Disclaimer: This is a humorous semi-humorous post. Please don’t use this post to judge my understanding of healthiness. I concur that I inappropriately make some unhealthy behaviours seem healthy.

Two years ago, at one of my medical school interviews, I was asked, “How do you plan on dealing with burnout in medical school?” I remember mumbling something along the lines of ‘oh, I’m going to make sure to do stuff outside of school and balance my time’. The interviewers nodded their heads and I realized that the answer was good enough. It was sort of ironic that I got asked that question because around the time, I was the most burned out I had ever been in my life.

As we approach burnout period (late winter/early spring of the year), I thought I’d write a post with regards to this topic. Burning out is something every student hears about, but few act on. I know I always brushed it off, thinking that it wouldn’t happen to me or I’d deal with it easily. You know, it’s sort of like eating healthy, sleeping enough, exercising more often, …blah blah. I don’t really do all those things, yet I haven’t had a heart attack. But no, seriously, burnouts are something very important. See the end of this post for a P.S. about my burnout two years ago.

What is ‘burning out’ exactly?

It’s hard to pin it down, but it’s easy to describe: overwhelmed, stressed, tired, sad, worried, feeling like a failure (and believing it too), and wanting to give up.

After I wrote that last sentence, I Wikipedia-ed “burnout”, and found this to be the definition:

Burnout is a psychological term for the experience of long-term exhaustion and diminished interest.

Yeah. That’s pretty correct. I like to think of burning out as when you’re not being satisfied with what you have done and not being able to do more. According to Wikipedia, burnout comes in phases: from determination -> overexertion -> neglecting own needs -> denial of problems -> withdrawal -> depression -> burnout.

I find that around this time of the year, there is burnout galore among students. It’s not uncommon to see facebook statuses with “overwhelmed”, “stressed”, “save me”, or “=(” in them. Tons of burnt out students. It’s because the school year is ending, and projects need to be finished. Exams are around the corner, interviews are around this time, and plans for summer need to be made as well.

Recovering from the hangover burnout

Okay, so you are burnt out. What do you do?

1) Get some sleep. I have this notorious crunch time sleep schedule of something termed the 3-4-6. It means 3 hours tonight, 4 hours the next night, and 6 hours the night after. Repeat. It gets the short-term work done, but it’s horrible for the body. After a few cycles of that, I feel terrible. (Note: I do not recommend this, and I haven’t done the 3-4-6 in a long time.) If you are burnt out, you are probably sleep-deprived. Get some sleep! And I mean 12+ hours.

2) Comfort yourself. You are hurt and need to be comforted. Do what you want the most. I like to eat sweets – I figure that I burnt enough calories with late nights and stress, so I can afford to indulge in two packs of Craisins. Or maybe some MTV.

3) Drink some coffee or the caffeine beverage of your choice. Caffeine = liquid energy. Fire up those neurons! I swear by coffee. Partially because if I miss a day of coffee, I get migraines. (Yes, I get coffee withdrawal).

4) Get cracking at the work again! Why did you get in the burnout in the first place? Because you were trying to get work done. Now that you are all rested up, what are you waiting for?1?! Thrive off this newfound feeling of wellness and go back to what you do best!

5) The most important of all: prevent another burnout.

Prevention is the best medicine

Burnouts are bad and I am proud to say that I haven’t had a burnout in a while. For me, prevention is found in three words: locus of control. Shifting the locus of control back to me, and thereby letting me feel in control of my life, has prevented burnouts. When something unexpected happens, I do my best to regain control. I get control by adjusting my goals, rationalizing, mentally rehearsing future tasks, rant to Josh, and keeping a smile and my head up. Live life with no regrets.

Do you get burned out? What do you do to recover from them? Tips for prevention? Tell me!

P.S. My worst burnout story:

This is circa Feb-April 2009 in Ottawa and the whole semester was just set up for disaster. School was really hard that term – I was taking 3 senior biochemistry courses and 2 senior psychology courses. In particular, one of the biochemistry courses was a lab course – i.e. one 6 hr block of lab work every week, followed by weekly lab reports of 25+ pages, due every Monday. I also lived off campus and thanks to the 3+ month-long bus strike, I was walking 45+ minutes to school through blizzards. On top of all of that, I had 4 weekend interviews, making those Monday lab reports pretty deadly. I remember arriving in Ottawa from my Toronto interview on Sunday late night, and then pulling an all-nighter to do this 25 page lab report due on Monday. All in all, I found myself on the verge of tears sometimes and just constantly worrying and feeling stressed. If someone asked me how I was doing, I’d sarcastically say “oh, I’m 6 feet under. Under work”.

Oh, and of course, my computer died on me a day before my term paper was due. So classic – just like a movie. Can I say, A Series of Unfortunate Events? I took the taxi to Future Shop 15 minutes before they closed and begged the tech guy to try to retrieve my document for me.