Others have made good suggestions about taking care of basic health, like sleep, nutrition, sunlight, hobbies and social life.
All of that was necessary, but not sufficient, for me to recover from a similar deflated and unmotivated state during my post doc. My work put a big intellectual strain on me but at the same time, got me addicted to being challenged.
Initially I tried hobbies that were pleasant and not very demanding (such as movies, going to events, light socializing). Somehow that left me even more frustrated. Turns out I needed something sufficiently challenging and stimulating that would switch my brain fully to something else. What worked for me was martial arts (substitute any physical activity with infinite skill ceiling and complex coordination, like dance or learning an instrument) and reading deep books completely unrelated to my expertise.
As my "day job" was quite techy, I took to reading stuff like history and humanities. In case you'd like some random suggestions I particularly remember being satisfied by Albion's Seed [1] and Metahistory [2]. I also did my best to understand some of the best recent work on narrative theory and critical feminist media theory in my native Finnish. [3] For a humanist, maybe learn verilog or complex systems theory [4]?
All of that was necessary, but not sufficient, for me to recover from a similar deflated and unmotivated state during my post doc. My work put a big intellectual strain on me but at the same time, got me addicted to being challenged.
Initially I tried hobbies that were pleasant and not very demanding (such as movies, going to events, light socializing). Somehow that left me even more frustrated. Turns out I needed something sufficiently challenging and stimulating that would switch my brain fully to something else. What worked for me was martial arts (substitute any physical activity with infinite skill ceiling and complex coordination, like dance or learning an instrument) and reading deep books completely unrelated to my expertise.
As my "day job" was quite techy, I took to reading stuff like history and humanities. In case you'd like some random suggestions I particularly remember being satisfied by Albion's Seed [1] and Metahistory [2]. I also did my best to understand some of the best recent work on narrative theory and critical feminist media theory in my native Finnish. [3] For a humanist, maybe learn verilog or complex systems theory [4]?
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion%27s_Seed 2: https://archive.org/details/metahistoryhisto00whit 3: https://www.adlibris.com/fi/kirja/muusikon-kumousliikkeet-97... 4: https://complexsystemstheory.net/santa-fe-institute/