Are you getting all panicky about deadlines? Do you feel that you don’t have any strength left to motivate yourself to study? Do you feel that your Universities are not listening to your grievance? Do you feel a blanket of uncertainties enveloping you as class 10 exams are being cancelled and 12th boards lurk in the darkness? The list of questions you must have at this time is endless, but you need to know that you are not alone. You may feel that your body is becoming lethargic, your brain is constantly fogged, you feel numb, you feel like your eating habits and sleeping habits have changed, and at the other times you just sit in front of your computer staring into space. You are fatigued; you are tired, let us recognize that, let us admit that.
There is a constant fear surrounding us and the pandemic has made us spend more time on social media now more than ever. In such situations, we have been exposed to a lot of negativity, and to top that the online virtual mode of learning is very new to us and we have not gotten the hang of it yet. It might be because one year back we were at our campuses, surrounded by teachers, professors and friends. In all, we had our safety net and the virtual mode makes us miss that. And with the pandemic at its worst, it is making us feel stuck, helpless; we can’t study like we used to, we can’t do anything like we were used to. So naturally, feelings of anxiety, feeling stressed out, feeling completely burned out-mentally and physically, and so on are bound to emerge.
I often find myself wondering and again ending up asking Google how I should overcome this never-ending fatigue. How do I get myself up to start reading, to starting writing, working? How do I go back to being normal? You must be wondering that this not a blog but rather a piece that is filled with an array of questions! But the point I want to make in this blog is that maybe instead of looking at this as a set of “too many questions” we start recognizing these questions as the “infinite uncertainties” and start empathizing with people, and this process I believe will start to normalize feeling fatigued and our conversations will steer around understanding fatigue and how to deal with it efficiently, normalizing the concept of ‘taking a break’ rather than dismissing the feelings of being fatigued.
Thus, my dear readers, if you are reading and you are going through a tough time, take a break from social media, try to regain control by thinking of the things that you can control and acknowledge that some things that are out of your control; try yoga or anything that helps you de-stress, and then focus on completing one thing daily, even if that is a very tiny thing — complete it, remember small steps now are more important. Lastly, burnout is real; acknowledge it, empathize with others, lend them your comfort and listen to them, listen to yourself — recognize when it is time to take a break and reach out to people and mental health experts if you feel that it is getting too much. Take care and stay safe, everyone!
-Rajnandini Barman
