To the editors:

In "Fighting the Burnout Blues" (Feature, Dec. 3), Dr. Charles Ducey of the Bureau of Study Counsel contends that "burnout...means surrendering in the face of defeat." Moreover, it is apparently reflective of a "long-term inability to adapt to rising challenges."

I would like to point out that Harvard, of all places, is not attended by people who give up when faced with a challenge--nor does the end of the semester strike me as a period when challenges significantly grow in amount and magnitude.

Although I applaud Dr. Ducey's and the Bureau's care for our mental health, they should not be too quick to jump at the psychological cause of students' decreased motivation and ignore the physical underpinnings of our functioning.

For one thing, we only have one body with which to work. This body has been subjected to systematic sleep deprivation, high levels of stress and, in the latest weeks, dramatic fluctuations in temperature and pressure. The increased desire for sleep may be reflective of nothing more than normal exhaustion.

Harvard always has--and always will--attract, as well as select, overachievers and people who push themselves very--certainly too--hard.

This will be the case as long as we live in a society that places hard work among its highest values. Many students spend more than 20 hours each week on part-time jobs and extracurricular activities before sitting down to do their homework.

Everyone who took Science B-29, "Human Behavioral Biology" knows that our hunter-gathering ancestors, to whose environment we are adapted, work three to four hours per day on average, while relaxing and playing for the rest of the time.