When students are overwhelmed by tasks yet have no time to relax and recharge, they are most likely to get stressed and experience burnout. Research shows that while burnout can affect anyone, students are particularly at high risk. After the pandemic restrictions were lifted, students had a hard time transitioning back to physical classes leading to stress and burnout. In 2020 student burnout was at 40%, but in 2021 it increased up to 71%.
Numerous scientific evidence shows that burnout affects the student’s overall well-being. It reduces productivity and concentration leading to poor academic performance. While burnout is caused when the academic workload, deadlines, and stressors outstrip relaxation, some of the common symptoms to be on the lookout for are:
- Hard time focusing on your studies.
- Increase in bad habits such as excessive drinking of alcohol.
- Feeling exhausted at all times.
- Lack of motivation to perform activities that you once found enjoyable.
- Isolating yourself from friends and loved ones and feeling more lonely than usual.
- Loss of interest in social activities, including those outside the school environment.
Yes, a little bit of stress is a regular part of the school experience, especially at higher academic levels. Besides, the pressure to do well in school, too many assignments and balancing jobs, extracurricular and keeping up with the demands of several classes is energy draining.
However, if you don’t find ways to prevent and combat burnout, it can negatively affect your academics and other areas of your life. If you have several burnout symptoms, it’s best to take the right preventive measures. Here’s how a student can reverse and recover from burnout.
Don’t Ignore the Warning Signs
When stressed, most students don’t take the necessary steps to deal with it and find the solution until they start experiencing serious health issues. You might assume that you don’t have time to deal with other things except to focus on your studies, but if you keep pushing yourself, the stress will take a toll on your body, resulting in issues that affect you for months or years to come. This means your studies will also be affected, and you might fail to graduate on time. The ideal strategy to combat burnout is to get to the root cause.
Determine what activities are taking too much of your time. If you have too many assignments that you know you can’t meet all the deadlines, take some pressure off and assign some tasks to a reputable essay writer. Finding the solution to what is causing burnout and dealing with it is the best strategy to recover fast from burnout.
Don’t Take On Too Much
If you have a lot of activities on your calendar that you barely have time for yourself, eventually, you’ll be too exhausted. You might have too much stuff to do because you are afraid to say no and hurt your friend’s feelings. But it’s okay to say no to doing things, especially if it leads to more work for you and less free time for relaxing.
This is because having too much work stops you from performing well or living your best life. Besides, you may not prioritize quality, especially when tackling too many academic tasks resulting in poor scores or retaking the work. So learn to say no and take on too much work.
Make More Time for Yourself
Busy students need some alone time to relax, reenergize and reboot the brain. But you can only relax when you have a clear, organized schedule and set me time in advance. If some tasks on your calendar can be done by someone else, delegate or ask for help from family members.
For example, if you are a working mom studying, you can ask your relatives to look after your kids for a few hours while you watch a movie or get some quality sleep. But me time doesn’t have to be several hours. For a busy student with a packed schedule, it can be as simple as 10 minutes in a day to do something that brings you value and joy.
Prioritize Tasks
Is your calendar packed with things you need to do and goals to be accomplished in a few weeks? Do you have assignments with deadlines quickly approaching? Identify urgent tasks and allocate time to completing them before the deadline. Avoid doing homework last minute as it adds to academic pressure and stress.
So when it comes to high-pressure workload demands, prioritize academic tasks based on urgency and push those with low priority later in the week or month. But don’t forget to plan for the unexpected so that you can prepare in advance and prevent burnout.