"The sands are numbered, that make up my life."

Wouldn't life be wonderful if we were 10 pounds lighter or a thousand pounds richer? Whether you're trying to lose the pounds or gain them, having a specific number to aim for isn't necessarily going to make you happier. I've always had a tendency to overweightness, and I can't tell you how many times I've celebrated reaching my goal weight by stuffing my face with cake and beer.

Numbers can give us a sense of achievement but they can also make us miserable.

It's time to take a look at those digits on the page, give them a beady stare and remind them of their place, and that they are not the holy grail, merely a bunch of squiggles.

Everybody was getting very excited by numbers around the time of Shakespeare, especially as people switched over from using Roman numerals to the Hindu-Arabic symbols we've been using ever since. Imagine being able to write 1883 in numbers and not, as it would have been around the time Shakespeare was born, MDCCCLXXXIII.

But there's a danger of those numbers taking on extra meaning. Big isn't necessarily good, sometimes less is more, and on other occasions we can give numbers a significance beyond their simple squiggle meaning.

I'd like to think that by the end of this episode you will have added up all the pros and cons, multiplied by three, taken away the number you first thought of and realised that there's a heck of a lot more to life than numbers.

Plays mentioned this week include Henry 20% (just kidding, it's really called Henry the fifth), Richards II and III, King Lear and The Tempest.

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"Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed."

Do you ever get the feeling that however much you're doing, however hard you try, however fast you're moving, you feel like you're getting nowhere?

Sounds to me like you're (I'm) suffering from burnout. No this isn't one of those podcasty words like manifestation and journalling, burnout is a real medical thing with serious consequences if you don't deal with it.

Did Shakespeare suffer from burnout? How could he, the bloomin thing was only invented in 1974? I'm not going to go there and try and take modern things and impose them on his life - although today's quote at the start comes from one of his sonnets so even if he didn't suffer it he sure as heck knows how to describe the feeling.

If you can manage for a moment to lift the duvet from over your head and peep back into the world that made you weary with toil in today's episode I hope to ease you gently back to a place where you can at least feel strong enough to step back in and win back your life.

No one will ever be able to say what Shakespeare was going through, but strangely everything that happened to him in a crucial five year period maps perfectly onto the classic definition of burnout, from massively productive honeymoon period down to total crashout, and everything in between. The way he gets out of it as well mirrors what we can do in our own lives to escape its clutches.

There are few plays looked at in this episode because I am daring to discuss only Shakespeare's life, but Twelfth Night gets a special mention because it falls slap in the middle of Shakespeare's 'burn-out/not burn-out' phase.

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"Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting that would not let me sleep."

Most of us do anything - ANYTHING - to avoid conflict. There's always a dozen good reasons for standing on the sidelines. For instance, we might get hurt. Better to call the police. Then again what if you have to be a witness in a court case? We've seen those movies where one minute you see a crime being committed and the next you're hiding in an Amish community falling in love with Kelly McGillis. What's the point of making a fuss?

The problem is, by refusing to do anything you're giving a free ride to that small number of people who love conflict. No wonder we get stressed and anxious doing what we can to stay on the right side of those bad-tempered short-fuse types who force us to tiptoe around them.

What can we do to alleviate the stress? Well let's not be hasty here, not jumping in is probably the first rule of Fight Club. Sooner or later though you're going to have to react. Trying to make the peace is the second rule and is equally as sensible, but what if that fails?

Time to call on the Mel Robbins of Stratford-upon Avon.

Since nearly all of Shakespeare's plays are about conflict, even the funny ones, there's a whole toolbox of handy hints for resolution. Not always a happy ending, but then do you really want to keep living with the stress and anxiety of doing nothing at all? Rule three examines the best way to pick your battles, rule four tells you what you'd rather not hear and rule five... well you're going to have to get to the end to find out rule five. Bloomin eck I'm not gonna tell you everything am I? Wanna fight about it?

Plays featured this week include Romeo and Juliet - which let's face it is a non-stop fightorama - Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, Antony being the best example of rule three and the worst of four.

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