Many people of high IQ sail through life without serious psychological issues, while many others fall prey to psychological disorders and burnout. Yesterday (April 28) we celebrated the birthday of the brilliant Austrian logician, Kurt Gödel, whose incompleteness theorems challenged the foundations of mathematics. He later suffered from a paranoia that eventually led to his death from starvation. Two days ago, we celebrated the birthday Austrian philosopher and mathematician, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who also suffered from personality disorders. More recently, mathematician John Nash (featured in the movie “Beautiful Mind”) was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia that followed a period of intense work on game theory.
In previous centuries, there was little understanding of mental disorders, so maladies such as psychological burnout were described as a “nervous breakdown.” Isaac Newton, Francis Galton and other prominent high IQ people were said to have suffered a nervous breakdown when they suffered mental collapse. The symptoms of mental exhaustion that typically follow long periods of intense mental work, we currently refer to as “burnout.”
Among the most vulnerable candidates for this mental depletion are university students competing for admission to graduate school or immersed in the pursuit of a Ph.D. In their frenetic pursuit of top grades, students are tempted to sacrifice recreational time and socializing to periods of intense study. The endorphin releases from exercise and social interaction that are so vital to a hormonal balance, are replaced by the release of stress hormones such as cortisol. This depletion of the body’s energy reserve leads to a “burnout” condition characterized by a loss of energy, motivation and purpose. (For more information on student burnout, see Joseph Wang’s post at: https://qr.ae/py14xF
