物极必反

wù jí bì fǎn

push anything to the extreme and it turns into its opposite

Character by character

物wù
things

极jí
extreme

必bì
must

反fǎn
reverse

物极必反，压力太大反而学不好。

Push too hard and it backfires: too much pressure hurts learning.

Tone: neutral.

A core idea of the 《易经》 and Daoism.

Learn it in context

This idiom and thousands more are in Learn Chinese with Bao, with audio, pinyin and drills that make them stick.