Burnout

My everyday life as a college student when I was a Junior was as follows: try to wake up at 10:15 AM to make my 10:30 class. If I pressed the snooze button a few too many times, or if I was feeling especially tired that morning, no big deal. I could miss my first class of the day. With only two or three hours of class each day, I was free to take naps, relax, or watch TV in all my free time. However, I knew that I would have to change my habits to better adjust to my new schedule when I started my internship in the upcoming summer. I had no idea what was in store for me.

Summer began, and so did the internship. I was told to report every day at 7:30 AM. Unfortunately, my office building was in Midtown Manhattan and I was living at home in New Jersey. The commute was an hour and a half each way. That meant that I had to wake up at 5:30 AM every morning, five hours earlier than I would wake up in college. I would drag myself to the train station at 6:10. When I got my usual seat on the train, I would have to use every ounce of energy I had to keep myself awake. God forbid I fall asleep and miss my transfer stop. It was a grueling process every morning. The commute home was even worse. At least only a few people commute to Manhattan so early. Unfortunately, EVERYONE commutes home at 5:30 PM. The commute home was always more crowded, more frustrating, more delayed, and always took longer.

I got home on my first day at 8:00 PM and I was exhausted. I ate dinner at home and fell asleep by 11:00 PM. The cycle began the next day. The early wake-ups mixed with all the time sitting on the train, sitting in the office, and sitting on a train again caused severe burnout. Especially with the lack of free time once I got home, I felt like I was only doing work. I had to find a way to reduce this burnout.

Very much like Andrew Dumont’s “Avoiding Burnout” article, I found that exercise helped. A sedentary lifestyle, sitting on a train and at a desk all day every day, was such a change from college life, where a pickup game of basketball or a game of quad football was just a short walk away. Luckily, my building provided a gym for employees, which I took full advantage of. I used my lunch breaks to lift weights. The workout was also a nice break from any monotonous work I was doing. After the workout, I would grab a quick lunch and bring it back up to my desk to eat. Also a tip from Dumont, I tried to eat healthy for lunch each day. I felt the most energetic during the day when I didn’t eat heavy or fatty meals. The need to work out and eat healthy every day also stemmed from my fear that the new sedentary lifestyle would negatively affect my health.

Since after graduation, I will work full-time at this same job, and I’ll still be living at home in New Jersey, I will have to find more ways to prevent burnout. I already have some ideas. I’ll bring books to read on my commute to help me stay awake and stimulate my mind in subjects unrelated to my work. I’ll try to be involved in groups or clubs outside of work to extend the activities I do and people I see on a weekly basis. Lastly, I’ll try to take a break every once in a while from work to wipe the slate clean and help me recharge my batteries, and come back to work better and more energized. I do not want to be another helpless victim of burnout.