Are you sick and tired of being stressed over assignments? As a college student, we often face problems when dealing with an overload of assignments, especially when the semester is coming to an end. In the midst of this, stress may erupt due to non-stop deadlines which can put students at risk of burning out. If you didn't know, ‘burn out’ is a psychological syndrome that most people go through if they overwork themselves. It can cause a person to be mentally exhausted after pushing their body to extreme limits. You can consider it to be an infection that slowly creeps up on your busy schedule and causes you to feel unmotivated to do your best which may lead you to procrastinate from time to time. Want to avoid this from happening to you?
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Setting up a schedule is key when you have a lot of tasks on your hands. It helps you have a good sense of time management because you'll already have your entire day planned out. As we all know, assignments are one of the things that keeps a college student busy. If you're handling an overload, it is best to plan your time well although the deadline may be weeks away. However, merely stating to plan your time well can be confusing to some people. When it comes to planning, it is always better to list down all of your assignments and prioritise those that require tons of research and follow-ups, especially big projects that consist of many layers. If so, set a deadline for each sub-task to ensure that progression is happening for all assignments rather than just focusing to complete one at a time.
Having a schedule can also ensure that you will have a good night’s rest. All you have to do is abide by the plan. Doing so will avoid you from pulling an all-nighter to complete any last-minute work, because it’ll already be completed a day or two before the deadline. Although it is easier said than done, by following this method, it's a guarantee that you’ll be wide awake, fresh and ready to start the day on your schedule.
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How to know if you’re reaching the point of Burning Out
Not many college students know that they're on the brink of burning out. It happens so frequently that they normalise the situation. They get used to feeling mentally exhausted because they think it's a part of being stressed which is very unhealthy. One of the common signs that point to burning out is when you prioritise your work rather than your physical and mental health. If you've come to the point where you would rather skip your meals just so you can complete your task, that's already a red flag for you to change your routine. There are also situations where you might not have intentionally skipped your meal for the sake of finishing your work but lose your appetite instead. Your body has gotten used to the stress that it reaches the point where it automatically changes your eating schedule without you realising. This is very unhealthy especially if you were to go all day without a meal.
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What to do if you Burn Out
Burn out has the same analogy as a burning matchstick. The matchstick can represent our physical and mental health while the flame represents the workload. If not blown, the flame will slowly eat away at the matchstick. In other words, if we don't give ourselves a break every once in a while, our physical and mental health will be at stake. We also need to start understanding that burn out doesn’t go away overnight unless you start looking into changing your attitude and work style. For starters, your constant need to do everything. You'd rather take things into your own hands than have your friends help you out. By doing this, you'll be giving yourself too many responsibilities to handle in a short amount of time. You also need to start learning how to maintain a certain work-life balance. This can have you up and running during working hours, and resting when the clock hits 5 pm.
Burn out can seriously affect your health so you shouldn't take the situation lightly. Although not many people are educated about the severity of burning out, it is a topic that should be talked about, especially within the student community.
By: Nur Adriana