I think this may be helpful advice for regular work, but not somebody suffering from burnout. During burnout, the brain puts up a much much stronger and persistent layer of resistance to concentration, in order to try to protect you from the pain that occurred while working in the past. Pushing past that is much harder, and can lead to additional blowback.

Sorry, my bad. He was not talking about it from a “psychological” standpoint. He was citing real hormone changes in the process. So it might be a bit more complicated than what I expressed.

Like many, I tie the defense mechanism's arms behind its back with music.

It is weak then. My defense mechanism is Borg. It adapts to my music and assimilates it. Resistance is futile.

I keep hearing great things about this podcast over and over but every time I try to get into it, I can't get over the insane number of ads.

They’re always in the beginning so you can skip them. And on YouTube you can use an ad blocker if you get hit with regular ads.