I think we can all agree that the last semester of school is always the hardest. 

At this point, you have already been in school since August, and you probably wanted to be done with the school year last semester. If you’re like me, you have been procrastinating on your homework, staying in bed much longer than you should be and maybe even skipping classes (sorry, Mom). 

Believe it or not, this is normal. It’s called burnout. 

Burnout, according to my quick Google search, is “a state of emotional, physical and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress,” according to HelpGuide.org. “It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands.” 

Symptoms of burnout include excessive stress, fatigue, insomnia, sadness, irritability, high blood pressure and even heart disease if you’re not careful. Burnout can continue for up to 11 weeks. This means that as soon as you start to de-stress from school (which is pretty much impossible if you’re also working), you will most likely just go right back into it once school starts. 

It may not seem like it, but burnout is actually pretty common. Depending on their stress level, everyone can deal with burnout. It is more common in students and people with high-stress careers (especially current healthcare workers for obvious reasons).  

There is no surefire way to treat burnout considering it is a mental illness. Different things work for different people. However, most people go for some nice self-care, whatever that means to you. Whether that means watching your favorite movie or TV show, treating yourself to your favorite food or even letting yourself take a nap.  

It’s also important to find a support system. That can be family, friends or even a professor if you feel comfortable enough with them.  

I’ll be honest, I have experienced more than enough burnout throughout my life, including right now. I mean, I am a broke college student, but I don’t feel any shame in it. Burnout recently became known as an actual mental illness, meaning stress is medically proven to affect the brain.  

Mental illness has and never will be an excuse or a reason to quit. It’s just another thing that you must work through. Burnout is normal and can have some pretty severe symptoms, but that does not mean that you can give up just because things may have gotten hard.  

There’s always time to work through your issues and become better.