For me, i had a bunch of signals that I was ignoring for a couple of months. - Could not sleep well at all. Woke up many times in the middle of the night, my mind was always thinking about work. I lay in bed, heart pounding really fast. - Loss of appetite. My breakfast would be a cup of coffee and 1 or 2 cigarettes. Could not eat at all in the morning. - Starting to feel pain on my chest, near the heart, during the day. Hands shaking, confusing speech.

One day, I was at my desk, speaking on the phone with a work colleague. On my side, there was another colleague also speaking to me. I started to see everything blur. I tried to speak but I couldn't. Started to feel a huge pain in the chest. I remember putting my hand against my heart and then passed out. - When I recovered my senses (a couple of seconds later), I couldn't feel my legs, I was shaking, and couldn't speak. It was terrifying. I really though I was having some sort of heart attack. In the end, was a really bad burnout, stress, altogether. I'm still doing my job (sysadmin), but I don't know how long will I be able to stand this.

So, take care!

2 weeks off can go an awfully long way to both seeing the problem more clearly, and correcting it. I've gotten to the point, several times, where I was ready to quit my job and tour the world with a backpack rather than go in for one more day. In each case, I opted for a short leave of absence instead, telling myself that I could quit for real if I needed to after that. In each case, 3-4 weeks vacation was more than enough to satisfy me.

If you are stuck with the idea that you're about to burn out in the first place, that's a pretty clear indication that you have a problem. No need to second-guess those kinds of thoughts.