“Moving out of my hometown. I never felt like where I was from was home. I was never comfortable. Kept hitting hurdles trying to come up and be better. But once I left, my entire life trajectory changed for the better.”

As a Senior Staff Writer at BuzzFeed, I cover real-life stories that explore relationships, lifestyle (including travel and beauty), and the internet's most fascinating trends.

"I started resting my eyes every 30 minutes, focusing on something around 20 feet away. If I am using my phone, I use it a reasonable distance away. A few days later, all of my symptoms disappeared."

"I kept a terrible, soul-killing job for too long. My wife was begging me to quit. But we were paycheck to paycheck with kids and couldn't cover the income gap. I was too overworked without PTO to interview and respond to applications while working. I was let go unceremoniously after my boss was fired and upper management decided just to clean out his whole team. I was expecting to feel terror at the financial uncertainty, and was honestly surprised that all I felt was relief. It WOULD have been irresponsible to quit without lining up another opportunity as the sole provider. But once that decision was made for me, I only felt free. It solidified for me that it's probably better for the soul or psyche to be anxious about the future or uncertain than it is to be miserable but relatively safe."

"Former teacher here. I didn't realize what clinical burnout looked like until I quit teaching and looked in the mirror. I feel like I left such a purposeful profession as a life-saving measure. Not taking care of yourself for a job isn't worth it. I'm happier now. I miss the kids."

"Paying attention to my diet and eating healthy, working out regularly, stretching. My physical and mental health has improved drastically. I didn't even know how crappy I felt at the time, and it's only in hindsight that I can see how awful my gorging and slothfulness made me feel."

"Same, it's like doubling your shower space, and I don't touch the cold shower curtain."

"I stayed with my ex for nearly four years, but I saw the first red flag about three months in. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had loved myself enough to leave right then."

"For anyone considering this, it's not an overnight thing. It took a solid three months for me to even notice a difference, and it wasn't an 'oh wow, I feel great.' It was waking up one morning and just being able to get out of bed without thinking about it, having just a little better sleep without trying, having just a little more energy that gave me the strength to do the other things that made me feel better. One day, I just noticed I felt so much better. It went from being under a wet, heavy blanket, to just a heavy blanket, to just a blanket. If you also start taking fish oil or an omega-3, PSA: it can mess with your dreams; it gave me nightmares at first, and I had to switch to taking it in the morning."

"Yep! So disappointing I went 40 years without. I recently spent a week out of town for work and missed it 'sorely.'"

"Also, good quality linens. They don't have to be expensive. Just a minimum of 300 thread count and no poly or poly blends."

"I do it a lot at work, and people magically think you're this really nice and thoughtful person when really you're just taking the time to listen to what they have to say. It makes people feel really valued, and they, in turn, value you back."