Whether you’re in middle school or attending a university, you may find yourself not just getting bored but absolutely dreading anything to do with your education. The idea of waking up early in the morning to attend class, having to complete assignments, maintaining good grades, and juggling your everyday life with school: it might all sound anxiety-provoking.
While academic burnout can be tricky to deal with, you don’t have to give up or even fake it until you make it. Instead, you can lean into the burnout and get through it to the best of your ability with the following management tips.
Get Enough Sleep Each Night
A common question is, “Does school cause mental health issues?” While it may seem that way, a lot of the anxiety and low mood we associate with getting an education comes down to how we take care of ourselves at home.
One of the biggest mood busters and stress inducers is not getting enough sleep. Even just a few days in a row of poor sleep can negatively shift our mood and our ability to handle the pressure that comes with our academics.
Amp Up Your Time Management Skills
Academic burnout is frequently the result of poor time management skills. We may struggle to get assignments and study sessions done in a timely manner. We may hesitate, get easily distracted, miss deadlines, or generally struggle to separate our school lives from our personal lives. Our days feel short while the semester feels long.
Learning how to better manage your time can be a saving grace when dealing with education-related burnout. Plan out your days via an agenda or calendar, set aside specific time slots for studying, use timers, or even set phone reminders to keep you on track. Time management isn’t always easy, but little efforts and changes can make all the difference.
Study in a Group
Hours of studying daily can take a toll on a person. While the easy resolution might be to study less, in reality, that doesn’t work for a lot of people. This is especially true if they’re taking difficult classes or in an intensive program.
When cutting back on studying would be too much of a tradeoff, studying in a group can be a more appropriate resolution. This way, not only do you still get to study, but doing it with others can make it more fun and less stressful. It also doubles up as an opportunity to socialize, which humans need for their overall development and emotional well-being.
Even outside of academic burnout, studying in a group can still be beneficial. According to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, studying in a group helps students gain new perspectives, improve your understanding of complicated concepts, and can help motivate you.
Practice Mindfulness
We all want a mental break, and that’s exactly what we need when we’re dealing with academic burnout. Practicing mindfulness can give you that much-needed break while helping you to stay present in the current moment. It can be a great tool to try when you’re feeling particularly overwhelmed, anxious, or pressured due to your education.
Mindfulness practices can look different from one practice to another. It might look like taking a pause from studying to take a five-minute stretch break, engaging in a brief deep breathing session, engaging in a guided meditation session, or taking time to journal your thoughts and feelings.
Mindfulness isn’t just a tactic to use when you’re feeling the effects of academic burnout. It’s also commonly used to deal with chronic pain, calm one down before going to sleep, make difficult decisions, help spark creativity, or recuperate after a conflict.
Reduce Your Course Load
Sometimes when we experience academic burnout, our first “solution” is to load up on extra courses to try to graduate faster. However, faster is not necessarily better in terms of our mental health. Slow and steady wins the race.
That said, drop a class if you have to, consider taking fewer courses next semester, and opt out of taking classes over the summer if it means improving your mental and emotional state. If your college or university gives you the option to pick different term or course lengths - faster and more intensive versus longer and slower-paced - choose the slower one.
You can always increase your course load at a later time if you feel you’re in a better place.
Consider Taking a Semester Off
Sometimes reducing your course load isn’t enough. When academic burnout is affecting you to the point where you can barely focus or memorize anything, leading you to get poor marks, it might be time to take a temporary pause. A brief reset might be the exact thing you need to heal.
If you’re in college, taking a semester or term off might help you combat or at least reduce academic burnout. During this time, focus on spending time with friends and family, making fun memories, taking good care of your body, and improving your mental health.
Seek Professional Mental Health Help
Burnout, whether from school, a job, parenting, or truly anything, can be debilitating. However, we can’t always run away from our problems. Yet, it can still take a huge toll on our lives. So, something must be done.
Receiving professional mental help for burnout is more common than one might think. Burnout has close ties with anxiety and depression. Thus, it’s highly treatable through counseling, therapy, and/or medication.
While professional help won’t necessarily eliminate burnout from your life, it will help you learn to manage the symptoms of burnout, find solutions, think more optimistically, and better motivate you to complete your studies.
Conclusion
Academic burnout might seem like a hoax. The truth is, it really does exist, and it can be completely enervating. On a brighter note, burnout can be managed or even eliminated with time and effort. Practicing mindfulness, forming a study group, or learning time management skills are some ways to reduce academic burnout and get back on track.
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