![\"Mason](\"https:\/\/www.tntech.edu\/graduatestudies\/images\/articles\/Mason-Hale-Family.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nBurnout has become an overused word by many to categorize stress. It is important for graduate students to truly understand burnout, which is a state of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion due to prolonged stress, and to have practical tools to combat it. Mason Hale, Tech alumnus, Ph.D. in Counseling and Supervision, Licensed Clinical Pastoral Therapist, Temporary Licensed Professional Counselor-Mental Health Service Provider, National Certified Counselor, and Board-Certified Christian Counselor gives insight on burnout, how to spot it and how to prevent it in graduate school.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard a lecturer identify that the people who experience burnout are the best of us,\u201d Hale recalled. \u201cThese are the people that exhibit high achievement, are hard-working, and diligent, but have difficulty delegating tasks, asking for help, and accepting products that are less than perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perfection does not equal success! Reminder: no one is perfect, and graduate students are not expected to be either.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no right way to navigate graduate school and the normal and overwhelming stresses of life,\u201d Hale acknowledged. \u201cThe life of a graduate student calls a person to embrace adaptability, flexibility, open communication with important people in one\u2019s life, fortitude, grit, resilience, growth, optimism, realism, and more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Too much emphasis on perfect grades can lead graduate students down a pressure-filled path, but Hale points out that burnout is not experienced due to challenges in only one area of life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe burnout is a product of a misbalancing that happens across life\u2019s roles and responsibilities that could be attributed to perceiving one or more areas of life demanding too much,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n
Continuing that idea, he explains a few warning signs of burnout.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough experiencing a single one of these things is not enough to characterize burnout, experiencing several of these could mean that you might be experiencing burnout: compassion fatigue, loss of meaning and purpose, withdrawal form relationships\/social connections, physical fatigue, difficulty concentrating, or inconsistent appetite,\u201d Hale noted.<\/p>\n
Understanding how burnout can arise, Hale dives into using self-care as a prevention tool.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to conceptualize self-care as a function of wellness awareness in which the Substance of Abuse and Mental Health Services Association provides a model with eight domains of wellness,\u201d Hale continued. \u201cEmotional, spiritual, intellectual, physical, environmental, financial, occupational, and social should get necessary attention for balance and appropriate self-care.\u201d<\/p>\n
When faced with burnout, Hale urges students to visit your doctor, talk with a counselor to navigate work, school and social life boundaries and rejuvenate with people closest to you. Students have access to Tennessee Tech\u2019s\u00a0Center for Counseling and Mental Health Wellness, which is a great resource to prioritize their mental health.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving spaces, places, and people to cry, laugh, be thoughtful, express anger with is necessary to fully embrace one\u2019s lived experience,\u201d he reveals. \u201cWe hope to embody the strength in our lives especially through the demanding times such as graduate school, but I want to express the idea that strength is not the absence of emotion but the courage to be compassionately engaged with someone in the symphony of emotions within a moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Speaking from experience, Hale discusses how to recover from burnout. He and his wife welcomed his first child into their family during his first year of his doctoral program, which created an exciting but demanding period of his life that required mindful navigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI prioritized my sleep and then adjusted my attention to my diet,\u201d he explained. \u201cEating better, taking appropriate supplements improved my mood, brain function, and helped pull me out of the funk that I found myself in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Life is never free of new challenges. How you handle those challenges is what fosters resilience. Hale encourages each graduate student to trust the process of graduate school and embrace life\u2019s transitions and changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to choose to participate in the growth, to face the tensions, to face the adversity, to be open to the change within you,\u201d he urged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Burnout has become an overused word by many to categorize stress. It is important for graduate students to truly understand burnout, which is a state of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion due to prolonged stress, and to have practical tools to combat it. Mason Hale, Tech alumnus, Ph.D. in Counseling and Supervision, Licensed Clinical Pastoral<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6229,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[309],"tags":[592],"class_list":["post-6228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banner-headline","tag-recovery-rituals","enable-dropcap","disable-2-columns"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n