How to deal with post-work exhaustion?

No matter how much it sucks, start working out. I know it sounds absolutely counterintuitive but using that energy for a 1h workout will give you so much power back.

When I started working out I joined a boxing fitness class, it was simple. 1 hour, no prep, no need to think about gear and just follow instructions. It was exhausting but it rejuvenated me like crazy. It was like I had never charged my batteries before, because they never really drained so I had all this old, shit energy in me that was finally replenished.

The first few times are rough but you'll only gain from it, keep at it. Find something that's easy to get to, near work or home and just do it. Don't think, pack a bag tonight and try something out tomorrow.

I can’t stress enough how good of an advice working out is. I am incredibly fortunate that I’m living in a beautiful area. So my go to was hiking. It is more time consuming than going to the gym, yes. But I get to see some nice shit and the fresh air is good for my mood. It’s also some great time to keep up with my audiobooks that I love to ignore otherwise.
If you have some mountains in your area give it a try. But it can be costly. At some point you might get a pair of good hiking boots and breathable clothes. But that’s only if you want to go serious with it. For your first few trips casual clothes and shoes will do.
Thanks for the suggestion.
I can’t say I’m really doing a lot of sports. But I do hike a lot these days (the advantage is not having a job atm)
Usually I don’t feel much difference though. (Apart from physical tiredness and my skin feeling burned and dry, I dont deal well with the sun)
Do you think high intensity exercise will make a big difference? I’m a bit scared I’ll do something wrong since I quickly start feeling pain in my neck or knees when doing exercise.
So difficult to tell how much is too much, but still so enough to benefit from it.
- Try starting out with bands - they aren't as hard to the joints as weights.
  I started a few years ago with a band and the instructed exercises that came with the band ( all of them have it ). After a few weeks i already had a feeling of how much is ok - it comes with the first times you get aware of your body core.
  Now i have a set of different bands for different exercises - i can only recommend this for starters
  also, drink much water like lot's of water
  Edit: and, it's never too late - i started when i was 47, am now 52 and it's a different world for me. Before that i was in the office or home-office sitting 8 hours a day and completely out of energy after work for years ( + 20 years )
- High intensity exercise works great for stress and anxiety. Even just a few minutes will make a noticeable difference.
- High intensity helps me. Going to the gym does not give me the same type of drain.
  Find something that's low impact, swimming? The fitness boxing I went to was mainly your own body weight and punching a bag with gloves so not very high impact. Tell the teacher/coach and ask them to recommend you alternative moves.
  Get into hot yoga? Zumba or something like that.
  Where I live there's a thing called ClassPass and you buy points in the app that you can then spend on whatever class/sports/gym/whatever you want. See if there's something similar near you and test shit out.
I work in IT, so a desk job with almost no movement. If I wasn't doing sports I'd be crashing hard as well.
I always feel like, if someone with a sporty routine (lets say gym once or twice a week for 2h) stops doing sports for a longer period of time (2 weeks) they will feel generally pissed. But it never feels like sports are the reason. Then you do sports again and suddenly feel much better, at which point you face palm and think 'of course!'.
And it feels like that every fucking time. It's stupid but knowing it helps.
I’ll second this. I don’t have autism, but I do have ADHD and I think we have a lot of parallels when it comes to a social battery.
The gym is no joke when it comes to having more energy and drive to do more outside of work.
The first few weeks will not be fun and you’ll be more tired than ever before, but if you preserve then you’ll soon have more energy, feel more alert and generally be healthier. Keeping a good sleep schedule is key too. Go to bed and get up at the same time even on the weekends will work wonders.

I generally don't quit my job because I like to eat and junk but I tell you it just gets worse as you get older (don't know how old you are but im not on the low side of a century anymore). Honestly work would not be an issue if not for all the home things. medical, taxes, insurance, dealing with the houshold, etc. If it was just work and relax and it would not be so bad.

Yeah. That’s often something I also have difficulties with.
I can deal with working, or I can do chores, cook, administration and keeping home.
But i can’t seem to do both.
If I’m working full time, I just don’t have the energy left to deal with these tasks. Which also quickly drops my energy further as now I’m eating less healthy, not keeping up with bills and living in a messy environment.
It’s hard to deal with. I’m lucky I can still last some time without working, but it won’t last forever. A few months at most.
- Yes this is how I feel. I could keep on top of one or the other but with both it ends up half assing all around.

Paul from Autisme from the inside, recommended that one think about recovery from mental exhaustion as work.

Autisme from the inside: The burnout trap

So have started think 15 mental break/ 45min work. With meditation or non sleep deep rest. Sometime I do 90min or more but take equivalent longer break.

Dr Andrew Huberman

After the 90-minute interval, take a 30-minute break. Use this time to relax, recharge, and step away from your work. This break allows your brain to reset and prepares you for the next focused session. After the break, return to another 90-minute focused session

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HINgMMTzPE

I also noticed that if my Vitamin D level is low it take a lot longer to recover. For non summertime I do 40000IU/day. Summer i do 10000IU/day + as much midday sun without sunscreen I can get.

How do you do this at work though? Is nobody going to find it strange or all about it when you take such a break?
And how to actually have the break if you are in a busy/loud/uncomfortable environment?
I think i could build in some more breaks when working from home, but at work it’s almost impossible. I just don’t feel safe/comfortable at work, so I can’t really take a proper break.
- We have a dedicated short rest room. But I have also done it common area or at my desk.
  I wear my good friend, noice canceling headphones.
  I can understand that you don't feel safe/comfortable. How do you get comfortable with something new if you don't try?

As someone else suggested, I do also reccommend exercise, as counter intuitive as it may seem. What hours are you working? Morning shifts can be a bit harder to recover from if you dont find some way to get yourself out of the slump. I used to give myself an hour in front of the tv back when I worked mornings, then force myself to do some housework which would often jolt me back to life by breaking up the day. When I work later shifts, I try to claim as much of my morning for myself as I can, be it chores or exercise, so when I get home, if I have energy left for hobbies then that is a bonus, but I stay strict on my bedtimes so I can keep getting the mornings

Usually I work pretty regular hours 9-5/6. I find it difficult to cope with the fact that so many hours in a day are dedicated to working for somebody else, so i find it even harder to spend more time on maintenance activities to compensate for the fact that I’m working all day.
I’m really impressed by people that go to the gym early morning or straight after work.
Currently not working though. So I could easily fit in some exercise, but keeping the routine after going back to work is always the difficult part.
- I often go to the gym straight after work. It sure as heck helps that I mostly go to classes, many of which I have book a spot in. Often I book even if it wont be full just to have already made the commitment. Many of my classes are also timed such that I can get off the bus from work and just head over or that I can get home and do ONE chore.
  Then it has become a routine and now it is part of my after work routine. Bonus of going to classes is that you can get some light socializing in.

Based on some of your other comments, it would be interesting if you logged your blood pressure and pulse throughout the day. Once in the morning, before/after meals, evening, and whatever times seem like they may be relevant.

I got a simple automatic cuff type from the grocery store. They make some that can do it on your wrist too, which is a little easier to carry around. Mine has a history function. Smart watches/trackers can monitor your pulse more often.

Check your blood work. I get all the details in MyChart (Epic) and can even compare from previous results. If there isn't an app, get your records and input it manually in a spreadsheet or other app that hopefully doesn't harvest your data. If they are not doing regular blood work a couple times a year, they are doing you a disservice.

How is your sleep? You may not be sleeping as well as you think. This is priority 1. Wash your sheets. Clean sheets are awesome.

You could be depressed or have an undiagnosed mental illness. This is ok, but you have to talk to someone. It is hard as hell to make that phone call, but your mental health is worth it. Your mental health is worth everything. I did not check if you were female, but note that birth control can cause this shit. Hormones suck.

I think you said you were in pain or discomfort? If you are, take notes on the type of pain, where, how often, duration and anything you were doing. By the time I get to the doctor, I often can't visualize or remember the exact sensation. You could easily have something in your environment bothering you, a food allergy, gall bladder issues, thyroid, or a whole host of random shit. Switch to fragrance free laundry detergent. Maybe cut out caffeine. Just be sure to only change one thing at a time.

Don't let doctors gaslight you or downplay your issues. Advocate for yourself and take notes. You can even have a friend go with you to the doctor if you have a lot of anxiety. They can take notes for you and potentially give insights and ask questions you may not think of.

This. Especially looking at the quality of your sleep (poor sleep can trigger or exacerbate depression). There is a high prevalence of sleep-related issues in the autistic community. If you haven't had a sleep study done, I recommend doing it (it's uncomfortable and not a good night's sleep, but it will help identify issues such as sleep apnoea or restless leg syndrome).
Also go through all the typical sleep hygiene stuff (I know it can be annoying and tedious, but these factors can play a bigger role in autism than for neurotypicals due to sensory issues) such as temperature, noise and light. Are your pillow and mattress comfortable and providing the support you need, or are you tossing and turning, or waking up sore or uncomfortable?

What worked for me was to start working from home. I had a similar experience before the pandemic, but once I started to work from home this feeling went away.

I guess for me, the office has too many distractions. It was hard to focus on my work. All these distractions put a big toll on me over time. Traveling to and from work was also too exhausting.

I think the period I worked from home was actually quite uncomfortable for me.
Initially it felt great, having more control over my environment and being able to take breaks at will.
But i also noticed that I spend way too much time on my computer. So i went from working to gaming and browsing without a moment in between.
At the moment it feels like I burned out myself on screen usage.
And I found it very hard to make friends or get to know people better. I’m already not good at this, but only having snippets of time with my colleagues combined with staying at home after hours meant that i basically had no moments to make new friends or spend time with the few people I know.
Makes it difficult to enjoy WFH now.
- I’ve always heard that wfh can be really hard to manage if you don’t have a separate environment for work. If you’re just working from your normal ‘play’ space your brain has a very hard time breaking out of those patterns and focusing on specific tasks that aren’t what you’re used to in that context.

Have you checked with a doctor? There might be a medical cause.

I mean, work sucks, but unless you're swinging a sledgehammer all day, it shouldn't drain you completely the way you describe.

I did. And usually they say I’m perfectly healthy and recommend me to see a psychiater.
For some reason I feel like there is still something else underlying this though. Usually when I’m feeling depressed or anxious it’s because I’m also feeling uncomfortable or painful in some way. And it passes after the pain is gone.
But I have no idea how to describe this to the doctor and all their basic tests just show nothing.
I also don’t feel particularly unhealthy, i eat quite well and do exercise (although not super intensive)
I’m really jealous when I see these older colleagues who smoke multiple times per day and are visibly overweight. And somehow they have 10x the energy of me.
Sometimes I wonder if people around me are all on performance enhancing drugs or something. That’s what it feels like. I tried drinking coffee in the past, but I can’t really deal with the taste, and it seems to make me drowsy for some reason.
- Do you trust the doctors with your life?
  Remember what they call the person who graduated in last place from medical school: Doctor.
  They aren't all bad, but many are overworked, too busy to focus, and perhaps burnt out. They also might need a full history over time to make a diagnosis. By way of example, during an annual physical, my doctor noticed my weight gain, and said there was no way I could gain that much weight in a year without something wrong. He ordered blood work and found a thyroid disorder. That also explained why I had no energy to do anything more than the bare minimum to survive.
  Looking just at thyroid disorders, a doctor might just check TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone). The "normal range" is 0.5 - 5.0. So your TSH could be 4.9, and your doctor would say it's normal. However, I know a bunch of people with thyroid issues, and everyone I know feels "normal" when their TSH is close to 1.0.
  If your doctor orders a thyroid antibodies test, they could discover Hashimotos Thyroiditis (which happens to be my diagnosis, as well as my wife's and my three children). Basically that means your immune system is attacking and destroying your thyroid gland. When she was first diagnosed, my daughter's TSH was normal, but the antibodies test was positive, so they knew it was just a matter of time.

It's hard to come up with a specific answer for this because everyone is different. I think you might be better served by asking this same question to a qualified therapist who can help you work through it. It could be as simple as "You need to force yourself to get up and get more exercise" or as complex as "You have clinical depression and you should be medicated if you want to feel normal again".

For me, I used to feel the same way after work. I would just come home and veg out, not care about much of anything, and take very little joy even in things I liked. The thing that snapped me out of it was my failing health causing me to be forced to switch up my diet and go to the gym a few times a week. It wasn't easy to get started, but once I was about 2-3 weeks into my new routine I was feeling more energetic and motivated. I noticed I was getting better sleep too which made me feel ready to tackle the day every morning that I woke up for work rather than dread going in.

Again, your mileage may vary, I would strongly advise to speak to a doctor if you are having difficulties with this issue to the point where it's negatively impacting your quality of life. Don't put it off until your health is impacted like I did.

Would be good to have a professionals opinion on it for sure. I haven’t had that great experience with therapists though.
Not that they were bad, but they didn’t seem to understand how a lot of things simply didn’t apply to me or affect me differently.
Most of the advice I got, I already understood very well. Or researched by myself in detail. But there always seems to be a point where it comes down to ‘just do it’ and I don’t manage to. Or only for a certain period, and then everything collapses again.
I think one aspect that’s especially difficult for me is that I can’t tell when I’m doing better. After I start some routine for exercise, I just don’t notice any significantly difference over a period of a month or so. (In terms of mood specifically)
Eventually I give up, because it seems like it’s having no effect, but still requires significant time and effort.

Cutting out my bad media habits worked for me (social media on my phone every minute of free time, and hours of Youtube in the evenings). Days feel longer, I've been reading a lot, finding time to exercise and finish projects (even during the work week). Also, my sleep has improved.

It does seem to help. I recently made a commitment to avoid digital media on my own.
I don’t think games or reddit or browsing is necessarily that bad in limited amounts. But it becomes too easy to start spending all your time on it because everything else feels too much effort and less fun.
I still allow myself any form of digital entertainment, but only when I do something together with friends. That way I still have some social contact, and I’ll have to do the effort to meet up if I want to do something fun.
When I’m by myself I’ll usually limit myself to reading, writing, going for walks, etc
Oh also, I snack a lot less and have lost weight. The initial reason I cut out media was in the evenings all I would do is snack and watch stuff until bed. And I NEVER actually felt ready for bed. Maybe I'd be tired, but there was some existential dread or something that I was wasting my life and not pursuing my interests.

I'll say I've noticed that there are places in my house that trap me into an energy drain stasis, so I try to avoid letting myself get into my rot spot unless I'm ok with doing absolutely nothing for the rest of the day.

Wow, that would be annoying. Currently I’m basically living in a studio, so would be difficult to avoid a specific spot in the home.

Are you sure it’s not just depression?

I guess it could be. It seems to have gotten worse with each job I held.
I’m doing a bit better now, not having any work. But I’m not sure how to start a new job and keep it sustainable.
I’m really afraid of feeling this absolute exhaustion again and having to quit again.
Feels more like anxiety and fear to me, which eventually leads me to a shutdown and depression like symptoms.

I'm no doctor but I've been living with this my entire life. I'm only realizing recently that is not normal to be in constant pain and so chronically exhausted that even my libido has almost completely died. i am now seeing a cardiologist and had to wear a heart monitor for 2 weeks and get an echocardiogram, because i was nearly passing out from very light work in the heat. my doctor suspects POTS and i know that I'm hypermobile, but having trouble qualifying for testing for Ehler Danlos. these conditions commonly present together and pretty much take you out of commission. definitely see a doctor.

doctors will probably give you the run-around at first and say it's depression. well, let me tell you from extensively researching my symptoms, that depression can develop from these symptoms, it's not always the cause. i am depressed and anxious because I'm constantly in a state of pain and exhaustion and nothing i do is ever enough to keep up. it's a horrible way to live and I'm hoping for answers so i can at least have guidance from doctors on minimizing these things.

EDIT: i now see what community this post is in. POTS and EDS are higher in the autistic community. read a bit into those conditions and see if you relate.

I actually went to the doctor once because I almost fainted when taking a blood pressure test. I have this occasionally, also when riding a bus or train when it’s hot outside.
They did some basic tests, but didn’t do a tilt test because at that moment, i didn’t seem to have any issues.
Actually, most of the time I go to doctors, they say I’m perfectly healthy and nothing is wrong. But I do feel uncomfortable and painful relatively often.
I also think that when I visit any doctor, my heartrate shoots up, which brings it closer to the normal or higher range. Even though from day to day, my heart rate is typically very low and I frequently feel like blacking out when standing up.
I don’t really have a strong mindset though, so i will typically not challenge a doctor’s opinion. Especially not when I’m feeling low energy and tired (which is usually when I go to the doctor)
- you sound a lot like me, until i got scared i would lose my job. i haven't tried talking to doctors about this for years because i was dismissed without tests or anything and i didn't have a frame of reference to tell them how bad it was. i finally just laid it all out to my doctor, almost crying because i was taking at least 1 sick day a week at that point. i waited WAY too long and my body literally said "fuck this" and stopped. but i have a more active job, so i am literally unable to perform my job duties at times now.
  I'm really hoping for some help, but neither of those suspected conditions have a cure, you basically just learn how to live with it.. good luck to you on your journey.

Reduce your workload, if possible.

Instead of 38.5 hours/week, try to get down to 20-24 hrs/week, if possible.

I actually experimented with this in the past.
It does help quite a bit. ( but for some projects i would spend too much time catching up what i missed the other days)
The trouble is mostly finding part time work. When I tried it in the past, it was because I was already working full time and asked to have it reduced.
But now i don’t have a job, and finding pastime options from the start seems to be more difficult than finding a full time job.
I suppose I could start something full time and ask for a reduction later. But I’m a bit worried on how long I’ll be able to handle working full time.
- Which field do you work in?

I'd recommend reading this article about authenticity: https://www.meticulon.com/neurodiversity-celebration-week-2024/ It explains a lot about how little things that NTs take for granted can be exhausting for ND people, particularly at work.

Welcome to being an adult!

Most people either figure it out or look for an easier job.

Wow, figure it out, what helpful advice for OP. What do you think they're trying to do by posting asking for advice?
I don’t feel like my job was particularly difficult though. Usually the tasks are quite simple. But organization, prioritizing and meetings with others can strain my energy fast.
I’m not sure I could play videogames for 8 hours per day if I only could get a single break at noon.
I would be tired and unhappy all the same (even though it would be a bit better, since I can actually choose what games to play. At work I don’t really have any choice in my tasks)

Visit weedtime

Increase your working memory capacity by playing 60-minute sessions of working memory games on Lumosity.

Absolute best thing an autistic person can do for mental/social fatigue.

Does this actually transfer to real life situations though?
I found one of the best ways to improve my working memory for certain tasks, it’s just to do those tasks.
Like, I used to be really bad at cooking, but in the past months, I’ve been preparing meals every day. And I noticed it’s easier to figure out what things to combine from the fridge, keep everything in my head and work on preparing the parts without having to rely too much on timers and recipes to know when and how to prepare things.