Because it simply does not.

Do you remember a day when you woke up, went to work, tried to do the tasks planned for that day, but you simply couldn’t? Because all you wanted was to stay in bed for the rest of the day. You’d had enough. I remember well not one, but many such days. Days when we still go there, do one more experiment, submit one more grant, finish one more meeting, give one more presentation… Then we’ll be done.

Only that, at the end of the day, you realise that the experiment didn’t work, and you have no idea why. You showed up at the meeting, but it would be the same as if you hadn’t — your brain was off. You gave that presentation, and you could see people wondering what was wrong with you. You knew exactly what they thought of you at that point.

So, you pause… Am I failing here? This is a wrong day. But I have to make it right.

Then, instead of finally going to bed, you stay longer at work, trying to understand what happened that day. You have to push harder, make up for it, you don’t have time to be tired. You try and push, and push, until you finally leave work.

You feel drained. You feel that no one actually saw your effort today. You walk down the street like a dead carrot. You feel they all think of you as a failure. You can’t put your thoughts together; you can’t grasp what has happened to you today. Because after all, no one has ever taught us how to push when there’s nothing left to push with. They just taught us to be strong, not to give up, and never to show how we actually feel.

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately: at what point did exhaustion become a sign of excellence in our system? Who convinced us that full calendars are proof of the highest productivity, a sign of being “super passionate” about science? If you don’t push hard enough for everyone around you to see how strong you are, how proactively you’re looking for new challenges, overloading your desk with papers, overbooking your calendar with meetings, carrying leftover vacation days from last year, sending emails on Saturday afternoon — then you’re not burning enough for the topic. You’re not meant to be a scientist. That holy word that sparks mystique whenever someone says, “She is a scientist.” How remarkable that sounds.

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I remember one day when I showed up at a colleague’s door just to pass on a short piece of information — a sentence of four words. I called her name, and she immediately jumped: “I’m busy, I’m busy. I must leave in a minute. Come another time.” I was confused. Right, it’s not comfortable when people interrupt you all the time, especially if you’re heading to an important meeting. However, since I don’t visit her often, my showing up at her door meant that I had something important to say. In fact, the information was relevant for her, not for me at all.

So I paused for two seconds and said I was sorry for interrupting, but I had to pass on the info. I said what I needed to say and left the office. Only later did I realize that, even though she was in a rush, she left fifteen minutes later.

I thought about that moment a lot afterwards because I left with a strange feeling that day. That’s when I realised that sometimes “being busy” is a state of mind, not a reality. Because there’s no situation so busy that you can’t take one second to answer when someone calls your name.

How much one can work, in my opinion, is individual. It also depends on the type of job you do. Studies show that excessive work is linked to changes in brain structure, especially in areas involved in thinking and emotional processing. It’s also connected to many other health issues such as metabolic disorders and cardiovascular disease.

The reason for it is constant stress. What research has found so far is that around 30 hours per week is optimal for cognitive performance. When you add a lunch break, short pauses that your brain also needs, and meetings throughout the day, you come to a standard 40-hour work week. Every additional hour is too much. It’s extra stress for a brain that is already overloaded. It only leads to unproductivity. And this can be applied across many professions.

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Nevertheless, if you are an artist, there’s no way you can do creative work for 40, 50, or 60 hours per week. Creativity needs freedom, not frames and rules. Writers can write at any time of the day, or they have their own rituals and writing hours. Sometimes they can write through the whole night. Other times, a few good sentences per day are enough. The rest of the time, they need to gather fuel for the next creative moment.

When it comes to us, scientists, it’s again different. Scientists are generally very passionate about what they do. Therefore, they can work veeeery long hours in the lab or in front of a computer. This can go on for days or weeks.

I’ve heard recently that a burnt-out scientist once said it’s fine to be tired and exhausted after work — as long as you know why you’re doing it. Why is the word I’d like to underline here. Because in everything we do, we need to see our why.

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But that doesn’t mean we don’t need a break. It doesn’t mean that having a regular day — working set hours or leaving earlier — shows a lack of dedication. Especially nowadays, younger generations are more prone to working when they’re at work and living when they leave work. That doesn’t mean they’re less dedicated.

Time changes cultures, routines, and our minds. That’s simply evolution. Hence, the ideal of the “hard-working researcher” who, due to deep personal engagement, cannot have regular working hours is simply outdated.

I know many scientists will argue with me and say that the nature of our work is just like that, we have too much to do. And I agree. Especially once you have your own group, multiple projects, lectures, theses to review, conferences to attend, and all the other things that help you stay up to date and visible in your field — it’s not possible to finish everything within a “9 to 5” day. But again, here’s your why. You know exactly why you’re there at 10 p.m., drinking your third coffee of the day, just to stay awake until you finish your tasks.

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Yet taking a break has to be normalized. High stress, lack of sleep and rest, and the inability to detach from work create enormous pressure on the brain. Add a pinch of a toxic environment, poor management, and a competitive culture that tells you you’re not good enough if you leave at 5 p.m., or that you’re not burning enough for your work — and there you have it: a one-way ticket to burnout.

That’s the moment when you can’t push hard anymore. The moment when motivation fades, when you start questioning your abilities, isolating yourself from others, stop asking questions in meetings, and slowly lose interest in your work, or maybe in science altogether.

That’s what happened to many people I know. It once happened to me too.

The biggest problem is not only burnout. It’s the loss of identity. And that’s the hardest part of it all. How that looks exactly? I’ll tell you next time.

For today, it’s enough.