Pretty straight forward with this title here. Is there such a thing called academic fatigue? This is a phenomenon (not really but just realised from personal experience that there could exist such a thing) where someone in academia realises that he/she has done so much of learning/school (successful/unsuccessful) that he/she cannot take any more academic burden, be it by continuing education, publishing in journals, teaching or discussing his/her research.
I’ve known a person who has been through this, to such an extent that this person feels depressed and out of energy to do anything to take life forward. This persons close relative once revealed that this arises from continuous learning practices that was put upon this person since childhood. In India, it is a common practice that after-school tuitions and entrance examination trainings are provided to kids whilst still in school, giving almost no free time to pursue one’s leisure time activities. Pressure to land on a job or to continue earning more titles after school meant more tuitions and coaching, which possibly leads (and in this case — led) to a burn-out.
Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions:
1. Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
ICD-11, World Health Organization
2. Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and
3. Reduced professional efficacy.
Burnout has now made it into the WHO’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD) as an occupational phenomenon. But I think it has much broader implications.
