How I Avoid Burnout: Michael Barratt, Space Doctor

In 2009 Dr. Michael Barratt spent six and a half months aboard the International Space Station, confined and busy in ways that probably make your earthbound lockdown look like a visit to a luxury spa. The space medicine specialist lived and worked with cameras livestreaming his every move carrying out hundreds of research projects and equipment demonstrations.

Aside from his everyday workout of two and a half hours on a treadmill, bike, or resistance machine to maintain muscle strength and bone density, he was mostly executing the complex plans that NASA beamed up. “No pressure, it’s an experiment that I maybe saw once on the ground two years ago, and tens of millions of dollars went into it, and the results could be cutting-edge or I could break it,” he says. “Astronauts are a lot more afraid of screwing up than blowing up.” Here’s how he avoided burnout 220 miles above Earth.