By the mid-point of the school year, many students may be experiencing burnout. Burnout occurs when someone reaches a state of complete emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion due to ongoing stress.
Burnout is something that can happen to anyone—it can impact athletes, employees, teachers, people in creative careers, and students.
For students, burnout can be caused by many factors including but not limited to:
-Having to work hard for a long amount of time
-Having activities such as sports or clubs after school
-Needing to stay after school for extra instructions or tutoring
-Students who have difficulty focusing in class may need to use more of their energy than their peers to try and get work done, but they may get very little work done despite their best efforts.
-Students with impairments that impact their education may feel victimized for not being able to control their learning and thinking differences
-There may be a constant anxiety of failure for students who strive for constant perfection in their work
-Students may feel pressured to work hard to not disappoint their parents or they fear negative reactions and consequences from poor grades
Burnout is common in students, and the biggest pressure they face is the stress of trying to achieve good grades. Statistics show that:
-About 7 out of 10 students in the US between the ages of 13-17 have expressed that anxiety and depression is a serious issue which has affected them and their peers
-75% of US High School students have reported feeling boredness, anger, and sadness while claiming that it was caused by school
-Teens have reported feeling more stress than adults on a 10-point scale (adults would report their stress as being a 3.8 while teens would report their stress as a 5.8)
-75% of students past elementary school are likely to say that they are “often stressed out” by schoolwork
Some Solutions
Including Self-Care in your Routine:
Never downplay the importance of self-care. It may not be a permanent solution to the ongoing stress of schoolwork and the pressure to succeed, but it can help with alleviating stress when it is necessary. Self-care is a way to allow your body to relax because, at times, stress can begin to manifest into physical pains. This could include difficulty breathing, sleeping problems, fatigue, and muscle aches and headaches. It is also important for maintaining your health, both physically and mentally. It lowers your risk of illness, and it increases your energy which will help with completing tasks at school.
Include Healthy Habits in your Routine:
Another important thing to remember are the habits you’ve established in your routine. Simple things such as adjusting your sleeping schedule to get a proper amount of sleep and giving yourself a balanced diet can greatly improve both your mood and your energy levels. Therefore, it is crucial to implement these habits into your routine so each day can be just a little more bearable.
Find Activities that are Fun:
Another thing that can help with stress is finding some time to have fun. This may not be easy to accomplish, but it is worth the effort because it’ll allow you to bring some joy back into your life. As students, it is important to enjoy the remainder of your childhood while you can. It may sound cliché, but it’s true. Some things that you can do are find time to hang out with your friends or improve your skills in one of your hobbies.
Remember to be Mindful:
As school tends to consume our day-to-day lives and often requires us to face social pressures from interacting with peers every day, we may forget to take some time to disconnect and focus on the present. This is especially important in a time when technology is required for nearly everything and deadlines are constantly pushed onto us. We may focus too much on the future without really taking the time to enjoy the time we have in the present. Some other benefits of mindfulness are being able to better regulate your emotions, improved memory and cognitive function, improved focus and performance in school, and more.
Reach out to the People you Trust:
The most important thing that a student can do when they are feeling burnt out is to reach out for help. It is important to let a trusted adult know how you are feeling so that they can give you advice that best suits you. A trusted adult, such as a parent or teacher, will be looking out for you, and they will want to ensure you can get through burn-out.
Overall, we students may not feel like we can control much regarding how much schoolwork we may receive, or the seemingly never-ending weeks of the same, dull routine. But we have more power over our lives than we give ourselves credit for. We can strive to improve our quality of life, and it’ll be even more important as we begin to make our way towards adulthood. We should build these habits and improve routines in our lives while we’re young, and we should keep them as we enter adulthood and begin living on our own.
Sources used for this article:
https://www.understood.org/articles/burning-out-in-school-what-it-means-and-how-to-help
