Oh, college; the best time of our lives. The time when you can really make something of yourself and be stress-free as an adult out on your own. You would hope that would be the outcome, right? Well, unfortunately, that is the complete opposite because there is a term that has been coined in the college scene known as “burnout.” Burnout is the act of working so hard with so much energy at the start of a task or series of tasks that as you lose that energy, you start to crash and subsequently “burnout” in the process. Think of it as a sugar high but with end results that just so happen to be even worse than an actual sugar high causing you to suffer for it the next day.
Sometimes, desperate times call for desperate measures, and as a college student, there are plenty of desperate times.
College students know the struggle of taking multiple classes at once, biting off more than they can chew. Maybe you yourself are one who’s taking 16+ credit hours, has a job, and has no time for an actual life so you try to get as many assignments done in one sitting by drinking energy drinks to keep yourself awake; does that sound familiar? Well, that is because this is a recipe for burning one’s self out. The aftermath of it all results in you waking up groggy, tired, grumpy and even hungry in some cases. You become the worst version of yourself. As a college student you or someone you know knows very well that if your work does not get done, it will only come to bite you in the end.
How do we solve this issue? Some would say sleep; some would say slow down and do not stress yourself out, but the key to solving it is time management. We as students would like to say we can manage our time wisely but know good and well that is not the truth when it comes down to it. Burnout is necessary at times but its best to avoid it if at all possible; if this becomes the norm for any student, they, in turn, will learn almost nothing because they did not get the proper amount of sleep in order to process new information learned in class. We all want to succeed when in college, and we need to do whatever we can in a healthy matter in order to make that a possibility. So keep gas in your tank; it will guarantee that you live to fight another day as a college student trying to get his/her degree.