So much of school defines our lives as teenagers. After all, the meatiest four years of our adolescence are spent in high school. So, in this period of immense growth and learning, we are subject to the first of many of our most intense stress. High school as we know it is so demanding, far beyond just an education. It’s a precursor to college, work, and basically our livelihood. It doesn’t help that this stress for the future is only added up the urgent stress of all the other tests and examinations. What does all this stress lead up to? Student burnout.
What is Student Burnout?
Well, to first understand student burnout, we need to know what burnout is. So, what is burnout? Burnout is an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion, and loss of motivation. The things you usually would enjoy doing are no longer something you want to do. You don’t have any energy to get out of bed and do anything, regardless of how fun it might have been before. You don’t have any motivation to do anything, regardless of what is there to do.
This is all typically due to overworking. Overworking is exactly what its name suggests. It’s when you work far too much, not letting yourself time to yourself. You are constantly doing something, not giving your brain and body a break. It might work for a few weeks, or even months, but the amount of energy needed to complete this unhealthy amount of work is going to run out. Once you prioritize work over your mental health to this level, your health will instantly decline. As this study has shown, overworking has severe physical implications, disrupting healthy sleeping patterns and even promoting illness. It’s no doubt that overworking hurts your mental health, namely resulting in burnout. But what about, specifically, student burnout?
Why Students?
So, the question you may be asking is, why students? Why do students specifically get burnout, especially teenaged high school students? And why does their burnout specifically deserve attention? Well, to start, we have to understand the position in our life and development we are in as teenagers.
The Affect of Highschool on Student Burnout
In the period of adolescence, we are in high school. High school, now, has become an increasingly stressful and demanding atmosphere for all high school students. For many of us, high school has deviated from simply being an institution of education. It has become the breeding ground for competition and insecurity, from which arises things like academic validation, which completely distorts a student’s perception of learning.
Essentially, this competitive and increasingly stressful environment that high school today brings allows for student burnout. With such high workloads, us students are forced to work ourselves over what is naturally sustainable for us, often leading to those all-nighters and coffee-addictions. Not to mention, we have even more pressure to do well with all that work, with how much grades can weigh into our future, forcing us to continue working beyond our boundaries.
Puberty and Student Burnout
This is especially harmful during our adolescence. Puberty is a time of immense development. This is when you’re transitioning from being a child, to being an adult. Not only are you physically developing into your “final form”, but you are also mentally advancing, greatly. In fact, adolescence is the greatest time to learn, because you are growing so fast. In this time, you can learn and withhold information much better, and you are able to shift views and perspectives far easier. You are impressionable, but also more open to learning in a natural and biological sense.
With the load that high school puts on us, it’s so harmful to our mental health because of the stage of development we’re in. This growth period can define much of our perceptions and reactions in the future, much of which high school will affect. Student burnout in this period of time is especially harmful because of puberty, making it an important distinction from burnout in the older period of our loves
Identifying Student Burnout
So, you understand what student burnout is, but how do you know you have it? It’s understandable that you don’t want to jump to conclusions. It’s never good to. Self-diagnosis is never a healthy thing to enact, but there are times you can identify signs so you can take action yourself, especially if it’s not serious enough for professional help. So here are some symptoms you can look out for.
- Constant tiredness and fatigue
- Lack of motivation and/or energy
- Headaches, body aches, or other physical and minimal pain
- Feeling of exhaustion and weakness
- Drowsy or sleep-deprived
- Urgency to finish work but no energy to do so
- No time or motivation to do what you like or have take care of health
Here are just a few symptoms of burnout. These are small things that you might feel everyday. Some aren’t direct signs of burnout, though. For example, headaches and drowsiness are most probably due to lack of proper sleep. This, however, can be attributed to student burnout as sleep-deprivation is often a sign of overworking, the precursor to student burnout. Also, burnout is the physical and mental consequences of overworking. This list of symptoms are closely tied with that because of the cause and effect relationship overworking and burnout have with each other.
How to Overcome Student Burnout
So, now you know pretty much everything you need to know about student burnout. But there is one important, possibly the most important, thing left for you to know. How do you overcome student burnout? It might seem really hard, considering how our education system promotes overworking and eventual burnout. However, it is most definitely not impossible, and there are ways to not only overcome it, but to also keep it from happening again. Here are the main steps you should follow for overcoming student burnout.
#1 – Identify the severity
The first thing you need to know in order to overcome your burnout is how bad it is. That is really important to know how to follow up with it. So, how do you know what is severe and what is not? It comes with the symptoms. When your burnout is not too terrible, you most likely will just feel tired, and de-energized. However, if your burnout is more severe, you will feel way more exhausted, hardly motivated to do anything. You might feel more stressed and emotional about everything, and you most probably would feel more physical pain.
If you feel your burnout is not too serious, you can most definitely use these steps to overcome your burnout, and prevent it from coming back. It’ll be more than possible for you to be able to use these steps to help yourself with a less severe version of burnout. However, if your student burnout is very severe, to the point you are border lining diagnosable mental illness, like anxiety and depression, you need to visit a mental health professional. These following steps can most definitely help you, but it cannot be the only thing you use to overcome your burnout. At this point, you need professional care, not just actionable steps for you to take by yourself.
#2 – Recognize the reason
Next, you need to figure out the reason for your student burnout. Is it high school? Yes, but that’s not all. You need to be more specific to find the root of the problem. Don’t say “it’s just school”, because 9 times out 10, it’s not. So, how much more specific can you be?
Well, if it is school causing your burnout, look into what specifically in school is making you feel burnt out. Think about it. Is it the stressful exams in Chemistry, or the hours of studying leading up to it? Is it your 4-hour sports practice after school, or is it cramming your homework right after? Is it the stress of maintaining good grades, or the pressure you feel to do so? It can feel like multiple things, but most of the time, it really is just one specific time.
For example, let’s say you can’t decide whether sports or studying after sports is what is bringing you stress. Well, when you are practicing or playing your sport, do you feel stressed? Do you feel any pressure to perform a certain way, and do you usually come out of practice feeling negative and stressed? If so, then your sports could be the reason for your feeling of burnout. On the other hand, if you always enjoy every practice, no matter how long, because you genuinely enjoy your sport, then sports isn’t the problem. The stress of cramming the schoolwork after that is most likely burning you out, and for that time management skills are important. Well, how do you gain those? Just keep reading!
#3- Move away from the cause
Okay, you now have figured out the cause for your burnout. The next thing you need to do is move away from it, one way or another. Whether it be excessive homework, the school day, or sports practice, you need to give yourself a break from the cause of your stress and suffering. It can feel impossible a lot of times, but it really isn’t. You don’t need to stay away that long. Sometimes, even just one day will suffice.
The best method to recharge yourself from any of your causes of burnout would be taking a a mental health day. Mental health days are essentially a day to detach yourself from your real-world stresses to focus on your mental wellbeing. This is a great way to take a break from what is causing your burnout. It gives you a break from school, sport, homework, and anything else that might be causing your burnout. If you want to learn about how to take a mental health day, make sure to check our article that tells you everything about mental health days, as well as our category dedicated to mental health day information.
#4 – Take action for your mental health
High school isn’t the most stress-free environment However, even with this greatly competitive educational environment, we can find ways to live our best lives and keep ourselves mentally healthy. We just have to learn proper time management skills. Of course, that might be a little overwhelming to even think about, but fear not. Here on Diary of the mind, we have almost everything you need to know about productivity and time management.
Check out the article on being a productive student to learn the best tips on productivity in high school, and this one on organizing your high school life. Use our study tips and homework tips to learn how to finish schoolwork quickly and efficiently, in ways that’ll help you keep your grades up while also fiving you time to yourself. Use time-blocking planners and time management apps to use your time wisely, learning everything about them with these articles.
#5 – Set new habits for prevention
The final thing you need to do, once you have overcome your burnout, is to keep it from happening again. What’s the point in going through all this trouble, just for this issue to come back and for you to have repeated this whole process all over again? Well, to do so, you need to keep up healthy habits to prevent anything that can cause burnout, namely overworking. So, what habits would those be?
Time Management
The most important ones would be time management habits. Remember all those resources I just listed on time management and productivity? Well, they aren’t a one time and done thing. They are for you to keep up for the entirety of high school, college, and possibly the rest of your life. Use them to cultivate proper time management habits, so that you will no longer be overworking yourself while still completing everything you need to.
General Health
The next habits you should cultivate are ones for general health. Your overworking probably made you stay up way too late to finish work, drink an unhealthy amount of coffee, and eat junk food for quick energy. These are all terrible for your physical health, and will only hurt you more throughout your life. Start eating healthier, sleeping at least 8 hours a day, and commit regularly to physical activity. All of this will help keep your body healthy and happy, preventing the physical repercussions of burnout.
Mental Health
Finally, make sure you keep your mental health prioritized. If it helps you, take mental health days every now and then. Practice hobbies that you enjoy to keep yourself enjoying something. Give yourself time to relax and focus on yourself, keeping your mind off of all the other stressors in your life. Focusing on your mental health will prevent it from going anytime afterward.
Conclusion
So, there you have it. Everything you need to know about student burnout. From what it is, to identifying, finally overcoming, you now have a complete guide to student burnout. However, there is no doubt that it feels hopeless at times. Our high school system greatly promotes burnout by overworking us. It’s obvious. The incredulous amount of homework we are expected to finish, and all the extracurriculars we’re expected to participate in as well make time even more of a precious research.
But, no matter how impossible it seems, it’s okay. High school life is hard, but not impossible. No matter how down things seem to go, it can always come back up. You just need to figure out how to climb back up. That’s why Diary of the Mind is here for you. It’s for you to be able to climb back up and keep going, stronger than ever. There is always a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s just up to you to find it.
