For many of us, you get up every morning at an ungodly hour and sit through Miami traffic to go to class, or work, or some other engagement you agreed to. In between your tightly packed schedule you study, clean, volunteer, go to club meetings, and help your friend do this or that. Sometimes you’re so busy, the list is longer than the hours in a day. Somethings need to be dropped, those usually end up being your personal wants or needs. You don’t finish reading that book you love or get to watch one more episode of your favorite show. Big deal right? Maybe today you don’t go to the gym so you can study for chem. What if you sleep a couple less hours to write that paper? The problem with that is, we know in college this isn’t just one week, it’ll happen again, in a few days. You’ll have 4 new papers to write and 3 more exams, and once again, you’ll sacrifice what you need to fit in your hectic schedule. This can eventually lead to everything becoming too much. A moment where you wish the world would pause so you could just….breathe, this is called burnout.
What Exactly is Burnout:
According to Psychology Today, burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion brought on by repeated stressors. Burnout has a strong link with depression and anxiety. Someone in this state exhibits a lot of the same characteristics as depression, such as distancing themselves from loved ones, lack of motivation, and an overall sense of helplessness.
Burnout is a horrible place to be in. Luckily there are ways to pull yourself out of it
Ways to Prevent and Remedy Burnout:
The best way to get rid of burnout, in theory, is to remove the stressor. This, however, isn’t so easy when the stressor is school or work. What do you do then?
The most important thing to do is practice self-care. As a college student, I know how easy it is to put off eating, sleeping, taking breaks, all to finish the work that needs to be done. However, the main thing to remember here is NO CLASS IS EVER WORTH MORE THAN YOUR WELLBEING. As important as it is to pass all your classes with the grade you want, it’s also important to take care of yourself. Make sure you hatch out time for yourself to do what you want. It could be going to watch movies with friends, going shopping, or maybe it is having some alone time, putting on a face mask, and watching some tv. Whatever it is, realize that it’s not something you can push off your list when things get busy. Your health can’t be rescheduled.
It’s easy to add too much to our plates without noticing, but your body will give you signs when there’s too much going on. When that happens it’s important to take a step back and take a break, breathe then dive back in. Trust me you’ve got this!