a demanding, ambitious schedule, then it's possible

you've experienced feelings of burnout.

Especially if you're watching a video called

"How to deal with student burnout."

But, what exactly, is burnout?

Yes it's a series of near perfect arcade racing games

that sucked up large amounts of my time as a teenager,

but it's also a debilitating state you

don't want to find yourself in.

If you're looking for a definition, David Ballard of

the American Psychological Association defined job burnout

as "An extended period of time where someone experiences

"exhaustion and a lack of interest in things,

"resulting in a decline in their job performance."

Replace job with student,

and that definition doesn't lose it's accuracy.

But, here's a more practical definition,

everything makes you tired, you don't care about anything,

and everything sucks.

Burnout is characterized by near constant exhaustion,

a lack of motivation in everything,

frustration, cynicism, and a lot of

other different symptoms.

It's something that can happen when you're dealing with

large amounts of stress for a long period of time,

which is something that's, sadly,

all too common for students.

Here's the kicker though.

Burnout is a state of being that takes a while to get to.

It doesn't happen overnight.

And the good thing about this, is that you can

recognize the signs that are indicative of burnout,

and take steps to prevent actual burnout

before it actually happens.

The first step in being able to prevent burnout

is to figure out, what exactly causes it.

Now a 2006 study at the University of Southern Maine

surveyed 354 students to figure out

what the cause of student burnout is.

A small percentage reported mental or physical issues

to be a cause, and a few others reported

that problems with professors were causing their burnout.

About 13 percent felt that it was

caused by a lack of personal motivation,

either a lack of interest in their major,

or as they describe in the paper, an overactive social life.

A full quarter of the students surveyed reported

outside issues to be the main cause, either family

or financial issues, or time management problems

mainly caused by things like part-time jobs.

However, by far the largest cause reported

was assignment overload.

A full 49 percent of the students who actually

reported feelings of burnout, cited an overbearing,

overtaxing course load as the main cause of the problem.

So, now that we know some of the common causes

of student burnout, we can actually tackle the issue

of preventing it or fixing it if you're already feeling it.

Now, the most important thing to note here,

is that it's essential to recognize

the early signs of burnout if you can,

and prevent actual burnout before it happens.

You're gonna be much better equipped to tackle

these problems if you're not hampered

by constant exhaustion,

the depressive state that burnout brings.

So if you feel like you're on the road to burnout,

or you're experiencing some of the symptoms

I mentioned before, take that seriously

and take steps to prevent what they lead to.

That being said, even if you feel

like you're past that point and you're completely

burnt out right now, hopefully some of these tips that

I'm going to round out the video with, can help you out.

My first and foremost tip is, learn from that 49 percent.

Don't bite off more than you can chew with your course load.

A more general way you could put this, is,

think very carefully before committing yourself

to over stretching for long periods of time.

Be willing to challenge yourself, but realize

that you do have limitations, just like the rest of us.

And if you go beyond those limitations for too long,

there are consequences.

Now if you've had a look at my free book

on earning better grades, you'll realize

this is a rewording of the very first tip

in the first chapter of the book, which is,

don't overload the system.

And, speaking of the system, my second tip is

to make sure that your system, your brain,

and by extension your body, are in working order.

A lack of sleep, good nutrition or exercise

can put you in a non-optimal state.

And when you're in a state like that

you're less able to deal with the challenges

of your schedule, and also, things that can cause burnout.

A third tip is to make sure that you're organized.

I've found in my life that if I feel unorganized,

if my task-management systems are full of

tasks that I don't need to do anymore,

and everything just seems messy,

it causes a lot of undue stress which

can lead to feelings of burnout.

So if you're feeling like this, maybe take a day,

or a weekend to clear out your task-management systems,

get all that entropy out of there, clean your room,

and make sure that, going forward, you feel like

your life is organized.

Another tip, and I think this is a really important one,

is to make sure you're taking breaks.

Get away from your school or work life on a regular basis

and give yourself some time to relax.

Now, as I've talked about in a previous video,

when you're taking breaks, you wanna make sure

you're having high-density fun.

Don't just go on Reddit or Facebook

and give yourself, like, ten minutes away from your work,

actually schedule some time to completely separate yourself

from your work life, and find something else you enjoy.

You also wanna make sure that your work or school

can't seep into that break time, that it's sacred.

As an entrepreneur, I've found that, in particular,

my email is something that can seep into my break time.

So I make sure that my phone has no notifications on it,

and I make sure I only check email at

certain times of the day.

That way my breaks are actually relaxing.

Now, small breaks should be a

regular occurrence in your schedule.

There should be little ones each day,

and then you should give yourself some time

each week to really unwind.

However, sometimes, that alone, isn't enough

and you might need a longer break.

Part of the reason I took my three week vacation to Japan,

is because I was starting to feel

some of the early signs of burnout.

Making a video and four different podcast episodes

each week was really starting to be taxing,

and I just needed some time to unwind and not have to work.

Now that I've had that break, my mind is reset,

I'm energized again, and I'm ready to jump back

into making videos and podcasts.

Now, related to taking breaks,

I find that it's useful to have a hobby

or pursuit where you can feel a sense of

progress when you do it.

For me, at least, I find that taking breaks

that only consist of consumption of media,

like movies or video games, which is,

honestly what a lot of people do, is not enough.

So, instead, I think it's good to take

at least some of those break times

to do something that has some progression to it.

My next and final tip is to simply ask for help.

You don't have to do this alone.

And if you're in college, there's probably somebody

on your campus whose job it is

to help you deal with stress related issues.

Even if there isn't, or maybe you don't want to,

talking to friends or family about

what's causing your stress can really help you relieve it.

So, that's it for this video.

Hopefully these tips will help you

deal with some of the feelings of burnout

that you may be feeling, and we will be dealing

with more stress related topics

in the future, on this channel.

In the meantime, if you've got other tips

for dealing with burnout,

that I didn't mention in this video,

feel free to leave them down in the comments.

And I will see you next week.

(upbeat electronic music)

- [Thomas Frank Voiceover] Hey guys, thanks so much

for watching my video on dealing with burnout.

Now, if you wanna get new videos every single week

on being a more effective student,

then you can click that big red

subscribe button right there.

If you want, you can also get a free copy of my book

on earning better grades, by clicking the book's picture.

And if you want to find links and other resources

that I used to research this video,

you'll find them at the companion blog post

that you can get to by clicking the orange logo right there.

If you missed my last video, it was the conculsion

to my accelerated Japanese learning challenge,

and you can click the thumbnail to watch it.

And if you would like to connect to ask questions

or have ideas for new videos, you can find me on Twitter

@TomFrankly, or leave a comment below.

Thanks.