We’re in week eleven of the semester here at BGSU, and many students are reaching their breaking point. They are stretched too thin with class assignments, work schedules, and commitments from clubs and student orgs. You might feel like you’re starting to crack up a bit and feel like there’s no possible way you can make it to Thanksgiving Break. If you’ve been waiting for a sign that you’re not crazy and that you really can do it, this is it. You’re experiencing the phenomenon known as burnout.
Burnout is described as a physical or mental collapse caused by overwork or stress. This is something that college students can be all too familiar with. You need to pass classes in order to graduate, you need to work to be able to pay rent and buy groceries, and you need clubs and social events to be a functioning human being. It’s very easy, however, to become unbalanced.
As of last year, BGSU stopped having its annual fall break, which gave the students a long weekend to decompress in the middle of fall semester. It leads to students not being able to sacrifice any of their times to self-care and their mental health. It can lead to people not being able to process their feelings and emotions in result to their workload. This can mean you take it out on those close to you, just because that negative energy has nowhere else to go.
In times like this, practicing self-care is imperative. For me, it’s helpful to understand that when my brain is being ruled by my stress and anxiety that I’m not thinking rationally. Your irrational brain will try and lie to you, tell you that you can’t do it, that everyone is rooting against you, that you’re going to fail. That is not true. Like everything else in this life, your stress is temporary. Midterms will pass, then finals, and soon you will be relaxing in the comfort of your family home, cuddling with your pets and eating mashed potatoes and various forms of pie.
Feeling burned out in the middle of the semester is completely normal. If nothing else, you can take comfort in the solidarity that you can find with your fellow college students. Everyone is overwhelmed. Everyone is stressed. None of them are crazy because of it. And neither are you. Deep breaths. You got this!