This Ends Today: A Wake-Up Call to a Culture of Burnout

READ ME HERE: FEATURED ARTICLE (MANILA BULLETIN)

10:30 p.m. My eyes burn from screen glare as I critique another article for our school newspaper. I’ve just finished writing my own piece on the community outreach the Student Council organized, where I hosted a game and gave a speech. The script and songs for the school musical still need refining. Tomorrow’s list is stacked: two more articles, another round of critiquing for another article, prep for a coding contest, and somehow… sleep?

Most people would call this burnout. I used to call it success.

For students like me, homeschoolers juggling leadership, productions, academics, competitions, and creativity, burnout has become a twisted status symbol. We wear exhaustion like medals. Look how much I can endure. Look how worthy I am.

But here’s the truth we rarely say out loud: you can’t pour from an empty cup. Glorifying burnout doesn’t make us stronger. It breaks us.

We are a generation raised on highlight reels and hustle culture. Social media constantly tells us that busy means important, suffering means commitment, and perfection means we’re lovable. I believed it.

I was born into a life of comfort. I didn’t need to work to survive or support my family. So I found other ways to prove I deserved the life I had. I chased perfect grades, perfect performances, and perfect projects. Success for me wasn’t about survival; it was about validation.

Eventually, it became something deeper and more dangerous.

Perfectionism became my addiction. Every success hit like a high. But when I finally reached the top, I couldn’t feel anything anymore. No joy. No meaning. Just pressure. Sometimes, when I couldn’t find a competition to win, I invented one. I made up new rules to push myself even harder, just to prove I could beat my own definition of perfect.

I am a recovering addict. A recovering perfectionist.

And recovery, I’ve learned, isn’t a one-time decision. It is a daily unlearning.

The Real Cost of Perfection

We glamorize exhaustion. We admire the overwhelmed instead of asking if they’re okay. We praise people who skip sleep and ignore their health just to keep producing. 

We reward perfection over sustainability. We confuse productivity with purpose.

But what if we measured success differently?

A New Definition of Success

Here’s what I’m learning the hard way: perfection is not a pinnacle. It is a prison.

Real success isn’t about how much you can take. It is about how long you can keep showing up without losing yourself. Excellence doesn’t mean being the best. It means being your best without destroying yourself in the process.

We need a new definition of success. One that includes mental health. One that values sustainable passion more than unsustainable pressure. Because the truth is, we were not made to burn out. We were made to burn bright.

Mental health isn’t a sidebar to our lives; it’s the foundation everything else is built on.

I’ll never forget how my body became a battlefield. The way my left eyelid developed a constant twitch that made me look like I was winking at trigonometry problems. How my hands trembled so violently, I struggled to type coherently. 

Three mugs of coffee sloshing in my stomach, binge-eating junk food at 2 AM, lying awake counting deadlines instead of sheep, my body wasn’t failing me. It was screaming for me.

During busy days, the notifications never stopped. Student council emergencies. Club project deadlines. Classmates messaging, "Just one quick question!" (It was never one). My lock screen looked like a slot machine of other people’s emergencies. That’s when it hit me: I wasn’t being productive. I was slowly deleting myself.

Thank God I woke up when I did. But I still see the casualties everywhere.

The friend from math olympiad who had a panic attack mid-exam, her test paper stained with tears. The brilliant artist who quit drawing because her hands shook from exhaustion. The classmate who laughs about taking "happy pills" while her Instagram captions scream in silent caps lock. We’ve normalized abnormal suffering. Romanticized what should horrify us. 

This ends today. 

We’re the generation that often feels stuck between "follow your dreams" and "you’re falling behind." Where every scroll through social media feels like running a race no one told you started.

But we don’t have to navigate this alone, because science, too, is on our side. It’s been quietly building tools that can help us fight back against burnout and reclaim balance—if we’re brave enough to use them.

We’re not just overwhelmed—we’re fighting a culture that glorifies burnout. But we don’t have to fight empty-handed. Science has given us tools—real, evidence-based ways to repair, rewire, and reclaim our mental health.

One of the most effective is Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). It’s more than meditation—it’s emergency repair for a stressed brain. Chronic burnout floods us with cortisol, shrinking the hippocampus (which handles memory and learning) and overloading the amygdala (our fear center). That’s why even small tasks feel impossible.

Here’s the hope: MBSR can reverse this. A 2011 study showed it physically increases gray matter in areas tied to focus, self-awareness, and emotional regulation—while calming the brain’s panic system. It helps restore presence in a world that demands constant acceleration.

Another powerful tool is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). In a world that tells us we’re only valuable when we’re achieving, CBT helps us challenge those toxic beliefs. It teaches us to recognize harmful thought patterns—like “my worth equals my productivity” or “rest is failure”—and replace them with truth: “I am enough, even when I stop.”

CBT doesn’t just soothe the symptoms of burnout; it rewires the mental loops that keep us stuck in the hustle. It gives us a new lens to see ourselves—and a path to heal from the inside out.

For deeper burnout that slides into depression, especially when nothing else seems to help, science is evolving rapidly. 

One of the most promising new treatments is ketamine therapy—a medically supervised process that uses low doses of a powerful anesthetic to rapidly reduce symptoms of severe depression. Unlike traditional antidepressants, which can take weeks to work or don’t work at all, ketamine can stimulate regrowth of damaged brain connections in hours. A 2019 study confirmed its effectiveness for people stuck in emotional darkness that nothing else could reach.

It’s not a first-line treatment and not meant for everyone, but it’s proof that science is advancing fast and that even the most hopeless-feeling burnout isn’t beyond help. But for those with treatment-resistant depression, it’s a lifeline. It offers hope where hope once felt impossible. And that matters.

These treatments matter because self-care alone isn’t enough. You can’t journal your way out of clinical depression. Mental health needs more than bubble baths and motivational quotes. It needs tools, science, and support systems that actually work.

But healing takes more than self-care. These tools only work when we’re allowed to use them—when we feel safe enough to ask for help and when access to care isn’t a privilege but a priority. Healing is also collective. It means creating spaces—at school, at home, online—where rest is respected, not ridiculed. Where reaching out is strength, not shame.

The Breakthrough Begins Within

Here’s the truth no study can sugarcoat: Science gives us the tools, but courage makes us use them. 

I’ve started practicing mindfulness, not as a trend, but as a lifeline. Even 10 minutes of quiet in a noisy world can feel like rebellion. Some days, I catch myself falling back into old patterns. But tools like CBT remind me to challenge the voices that say I’m only valuable if I’m perfect. Healing is slow, but it’s real. 

The real breakthrough isn’t just in the research; it’s in admitting we’re struggling, then reaching out. No therapy, no pill, no meditation can work if we keep pretending we don’t need them. The first step to healing? Stop glorifying the struggle. Start honoring the solution.

Because the truth is, we’re not just tired. We’re drowning, but we can learn to swim.

To every student leader, artist, scholar, and overachiever out there: you do not need to earn your worth through exhaustion. You are not lazy for needing rest. You are not weak for setting boundaries. 

You are not a machine. You are a human being.

And I say that not as someone who’s figured everything out, but as someone still learning. I still chase perfection. I still fear failure. I still feel like I have to prove myself, especially in a world where scholarships, awards, and opportunities reward outcomes over effort.

I was born into privilege. And sometimes, I feel like I have to overachieve just to justify it. But that mindset is exhausting. 

And it’s everywhere. 

So unless the world changes, how can we?

It's Time to Thrive

References

What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy? (2017). American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/patients-and-families/cognitive-behavioral

Hölzel, B. K., Brunsch, V., Gard, T., Greve, D. N., Koch, K., Sorg, C., Lazar, S. W., & Milad, M. R. (2016). Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Fear Conditioning, and The Uncinate Fasciculus: A Pilot Study. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 10, 124. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2016.00124

Krystal, J. H., Abdallah, C. G., Sanacora, G., Charney, D. S., & Duman, R. S. (2019). Ketamine: A Paradigm Shift for Depression Research and Treatment. Neuron, 101(5), 774–778. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2019.02.005

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