Everyone deals with stress and anxiety at some point in their lives. Some have it more frequently than others and others can deal with it quite well. But for a lot of students, the stresses that come with school work and life can become overwhelming. If you are finding yourself struggling, here are some tips on how to deal with the academic stress you are facing.
What Causes Academic Stress?
There are a whole host of reasons that young people feel masses of anxiety and stress during their school years. One main root of stress is high expectations that may have been put on them by friends, family or even themselves.
Some students freeze up at the word ‘exam’. There is just something about being sat in a hall and having to perform to the best of your ability to determine your future that scares students.
For other students it could be something as small as procrastination. They leave their work until the last moment and that can funnel all the stress into a short period of time that becomes unbearable.
How To Cope With Academic Stress
If you find yourself becoming overwhelmingly stressed due to the pressure of school, here are some tips to help you through it and improve your wellbeing.
Focus on yourself
Many of us are brought up to think that doing things for yourself is selfish, but if you don’t take care of yourself, you will eventually run out of energy and have nothing to give to anyone else. Be sure to focus on yourself and take care of your own needs.
One way to do this and eradicate some school stress is by thinking about what you can and cannot control. You cannot control the exam questions or how you will be graded, but you can study as much as you can.
You can study alone in a quiet room even if your friends want to study in a group space. Take control of your own life and do what is best for you.
Self Care
Linking to the above point, you need to take care of the fundamentals in your life before attempting other things. This means that you need to be eating right, exercising, socialising, sleeping well, etc if you want any shot at having a successful day.
Pulling an all-nighter is alright every so often, but not every week. You can have a pizza and chips for dinner, but not every single night. What you can do is have a bath or listen to music or go for a walk.
Taking steps to settle your personal life will bleed over into your academic life too.
Responsibility and forgiveness
People make mistakes all the time; it’s human nature. However, when you are late to class or forget to hand in that assignment, be ready to take responsibility and learn from your mistakes. Missteps are great, as long as you learn from them.
Once you have taken responsibility, you can then forgive yourself. We are often quite good at forgiving others, but not ourselves. Holding a grudge against ourselves is only going to add to the stresses we already have. Have compassion for yourself and realise that you aren’t going to ace every test, every time.
Ask for help
All universities will have a mentoring scheme or mental health plan in place for this exact issue. If you find yourself really struggling in a class or with your personal life, reach out to those that are around you. This can be a trusted tutor, friends, family or someone else from your university.
There are people whose only job is to make sure that you are happy and healthy whilst you are at university, so allow them to help you.
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