Preventing student burnout in India has become more urgent than any of us realise. Sixteen-year-old Meera stands in front of the bathroom mirror, practising her smile. Not because she’s happy—because she needs to look happy. In twenty minutes, her parents are hosting relatives, and the inevitable question will come: “How are your studies going?”
She’s prepared her answer: “Good, Aunty. Preparing well for boards.” What she won’t say: that she hasn’t felt genuinely happy in months. That she fakes stomach aches to avoid school some days because the thought of another test makes her chest tight. That she’s started pulling out her hair—literally, strand by strand—when the anxiety gets too much. “ It’s called trichotillomania,” her school counsellor explained. It’s a stress response.
Her parents know she’s “stressed”—all students are stressed during board exam years, aren’t they? What they don’t know is that she’s Googled “how many sleeping pills are safe” twice this month. She hasn’t taken any. But the fact that she’s thinking about it terrifies her.
In the living room, her mother is arranging snacks and mentally rehearsing her own script. If asked about Meera’s performance, she’ll mention the recent 94% in the pre-boards but gloss over the fact that Meera cried for an hour afterwards because “Ritu got 97%.” She’ll avoid mentioning the school counsellor’s gentle suggestion that Meera might benefit from “talking to someone professionally.” Mental health treatment is for people with “real problems,” not students who just need to study harder. Right?
Here’s the uncomfortable truth we need to confront: No. No, it isn’t.
We’ve built an education system—and more dangerously, a cultural mindset—that equates academic marks with human worth. And in doing so, we’re systematically breaking our children.
The Numbers Don’t Lie: We’re in a Crisis
Let’s start with the data, because sometimes cold, hard facts are what it takes to wake us up.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), student suicides in India have been rising at 4% annually—double the national suicide rate. In 2022 alone, over 13,000 students took their own lives. That’s more than 35 students every single day. Thirty-five families shattered. Thirty-five futures erased. Thirty-five sets of dreams that will never be realised.
A recent study analysing eight universities across nine Indian states found that 69.9% of students experience moderate to high anxiety, and 59.9% show signs of depression. These aren’t outliers. These aren’t the “weak” ones who “can’t handle pressure.” These are our children, desperately trying to meet expectations that have become impossible to meet.
The coaching hub of Kota, once synonymous with academic excellence, has become synonymous with something far darker. Between 2021 and 2024, 72 students died by suicide in Kota—most of them teenagers preparing for entrance exams. Seventy-two young people who couldn’t bear the weight of our expectations.
And here’s what should terrify every parent reading this: A comprehensive review of student burnout research found that over 55% of college students worldwide experience academic burnout, with 20.5% reporting severe symptoms. In China, a 2020 survey revealed that over 70% of adolescents experienced academic burnout.
These aren’t just statistics. These are alarm bells. And we’re hitting the snooze button.
Preventing student burnout isn’t just about individual coping strategies—it requires us to examine and change the system that’s creating this crisis.
The Paradox We Refuse to See
Here’s the cruel irony that nobody wants to acknowledge: In our obsession with pushing academic performance, we’re actually destroying the very thing we claim to be building—our children’s future success.
Multiple longitudinal studies have now confirmed what should have been obvious all along: mental health problems in childhood and adolescence significantly increase the risk for poor academic performance. Students with high burnout scores have, on average, 25% lower GPAs than their peer students without burnout. Research shows clear negative correlations between stress, depression, anxiety, and academic achievement.
Read that again. The very stress we justify in the name of “good marks” is sabotaging academic performance.
It’s like forcing a plant to grow by pulling on its leaves. You might get some temporary height, but you’re damaging the root system. Eventually, the plant dies—no matter how hard you pull.
A student experiencing burnout or severe anxiety doesn’t just feel bad—their brain literally functions differently. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for complex thinking and decision-making, goes offline under chronic stress. Working memory capacity decreases. The ability to process and retain new information diminishes. In other words, the stressed-out student studying 12 hours a day is learning less efficiently than a well-rested student studying 6 hours.
But we don’t talk about this, do we? We talk about “pushing through.” We talk about “building character.” We talk about how “life is competitive”, and they need to “toughen up.”
How We Got Here: The Cultural Trap
To be fair, this didn’t happen overnight. Indian culture has always valued education. There’s nothing wrong with that—in fact, it’s one of our greatest strengths. The problem is how that value has mutated into something toxic.
The Engineering-Medicine-Or-Failure Trinity:
Somewhere along the way, we decided there are only two acceptable careers: doctor or engineer. Everything else is a backup plan, a compromise, a disappointment.
I recently interacted with a talented 17-year-old artist whose portfolio had impressed several design schools. Her parents insisted she take engineering entrance exams “just to be safe.” She developed such severe anxiety that she couldn’t sleep and eventually stopped drawing altogether—the one thing that brought her joy became associated with family conflict and disappointment.
Never mind that we live in an era where successful careers exist in fields our grandparents couldn’t have imagined—data science, UX design, content creation, sustainable architecture, behavioural economics. Never mind that forcing a creative, people-oriented child into engineering is like forcing a fish to climb a tree. The marks matter more than the match, and we wonder why graduates feel unfulfilled in careers they never wanted.
The Comparison Olympics:
“Sharma ji ka beta” has become a cultural meme because it’s a cultural wound. The constant comparison—to neighbours, cousins, classmates, random children we don’t even know—has created an environment where children feel they’re never good enough.
A parent once told me, with genuine confusion, “But how will I know if my child is doing well if I don’t compare?” This question itself reveals the problem: we’ve forgotten that “doing well” should be measured against a child’s own potential and progress, not against someone else’s child.
A student who scores 92% feels like a failure because someone else scored 94%. The goalposts keep moving, and the finish line keeps receding. I’ve seen students who topped their class in 8th grade become depressed in 10th grade because they “only” came third. The psychological toll of never being good enough, regardless of actual achievement, is devastating.
The One-Exam-Determines-Everything Mythology:
We’ve convinced ourselves and our children that a single set of exams will determine their entire future. Board exams become do-or-die moments. Entrance exams become destiny.
The truth? Most successful people will tell you that their 10th standard marks had virtually zero impact on their actual life trajectory. I know CEOs who failed their 12th boards. I know happy, fulfilled professionals who didn’t get into IITs. I know people who scored 60% who are living more meaningful lives than some who scored 98%.
But try telling that to a 15-year-old being told their marks will “determine their future.” Try convincing them that it’s not actually life or death when every adult around them acts like it is.
The Tuition Industrial Complex:
When everyone is getting extra coaching, not getting coaching feels like falling behind. So parents stretch their budgets, children stretch their schedules, and everyone stretches themselves thin.
A typical day for many Indian high school students: Wake at 6 AM. School from 7 AM to 2 PM. Lunch and brief rest. Tuition from 4 PM to 6 PM. Another tuition from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM. Dinner. Self-study until midnight or beyond. That’s 16+ hours of academic focus, with minimal time for exercise, hobbies, family connection, or rest.
Research shows that having four or more tutors is significantly linked to higher academic stress and exam anxiety. But the arms race continues because nobody wants their child to be the one left behind. The irony? The coaching centres profit, students suffer, and research consistently shows diminishing returns—more tuition doesn’t equal proportionally better results, especially when it comes at the cost of sleep and well-being.
The Social Media Pressure Cooker:
Add to all this the relatively new phenomenon of social media, where academic achievements (and perceived achievements) are curated and displayed. Students see peers posting about study hours, test scores, and college acceptances. The pressure isn’t just at home and school anymore—it follows them into their phones, their bedrooms, their every waking moment.
One student told me she cried after seeing her friend’s Instagram story showing a 12-hour study day. “I only studied 8 hours. I must be lazy,” she said. The fact that 8 hours of focused study is already excessive for a teenager didn’t matter. The comparison had done its damage.
What Student Burnout Actually Looks Like
Let’s be specific about what we’re doing to our children, because “burnout in a student” is often dismissed as “just stress” or “being dramatic.”
Student burnout has three core components:
Emotional Exhaustion: This isn’t tired-after-a-long-day fatigue. This is bone-deep, soul-crushing depletion. Students describe feeling like they’re running on empty, going through the motions, but feeling nothing. One student told me, “I used to love learning. Now opening a textbook makes me want to cry.”
Cynicism and Detachment: When students become cynical about their studies, they’re not being lazy or ungrateful. They’re protecting themselves psychologically from a situation that feels overwhelming. “Why does any of this matter?” isn’t an ungrateful question—it’s a desperate one.
Reduced Sense of Accomplishment: Even when burned-out students do well, they can’t feel good about it. A 90% score feels meaningless. Praise feels hollow. They’ve internalised the belief that nothing they do is ever enough.
The physical symptoms in students with burnout are equally alarming: chronic headaches, digestive issues, frequent illness (because chronic stress suppresses immune function), sleep disturbances, appetite changes, and, in severe cases, physical symptoms like chest pain that mimic serious medical conditions.
Students with poor sleep quality are 40% more likely to experience burnout. Those experiencing severe burnout are 35% more likely to consider dropping out of school entirely. And remember—only 20% of students who need mental health support actually seek it, often because asking for help feels like admitting weakness in a culture that glorifies suffering in the name of success.
The Teacher Burnout Connection Nobody Discusses
Here’s something we rarely talk about: it’s not just students who are burning out. Research shows that 77% of teachers feel frequently stressed, and 68% describe teaching as an overwhelming career.
Why does this matter? Because teacher burnout is directly associated with worse student academic achievement and lower quality student motivation. Burned-out teachers can’t provide the emotional support and engagement that students desperately need. It’s a vicious cycle: students are stressed, teachers are stressed, everyone is suffering, and yet we keep cranking up the pressure.
The Economic Argument We’re Ignoring
Let’s talk money, since that sometimes gets people’s attention when compassion doesn’t.
The Economic Survey 2024-25 explicitly states that India’s demographic dividend depends on youth mental health. The economic loss due to mental health conditions between 2012 and 2030 is estimated at USD 1.03 trillion. That’s trillion, with a T.
When we sacrifice student mental health for marks, we’re not making a smart investment—we’re destroying economic potential. Mentally healthy students become innovative, productive adults. Burned-out, anxiety-ridden students become adults who struggle with work, relationships, and life satisfaction regardless of what marks they scored in the 10th standard.
Most mental health conditions emerge before age 24. The college years are the critical intervention window. But by the time students reach college, many have already internalised a decade of toxic messaging about their worth being tied to their marks. The damage is deep.
What About Discipline? What About Hard Work?
I can hear the pushback already: “So you’re saying we should just let kids be lazy? Competition is part of life! They need to learn to work hard!”
Let me be crystal clear: This is not an argument against hard work, discipline, or academic excellence. This is an argument against sacrificing human well-being in pursuit of a number.
There’s a massive difference between:
- Encouraging a child to do their best vs. making them feel they’re only valuable if they’re the best
- Teaching time management and focus vs. creating an environment where 16-hour study days are normalised
- Fostering genuine love of learning vs. fear-based cramming for exams
- Setting high standards vs. setting impossible standards
Hard work within a framework of adequate rest, nutrition, social connection, and emotional support is productive. Hard work that requires sacrificing sleep, health, friendships, and mental peace is destructive.
Think about athletes. Do Olympic athletes train 18 hours a day, every day? No. Because their coaches understand that rest, recovery, and balance are essential to peak performance. Why do we think the human brain is any different?
The Comparison to High-Achieving Countries
“But look at China, Japan, South Korea—they have rigorous academic systems and produce excellent results!”
Yes, and they also have youth suicide rates that alarm public health officials worldwide. South Korea has the highest suicide rate in the OECD. Japan has a specific term, karoshi, meaning “death from overwork.” These are not models to emulate.
Moreover, many of these countries are actively trying to reduce academic pressure because they’ve recognised the human cost. China has been implementing regulations to limit tutoring and homework. Japan is promoting work-life balance initiatives. They’re moving away from the model we’re still embracing.
Scandinavian countries, which consistently rank high in both educational outcomes and happiness indices, emphasise balanced education. Finnish students have shorter school days, less homework, and more breaks—and Finland consistently ranks among the world’s top education systems. There’s another way. We just have to be willing to take it.
Preventing Student Burnout: Real Solutions Require Real Change
So what do we do? How do we break this cycle?
Here’s the hard truth: there’s no easy fix. This problem is cultural, systemic, and deeply ingrained. But that doesn’t mean we’re powerless. Change happens when enough people decide that the cost of the status quo is too high. We’re at that point. Here’s where to start:
1. Redefine Success at the Cultural Level
This is the hardest and most important shift. We need to stop equating academic marks with human worth. A 75% student is not worth less than a 95% student. A child who becomes an artist isn’t a disappointment compared to one who becomes a doctor.
Success should be measured by:
- Physical and mental health (Can they take care of themselves? Do they know when they need help?)
- Character development (Are they kind? Empathetic? Resilient in the face of failure?)
- Emotional intelligence (Can they handle disappointment? Build healthy relationships? Navigate conflicts?)
- Genuine skill development (Have they learned to learn? Can they solve problems creatively?)
- Passion and purpose (Have they discovered what makes them come alive?)
- Contribution to society (Are they making the world better in some way, large or small?)
- Life satisfaction and happiness (Are they actually enjoying their life, or just surviving it?)
Not just: marks, ranks, prestigious college names, starting salaries, and social bragging rights.
I know a parent who started telling neighbours, when asked about her son’s marks, “He’s healthy, he’s kind, he’s figuring out who he is—that’s what matters to us.” Was it uncomfortable at first? Yes. Did it start changing conversations in her community? Also yes.
2. Parents: Question Your Own Conditioning
This requires brutal honesty with yourself. Ask yourself:
- Am I pushing my child toward certain careers because they want them, or because I want them? Be specific. Write down your child’s stated interests and dreams. Then write down what you’re pushing them toward. Are they the same?
- Are my expectations based on my child’s actual capabilities and interests, or on what the neighbours’ children are doing? If you find yourself saying “But everyone’s child is doing X,” that’s a red flag. Your child is not everyone’s child.
- Am I creating an environment where my child feels loved unconditionally, or loved conditionally based on performance? Here’s a test: Imagine your child scores poorly on an important exam. What’s your first thought? “I’m disappointed in you”, or “Are you okay?” Your answer matters.
- When was the last time I asked my child how they’re feeling, not just how they’re studying? Not “Did you finish your homework?” but “What made you happy today? What was hard? How are you really doing?”
- What am I modelling? If you’re working yourself to exhaustion, never taking breaks, and measuring your own worth by your professional achievements, your child is learning that lesson too—no matter what you tell them.
Practical steps for parents:
- Have one meal a day that’s a designated “no academic talk” zone
- Celebrate effort and learning, not just outcomes: “I love how you kept trying different approaches to solve that problem”, instead of “Good job getting it right”
- Share your own failures and what you learned from them
- Create family time that has nothing to do with productivity—play games, take walks, cook together, be silly
- Get therapy for yourself if you realise your anxiety is fueling theirs (this isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s an act of love)
3. Schools: Break the Testing Obsession
Educational institutions need to recognise their role in this crisis. Schools that measure their success solely by board exam results are contributing to the problem.
Schools should:
Implement comprehensive mental health programs with trained counsellors—not one counsellor for 2,000 students, but adequate support that students can actually access. Schools in Bangalore and Delhi that have implemented weekly wellness check-ins have seen significant reductions in student stress levels and burnout.
Teach stress management and emotional regulation as core skills, not as optional “soft skills.” Dedicate time to teaching breathing techniques, time management, emotional awareness, and conflict resolution. These are life skills that matter far more than memorising dates and formulas.
Create diverse metrics for student success. What if report cards included: “Shows improvement in X,” “Demonstrated leadership in Y,” “Exhibits creativity in Z,” “Supports peers,” “Asks thoughtful questions”? What if we valued curiosity as much as correct answers?
Encourage teacher training in recognising mental health issues. A study found that 70% of IIT faculty felt unprepared to deal with students’ mental health concerns, and 90% lacked proper training. If educators at our most prestigious institutions feel this way, imagine the situation elsewhere.
Stop publicly ranking students. No more displaying top scorers’ names on notice boards. No more publishing rank lists that shame students who didn’t make the cut. Recognition can happen without humiliation.
Model healthy work-life balance. If schools send homework that requires 4+ hours every night, they’re part of the problem. If teachers stay until 9 PM every day, students internalise that overwork is normal.
4. Create Safety Nets, Not Just Support After Crisis
We need to shift from reactive to proactive mental health support.
What this looks like in practice:
- Mental health check-ins as routine as physical health checkups—annually, minimum
- Teaching emotional regulation techniques from primary school onward
- Peer support programs where students are trained to recognise signs of distress or burnout in friends
- Parent education programs about adolescent development and mental health (because most parents are trying their best with outdated information)
- Easy access to professional support without stigma (teletherapy, school counsellors, community mental health centres)
- Follow-up after stressful periods (after board exams, after entrance exams—checking on students, not just moving on to the next challenge)
Some schools in Hyderabad have implemented “wellness Wednesdays,” where academics take a back seat to activities focused on well-being. Students have reported feeling more energised and actually performing better academically as a result.
5. Media and Influencers: Change the Narrative
This might seem trivial, but culture is shaped by the stories we tell. We need:
- Success stories that don’t focus solely on marks and prestige
- Honest conversations about mental health rather than glorifying suffering (“I slept 2 hours a day during JEE prep!”)
- Alternative role models who took unconventional paths
- Less “study with me” content that romanticises 16-hour days and more content about sustainable learning practices
- Calling out toxic productivity culture when we see it
Stories of Recovery: When We Choose Health Over Marks
Let me share some stories that give me hope—stories of families who made different choices and don’t regret it.
Priya’s Story:
Priya was a brilliant student heading toward severe depression in her 11th standard. Her parents, both doctors, were pushing her toward medicine. When her school counsellor flagged concerning signs—Priya had stopped eating, was sleeping only 3-4 hours, and had made vague references to “wanting everything to stop”—her parents made a radical choice. They pulled her out of the coaching centre, reduced academic pressure, and got her into therapy.
Today, three years later, Priya is studying psychology (not medicine) and loves it. Her mother told me, “For months, I mourned the doctor-daughter I thought I was losing. Then I realised I nearly lost my actual daughter. The marks don’t matter. Having her alive and happy matters.”
Arjun’s Journey:
Arjun failed his 12th boards. Not just performed poorly—actually failed. It was devastating for his family. But instead of forcing him to immediately repeat the year while drowning in shame, his parents took a breath. They discovered Arjun had been struggling with undiagnosed ADHD. They got him proper support, let him take a gap year to work in his uncle’s startup, and when he did repeat his final year, it was with proper accommodations and understanding.
Arjun is now successfully running his own small business. Would he have “succeeded” by conventional measures if they’d just pushed harder that first time? Probably not. He needed a different path, and his parents’ willingness to let him take it made all the difference.
The School That Changed:
A private school in Chennai noticed alarming trends—increasing student anxiety and burnout, several students hospitalised for stress-related issues, and two suicide attempts in one year. Instead of doubling down on exam prep, they made structural changes. They reduced homework load, implemented mandatory sports/arts participation, hired more counsellors, trained teachers in mental health first aid, and stopped displaying top-scorer lists publicly.
Parents were initially outraged. “Our children will fall behind!” But the data from the next three years told a different story: Student well-being scores increased dramatically, and academic performance either stayed the same or improved. Turns out, healthy students learn better. Who knew? (Everyone who was paying attention, actually.)
What Doesn’t Work: Failed “Solutions” We Keep Trying
It’s also worth naming what doesn’t work, because we keep trying the same failed approaches:
Adding stress management workshops while keeping impossible expectations: Teaching meditation is great, but if students still need to study 16 hours a day, the meditation isn’t going to solve the fundamental problem. It’s like teaching someone to swim while you keep pushing their head underwater.
Telling students “mental health matters” while rewarding overwork: Schools that claim to care about wellness but publicly celebrate students who “sacrificed sleep” for results, or teachers who proudly announce they never take sick days—these mixed messages are harmful.
Focusing only on students in crisis: Waiting until someone is suicidal to intervene is too late. We need preventive mental health care, not just crisis management.
Blaming individual weakness: “Some students just can’t handle pressure” is a convenient narrative that lets the system off the hook. When this many students are “weak,” the problem isn’t the students—it’s the pressure.
Superficial changes without structural reform: Adding one counsellor or one mental health awareness day does nothing if the fundamental culture of achievement-at-all-costs remains unchanged.
A Different Vision of Education
Imagine an education system where:
A student passionate about history isn’t pressured to “take science because it has more scope.” They’re encouraged to dive deep into their passion, developing expertise and joy rather than resentment and anxiety.
Parents celebrate their child’s curiosity and character development as much as their marks. Conversations at home focus on “What did you learn today?” and “What are you excited about?” rather than “What marks did you get?”
Schools measure success using indicators of student well-being alongside academic metrics. A school where zero students are burned out, and 80% are genuinely engaged, is considered more successful than one where students are miserable but score 2% higher on average.
Students have time to play, create, rest, and simply be teenagers. Because childhood and adolescence aren’t just preparation for life—they are life.
Teachers are trained to recognise and respond to mental health concerns and have the resources to actually help students, not just refer them elsewhere.
This isn’t a fantasy. This is what education should look like. The only thing stopping us from getting there is our own unwillingness to question the status quo.
For Students: You Are Not Your Marks
If you’re a student reading this, I need you to hear something clearly: Your worth is not determined by your academic performance.
You are not “a 92% student” or “a back-bencher” or “IIT material” or “not cut out for medicine.” You are a complete, valuable human being with unique strengths, perspectives, and potential that no percentage can capture.
The system is broken. It’s not your fault that you’re struggling. And struggling doesn’t mean you’re weak—it means you’re human.
If you’re burned out, if you’re anxious, if you’re exhausted—please talk to someone. A parent, a counsellor, a trusted teacher, a friend. I know it feels like asking for help is admitting defeat. It’s not. It’s being smart enough to recognise when you need support.
Your health—mental and physical—is not negotiable. It’s not something you sacrifice now and fix later. It’s the foundation on which everything else is built. If the foundation crumbles, everything crumbles.
For Parents: An Uncomfortable Question
Here’s what keeps me up at night, and what I hope will haunt every parent reading this article:
Ten years from now, will you regret that your child scored 87% instead of 92%? Or will you regret the emotional distance you created, the anxiety they still struggle with, the relationship damage that happened during those exam years?
I’ve heard countless parents say, “I wish I had just let them breathe. I wish I had prioritised their happiness over their marks. I wish I had been less focused on college names and more focused on who they were becoming as people.”
I’ve never—not once—heard a parent say, “I regret not pushing harder for better marks.”
You get one chance to parent your children through these formative years. They will remember how you made them feel far more vividly than they’ll remember what you said about their marks.
Choose wisely.
The Bottom Line
We’re at a crossroads. One path leads to continuing down this destructive trajectory—more student suicides, more burnout, more anxiety disorders, more young adults in India who have achieved academic “success” but feel empty and broken inside.
The other path requires us to fundamentally rethink what we want for our children. Not just what degrees we want them to earn, but what kind of humans we want them to become. Not just whether they can get into prestigious colleges, but whether they can build meaningful, fulfilling lives.
Preventing student burnout starts with this choice: will we prioritise marks or mental health? The research is unambiguous: prioritising mental health doesn’t hinder academic success—it enables it. Students who are mentally healthy, well-rested, and emotionally supported perform better academically than those who are stressed, sleep-deprived, and anxious.
So when we push marks over health, we’re not making a difficult-but-necessary choice for their future. We’re destroying their future while telling ourselves we’re building it.
There’s a famous saying: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
We keep doing the same thing—pushing harder, adding more pressure, demanding higher marks—and expecting that somehow this time it will work out differently. That somehow this generation will be able to handle the pressure that broke the last one.
It won’t.
The only thing that will change the outcome is changing what we do. And that starts with acknowledging a simple, uncomfortable truth:
Marks matter. But health matters more. Because without health, the marks become meaningless.
Our children are not machines to be optimised for output. They’re human beings who deserve to grow up healthy, happy, and whole. The fact that we even have to argue for this tells you everything about how far we’ve strayed.
It’s time to find our way back.
What will you choose: temporary academic performance or long-term human well-being? The decision we make now will determine not just our children’s test scores, but the kind of adults they become and the society they build. Choose carefully.
