Meditating my burnout away

A Campus Times essay published April 13 turns end-of-semester burnout into a case study in how one student tried to interrupt it with meditation. (campustimes.org) Evan Anderson wrote that stress and guilt had made ordinary breaks feel unproductive, with social time and walks replaced by social media scrolling and short streaming shows. He described sitting with an unfinished midterm paper open while cycling through TikTok instead of resting. (campustimes.org) In the essay, Anderson said he chose a free 10-minute guided meditation from Calm on YouTube and did it at 7 a.m. before checking his phone. The session focused on “impermanence,” which he described as noticing thoughts and feelings without letting them take over. (campustimes.org) The piece lands in the final stretch of the spring semester, when colleges routinely see stress spike around papers, exams, and graduation deadlines. A 2025 review in *Behavioral Sciences* said student burnout is tied to chronic academic stress and commonly shows up as exhaustion, cynicism, and a sense of inefficacy. (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) That framing also matches how meditation is now used in many campus settings: less as a spiritual ritual than as a stress-management practice that can fit into a workday. Mayo Clinic says meditation is commonly used for relaxation and stress reduction by focusing attention and quieting jumbled thoughts. (mayoclinic.org) The University of Rochester has had a formal mindfulness effort for years. Its Mindful University Project, described by the university in 2019, offered Koru Mindfulness workshops, meditation retreats, yoga classes, and Friday morning guided sessions aimed at helping students cope with stress. (admissions.rochester.edu) Research on college students has moved in the same direction. A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials found mindfulness-based stress reduction helped relieve stress-related outcomes and improve psychological quality of life among university students. (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) The evidence is not framed as a cure-all. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health says meditation and mindfulness practices are generally considered low risk, but it also notes that studies of possible harmful effects remain limited and some research has reported negative experiences. (nccih.nih.gov) Anderson’s result was modest and immediate, not sweeping: he wrote that after meditating he felt “more emotionally regulated” and better able to focus on one task at a time. In a semester defined by unfinished work and guilty breaks, that was the change he said he was looking for. (campustimes.org)