Story by Noah McLane
Featured Photo from GoDaddy
So what is “burnout”? And how do we deal with it?
Feeling tired? Having trouble getting yourself to class or to the library to study for exams? How are you sleeping? Do you find it difficult to focus? Do you get headaches? Has your patience for others drastically diminished?
These are all symptoms of burnout, the dreaded problem affecting professionals and students alike.
The World Health Organization added the syndrome to its International Classification of Diseases in 2019 and defines burnout as feelings of energy depletion, an increased mental distance from one’s work or a sense of cynicism toward one’s job as a result of poorly managed stress.
According to the American Psychological Association, more than 70 percent of higher education staff reported moderate to high levels of burnout. In a study published by the National Library of Medicine, it was found that 27.1 percent of the 500 students observed in the study met criteria for psychological distress.
So if you are experiencing burnout, you are not alone. But more importantly, how is it treated?
MTSU Associate Professor of Psychology Alexander Jackson has studied burnout in varying degrees since joining MTSU in 2016. He says there are three ways of treating burnout — primary, coping skills, and tertiary.
Primary treatment addresses burnout at its source. This is the most effective way to treat the condition as it eliminates stressors before they snowball. Primary treatment can mean, for students, lightening your optional workload before it piles up, or, for professors, setting boundaries between work and home life.
The second option is to learn coping skills to deal with stressors. Jackson says the best tool we have at our disposal is mindfulness — a mental state in which we focus our awareness on the present moment while calmly acknowledging and accepting our feelings, thoughts and bodily sensations.
Another effective coping skill is to use social support systems. Whether it be family, friends, a roommate or a stranger you met at a party, we can relieve a significant amount of stress by talking about it with others.
Dr. Jackson said the No. 1 reason people tend to keep stress to ourselves is because we fear being a burden to those we lean on. The real burden comes when nothing is done to cope.
The final way to address burnout — tertiary treatment — comes only after the first two options have been exhausted or, more often, ignored. Tertiary treatment is necessary when the symptoms of burnout manifest in such a way that daily tasks become too arduous. This treatment includes cognitive therapy, medication or, in extreme cases, hospitalization.
Now that you know what burnout is and what to do about it, you can meet the challenge head on or provide a much-needed helping hand to your peers.
Burnout is tough, but not as tough as you!
Noah McLane is a contributing writer for MTSU Sidelines.
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