How to Overcome Stress and Burnout
In today’s edition of the SWE blog, we decided we wanted to talk a bit about overcoming burnout! First and foremost, what even is burnout? According to the APA Dictionary of Psychology, burnout is defined as “physical, emotional or mental exhaustion, accompanied by decreased motivation, lowered performance and negative attitudes towards oneself and others.” As engineering students, we are at a much high workload than many others and therefore at a higher risk of getting burnt out along the way. This is totally normal and happens to most people! A few signs that you might be reaching your way towards burnout include: excess fatigue, headaches, and feeling like the work you’re doing is pointless. Now that we have a bit of background, let’s talk about some ways you might be able to overcome burnout as well as prevent it.
Make mental health a priority
As students, it can sometimes be hard to focus on anything other than school. But it’s important to recognize that eventually you’re tank will be running on fumes if you don’t take care of yourself as well. This includes things such as getting good sleep, eating well, drinking water, and exercising. Another huge way to help overcome burnout is seeing a therapist if that’s an option for you.
Build breaks into your schedule
It’s not exactly healthy to be doing homework and staring at screens for hours on end. When you plan you’re days, make sure you let yourself take breaks for meals. Step away from the schoolwork every once in a while to check in with yourself and see if you feel like you’re overworking yourself.
Enforce boundaries — both with yourself and those around you
This can look like a lot of different things depending on the person. One example of a boundary I’ve set for myself is to treat school like a job. I cut myself from doing any kind of homework or studying past 6pm and don’t allow myself to do schoolwork on the weekends. There might be rare exceptions but doing this has allowed me to keep myself from overexerting myself.
Build a new hobby
Sometimes learning something new can give you something exciting to do and allows you to step away from your work. It can be absolutely anything: crocheting, knitting, reading, scrapbooking, etc. Whatever your heart desires!
How to avoid burnout in the future
Everything we’ve already mentioned above can also help with avoiding burnout, but there are some other things you can do. Learn to recognize your burnout symptoms so that you can notice them and take a break before it’s too late. It helps to have someone you can have honest communication with about your feelings, which is when it’s nice to have a therapist like we mentioned above. However, this could also just be a close friend or family member. Just anybody that you can openly talk to about your emotions. Externalizing these feelings can help ward off burnout as well.
Hopefully, these tips were useful to you or someone you know! Just remember: no matter what, burnout and stress are normal experiences for many college students. You aren’t alone and there is always someone out there willing to help and support you!
— Mallory
