Coping with Stress in College
If you are a university student, you are very likely to suffer from stress and anxiety in your studies. We suspect that you are someone who is struggling with stress and anxiety; after all, you are reading an article with that title. Is it not? For you, we have good news and bad news.
Shall we start with the bad? The bad news is that we cannot escape stress and anxiety while in college.
Now, on to the good news! With a few simple tips, we can reduce stress and anxiety and inadvertently prevent mental exhaustion, which has proven to be a significant consequence of stress and anxiety.
The following are self-care tips to help us combat stress and anxiety in college. Ready to get rid of this evil? Check out five simple tips to deal with stress and anxiety in college.
But, before we continue, what is mental exhaustion?
Mental exhaustion happens when you feel profound tiredness and lack of motivation for a long time resulting in a drop-in performance in studies. It is that moment when:
Everything you do is very tiring.
You don’t care about anything.
Everything sucks.
You want to kick everything and drop out to start selling clothes.
Exhaustion is a time when you are exhausted, without motivation to study or do anything, frustrated and unwilling to study.
Usually, this emotional state happens when you deal with a lot of stress, anxiety and a lot of tasks for an extended time, which unfortunately is very common for students studying for contests.
It is essential to record that burnout does not happen overnight; it happens when you are exposed to this demand for a long time. That is if you have reached that point of mental exhaustion, you have likely been exposed to an emotional burden of stress, anxiety, tasks and exhaustive study for a long time.
But the good thing is that it doesn’t always have to be that way.
There are signs that you emit when you are about to have an emotional breakdown. Knowing these signs, you can take some previous actions and prevent them from happening.
To help you in this endeavour, we have separated five simple yet useful tips for you to avoid or get rid of mental exhaustion.
1. Kick perfectionism away
In a lot of research works to determine the cause of mental exhaustion for students, it has been noticed that students have mental fatigue when exposed to excessive tasks for a long period.
So, take perfectionism away and accept your limitations! We need challenges, but we have limitations. Therefore, you need to find out in advance what your weaknesses are.
If you extrapolate these limitations too long, it will have consequences, and they are not good consequences.
Do not study more than your body and mind can handle.
Do not take extra tasks out of study that will require mental effort.
Remember that studies are your priority.
You don’t have to be a perfect person in the world, helping others in a thousand ways and still studying.
Our body shows clear signs of exhaustion, and if your body starts showing these signs, hit the brake and slow down. Your body and mind are your best tools, don’t spoil them.
2. Exercise your body and mind
Remember that your body is your study machine. So, taking good care of it is doing a lot for your learning and your future. Sleeping poorly, eating poorly and not exercising are common misconceptions among students.
These attitudes put your body out of top performance. And, as you know, you have to be at your optimum emotional and physical performance to be able to compete.
Also, if your body is off grid, you will have a harder time dealing with all the causes of exhaustion.
Have you ever thought about having to deal with complicated teachers, a confused family, excessive tasks and an unbalanced body?
Many of the causes of emotional exhaustion you do not influence but be prepared to have a balanced body.
So, the classic recipe of good sleep, proper nutrition and exercise are valid for you too.
3. Be organized
We believe that you must have already gone through moments of disorganization.
Do you know those situations where you cannot differentiate essential tasks from those that are not? Then you are full of tasks, most of them unfulfilled and everything becomes a mess.
If you are disorganized, messy and lost, we suggest that you take a few days off and not study, just get organized.
Organize your books, studies, reviews, notes, notebooks, files, PDFs, summaries, handouts and everything in between.
Make a study plan possible, feasible, realistic.
Take the time and clear up your tasks, forgetting those you’ve already seen that you won’t be able to do.
The external organization ends up reflecting on the internal; you will notice that the exhaustion will decrease, and you will be able to understand better what is a priority and what is not.
And the best: after everything is organized, you will have that incredible feeling of accomplishment.
4. Relax
We have the crazy idea that continuous study is the best strategy to learn as quickly as possible and that rest is a waste of time. That is a wrong notion. You need to regularly take time to rest, get away from school, relax, clear your head. Keep in mind that this is a mental cleaning, a type of cleaning that will increase your performance.
Take time to relax. It would help if you had a fun time. This moment of rest is not to be on Facebook, WhatsApp, Netflix or something.
Set aside time for yourself, schedule a particular time for your real rest. At that moment you must have no distractions that will take you off that rest. So, our suggestion is to put the phone in non-disturbing mode and enjoy this moment without guilt.
In addition to long-term rest, you must take short rest periods during the day and study breaks.
If you understand the importance of sabbatical periods and experience those moments of rest, you will realize that when you leave that period, you will return energized. Your performance, memorization, reasoning and understanding of the courses will be much better.
That is, you do not waste time; you gain mental capacity.
But we need to make a warning be careful with the “rest of the media” We know you like to rest by watching a show, playing video games or spending time on Facebook. But, unfortunately, this rest is suitable for a period, but not for long.
So, at least some breaks you should take to do different activities that do not involve electronics and screens.
One of the main reasons for stress, anxiety and exhaustion is the accumulation of tasks without a good rest.
5. Ask for help
Our last tip for dealing with mental exhaustion in college is asking for help!
You don’t have to deal with it all yourself. You can talk to friends and family about what is causing you to burn out.
If it is not enough, several professionals can help you face this moment. Do not be ashamed of looking for a good psychologist or psychiatrist.
Don’t be ashamed to seek help at these times.
Remember, the result (being approved) will be a fruit harvested for life, and any help in the cultivation of this fruit is welcome.
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