How Long Does It Take To Recover From Language Learning Burn Out?

When you suffer from language learning burn out you will feel awful and you will definitely want to know how long it might last for.

The reality is that everyone is different, so your experience may not be the exact same as someone else’s recover. However, you should start to see significant improvements after a few days, maybe even up to a week or two, but really after a couple of weeks you should be fully refreshed and reinvigorated, and more importantly, back to learning your language. 

Your Recover Will Depend On How Burnt Out You Are

How long it will take you to recover will depend on how burnt out you actually are.

If you managed to notice its happening and act upon it quickly, it might not be that long; you might only need a few days to feel better.

However, if you ignored all the signs and tried and push on even through you didn’t feel great, you will probably get to the point where your body and mind literally cannot carry on and could completely crash. If this happens then it may take a little longer to recover. 

Really the worse you feel, the longer it is going to take to reverse this and recover.

(You can read more about – How Do You Overcome Language Learning Burn Out?)

It Will Depends On How You Look After Yourself

Your recovery will also depend on you, and how you treat yourself. Recovering from burn out isn’t just as simple as just stopping studying and waiting for a few days, it’s more like treating yourself from an illness.

You have literally pushed yourself to breaking point and you need to actively try and replenish your body and mind and allow it to actual heal.

If you are kind to yourself and actually take a real break it is really going to help you get back to normal a lot faster. If you are genuinely trying to relax and are also focused on sleeping and eating correctly, your body is going to respond in a positive way and you will see the effects start to reverse a lot faster.

You really need to compare it to having some sort of physical exhaustion. If you ran a marathon you wouldn’t just get up the next day and go to the gym, you would give yourself some time to rest. If you treat your language learning burn out like this, you will overcome it with no problem; you just need to be kind to yourself and listen to what your body needs.   

What Else Is Going On In Your Life That Might Be Affecting Things?

When it comes to language learning burn out we need to look at our whole lives, not just the language studies.

Often it is just the language studies causing the problem, but not always. Very often you will find that the rest of your life is chaotic and really the language learning was just the straw that broke the camel’s back and it just pushed you over the edge.   

Taking a break from language learning can help you recover, but you may need to just see what else is draining you of your energy or stressing you out. If you can also take a break from these things, you may find you are able to recover from the burn out a lot faster.

I know I have suffered language learning burn out, but the rest of my life also contributed to it. Everything was too out of control and really trying to learn the language on top just pushed me over the edge.

I got so burnt out I had to take a break from everything. I literally crashed and was basically bed ridden for a few days until I could sort of function again and even then it took me a while to get back to feeling normal and it took me even longer to get back to language learning.

If you are feeling burnt out, just assess everything in your life, you may find it is not just the studying that is draining you.

Your Recovery Will Depend On What Has Caused The Burn Out

Part of your recovery should be working out what you did wrong. This is going to help make sure you do not suffer the same problem in the future.

You need to ask what actually caused the burn out. Language learning by its self isn’t the problem; it’s usually how you go about it. Did you try and study too much, too quickly?  Where you putting too much pressure on yourself? Sacrificing too much to reach you goals?

When you work out what you might have done to cause the problem, you then need to ask if you can change this.

If you can change things going forward than this is really going to help. The intensity or workload will have hopefully been reduced and this will allow you to learn in a way that shouldn’t be so draining going forward. 

Your Recovery Can Depend On Your Goals

When you get burnt out you can find that your goals shift. You may feel like you are no longer interested in the language.

This could be just the burn out speaking, you are exhausted and it’s normal for your desires to fade. You really need to sit and think about your goals and decide if you want to still push for them. 

You may find that it can take a long time to relight that fire again, but if you rest enough it should start to come back.

You need to remember what got you started with languages and re-find that purpose.

The first time I got burnt out it took me a long time to get back to learning, mainly as I had lost my purpose. I know now that if I ever get burnt out again I need to try and think about this and hopefully rebuild that passion that I lost, so that when I am feeling refreshed, I am excited to get back at it again.

How Long Will It Really Take To Recover From Burn Out

You have probably noticed that I have been pretty vague throughout. This is simply because everyone is in a slightly different position. What caused your burn out and how badly it has affected you will be totally different to the next person, so it can be hard to say how long exactly it is going to take to recover.

We also recover at different rates, so this again makes things harder to determine, but I will try and give you some very rough figures, just be aware your experience may be totally different.

I would say it can it can take a few days to recover. You really need to just sit and relax and act like you are on holiday, not really doing much. However, it might take up to 2 weeks to start to shake the feeling.

I know in some extreme cases, it can be a lot longer. Don’t be surprised if are feeling slightly off for about 6 weeks.

I would say that all the physical signs of exhaustion should be gone within 2 weeks, but the mental struggles may last for 6 weeks.

Personally I have felt pretty much back to normal after a few days and after a week I am full of energy again …but that desire to sit and study …it took a while to come back.

I think I was avoiding this side of things for a long time as I wasn’t reconnecting with what got me passionate in the first place. I think if I had done this, I would have got back to studying a lot sooner.

I believe I was totally over my burn out after that first week or two, but I just struggled to get over the mental hurdle of wanting to start again and this really caused me to put off learning for nearly 3 months.

I think a lot of people do this, they put it off, and off and eventually they forget to ever start again and they basically give up without actually ever saying “I quit”. If you get burnt out, get back to learning, you can do it. Don’t give up!

(You can read more about – How Common Is Language Learning Burnout?)

Conclusion

Hopefully now you will understand a little more about recovering from burn out and how long it might take. It really is an individual experience, so just be kind to yourself and listen to your body and give it the rest its needs.

You will know when you feel better and you will know when you are ready to start learning your language again.

It maybe take a few days, or even a few weeks, but the negative experience that is burn out will fade and you will be full of energy again and ready to reach your goals, just give yourself the time to recover.

(You can read more about – Frequently Asked Questions About – Language Learning Burn Out)