Burnout is something that often comes up as being something to avoid. It often comes as something of a warning to not overwork yourself or you’ll end up burnt out. However, in truth, burnout can be incredibly difficult to properly understand and to identify the symptoms in others and more importantly in yourself.
That’s why in this article, we’ll look at what burnout actually is, how it applies to students and everything you need to know about dealing with burnout.
Keep reading to learn more about burnout, its symptoms and the methods and techniques for both preventing burnout and managing it if it does occur.
What is burnout?
In order to deal with a problem, you first need to know what you’re dealing with. This 100% applies when it comes to dealing with and preventing burnout.
Burnout is defined as a state of physical or emotional exhaustion, generally due to long-term stress in your occupation. For more on this, have a look at this page on the NHS website.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) classes burnout as an “occupational phenomenon” and a “syndrome” although it doesn’t actually class it as a medical condition. It also emphasises that burnout is due to one’s occupation, rather than other aspects of life, meaning that it would be due to one’s student life or work life, rather than their other personal circumstances.
You can learn more about this on the NHS website.
While burnout can often only seem emotional, its symptoms affect a wide range of different aspects. These include your emotional wellbeing, your mental health, your physical wellbeing, your behaviour and even your physical wellbeing.
Common symptoms of burnout are:
- Irritability
- Hopelessness
- Numbness
- Social withdrawal
- Being inconsistent with work
- Loss of commitment
- Headaches
- Tiredness
- Muscle pains
- Lack of concentration
You can learn more about these symptoms by checking out the NHS website.
How to prevent burnout as a student
In general, burnout can be caused by a range of different things but some of the most common causes are listed below.
Common causes of burnout:
- Work-life imbalance
- High volume of work
- Lack of resources
- Feeling unsupported
- Unclear job expectations
- Feeling powerless and unable to influence decisions
You can read more on this by checking out this page of the NHS website.
Evidently, not all of these causes relate directly to students. However, the general idea of what causes burnout most certainly does.
For students, burnout is likely to be caused by having lots of work. This includes homework, coursework, reports, essays or a dissertation at university. Burnout can also be triggered by not being properly supported at school or university, struggling in lessons, school/ work- life imbalance, especially if you also have a part-time job.
In order to prevent burnout as a student, you need to ensure that you aren’t getting overwhelmed in your student life and in balance with the other aspects of your life.
Admittedly, this isn’t as easy as this makes it sound as at times, you’re going to undoubtedly feel a little stressed and overwhelmed in your student life.This may be due to exams, coursework or even some kind of project that you have to complete.
Ways to prevent getting burnt out:
- Make sure you’re getting enough sleep and eating properly.
- Recognise the signs and symptoms of burnout in yourself.
- Manage your time effectively to ensure you have enough time to do what you need to do and to simply have time for yourself. Check out this Think Student article for more on time management as a student.
- Take breaks frequently.
You can learn more about preventing burnout in this article by East Washington University.
How to deal with burnout as a student
It can be easy to get burnt out in student life especially during the exam season or leading up to it as well as during other times when you have projects, coursework and other deadlines. Due to this, it’s important that as students we know how to deal with burnout so that we can deal without ourselves, but also so that we can help others around us deal with it too.
There are several different methods and techniques that you can follow in order to deal with burnout as a student. Some of these are discussed below.
How to deal with burnout:
- Take care of yourself – Taking care of yourself, particularly in eating properly and getting enough sleep, is important in dealing with burnout as it ensures that you keep your health up.
- Make time for yourself – It can be easy to get caught up in all the things that you need to do. From there, getting overwhelmed and stressed is pretty likely, which can very quickly lead to you getting burnt out. Making the time for yourself, to practise self-care as well as having some time to just relax and enjoy the moment is important to recover from this burnout.
- Talk about it – Talking to your friends, parents or even your teachers/ tutors about being burnt out, is a good idea as they can support you through the process and help you deal with it.
- Mindfulness – When it comes to burnout, mindfulness can help you to relax and release tension. There are many forms of mindfulness, such as through colouring or simply breathing. You can learn more about it here on the EF website.
- Journaling – Journalling is a great outlet that can help you to not feel so overwhelmed. Plus, if you struggle to talk about the stress and burnout that you’re experiencing, you can write it in your journal, allowing you to communicate more easily.
For more information about ways to deal with burnout, have a look at this page on the Mayo Clinic website.