How to recover from academic burnout

Nowadays, there’s a lot of pressure being put on students to get super-high grades and participate in tons of extracurriculars, all to get into a top university or college. However, these expectations can lead to students overworking themselves and becoming burnt out.

Are you burnt out?

First of all, you need to work out if you’re burnout or stressed out. Stress is characterised by feeling overwhelmed with your work, whereas burnout is feeling unmotivated by your work. Other symptoms of burnout include feeling disengaged, helpless, and listless. People affected by burnout describe it as “feeling empty” or “mentally drained”.

Take a break & recharge

The first thing you should do is take a break from whatever you’re doing. I know this may not always be possible for students dealing with exams, but even a day or two away from studying can help you. Try to use this time for self-care and other fun activities that you enjoy. This can help replenish your mental energy and make you feel more energised.

Reach out to others

Another thing you should do is talk about your experiences to others, Open up to your friends and family about what you’re experiencing and how they can help. Find a good listener in your life and just vent – if you don’t feel comfortable doing that, then you can vent through a journal. You don’t just have to talk about your burnout though – even regular social interaction can help you feel better.

Reevaluate your strategies

Before returning to your work or studies, you have to figure out why you started to burn out in the first place. Consider when you started feeling unmotivated, and think about whether there were any significant changes to your life at the time. Not only this, but did you change your study methods or study environment? You should also think about what led you to become burnout in the first place: was it feeling overworked, unsatisfied in your work, or simply bored of the repetition?

Fix the problem

Now that you’ve identified what made you burnt out, figure out how to prevent this same problem from occurring again. If your problem was that you felt overworked, try to decrease your workload by dropping a class or extracurricular. If you felt bored with the repetition, change up your study methods every once in a while. If you felt unsatisfied with your work, then consider why you started this work in the first place. The point is: something caused your burnout, so find the cause and prevent it from repeating itself.