Many of us seek higher education late in life. Being a student is absolutely exhausting. Between school, your personal life, and a job, your time is stretched thin, and taking care of yourself often becomes the last priority. This leads to burnout. But what is burnout, and how do you address it?
Burnout is an individual’s response to chronic stress. It develops progressively, and is acute or chronic. It tends to manifest both physically and psychologically, with people experiencing everything from insomnia, weight loss/ gain, and chronic fatigue, to irritability, a loss of joy in day-to-day life (called anhedonia), and decreased emotionality. Burnout impacts all areas of life. It creates issues in professional environments, because of its effects on your productivity and work attitude. It can also interfere with your personal life by influencing your interpersonal intersections, your overall ability to be a good friend/partner/parent/child, or your general attitude toward those around you.
Among students in the USA, ⅓ report feeling burnt out, and 4 in 5 will experience burnout at some point in their academic career. Knowing this, and that it can cause emotional disconnect, decreased productivity, and increased physical health issues, how do you cope with it?
Research shows that the most effective ways to cope with burnout are emotional venting and behavioral disengagement. Emotional venting could be anything from talking with friends and family about how you’re feeling, to joining support groups or online chats, to formally seeking therapy. Emotional venting allows you to release some of the physical and psychological stress builds in the body, without adding the strain of problem-solving. Problem-solving is important to coping with burnout as well – but that comes later, in the recovery period when some of your burnout symptoms begin to reduce. Behavioral disengagement is what it sounds like disengaging with the behaviors that have led to your burnout. When you have academic obligations this can be tough; however, it’s possible to find little ways to reduce stress. Sleep in on the weekends. Skip a week of clubs or extra circulars. Set aside time each day to take breaks, and when you have formal time off from school, do not engage with school during that time.
Burnout is rough to experience, but there are ways to cope. Give yourself grace, space, and time to recover. If you’d like to learn more about burnout, its effects, and ways to cope, come over to GenZ&U.
Edú-Valsania, S., Laguía, A., & Moriano, J. A. (2022). Burnout: A Review of Theory and Measurement. International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(3), 1780. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031780
Montero-Marin J, Prado-Abril J, Piva Demarzo MM, Gascon S, García-Campayo J (2014) Coping with Stress and Types of Burnout: Explanatory Power of Different Coping Strategies. PLOS ONE 9(2): e89090. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0089090