matter more. Than your comp. If the diff. If the difference in comp is minor, but the difference in camaraderie, in the feeling of who you're working with, it just matters so much for your mental health, for your physical health, for your longevity, truly, for your. Truly your physical health, that matters a ton. So feeling bonded. And again, just find your work tribe, your mini work tribe, your team within the team. That's why office politics, when people are pitted against one another and they are too much today. Cause these companies merge, people see it coming like a year away and then you have two competing departments. Half of the people are not gonna survive. They know it. And meanwhile, you guys need to work together till we figure that out. So you're literally creating this gladiatorial situation which is so hostile and tense. And people go to work, they're in a real battle mode all day. It is devastatingly bad for them, for their mental health, for their physical health. They will get sick. They will. You know, like the World Health Organization, for example, says that around 750,000 people a year die from overworking. Just they overwork themselves to death. The stakes are high.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah. What advice do you have for people walking into systems like that or industries like that?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

First of all, your awareness needs to be higher. But think about what weight people, because people don't challenge it. No one goes to the bosses and says, hey, this is not reasonable for us. It takes really literally acts of Congress kind of thing to challenge. But in fact, there could be more of a groundswell. Stress and burnout in the workplace are at higher levels now in 2026 than they were before the pandemic. Still, it's been five or six years where the workplace remains very unhealthy. It remains unhealthy. There's room for people to organize and say, like, this is not reasonable. This is not okay. And again, to the employers, I say it benefits you to have healthier employees, both physically and mentally and emotionally. You will get more out of them. You will save money in the long term. You really need to have that long term vision now.

[Frances Fry]

What is your beautiful mind thinking about now after burnout?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

I think that I would like to go more towards how leaders and managers, you know, I see they're in the worst straits, you know, and I see

[Frances Fry]

the many of them are burnt out trying to solve this problem with their voice.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Yeah, look, I talk in the book about, you know, a major founder of a major company of who knows the name, I won't mention it. Who got scurvy working On a startup, scurvy is what the sailors got in 18th century, you know, when they were like sailing for two or three months. Because vitamin C, the deficiency is what creates a Flintstones vitamin, would have saved that person. But there's so many people that are just so dedicated. They don't.

[Frances Fry]

We see a lot of that. We work in a lot of founder led companies.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Do you know what? I have to ask a lot of my clients these days, which is embarrassing to ask, but I do, like, I'm sorry, Mr. Majorly Famous CEO, when's the last time you saw a doctor? Yeah, you know, and they always look at me like, I'll have to ask my assistant. I'm like, if you don't know, that's a problem. That awareness is something that we, if we can instill it at the top, it will filter down. But it needs to be instilled at the top too.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah, Guy, what are you fixated on right now?

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Look, we're in April and I live in New York. It's a new season. I'm a Mets fan.

[Frances Fry]

It's not easy to be a Mets fan.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

It is not.

[Frances Fry]

There's a lot of heartbreak.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

There's a lot. But there's also a lot of promise because every year is a new is a new season. I believe in the team, I believe in the owners of the team really wanting this team to succeed. And so I'm excited for the, for the season.

[Frances Fry]

Some of my favorite people in my life are Mets fans. And so I'm thrilled to add you to the list.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Resilience, but also hope.

[Anne Morris]

Dr.

[Frances Fry]

Guy Winch. Thank you for coming on Fixable. It's been such a privilege to have this conversation with you.

[Dr. Guy Winch]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Anne Morris]

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Your participation helps us make great episodes. So if you want to help, please follow the show. Share an episode with a friend, leave a review. All of those are free and they totally help support us. If you want to figure out any questions about your workplace problem together, email [e-mail]. Fixable is a podcast from ted. It's hosted by me, Anne Morris and me, Frances Fry. This episode was produced by Rahima Nasser from Pushkin Industries. Our team includes Constanza Gallardo, Banban Chang, Daniela Baloro and Roxanne Hylash. And our show was mixed by Louis at Storyyard. When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stocked, safe, and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

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[Wise/Adam Grant Sponsor]

hi there, it's Adam Grant from Ted's Rethinking podcast, and this episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. I get to spend my days studying how people think and what it actually takes to change our minds. It's work I find deeply meaningful. But even in meaningful work, there's still busy work. The admin, the repetitive processes, the invisible load that pulls attention away from what really matters. That's where ServiceNow's AI specialists come in. They don't just tell you what you should do about your busy work, they actually do it. Start to finish, cases closed, requests handled, no extra work for you. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit ServiceNow.com.