With the fear of stepping on the toes of someone important (and I'm sorry if this is rude, but I'm going to say it), I think it's a disgrace that the top comment to this story is a dismissive remark about how the author is just "feeling entitled" while this excellent piece of health advice is far down the page.

I was burned out/severely depressed at one point, and it's obvious that the author needs to talk to a professional about the way he's coping with stress and expectations. If you're feeling like the author of this blog post, you need to take a good look at your goals in life. I've experienced this myself, and it's a tough situation to be in. Seems like a lot of hacker types are blind to this.

[Edit: Bonus point about your remark about working smarter. I get better results now than when I pushed myself to the beaking point, while using what feels like half the effort. It took some years to get there, though].