Every student has experienced stress before exams during the admission process or during the learning process itself. All this is accompanied by overwork, unfocused attention and apathy. Academic burnout affects the quality of studies and can lead to more serious problems, such as depression. How to prevent it? Let’s get to the bottom of it.
What is Emotional Burnout in Students?
Emotional burnout is a state of physical, mental and moral exhaustion. It leads to the fact that a person becomes apathetic, more susceptible to stress, loses interest in the profession or study, and becomes cynical. In the worst cases, burnout can lead to depression.
The main reason for emotional burnout among students is overwork. Many factors can cause burnout: exams, writing a thesis, conflict situations with teachers, other students or family members, high academic load, uncertainty in self-realization and their professional skills, disappointment in the profession. And this is not the whole list.
Emotional burnout develops when you are exposed to constant stress in different spheres of life and cannot solve arising problems. Most often, this condition is experienced by first- and last-year students.
Emotional Burnout in Students: Symptoms
The list of symptoms can be almost endless, but let’s go in order:
- Physical: lack of sleep, lack of energy, rapid weight gain or loss, health problems of different nature, it is hard to sit through the whole pair because of rapid fatigue.
- Emotional: apathy, tantrums, nightmares, mental anguish, disappointment in oneself, great difficulty concentrating and learning even simple material.
- Behavioral: the desire to leave, to close oneself. Indifference to one’s appearance and any activities that used to be enjoyable. Consumption of alcohol in large quantities.
- Intellectual: yearning, despondency, absent-mindedness, loss of creativity and interest in learning.
- Social: the student does not want to do hobbies, social life is at zero, instead of socializing with friends, the student would rather stay alone.
Peculiarities of emotional burnout among students of foreign universities
The risk of emotional burnout among students of foreign universities is even higher. The main factors of burnout in this case are culture shock, language barrier, change of workload, adaptation in a new country.
How to cope with academic burnout at university
- Self-Diagnosis. Ask yourself questions: What is happening to me right now? Why is there no mood or interest in anything in life? What has happened recently that could have caused this behavior?
- Talk to your family or friends. Tell them in detail about your condition. You need support and an outsider’s perspective on the situation.
- When you have already realized that you are “burned out,” there are two ways: eliminate the ailment yourself or see a specialist. The second option is easier, more reliable, but not always feasible. The first option can be implemented as follows: ask friends and classmates for help. Distribute tasks according to priorities, and give up some of them. Learn to delegate some of your tasks. For example, you can ask for help with your economics homework on professional online services such as https://cheappaperwriting.com/cheap-economics-homework-help/. Allocate at least a day to rest, get enough sleep. Try to establish a daily routine. Remember what used to inspire you, make you happy, and try to return to it.
Emotional burnout in students: prevention
Emotional burnout may return. To avoid this:
- Make changes in your life. Change your environment. Change your image, go to a neighboring city for a weekend, meet new people, try new dishes.
- Talk through your problems with a psychologist, loved ones or yourself. Try keeping a diary.
- Think about your hobbies. Any hobbies outside of studying distract your brain from the stress of monotonous work. If you have long wanted to learn something new, try it!
- Do not forget to rest. Try not to give in to the momentary desire to finish watching TV series or surfing social networks for another five minutes. Let your body replenish energy and forget about your studies for 7-8 hours.
- Listen to yourself. It is important to be able to stop and do a short self-diagnosis: how you feel at a particular moment. This useful habit will help to notice the first symptoms of burnout and stop its development at the very beginning.
Ignoring the symptoms of academic burnout is dangerous. A student can bring himself to depression, drop out of school or give up the profession he dreamed of. If you feel like you can’t handle the workload of your studies, you shouldn’t hesitate to ask for help.
