Taking breaks

Lately Ive been having trouble finding the motivation to play, the time between uploads on my channel has been steadily increasing and my practice times are getting shorter and shorter so I decided to take a little break from playing. Today I played for the first time in almost a month for probably less than ten minutes which is about how it was before the break, so it seems it either wasn't long enough or didn't help. The last time I took a break from playing it lasted for eight years and I would rather not repeat that. How long do reasonable breaks last and what can I do to make bassing fun again?

Bass was a mystery, the only instrument I couldnt hear. And it has fewer strings to keep track of than a guitar so why not. The reason the eight year break happened is because I got an Xbox and that took over my spare time. I came back after conversations with an active musician coworker with similar taste in music. Repetition isn't the problem, I learn a song, record it and never play it again and I've usually forgotten parts of them after a couple weeks.

I got into playing music as a break from video games ..
I had serious frozen thumb from hitting buttons,that took months to go away.
I suggest learn another instrument? Piano or violin, or banjo? Whatever suits you .

I've been in bands, played gigs and recorded in a studio, but nothing serious came from it. To be honest I probably pick my bass up even less than you do, I no longer have any ambition towards it but I need to know it's always there. I'm converting my Fiat Ducato Maxi into a motorhome, so that keeps me occupied, but there are moments when I need to pick the bass up,it's hard to explain, maybe like Purplez says, you need to try something new, all men need a hobby or we'd go nuts

I find that taking even a week off when work and life matters distract me from playing has me almost starting from scratch.

I lose my “touch” pretty quick. If I'm not playing every day then I don't think I'm improving anything technically or tonally.

It's tough playing the same stuff over and over, and learning new songs keeps me entertained for a short while.

The only thing that keeps me wanting to play is to set goals. The goals can be: I want to learn a certain style, or genre of music.

Or, a goal could be: how can I play faster and cleaner?

Right now, I'm setting goals of learning songs to play with some friends in hopes of putting together something for next winter. I'm having to learn songs from different genres. I'm also trying to learn how to sing backup while playing. Which is a real bitch by the way.

Point is, find something that interests you or challenges you. That could be something as simple as switching to bluegrass or country just to see why the bass is important to those genres.

To be honest, my breaks last for about 5-6 months lol. I'm a casual player and don't have a youtube channel or anything to keep up, so I can afford to take the time away, but I find that if I'm really losing motivation for something, just a month off isn't going to make a difference. So I guess chill for a bit longer?

Also I third the notion of listening to live bands! Watching people play makes my fingers itch, even if I'm on a break.