As a soon-to-be graduate, I can confidently say that I have experienced all the highs of high school and have navigated brutal lows. Being an IB kid with high expectations from parents and teachers has made me prioritize school and success over my mental health. It’s easy to fall down the rabbit hole of comparing your achievements in school to your overall success in life. It took me until the last few months of high school to realize that I had been working myself into constant burnout throughout my educational journey, and many struggles with my mental health and long talks with my therapist granted me the stamina to push against my mind and body’s normalization of burnout and unproductive behaviors.

Accepting your struggle is the first step to bettering your unhealthy habits and mindset. This was my hardest healing step: accepting that I am having a hard time and need to step away from my schoolwork and “push through” mindset. In previous times of struggle, I always continued working hard, hoping to use school as a distraction and overcome this obstacle by overachieving. I then realized something that should’ve been noticeable as it was plainly obvious: stepping away from those stressors instead of paying extra attention to them will, in fact, reduce the stress. 

I was always taught to prioritize my educational success, which created the idea that my anxiety couldn’t be dealt with until my to-do list was cleared. This made me ignore my mental well-being for weeks, months or whole school years. Summer is almost here; I’ll be happy when this is done; I can take a break after my test. The key to overcoming your burnout is to face it and acknowledge the struggle. Sometimes you get so wrapped up in your work that your brain pushes your stress away until it eventually all hits at once. The stress cycle is the body’s way of reacting to anxiety and is shown in three stages: alarm, resistance and exhaustion. In short, alarm is the fight or flight response. When a stressor is so significant that it takes up most of your brain, your body sees it as a threat and reacts like a lion is attacking you. Resistance is your body trying to work around this stress and make adjustments to cope, leading to poor sleep and/or concentration. The exhaustion stage happens if you don’t complete the stress cycle, which can cause lifelong health effects. 

The next step of your journey to overcome burnout or trouble with your mental health is to find your body’s best way to complete the stress cycle. In the metaphor of the lion, the human might have killed or escaped the lion’s attack. During this event, the human is overwhelmed with so much stress that getting away and making it home alive is extremely relieving, completing the stress cycle for this event. In everyday human experiences, we feel less relieved when we complete stressful events, like emailing a teacher or taking a test. This leaves the stress cycle unfinished and the tension unresolved. 

Here are some of my favorite ways to complete my stress cycle: 

• A good nap: a solid sleep is my favorite way to relieve mental and physical stress. Waking up from a nap relaxed and rejuvenated is one of the best kicks to revamp my motivation. 
• Physical exercise: This one is the hardest to convince me to participate in because wallowing at home is much easier. A hard workout or long run will do the trick for those motivated. For lazier days, I like to go for a short walk, crank out some jumping jacks or fail to attempt pushups. That last one leads me to my next one. 
• Laughing: Messing around my family and friends or just doing something that will get me giggling always helps my stress levels drop. 
• Deep breathing/mindfulness: Taking five minutes to focus on your breathing or follow a guided meditation is incredibly beneficial to soothing your brain’s reaction to stress. 

Once you have acknowledged that your brain and body are not feeling okay and won’t function properly without taking time and energy to prioritize your well-being and have chosen a way to complete your stress cycle, you are all set to return to your hard work. Taking that short period to take your focus away from your stressors and focus on your mind will benefit you and your work in the long run and keep you healthy and happy as you continue to succeed and overachieve – in a healthy way this time.