Burnout Breakdown: Navigating the Silent Struggle of Student Stress
- Yilin Xu
- Apr 2, 2024
- 4 min read
The university experience can be an enriching opportunity to initiate personal development through gaining new skills, knowledge, and perspectives. It also comes hand in hand with several challenges—some of which include peer pressure, homesickness, academic demands, and burnout. Burnout has become a rising issue for students worldwide at all academic levels (Ricardo et al., 2021). Burnout is a psychological syndrome that arises due to extended periods of chronic stress and demand (Maslach and Leiter, 2016). Furthermore, student burnout is described as: “the feeling of exhaustion resulting from a compulsion to study (exhaustion), pessimism toward the assignments (cynicism), and feeling incompetent as a student (inefficacy)” (Rahmatpour et al., 2019). Particularly in academic environments, students are encouraged to work hard for lengthy periods of time. It can be difficult for those with burnout to seek help and resources due to stigmatization as a barrier to treatment (Favre et al., 2023). As such, this article will explore the causes, symptoms, mitigation methods of burnout, and to inform students about the silent struggle of burnout.
What are the causes?
Recognizing the root causes of burnout is important to acknowledge the dysfunction that they may cause. Otherwise, the symptoms of burnout can only be temporarily alleviated (Saunders, 2019). The following are some potential causes of burnout:
Heavy workload: You may have a stressful workload that is more than you can manage on a long-term basis. This can make you feel chronically overloaded and does not allow you to live a balanced lifestyle (Saunders, 2019).
Lack of control: Feeling like you have no autonomy or independence in your life can take a toll on your mental health. With the pressure of academic demands, you might feel like you are forced to study all the time with no healthy boundaries, unable to make decisions for yourself or have any free time (Saunders, 2019).
Community: Burnout can be contagious. At the collective level, the morale of the group can influence your own mindset. Being around people who are constantly negative, unsupportive, and unmotivated can deeply affect your wellbeing (Saunders, 2019).
What are the signs?
It is important to recognize burnout signs as soon as possible because burnout can progress and become more difficult to manage (Valcour, 2016). The following are some symptoms that are associated with burnout:
Long-term fatigue no matter the amount of rest (Valcour, 2016).
Lacking motivation to complete assignments or study for tests (Valcour, 2016).
Self-doubt in academic abilities (Valcour, 2016).
Higher frequency of illness due to stress and exhaustion (Valcour, 2016).
Feeling uninterested in activities that you used to enjoy (Valcour, 2016).
How to prevent it?
The following are some tips for managing the stress and pressures that come with university:
Engage in self-care practices: Whether it is exercising, hanging out with friends, or going on short walks, allow yourself some positive rest time every day. These practices can help to replenish emotional and physical energy, but do not necessarily address the root causes of burnout (Raypole, 2023).
Make changes to your schedule: Try to evaluate your life to see which aspects are causing excessive exhaustion, cynicism, and self-doubt. For example, if prolonged exhaustion is caused by an overpacked schedule, you may want to consider saying no to some tasks (Raypole, 2023).
Reach out: Sometimes burnout symptoms are too much to deal with on your own. Talking to a trusted friend, a parent, or mental health professional can be helpful if you are feeling too overwhelmed. They can help you work through stressors and develop new strategies to cope with burnout (Raypole, 2023).
Furthermore, research has shown that students face more burnout than the average person due to the excessive workload and lack of work-life balance they may face (Morcos and Awan, 2022). A study conducted by March-Amengual et al. (2022) investigated the level of burnout and psychological stress of first year university students in health science or non-health science programs. First year students demonstrated a high prevalence of psychological distress. Additionally, health science students had a higher percentage of burnout than non-health science students—this was attributed to the more intense workload specific to health science programs. The results of this study underscore the importance of prioritizing student wellbeing to ensure a better quality of life while pursuing a university education. This can be done through offering better mental health support (especially to those in academically rigorous programs) and re-evaluating unreasonable academic demands of a program’s curriculum (March-Amengual et al., 2022).
In conclusion, navigating burnout necessitates a complex response to properly address its symptoms. Burnout can cause and be the cause of other stressors and issues within one’s life (Rahmatpour et al., 2019). However, acknowledging and dealing with the factors at hand can help alleviate significant self-imposed stress, increase optimism, improve the quality of one’s relationships, and one’s perspective on long-term career prospects (Valcour, 2016). Ultimately, while it is important to be productive in an academic setting, it is always more important to prioritize our own wellbeing.
References
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