Should You Push Through Language Learning Burn Out?

If you ever reach the miserable lows of being burnt out in your language studies you may wonder if it is worth just pushing through and trying to carry on.

The honest truth is that you should stop and rest. Pushing on doesn’t really help you at all, you will just make the situation worse and you are unlikely to achieve much even if you do try.

You need to stop and refocus yourself and then come back refreshed and start again; this is going to be far more beneficial for you than trying to push though.  

Pushing Through Burn Out Will Only Make It Worse

If you are stubborn like me, you may think that pushing through is the best option. You might think burn out is something that will go away after a while and you just need to be mentally strong and ignore it.

You can certainly try this …but it will not work. Unfortunately burn out is very real and trying to ignore it and push though and keep learning is only to make the feeling even worse.

You will probably be suffering from physical symptoms, like headaches and feeling tired. You are also going to have a lot of mental symptoms such as struggling to concentrate and just a general brain fog and sluggish cognitive ability.

These are not going to go away if you keep pushing on, it’s only going to get worse and really isn’t worth it. 

(You can read more about – Signs That You Are Suffering From Language Burn Out)

Your Body Might Force You To Stop

If you do decide to push on and try and keep learning you may find that your body simply cannot continue with the demand and it actually forces you to stop.

If you really push yourself to the limit you will eventually crash. I think a lot of people end up in this state as they did not recognise that they were burning out and just tried to keep going until they basically crash and can’t do anything.

I have had this happen and it is bad. I was so exhausted both mentally and physically I could not get out of bed for a few days. I was too burnt out it was like I was ill.

My mind and body just completely drained and the only thing I could do was rest and rebuild my strength and after a few days I started feeling okay again. 

You Will Not Achieve Much When You Are Burnt Out

Probably the biggest reason for not pushing though when you are burnt out is simply because you will make very little progress.

You are burnt out, your abilities are weakened, which is not a good state of mind to try and be learning in.

When you look at symptoms of burn out you will see that everything you need to actually make progress is functioning inefficiently. You are going to be fatigued, struggling to focus and you will have memory issues. You are also just not going to be in the mood to actually put the work in.

You are only wasting your time if you think you can push through and keep learning, you will make no progress and even if you do, it will be painfully slow.

You Need To Rest

If you are suffering from burn out the best thing you can do is stop and rest and try and get yourself together again.

Take a step back from your language studies and allow yourself to actually recover. This is going to be far more helpful than trying to just push through.

You will recover a lot faster if you actually take the time to rest, rather than pushing yourself past your limit and totally crashing like I discussed above.

I know it can be hard to stop, but you have to. The fact that you are feeling burnt out is your body’s way of telling you that you need to rest. It’s pretty much screaming at you to stop, so don’t ignore it, just rest and allow yourself to recover.

(You can read more about – Should I Take A Break If I Experience Language Learning Burn Out?)

If You Have To Push Through, Reduce The Intensity

If for some reason you absolutely cannot stop studying, because you have some sort of exam date approaching then I would suggest that you cut back on the intensity massively.

I would try and reduce the workload or the amount of time you are studying and hopefully this will ease enough of the pressure and give you some breathing space to recover slightly.

The reality is that this is going to be extremely difficult. If you are genuinely burnt out you may not be able to physically do anything. You might be screaming at yourself to do something and you just can’t. It can feel like you are stuck in glue. You can tell yourself you want to study, but when you open the books you just can’t focus or you get a really bad headache that makes you want to stop.

I guess the fear of an exam can keep you working and pushing on, but it will be hard.

Do not just think pushing through burn out is something you can easily do, it can be both mentally and physically crippling and you will reach the point where you collapse, so this really is not a long term solution, eventually you will need to stop and rest. 

No One Is Forcing You To Study

I think it is also important to realise that you are probably learning a language just for fun. No one is forcing you to do it and while you want to make progress, you can just stop and have a rest, which is totally okay.

If you have pushed yourself too hard and are now feeling burnt out, that is fine, it happens. Just be kind to yourself and allow yourself to rest and recover.

If for some reason you do have an exam booked, then maybe you need to keep going for now. However, I would still be careful about pushing so hard that you end up breaking yourself and the second it is possible to take a break, I would.  

Burn out is a sign you are pushing too much and you shouldn’t ignore it and you shouldn’t force yourself to suffer, it doesn’t help you in the long run.

Language Learning Is A Long Game, There Is No Need To Push

We also need to remember that language learning is a very long game. It really is a marathon and not a sprint.

Stopping for a few days and resting is really nothing in the grand scheme of things and more importantly, if a few days rest can get you back to your optimum levels, then it is very much worth your time to stop and replenish yourself, rather than suffer.

If you are feeling burnt out, you won’t last long term in that state, especially if you try and keep pushing. Don’t try and do the impossible, just stop and rest.

(You can read more about – How Long Does It Take To Recover From Language Learning Burn Out?)

Conclusion

Hopefully now you can see that pushing through is not worth it. If you are suffering from language learning burn out then the best thing you can do is stop and rest.

Trying to push through is only going to make the misery worse, so the sooner you can rest, the sooner you will start to feel better and can get back to learning your language and making actual progress.

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