Dial it back?

Reader question:

Please explain “dial it back” in this headline: Burning Out? Give Yourself Permission to Dial It Back.

My comments:

First of all, “burning out” means you’re tired. Like, very tired. You’re like a red hot burning coal gradually turning into dying ember and, eventually, cold ash.

Eww!

That sounds too bad. Sorry.

It shouldn’t be so bad, but, anyway, if you feel exhausted from hard work (and lack of sleep, lots of pressure and stress, etc.), allow yourself to relax a little bit, perhaps taking a break in order to recuperate.

That’s the message. That’s what “dial it back” means.

In this expression, you’re likened to the dial on the radio. One turns up the volume of the radio by turning the dial clockwise.

Or one did, past tense.

I realize we no longer have old-time radios around. At least we don’t see them often. Now we turn up the volume of our smartphone by pushing the “+” button while turning down the volume by pushing the “–” button.

Anyways, we old-timers used to have radios with dials to work with.

Nowadays, let me think, electric ovens still have actual dials. As it is with the old-time radio, you dial up the volume of heat by turning the dial of the oven clockwise. And you dial down the volume by turning it the other way around – anticlockwise, that is.

And when you turn the dial anticlockwise, you’re literally dialing it back, reducing the heat or power of the oven.

Hence, figuratively, if you dial back something, you mean to reduce its power or intensity.

Phew! Sorry for making it sound convoluted. It’s really simple. You dial back something to reduce its pressure and intensity.

So, if you feel like you’re burning out, give yourself permission to dial it back. Take a break, a vacation, for example.

Allow yourself to do that because you know your health and physical condition best. Don’t wait for others – your boss, say – to give you that permission. Don’t wait, lest it comes too late, if at all.

All right, let’s read a few media examples of “dial back” for added clarity:

1. During the summer season, 49% of workers “dial it down” at work and draw firmer boundaries around their time, according to a June 18 report from Glassdoor.

Younger workers are leading the way, with 64% of those between ages 21 and 25 taking a step back at work during the summer, compared to 56% of ages 26-29 and 39% of those over 45.

“The people most likely to ‘dial it back’ in the summer are the ones with growing responsibilities at home,” said Adam Grant, chief worklife expert at Glassdoor. “New love and young kids place a greater premium on family time.”

Pulling back on work doesn’t necessarily mean employees are slacking off, Glassdoor noted; they could simply be adjusting their schedules and reducing their packed workloads. When asked in a separate poll what was “crushing your summer vibe work-wise,” more than a third of workers complained about “too many meetings.”

To address this, Grant suggested defining the purpose of meetings upfront and focusing on decisions, creation, bonding or action. Otherwise, meetings should be canceled, he noted.

With ongoing economic uncertainty, return-to-office mandates and quiet vacationing, workers are trying to reclaim their time, Grant said. Workers who secretly pull back may be experiencing burnout, boredom and distrust.

“Many people are tired of letting their jobs dictate their time,” he said. “They don’t want to squeeze family, friends, health and hobbies into the margins around work – they want to find work that fits into their lives. There’s a growing sentiment that work shouldn’t define our identities.”

In Glassdoor reviews, mentions of “burnout” have reached the highest rate in nearly a decade, according to another Glassdoor report. Reviewers who mentioned burnout also characterized their work environment as “high-pressure” with “last-minute” changes or “after-hour” work, indicating that HR pros can work to change the workplace culture and policies, Glassdoor said.

- Half of employees secretly slow down during the summer, Glassdoor reports, HRDrive.com, June 20, 2025.

2. After threatening to attack Iran for days in support of protesters challenging the government in Tehran, United States President Donald Trump appeared to dial back the rhetoric on Wednesday evening.

The killings in Iran, Trump said, had stopped, adding that Tehran had told his administration that arrested protesters would not be executed.

Trump did not rule out an attack on Iran, but in effect, negated the rationale for such an attack.

Still, as Trump closes in on the completion of the first year of his second term in office, his track record suggests the possibility of US military strikes against Iran in the coming days remains a real threat.

...

In June, Iran learned the hard way that Trump’s words and actions do not match.

Amid rising tensions over US accusations that Iran was racing towards enriching uranium for nuclear weapons, Washington and Tehran engaged in weeks of hectic negotiations. Trump frequently warned Iran that time was running out for it to strike a deal, but then returned to talks.

On June 13, he wrote on Truth Social that his team “remain committed to a Diplomatic Resolution to the Iran Nuclear Issue.”

His “entire” administration, he said, had been “directed to negotiate with Iran”.

But barely hours later, US ally Israel struck Iran. Most experts believe Israel would not have attacked Iran without Trump’s approval.

As Israel and Iran traded fire in the subsequent days, Trump faced questions over whether the US would bomb Iran.

On June 20, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt quoted Trump as saying that he would “make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks”.

Far from utilising the full two weeks he gave himself, Trump made his decision in two days.

In the early hours of June 22, US B-2 Spirit bombers dropped fourteen bunker-busting bombs on Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility, buried deep inside a mountain near Qom. The US also bombed nuclear facilities in Natanz and Isfahan using the most powerful conventional bombs in the US arsenal.

The attack shocked many observers, in part because of what appeared to have been an elaborate diplomatic ruse preceding it.

- Trump’s bluffs: Why US strike on Iran remains real threat, AlJiazeera.com, January 15. 2026.

3. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said “we’re going to de-escalate a bit,” referring to the situation in Minnesota on the heels of the controversial killing of ICU nurse Alex Pretti by a federal agent in Minnesota over the weekend.

Trump’s comment came as he praised his border czar Tom Homan, whom he dispatched to Minnesota on Monday after outrage over the Trump administration’s initial response to Pretti’s death.

“He’s great,” Trump said of Homan during an interview with Fox News’ Will Cain.

“And they met with the governor, the mayor, everybody else, and we’ll, we’re going to de-escalate a little bit,” the president said.

On Sunday, several dozen major companies in Minnesota issued a statement calling for an “immediate de-escalation of tensions” in the state on the heels of Pretti’s killing, which was the second time in several weeks that federal agents killed a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis.

The Trump administration has flooded that city with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, and other Department of Homeland Security officers in what the administration has said is widespread fraud by immigrants there.

Trump earlier Tuesday told reporters that he wants “a very honorable and honest investigation” into the Pretti’s killing.

“We’re doing a big investigation,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

“I want to see the investigation, I’m going to be watching over it,” he said. “I want to see it myself.”

Shortly after Trump spoke, MS Now, citing three people briefed on the matter, reported that the Department of Justice had decided not to conduct a civil rights investigation of Pretti’s death.

“And instead two units of the Department of Homeland Security will investigate their officers and the man they killed,” MS Now reported.

Trump’s comments were the latest in a series of recent statements and moves by him and the White House that have sought to dial back his administration’s initially bellicose comments on Pretti’s killing on Saturday in Minneapolis.

- Trump says ‘we’re going to de-escalate a little bit’ in Minnesota after Alex Pretti killing, CNBC.com, January 27, 2026.

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About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者：张欣）