Burnout is real. Especially for athletes who have been playing their sport for years. The commitment to their sport, long practices, trainings, school work, studying, as well as other commitments, the potential for burnout is real! However, there is good news… burnout can be avoided! Burnout takes on many different forms, because a burned-out employee at work might not look like a burned-out athlete. A burned out 14-year-old might not look like a burned out 40-year-old.  But there are underlying factors to being burned out that is common no matter how old you are or what you do. For this reason, I believe it’s important to first define burnout and explore the symptoms.

What Is Burnout?

Most people are familiar with the concept of burnout. It’s the feeling you get when you’re stressed, overwhelmed, and simply don’t have enough energy to do more. According to HelpGuide.org, burnout is defined as a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands. As the stress continues, you begin to lose the interest and motivation that led you to take on the sport/activity/job/etc. in the first place. Once this happens, burnout leads to reduced productivity, saps your energy, leaves you feeling helpless, hopeless, and exhausted. Some people even become cynical and resentful.

What’s even more problematic is that the negative side effects of burnout spills in to every other aspect of a person’s life! Homework suffers, sleep suffers, home life suffers, social life suffers, and your health suffers. And, if that’s not bad enough, burnout can have long term physical and mental effects on your body and mind! It’s for all of these reasons that it’s important to deal with burnout head on and not allow it to fester and grow! Now that burnout has been defined… let’s look at the direction of burnout.

Are You Headed Towards Burnout?

The danger in burnout is that it is a gradual process. It doesn’t happen overnight. Burnout tends to infiltrate your life slowly, gradually, and quietly. It starts out as a few bad days or something happens that puts extra stress on you, etc. And then, the next thing you know, you are completely burned out! You may be headed towards burnout if every day has become a bad day. Caring about your sport seems like a total waste of energy. You’re exhausted all of the time, and you feel like nothing you do makes a difference. If not recognized, and dealt with, you will eventually run into burnout!

Signs & Symptoms Of Burnout

Wondering if you are burned out?  Here are signs and symptoms! You’re burned out when you’re feeling tired and drained most of the time. You’re getting sick more than usual. Frequent body aches and pains, including headaches. A change in sleep and appetite are always good indicators that something is amiss. Loss of motivation, procrastination, and withdrawing from responsibilities and people are red flags too. More signs can be found here.

In conclusion, we all have had, are having, or will have bad days. There are days when you don’t want to get out of bed, don’t want to “deal.” Days when you are overloaded, over stressed, and just plain over it! But, somewhere inside, you find the will, the desire to get up and keep it pushing. For some, it takes a day. For others, it might be a day or two… or three!

But, if you find that you are feeling like this most of the time… you may be burned out! There are things you can do to prevent burnout. As student-athletes, proper planning and an awareness of your needs goes a long way towards avoiding burnout. Next week, we will explore what those are!