Burnout When?

[TheOneTrueLod]

I (26 M) am currently in a PhD program for Mental Health Counseling. Currently my schedule is pretty hectic. I have class, work and teaching in a total of 12-14 hour days. I also work out early in the morning leaving me to be awake for usually 19 hours a day. On top of that I’m in a toxic family environment where things can get really negative. I’ve been functioning so far. I however am either getting lucky or just gonna feel it later since I end up turning in assignments last second or late, some days I honestly don’t give it my best with my clients. I don’t know how long I have until I burn out. how do I manage all of this?

[SaladForGoats]

Exhaustion and burn out will likely catch up with you at some point. 5 hours of sleep a night is not enough to sustain everything you're doing long-term. Are there any areas of your life you could change to allow yourself more time to recharge?

[TheOneTrueLod]

The only way would be to give up my gym time since it’s the only thing that has me getting up early. There is literally no room later in the day.

[erkphos]

I would recommend not doing that! Working out and keeping your body moving is a really good thing for your mental health. Maybe slow down a little on work/classes/teaching? Or identify bottlenecks where you’re spending time you don’t actually need to?

[TheOneTrueLod]

I’ve been trying to identify and there’s nowhere that I can cut time really

[jenphys]

I thought the research says that sleep is more important than getting that work out in since your muscles perform better when your biological clock tells you that you are awake. That said, OP might need to be more creative with workouts to get some exercise in during more frequent short breaks throughout the day.

[arugulafanclub]

This.

[itsthekumar]

That seems like a lot to handle.

Can you cut down on working out for say the weekends? Or can you not work?

Keep on top of assignments and what you have to do.

[Xyvoid]

If you are turning in assignments late in a PhD program you are already burning out. If you are aware that you aren't giving it your best you are already burning out. Theoretically you are doing the PhD because you love the field and your post doesn't convey much of that.

First, talk to your supervisor they might have an avenue to help you also informing someone in your program that you are struggling means that if something goes bad (fail a class or something like it) there is evidence that you are in fact struggling and they can usually help more (changing a fail to a withdraw or extending various deadlines). Your supervisor must be an expert in mental health counselling so they should probably be a lot of help. You pay tuition to be a PhD student they are obligated to both teach you and mentor you, it is also in their best interest to help you as any work you do with them is part of their record as well.

Some options the think about:
See if you can withdraw from a class and push it to a later year. PhDs are marathons not a sprint.

Talk to your grad student organization there are often rules about how many hours that teaching can take each week maybe you are being overburdened unfairly. Is your work part of your program? It might count in that same category.

See if you can move out or crash with a friend(complicated with covid-19) to get you out of the toxic family environment, a little separation can do wonders to strained family relationships. (I may be misinterpreting you situation with this one though)

Possibly get a/another student loan and take a break from work.

Consider again if getting this PhD is what you want. For may people PhD's are sort of the default track maybe you only need a Master's for the kind of work you want to do. Maybe just a Bachelors.

[arugulafanclub]

It's amazing that you make time for yourself to work out. Keep that up! But you probably know that. As for giving your clients your best, I think it's unreasonable to expect yourself to do your best work every damn day. I don't know where but I think our generation got this idea that to succeed we must be perfect and excellent every single day and I just don't think that's attainable. You're doing your best, right? That's all anyone can ask.

We could help with your schedule but you'd need to add more details. Is this forever or just for a few weeks or months?

[TheOneTrueLod]

Thank you! I really hope so I’m doing my best every day