Taking 6 months to a year off from programming to give your brain a rest does not mean that you have to sit on the couch watching game shows or travel around trying to 'find yourself'.
Plenty of 'Help Wanted' signs are up looking for people with few skills or intelligent people who can learn a skill quickly. It might be much more labor intensive than your current job, but that might be exactly what you need as a change of pace.
Few, if any of those jobs pay as well as programming, but millions of people earn a living wage doing them every day. If you don't have some good savings, then you might have to give up some luxuries that you have gotten used to, but that isn't the end of the world either.
Plenty of 'Help Wanted' signs are up looking for people with few skills or intelligent people who can learn a skill quickly. It might be much more labor intensive than your current job, but that might be exactly what you need as a change of pace.
Few, if any of those jobs pay as well as programming, but millions of people earn a living wage doing them every day. If you don't have some good savings, then you might have to give up some luxuries that you have gotten used to, but that isn't the end of the world either.