If you are in law school, you already know exactly how stressful law school can be. Especially students who have enrolled in the 5-year course have to endure excruciating amounts of hard work, competition and stress throughout the duration of the course. It therefore comes as no big surprise that a good number of law students eventually suffer from mental exhaustion and burnout. In fact, for many professionals from the legal field, the exhaustion carries forward into their work lives, which affects the mental well-being as well the overall performance of the individual.
In this article, Team YLCC brings you insights on how to deal with burnout while at law school. Read on!
- ADJUSTING AND STREAMLINING YOUR LIFESTYLE
Most law students make a mistake of leading very spontaneous lives without any order whatsoever. If you feel you are under severe stress, the first thing you should do is make changes to your lifestyle. This will help you to identify which parts of your day are hectic for you and take action accordingly. A good lifestyle allows you to spare enough time for your own needs i.e. adequate hours of sleep, non-negotiable meal times and proper exercise. Maintaining this can streamline your functioning, resulting in good grades and bring a huge positive energy into your life that helps you deal with the stress in a constructive manner.
Furthermore, exercise is extremely important. Irrespective of whether you are living with your parents or in rented premises or even inhe college hostel, take some time out of the day to go for a run or exercise indoors with at-home workout equipment.
Maintaining a proper lifestyle is key to absorbing law school pressure in the long-term and most people who have stayed true to a good routine feel the change that it has brought into their lives.
- STARTING A NEW HOBBY
Focusing on a new hobby can be a good way to effectively take your mind off from work and academia once in a while because it is impossible for any one to focus on law school non-stop without burning out. Most law schools in India are known to have functional and proactive co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. The latter include sports, music, dance or even drama teams that conduct events from time to time and also participate in inter-college competitions. If you are not into any of these, you also have the option of choosing co-curricular activities like debates and negotiation which can be interesting and helps you engage with your creative faculties.
- BREAKING DOWN YOUR LAW SCHOOL BUCKET LIST
This strategy helps you break down your responsibilities into smaller, attainable tasks. Sometimes anxiety is sparked by the blurry idea of ‘a big project’ or ‘a lot of reading’. But when you break down each task into ‘baby steps’ and then tackle them one by one, you will suddenly have crossed numerous things off the list! So for example, instead of writing “Study for Property Law Exam”, (which will sit on your to-do list for many days and is very vague), I would suggest writing “1. Prepare Property Law Outline; 2. Gather all Property Law notes and Resources 3. Start reading the Bare Act from Sections 1-30. 4. Create short summary; 5. Do practice question 1–5; 6. Do practice questions 6–10; etc”. In this format, you will be able to recognize and organize all your smaller tasks and feel a great sense of accomplishment when you can check off multiple things, as opposed to just one. It allows you to view your daunting to-do list as a variety of smaller and easier tasks that you know you are cable of doing.
- LEARNING TO ACCEPT HELP
Learning to accept help is un underrated skill. Actively participating in the spirit of cooperation will not only help you navigate through pressure situations better but also allow you to network with the right people and create a sustainable support system that functions on collaboration and not competition.
Sometimes studying can be so overwhelming, it can indeed be tempting to wrap yourself up in a bit of a cocoon with your books and laptop and shut out the rest of the world. Refrain from doing this. Often, there are people out there who are ready and willing to help you, not to mention plenty of useful resources. Get to know the office hours for your lecturers, look out for additional revision sessions being advertised, post on your university’s study forums, go along to that library session on legal research. All these things are being offered for a reason – to help you succeed in your studies.
- MANAGING YOUR EXPECTATIONS
As a lawyer practising in the profession, you will be constantly managing your client’s expectations to ensure they are realistic and achievable. In fact, this is a constant race against time to make sure that your client does not run away with far-fetched goals that are a distant possibility. Most lawyers are very good at this and is an important skill to cultivate if you wish to keep working in the profession. Similarly, when you are in law school, it is important to do the same thing for yourself. Try to evaluate what exactly you are looking for from this degree and what you want to do ahead. Try to remain flexible in your analysis. For example, you may love a subject in your first year of law and wish to specialise in it but by your third year, the same subject may not look so lucrative. Therefore, while it’s great to be determined and ambitious, it is also important to be flexible and open to change.
- ENGAGE WITH PEOPLE
Dealing with stress in isolation never helps. Chances are that most of your law school mates are going through the same degree of stress that you are. Initially at least, the situation is similar for everyone- law school tends to have that kind of overbearing effect. Taking with mates and seniors in law school will not only give you a sense of relief- in that you are not the only one going through this- but will also give you a fresh perspective on how to deal with the stress and anxiety. In addition to this, you always have the option of reaching out to a supportive faculty member or your own parents- they have been through a number of hardships in their own lives and their guidance is always helpful!
- MINIMISE YOUR TIME ON THE INTERNET
Because of digital gadgets, social media, and the Internet, we tend to make ourselves available, 24/7. Sometimes even during the wee hours of the day, someone can message us and wake us from our sleep. Improper use of social media can take away much of our precious time that, instead, we could be using to accomplish our law school tasks and stay ahead of deadlines. Learn how to take a break from your device and from social media- this will certainly be an important factor in reducing your stress levels and help you recover from the burnout.
Most importantly, it is important to understand law is very challenging as a career and managing stress effectively is something that you will learn better over time. Burnout, in particular, has to be taken care of on priority without any neglect, otherwise this may end up upending your personal as well as professional commitments. Burnouts usually warrant a consultation with a mental health professional so if you feel you are unable to cope, just look up online and make an appointment with a counselling psychologist you feel is credible.
YLCC would like to thank the Content Team for their valuable insights in this article.
