By Jayne London, Academic Writing Club Manager & Coach
Jayne London, our Academic Writing Club Manager and coach extraordinaire, wrote today’s article, in conjunction with Gina. There may be some flights of fancy in this article. Blame those parts on Gina. Jayne is responsible for all realistic information.
The semester’s over.
If you’re anything like the academics I coach, you feel like death warmed over. Those last stacks of grading got done on sheer will, determination and fumes. And this is before onsidering your writing deadlines, committee responsibilities, and other demands. You are suffering from Academic Exhaustion Syndrome.
Academic Exhaustion Syndrome (an advanced, more scholarly state of burn out) is a state of emotional, and physical exhaustion caused by prolonged stress, ending with grading, over the course of the semester and academic year. As the stress continues, you begin to lose interest and motivation to work, you have fantasies of standing up and screaming in the middle of a meeting, and you wonder what temporary loss of reality testing made you decide to become an academic.
This dreaded Syndrome can:
- Reduce your productivity and saps your energy
- Make you irritable and have thoughts of strangling an undergraduate
- Make you feel like you have nothing more to give
- Create physical symptoms including fatigue, overwhelming exhaustion, weariness, tension, insomnia, physical illness, and low energy
- Produce emotional/psychological symptoms such as feeling out of control or overwhelmed, resentful, moody, frustrated, angry, helpless, hopeless, drained, and powerless
What can you do to recover from Academic Exhaustion Syndrome?
Continue reading on our blog to find out just how you can recover…. http://gblog2.academicladder.com/2011/05/recovering-from-end-of-semester-burnout.html
