Each year stress increasingly plagues students. With COVID-19, the stress has only increased with shifting classes to remote then in person, and in some cases back to remote. Students are feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. Here are 5 signs that school is burning you out and how to start feeling less stressed.
Exhausted
If you come home every day feeling overtired and with an extreme lack of energy, you might be experiencing exhaustion. Exhaustion can affect your mental, physical and emotional wellbeing. This can feel like unexplained anger, meltdowns, or unable to focus on your tasks.
Unhappiness
As stress mounts and you become more burnt out, you might begin feeling unhappy. This unhappiness can cause even more stress because you won’t have any outlet. If doing things that previously were fun start to feel like chores, you might be getting burnt out.
Decreased Productivity
Burnout can cause you to not be able to focus on tasks or have the motivation to complete them. This can lead to more stress as your pile of tasks grow. If every time you sit down to work on a project or task and you don’t have the motivation to do it, you might be getting burnt out.
Feeling Negative
If you are burning out, everything might feel like it is impossible. When you are burnt out you might take a negative approach to tasks. This can look like a cynical approach to life and feeling increasingly negative about school.
How Can You Fix Burnout?
Once you realize you are burnt out from school, there are multiple things you can do to start feeling recharged.
Talking To a Medical Professional
Talking to a therapist can help you cope with your emotions and deal productively with your stressors. Many schools have therapists on staff in a counseling center and they would be able to help you! If your school doesn’t have this, there are mental health professionals online that can meet with you virtually. A mental health professional will also help you if you are dealing with something more serious than burnout like depression or anxiey.
Change Your Scenery
If you are studying in the same places and associating negative feelings of stress with them, it might be time to change it up. Try studying in a different location, especially somewhere with natural light. If you find yourself feeling stressed, it might be time to take a break from studying and go for a walk outside.
No Is a Complete Sentence
If you find yourself taking on too many things, start saying no to new things. Sometimes you might feel guilt for not volunteering for an important task, but your mental health is much more important. No is a complete sentence and you don’t need to justify why you don’t want to take a task on.
