Maya Weiss didn’t hear her alarm. Or the second one. By the time she opened her eyes, her class was already halfway through, and she was still in bed.
“That’s when I know I’ve pushed too far,” said Weiss, a third-year human resources major at Mount Royal University (MRU). “I usually wake up right away, but if I sleep through class like that, something has to give.”
She’d been keeping up with her workload, but back-to-back group projects, overlapping deadlines and no time to recharge had pushed her past exhaustion. This wasn’t a stressful week. It felt like burnout.
Across post-secondary campuses, similar stories are playing out. From skipped lectures to complete disengagement, burnout is becoming a default state for many students. The stress doesn’t always look dramatic. Often, it’s a quiet shift from feeling busy to feeling empty.
Recent research suggests that this feeling isn’t isolated.
A 2025 study published in BCM Psychology found that 73 per cent of students at a German university reported moderate to high stress levels, and nearly one-third showed frequent symptoms of burnout.
Psychologist and MRU associate professor Sonya Flessati said that since the COVID-19 pandemic, students are still dealing with higher levels of anxiety, depression and fatigue.
That pattern has continued even after the restrictions ended.
“We’ve seen increases in depression, anxiety, and exhaustion. But not a full recovery,” Flessati said. Burnout, she added, isn’t just about being tired. “It’s emotional exhaustion that lingers even after you rest.”
Weiss says that exhaustion has affected everything. With exhaustion affecting more than her schoolwork, she stopped wanting to see friends or go out, even when she knew it might help.
“All I could think about was the stuff I wasn’t doing,” she said. “I’d be with people and still feel like I was falling behind.”
Flessati says that experience is common. Many students try to push through stress by working longer hours or taking quick breaks. However, those strategies rarely work when the problem is long-term depletion rather than short-term fatigue.
Instead, sustainable recovery often starts with pacing. That includes setting boundaries, breaking work into smaller chunks, and scheduling recovery time as a priority.
Techniques like the Pomodoro method, which build short bursts of focus followed by breaks, can help rebuild energy.
Weiss started blocking out time in her week for rest, even when it meant falling behind in other areas.
“If I don’t give myself space to breathe, everything falls apart anyway,” she said.
But individual strategies have limits. MRU offers workshops, counselling and peer support groups for students navigating stress, including specific groups for ADHD, neurodivergent students and those facing financial pressure or identity-based barriers.
Flessati says recognizing when to ask for help is just as important as trying to manage it on your own.
She also cautions against the common belief that burnout can be “cured” by a weekend off, or that it’s something students should just tough out.
“People think that burnout means being tired before midterms. But it’s more than that. It’s chronic, and it doesn’t go away just because the semester ends,” she said.
For some students, that reality has changed how they think about success. It’s no longer about high marks or perfect attendance. It’s about making it to the end without falling apart.
“I used to aim for top marks,” Weiss said. “Now I just want to get through this degree and not completely burn out doing it.”