Dexter Simoneaux

Staff Writer

You didn’t get enough sleep last night. You’re behind on your work, and there’s more piling up day after day. You feel stressed and unmotivated all the time. You have so many things you need to do, and you can’t seem to focus. It’s all just too hard, so why even try? What’s the point? —Does any of that sound familiar to you? You aren’t the only one.

It’s called burnout; you may have heard that term before. Many students find it hard to relate to the often surface-level topics in their social-emotional lessons, and some even disregard them entirely. Burnout can have serious consequences, though. According to the Malvern Behavioral Health Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as many as 80 percent of students may experience burnout at some point in their education. So, what is it, really?

Burnout is a mental state of emotional exhaustion, brought on by long-term stress which does not get properly addressed. This stress can come from any number of different sources, but it commonly comes from a sense that you cannot meet the expectations put upon yourself. As for me, I’d always thought of myself as someone who’s smart, someone who’s capable. So to struggle to complete things that I felt should have come easy to me in the past created a lot of shame. That shame made me feel far less capable of doing any of my tasks. It was paralyzing, having all that stress snowballing in front of me.

Having these stressors in the background over long periods of time drains your energy, and the ramifications of that can be serious. Burnout often leads to poor academic performance, withdrawal from social life, and correlates with other mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. Combined, these factors can make you feel hopeless about changing your situation, and without anyone to turn to for help. From there, it’s easy to let yourself fall deeper into the spiral of stress and helplessness: just adding more fuel to the fire.

So, what is there to do now? How do you lift yourself out of the spiral of doom? Obligatorily, one would suggest you’d talk to your guidance counselor or your teachers, and see in what ways they could help. Talk to your friends and peers too. It’s very easy to compare yourself to your peers and assume that you’re alone, and struggling with problems that are all your fault. It isn’t that simple, though, and you aren’t alone in this. Talk to your friends; you might be surprised to discover just how many of them are struggling through some of the same things. There was a huge relief in hearing that my friends were in the same place I was, and in researching this article, it was incredibly illuminating to put a name to this experience and to learn just how widespread it is.

Don’t give up, either. When you’re drowning in stress and shame, with more and more crashing over you day after day, it’s tempting to feel that since it’s all too difficult to overcome, there’s no point in trying at all. There’s a temporary relief in averting your eyes from it, in convincing yourself that it just doesn’t matter. Over time, though, it will only make the stress worse, and make it harder to pick yourself back up.

It isn’t too late.

Every day, do the best you can. That’s a piece of advice given so often it only seems to ring hollow, but well, it’s the best anyone can do. It’s a lot better to try and do poorly than to do nothing at all. When you’re standing at a distance, it’s easy to panic and feel that it can never get any better. If you can tackle each day one by one, eventually, it will start to seem more and more manageable. I hope that works for you; it worked for me.