Do you ever find yourself losing interest in things that used to excite you? Are you struggling to go about daily activities that used to come at ease to you? You may be experiencing symptoms of burnout.
Burnout is a state of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion that is caused by prolonged and excessive stress. This can occur when you’re overwhelmed, and unable to complete constant tasks.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, the five symptoms of burnout are:
- Fatigue: This may look like taking longer to complete simple assignments, or excessive sleep.
- Dissatisfaction: Questioning “I don’t know how much longer I can do this.” or “Do I even want to do this.””
- Headaches: You could be experiencing tension headaches.
- Changes in sleep: You may find yourself sleeping more or less than you should. This can also be caused by having too much screen time or procrastination.
- Loss of appetite: Not eating enough can start out as skipping breakfast a couple times in a month. This can slowly cause you to make that a habit and cut meals even more.
You can help remedy this by setting goals for yourself. Remember, this is a slow and non-linear process that does not need to be constant.
Practice writing.
This can be anything from writing a to-do list every morning, to journaling about your day at night. This does not have to be long, but if you continue every day, this habit will become easier.
Compliment yourself.
Sometimes we catch ourselves making jokes about doing bad on a quiz, or not looking our best. However, you should also remind yourself that you are capable if you set your mind to something. If you ever see yourself wanting to say, “I can’t do this” or “I’m so stupid,” replace “can’t” with “can” and “stupid” with “smart.”
Choose you.
The last and most important tip I can recommend is prioritizing yourself. It can be easy skipping a meal to get more study time in the day. It can also be hard spending the whole night writing an essay. However, if this becomes a regular habit, your mental health may be what suffers the most. School is extremely important, but so are you! If you don’t get the perfect score on a test, remember it’s not the end of the world. Your GPA is not going to matter when you’re 25, and working the job you put so much effort into getting.
