{"id":1394,"date":"2020-02-17T18:42:09","date_gmt":"2020-02-17T18:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/?p=1394"},"modified":"2020-02-17T18:42:09","modified_gmt":"2020-02-17T18:42:09","slug":"academic-burnout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/academic-burnout\/","title":{"rendered":"Academic Burnout\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As a nice follow up to my previous piece<\/a> on the magic of saying yes, let\u2019s talk about the ability to say no, especially in an academic setting. I\u2019ve had this conversation with plenty of my colleagues, as I\u2019m sure many others have had as well. It follows along the lines of comparing how tired we all are, how much coffee we need to get going in the morning, how late we\u2019ve stayed in the office, how many hours we\u2019ve worked or words we\u2019ve written in one day, and is pretty much always followed up with a discussion about how unhealthy it is, and yet we continue on the same path.<\/p>\n

Academia is host to a unique type of pressure. With work that doesn\u2019t necessarily need to stay at the office and long-term research projects that can span years, the need to constantly search for funding and disseminate results whenever possible, it\u2019s easy to blow through the 40-hour workweek and stretch yourself too thin. At the student level, the feeling that you need to constantly beef up your resume and read more and do more can also lead to the inability to say \u201cno\u201d or feel that you cannot turn down opportunities. That pressure, paired with the endless hours, stress, and ever-increasing to-do list, can have dire results.<\/p>\n

First discussed in a psychological setting by Herbert Freudenberger in 1974 to describe the exhaustion, loss of interest, and increased irritability he observed in the care-staff of a clinic (Freudenberger 1974). Since then the term has evolved and been applied to almost every career type, however, it was only officially recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) in May of 2019. \u201cBurnout\u201d syndrome is characterized as an occupational phenomenon that is a result of chronic workplace stress that is not being managed, similar to what Freudenberger observed in the 70s.<\/p>\n

So, what is burn out? Officially, WHO characterizes it as \u201cfeelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from one\u2019s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one\u2019s job; and reduced professional efficacy\u201d (WHO 2019). However, there is a difference between stress and burnout. Stress is something that is an unavoidable part of the job (and let\u2019s be honest, life), but burnout is more than that and (unfortunately) cannot always be cured with a vacation. Burnout, put very simply, is the result of a long-term, sustained, and unmanaged workplace-stress, with some studies linking it with depressive symptoms (Wurm et al. 2016; Ahola et al. 2014). Academic burnout can be classified with similar symptoms.<\/p>\n

In an atmosphere where we are feeling the pressure to do more, read more, publish more, along with the competitiveness of academia, it can be easy to brush off symptoms until it is too late, and we are well and truly, burning out. So, what can we do about it?<\/p>\n

To start, I think we need to be more realistic with our time. We need to practice the art of saying no and setting reasonable goals for ourselves. By saying yes to everything, it is easy to over-stretch and not leave enough time to do a task with the same level of pride and effort that we would like. To go with this, managing your time is equally as important. This being said, I can procrastinate with the best of them, but to give yourself the best chance at managing your crazy to-do list, you need to give yourself enough time to address it all.<\/p>\n

I think we need to give ourselves permission to relax as well. It\u2019s easy just to continue working when you have the ability to access literature you\u2019ve been meaning to review online on that handy laptop that goes everywhere with you. It\u2019s hard to relax when you can theoretically continue to work all the time, and more often than not, likely results in procrastination and hours of Netflix and scrolling through social media, which compounds the guilt of not working and restarts the cycle. By sitting yourself down and working during work hours, and allowing yourself to relax after work hours, you give time to yourself to relax and get out from under the stress. Change it up in your after-hours, read, hike, bake, paint, knit, sew, whatever. Give yourself time to think about something else and relax. If you\u2019re like me, you\u2019re lucky enough to also surround yourself with people who encourage you to take this time.<\/p>\n

See more tips here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a> about recognizing a preventing the path to burnout.<\/p>\n

The biggest thing to recognize is to be kind to yourself and try to give yourself the benefit of the doubt. Yes, this career path will be stressful, there will be tight deadlines and too much work, you will have to pull long hours, and work way over 40 hours some weeks. Your best intentions will be blown out of the water, and you will say yes to some things you really have no time for, but really want to do anyway.\u00a0 Life is not ideal sometimes, but the point is that you need to check in with yourself and recognize when you\u2019re on an unhealthy path and do what you can to mitigate it. You need to find some work\/life balance that allows you to work the best you can and live an equally enriching life outside of it. In essence, practice the art of self-advocation and just saying no<\/em>, I need a little time to myself this weekend. <\/em><\/p>\n

~Mallory<\/p>\n

\n

Works cited:<\/em><\/p>\n

Ahola, Kirsi, Jari Hakanen, Riku Perhoniemi, and Pertti Mutanen
\n2014\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Relationship between burnout and depressive symptoms: A study using the person-centred approach. Burnout Research<\/em> 1(1):29\u201337. DOI:10.1016\/j.burn.2014.03.003<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Freudenberger, Herbert J.
\n1974\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Staff Burn-Out. Journal of Social Issues<\/em> 30(1):159\u2013165. DOI:10.1111\/j.1540-4560.1974.tb00706.x<\/a>.<\/p>\n

World Health Organization
\n2019\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Burn-out an \u201coccupational phenomenon\u201d: International Classification of Diseases. WHO<\/em>. http:\/\/www.who.int\/mental_health\/evidence\/burn-out\/en\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Wurm, Walter, Katrin Vogel, Anna Holl, Christoph Ebner, Dietmar Bayer, Sabrina M\u00f6rkl, Istvan-Szilard Szilagyi, Erich Hotter, Hans-Peter Kapfhammer, and Peter Hofmann
\n2016\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Depression-Burnout Overlap in Physicians. PloS One<\/em> 11(3):e0149913. DOI:10.1371\/journal.pone.0149913<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a nice follow up to my previous piece on the magic of saying yes, let\u2019s talk about the ability to say no, especially in an academic setting. I\u2019ve had this conversation with plenty of my colleagues, as I\u2019m sure many others have had as well. It follows along the lines of comparing how tired … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-mallory-sophie","4":"post-1394","6":"format-standard","7":"category-student-blog"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1394"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1398,"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1394\/revisions\/1398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}