How to Handle Burnout This School Year

It is already been one month since the start of school and students are already feeling the pressures of the school year. Burnout is something that is very common for college students to experience but we want to provide you with some tips to handle it while the school year is still young. 

Internalizing all your stressors can sometimes make your burnout worse. It can be helpful to relieve some of that stress by just talking about it with someone. Whether you talk to a friend, parent, roommate, or partner it can help to just get all those thoughts of stress and worry out in the open. 

If your stressors and causes for burnout stem from something more serious it can be helpful to talk to a professional. At Hamline, students have access to free and licensed therapists at counseling and health services, with no session limits. Chaplain Kelly Figueroa-Ray and Rabbi Esther are also great resources at the Wesley Center as someone you can talk to. The therapists from counseling and health services, Rabbi Esther, and  the Chaplain are all  confidential reporters. 

Oftentimes, a big contributor to burnout is surrounded around deadlines. People tend to set unrealistic deadlines for themselves this becomes a stressor when someone feels they aren’t getting things done at the rate they should be. One helpful tool might be looking at all the things you need to get done for the day or week or whatever time period you want to look at. Try to take into account what you have going on during said time period and tentatively schedule when it works best for you to do the tasks on your to-do list. Be flexible with this plan though, things come up so be open to moving stuff around if need be. This can help give you structure and can seem less daunting than just looking at a huge list of tasks. 

Making sure you set aside time for self-care is so important in preventing burnout. Try to set a time during each day to do something for yourself, whether it is reading a chapter of a book before bed, taking an extra long shower, watching an episode of a show you like, crocheting, playing an instrument, it can be literally anything as long as it is separating you from the task that is causing you to stress. Please note that this will look different for everyone, some people will budget only an hour for self-care and some can budget a whole day. You do what you are able to, but just set aside a little time for yourself.