Is this burn-out?

jyang72

I planned on doing PT60 today and joining BR group tomorrow. However, I did really bad on the LG which is what I am good at and my mind was clouded when I was doing the third section. I literally could not think and had headache. I just could not take in any information at all. I gave it up and switched to problem sets. Same, I had headache again. Is this burn-out? Do I need to give myself a day off tomorrow? I've been studying for at least 8 hours per day since this summer because I am studying full-time. Any advice for avoiding burn-out? Thank you!!!

fishtwentyfive

This is burnout. Eat some incredibly healthy food and watch a shitty movie. But give yourself like 3-4 days before you get back to studying. If you continue to study while under the influence of burnout you will literally most likely accomplish nothing.

harrismegan

I'm starting to feel the same way and I was wondering the exact same thing. My mind is so fuzzy and problems that were once SO easy seem SO hard. HOW. WHY.

jyang72

@harrismegan, this feels horrible when I was doing PT. I've been consistently get less than 2 questions wrong in LG. But I bombed PT60's LG. I was trying to focus on the third section but my mind was fuzzy and my headache was getting the better of me. Some simple questions became so difficult to me. If you have the same feeling, I guess we both need to give ourselves 2 days off.

nye8870

http://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/3499/br-groups-week-of-august-5th-weds-pt59-sat-pt60
Sorry to hear about the headaches @jyang72 . Maybe a good long sleep tonight will get you past them. Otherwise, perhaps a visit to the doctor is in order. You never can be too cautious when it comes to your health.

jyang72

@kylemitchellx , you are right. I will take the rest of this week off and begin again next monday. Thank you so much for your advice.

eugene.chong

All the advice here is good for dealing with mental exhaustion. I cannot fathom studying for 8 hours a day for two weeks, let alone a whole summer, so I can only guess what you're feeling.

Get lots of sleep, eat well (cook if you like that), get some exercise, go get drunk with friends, watch TV. Just live your life for a couple days and treat it like vacation, and your motivation and focus levels will be back up.

nicole.hopkins

@jyang72 said:
I did really bad on the LG which is what I am good at and my mind was clouded when I was doing the third section. I literally could not think and had headache. I just could not take in any information at all. I gave it up and switched to problem sets.

YES. This is classic burnout and very similar to what I have experienced. When you describe your mind being clouded—that's exactly what I've experienced.

100% take several days off and do not even think about LSAT. When LSAT thoughts come to mind, let them go away. Think 5-7 days no LSAT. Coming back from break prematurely will mean that you perpetuate the cycle and discourage yourself more and more with lowered scores. I experienced about a 5-7 point lag while going through the worst of it. It WILL get better but the only way to get better is to 100% walk away and rest.

If you still want to come on the forums, the rule is that you must not discuss LSAT subject matter ... just lyfe

nicole.hopkins

@jyang72 said:
I will take the rest of this week off and begin again next monday.

Next Monday meaning not the 10th but the 17th I presume If I catch you studying I will torture you with Facebook game requests!!!!

nicole.hopkins

And by the way, @jyang72 ... When you come back, you'll be stronger than ever. That's what I experienced every single time I've taken a break and come back. I typically break out of a plateau shortly following breaks. Take courage, my friend! All will be well. Take some muchly deserved rest and have some fun!!!

Jsohn001

I was in the same boat as you guys, but what better to do then get on a boat and fish to rid the logical fallacies that clouded my mind during burnout!

jyang72

@nicole.hopkins I just got your game request on Facebook. Thank you for taking care of me like a big sister. I wish I have a big sister since the fact that I am being a big brother makes me have to take care of my baby sister all the time. haha. Definitely I will take 4 days off since I need to study the LSAT with my best body condition.

jyang72

@eugene.chong ,I am not a smart kid. All I got is diligence and bravery. I have to study that much in order to compete with other driven lsat takers. But your advice is fully appreciated.

nicole.hopkins

HAHA ... Yes I have been dabbling in some FarmVille on my own days off but now it wants money ... Don't get sucked in ... Or do, if you enjoy that sort of thing I am honored to be in a position to support and affirm your extremely impressive efforts on this journey! Your endurance is truly impressive and you've come a LONG way already. When we work as hard as we do, we sometimes lose sight of the importance of rest. Rest is a necessary condition for success. I guarantee it.

jyang72

@nicole.hopkins. I just scored 163 last week which is the highest I got so far (6 points away from my goal 169). Then I was too happy and studied even more in order to get more improvement. And I burned out without even knowing I had burn out. You are right, rest is a necessary condition.

nicole.hopkins

LOOK AT YOU!!! See, you just gotta trust the process. I actually hit my personal high score right before I crashed into some burnout recently. Interesting how that works.

Yes, trust the process ... It's going on in your mind even while you're not working on it. And I think our minds get to a certain point of critical mass where we peak and then require time to regroup, rebuild, and grow. We don't take that break time usually ... At least I don't. But I hit that peak score again on Tuesday and I'm on a study break until Tuesday of next week. I can already feel my confidence building. I'm allowing myself to process and enjoy success without interrupting the digestion and rebuilding. So I got some Paleo treats and a nice IPA (Gluten free oddly enough!) and am gonna watch a bunch of shows. And maybe play some FarmVille.

jyang72

@Jsohn001 , you are right. A healthy body is THE necessary condition to battle the LSAT.

jyang72

@nicole.hopkins. You are right, I will give myself some days off and read some Charles Dickens' novels and watch some movies. I promise you I will never study during my break.

nicole.hopkins

@jyang72 you are AWESOME. It requires a lot of courage to commit to a break. I look forward to having you on the calls in the future and hearing stories of your success!

jyang72

@nicole.hopkins . please do. I always enjoy the calls with so many awesome and driven people.

Pacifico

I always take a day off or two after hitting a new high score, I find it helps keep things in perspective while letting the lessons learned settle in a bit more, and keeps me humble so I don't think a similar score is going to be handed to me on the next one... Of course, I'm a bit more carefree in my prep in general, but I think the super-preppers especially could learn a thing or two from a more relaxed approach...

jyang72

@Pacifico, I was too excited since I've been getting stuck in high 150s too much. My excitement took away my rationality. haha. It seems I need to take a day off every time I hit a new high.

nye8870

Here is something for you to watch that I found remarkable and without words seems to parallel our lsat study experience. Spoiler: Reminds me of JY's flowcharts.

__Juan__

Hmmm are people telling you to take a week off solely for the benefit of your health, or because they're secret gunners? I would take a couple days off, and get back to it when you feel it's organic.

Try studying using the Pomodoro method.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.phlam.android.clockworktomato&hl=en

It helps avoid burnout. I changed the work intervals to 35 minutes, the short breaks to 7 minutes, and the long breaks are 21 minutes.

jyang72

@juan_name , thank you dude. I will restart next monday or tuesday. Haha, I can't afford a week. What does "secret gunner" mean?

__Juan__

The definition is here http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gunner

nicole.hopkins

@juan_name I hope you're not serious about that ... That's not how this community works ...

nicole.hopkins

@juan_name I assume you're not using the Pomodoro method for timed PT's?

jyang72

@nicole.hopkins , I think he was just trying to give me some advice. He did not mean no harm.

jyang72

@juan_name , I don't think other people were being a gunner. They are just trying to build up a nice community for LSAT takers. Don't take it too serious. But I really appreciate your advice.

__Juan__

@jyang72 No problem, I hope it helps reduce burnout while letting you study more. They have a video on here that explains the basics of the technique. http://pomodorotechnique.com/

@nicol.hopkins I hope you're not taking the first part of my post seriously. I take it from jyang72's haha that he took it appropriately. The intent would probably have been better conveyed through a meme but no body gots time for that.

Your second assumption is correct. I recommended he use it for studying, and did not recommend he use it for PT.

nicole.hopkins

@"juan_name" said:
The intent would probably have been better conveyed through a meme but no body gots time for that.

HAHA! Yes, the lovely clarity of a meme ...

This one might have done the trick:

@"juan_name" said:
I recommended he use it for studying, and did not recommend he use it for PT.

I think this is a great suggestion! I hadn't heard of Pomodoro before you posted it but I see great potential for using it as a tool in my own future studies.

nicole.hopkins

@"juan_name" said:
I would take a couple days off, and get back to it when you feel it's organic.

And this is good advice I think it's good advice for starting a break as well as ... well ... breaking a break!

harrismegan

@nicole.hopkins @Pacifico I feel like I'm experiencing burn out but I want to be sure.
I literally just wrote an exam on Monday and scored a 170 w/ BR of 180. Previously, I scored a 168 w/ BR of 175. Today... I wrote and scored a 161. I haven't BR yet.
The entire exam I felt like I couldn't even grasp what I was reading. My mind felt fuzzy the entire time, it was horrible. I felt like I was experiencing burn out last night, so I stopped studying and relaxed instead. I think I got back at it too quickly, and now I feel horrible about my exam mark. blah. #thestruggle.

nicole.hopkins

@harrismegan said:
Today... I wrote and scored a 161.

110% burnout. This is the exact kind of drop in score I've seen (went from a 174 to a 165 in July ... a score I hadn't seen since March). I had a similar experience—that my head was just extra "slippery" and felt very weird and disconnected. I agree that you got back at it too quickly, but hey—I've been there. It's so hard to know! My new thing is like ... taking 5-day+ breaks. And just not doing any study. Like I won't even look at question/curriculum-specific questions on the forums. There are a whole bunch of unread topics on my view because ... I just won't go near them.

I would say you should consider taking multiple days off. Like, I wouldn't even BR that test you just took. Just walk away. I was fortunate to get a 174 on the test I took on Tuesday and won't touch LSAT until Tuesday. Walking away after a high score is a much more encouraging situation to be in than walking away after a low outlier score, but please be assured that your score was that low because of burnout. That's what outliers are. They just don't represent the actual state of skills. They represent the effects of burnout. Those effects are very real and the effects on performance are sometimes shocking.

Since you're an athlete, you might relate to some articles on marathon running and burnout. The effects on performance are analogous.

jyang72

@nye8870 , this video you post is rather intriguing. We can't always let our study tense up. When it's time to relax, we need to relax. My real experience hit me right on the butt.

bSM45LSAT

Well I'm glad this thread is up as I just did PT 60 yesterday, and didn't do very well, at least not up to where I was usually for the past 5 PTs.

I don't want to just jump in and say its burnout, but like I just did the LG during blindreview and got none wrong, whereas on the test I froze up, and in RC. Literally on the test I'm like, is this what burnout is? Is it because I didn't have my protein shake this morning? Or maybe cuz I'm wearing a tighter shirt...

So basically said fuck it, went boating for 5 hours today, and will BR that test like crazy tomorrow and then by Monday I have to get back to 3 PTs a week.

Conclusion: BURNOUT IS REAL

jyang72

@bSM45LSAT, you are right. Sometimes we don't even realize we burned out until we burn out.
Realize BURN OUT---------> We BURN OUT.