The Impact of Academic Burnout and How to Overcome It
If you are a student, then you must be facing academic burnout. Academics come with burnout because of the number of assignments that you need to write and the tight deadline to meet and maintain high grades in your degree program. Students always feel pressured and burnt out. However, it’s a general issue across all education levels and can take an important toll on both your mental and physical health.
Every problem has a solution, so if you feel academic burnout, understanding it and knowing how to address it properly to prevent it can help you. It’s crucial to maintain a healthy academic life to excel and achieve success. In this blog, we will discuss burnout and all its symptoms and causes, as well as, of course, how you can overcome it.
What Is Academic Burnout?
Academic burnout is just a phase, yes, where you just feel exhausted, mostly physically, and mentally and sometimes emotionally as well, which is more exhausting, btw. It’s the pressure that you feel because of all the academic demands that you need to complete. It happens when you have an extreme workload with a lack of motivation. It’s not just typical stress; it’s a state where you feel completely drained and detached from all your academic responsibilities. You feel unable to meet all the requirements even after you put in all your efforts.
However, feeling stressed because of your academics is normal, but burnout happens when you completely indulge in the stress and feel overwhelmed by it. Everything feels manageable. You need to realise that you are just stressed, or is it an academic burnout? Identify it to prevent it so it doesn’t affect your academic performance and your well-being.
Symptoms of Academic Burnout
Everyone can have a different level of burnout, but here are a few common symptoms that can help you identify it.
1. Feeling exhausted mentally and physically
The very first and most common symptom is that you feel completely drained physically and mentally. Even after getting a long night’s sleep, you still feel exhausted, and sometimes you are not even able to sleep. Mental exhaustion affects your concentration capability, and you feel unable to focus on any tasks.
2. Decreased motivation and interest
Burnout makes you lose interest in your academics; you feel no motivation to complete any academic tasks and assignments. Even if you don’t feel like attending classes. Even small things like taking notes feel like impossible tasks.
3. Emotional detachment
When you feel the burnout, you feel like cutting off everyone in your life, including family and friends; you even take no interest in any social activities. Students feel completely numb emotionally. We can say they completely get detached from everyone and everything, even work and study, and struggle to connect with their academics.
4. Feeling of inefficiency and inadequacy
Sometimes, students feel, despite everything they do and all the hard work they have done, that it is still not enough to achieve success. They feel like they are not performing well and will always fail no matter how hard they try, and they constantly have self-doubt. This is all because of academic burnout.
5. Sleep disturbance
Academic burnout sometimes leads to stress and anxiety, which leads to insomnia. Your sleep schedule gets disturbed, which makes you more stressed and exhausted; sometimes you struggle with your sleep, and other times you oversleep just to escape the anxiety.
6. Physical symptoms
Academic burnout not only disturbs your sleep schedule but also affects you physically. All the stress from the burnout causes you headaches and stomachaches, muscle tension, and other stress-related issues.
7. Increased irritability
Most students who face academic burnout, with all the stress and physical and mental issues, get frustrated easily. They get irritated and react to small things, and struggle with handling their basic routine.
Causes of Academic Burnout
To manage anything, you need to understand its root cause. Several factors can cause academic burnout. The level of burnout can vary from student to student, which also depends on a few factors, like how strong you are emotionally and what your take is on having the burnout. Well, here are some common causes that are included:
1. Heavy workload
When students have a heavy workload, it directly contributes to burnout. Students feel overwhelmed with the work and face academic challenges. It becomes hard for them to balance their academic and personal lives, and that again leads to burnout.
2. Unrealistic expectations
Sometimes, students face both internal and external pressures to meet certain expectations. The pressure they feel can lead them to burnout. The desire to meet personal and professional expectations from family and academic personas or peers creates intense stress and anxiety. Students feel they need to excel in everything, and that leads them to exhaustion.
3. Poor time management
When you struggle with managing your time, then it heightens the stress level. You start procrastinating and leave your important tasks for the last minute, failing to complete them. It creates pressure and leads to heavy burnout.
4. Lack of support
A lot of factors can lead you to heavy academic burnout, but it intensifies when you have no academic or emotional support to handle it. When students feel that they have no support, they isolate themselves, and that can lead to severe depression.
5. Perfectionism
This is another factor that causes academic burnout and contributes to it. Yes, the desire to be perfect at your work is a good thing, but when it comes to perfectionism, you expect to be perfect at everything, and every time makes you feel pressured and leads to stress. With time, the habit of being perfect at all times can cause burnout.
6. Lack of personal time
Students sometimes struggle with having a balance between their academic and personal lives and fail to make time for self-care and their interests. This imbalance between academic work and personal time causes burnout, which is inescapable.
7. Fear of failure
The desire to achieve success but having the fear of failure at the same time can make you feel pressured. Meeting certain expectations can be overwhelming and can cause anxiety and stress that contribute to heavy burnout.
The Impact of Academic Burnout
The academic burnout not only affects your academic grades but it also affects your personal and physical well-being. Here are a few effects that you face:
- Reduced academic achievements
- Mental health declining
- Physical health issues
- Stressed relationships
- Diminished interest in learning.
How to Overcome Academic Burnout
Having an academic burnout is normal, but it’s not easy to fix. but it’s fixable if you have the right approach. Here are a few things that you can follow and overcome burnout and regain balance in your academic life and well-being.
1. Take small breaks
Taking small breaks in between is important, as it helps you to focus. You can take a walk or listen to your favourite music, take a nap, or read a book. It will relax your mind and body; you will be stress-free. Make use of the Pomodoro technique: work for 25 minutes and then take a small break. It will help you prevent burnout.
2. Self care
When you make self-care your top priority, it makes you stress-free. Eating healthy food and on time, getting enough sleep, relaxing your mind, exercising, doing some enjoyable activities, and meditating help you reduce stress and help you focus and recover from burnout.
3. Set realistic goals
When you set a realistic academic goal and work towards it, it helps you fight burnout. Break down big tasks into small, manageable ones. Allow time for each task based on its significance and complete them. The sense of accomplishment will motivate you to do more, and you will literally forget the stress.
4. Seek support
When you feel stressed and overwhelmed, talk to a friend or family member. Seek support from a counsellor; being heard will help you regulate your thoughts and provide you with a sense of emotional relief. You can easily balance your work when you feel supported in your rough and isolated phase.
5. Effective time management
This is the most essential and effective tool to overcome burnout. To manage your time in the most effective way, make a timetable and include small breaks. Try to avoid procrastination by breaking larger tasks into small ones and completing them one by one according to the timetable. It will help you release stress.
6. Learn to say no
Saying no is hard, but learning these skills can help you prevent burnout. Avoid committing to unnecessary tasks and say no to things that you have no time for. Set strict boundaries and follow them for a disciplined routine. Saying no is necessary to maintain a healthy balance in your academic life.
7. Get professional help
If the burnout is severe and getting out of control, then seeking professional help is important. Your physical and mental health is invaluable, and getting support from professionals can help you cope in difficult times.
Wrapping It Up
Having an academic burnout is a serious problem for both your academic and personal life. It affects your physical and mental health, your relations with people, and most importantly, your academic grades. If you want to maintain a healthy academic life and balance your work, then understand its symptoms and causes. You can easily overcome the burnout and stop it from happening again if you follow the approach that we have explained above.
There are more helpful strategies that can help you, and you can also get some academic help from professionals. Having expert support can help you achieve your desired grades without compromising your health. So if you are feeling the burnout, take help and excel.