Although I am enjoying my uni life overall, it is true that it can be stressful and overwhelming at times. This is especially the case for me during the middle and towards the end of the semester, since this is when many of the due dates for assignments and exams take place. When I get stressed out and overwhelmed, this will negatively impact my mental health and once it gets to an excessive stage, it starts to negatively influence other aspects of my life. To avoid finding myself at this stage, I write. By writing, I can bring back positivity to my mental health as it allows me to organise my mind. Since I find writing really helpful, I will share 3 different forms of writing I use to keep my mental health positive as much as possible:
- Scribbling down on paper
I found this format the most convenient, as you can write in whatever way you like. You can write literally anything, for example what is happening/happened, how you are feeling and why you feel the way you do. Most of the time, at the end, it feels like you’ve created a big mess on paper. But at the same time, I find that my mind is much more organised which already makes me feel better. Also, if you look back to it, you may be able to find potential solutions to cope with your stress. This will help you bring back your mental state to the positive side as well.
- Writing diaries
If you want to monitor your mental health regularly, writing diaries would be a great choice for you. Not only that you can figure out how you feel every day and why which will help you organise your mind, you can also avoid suddenly finding yourself excessively stressed out or overwhelmed by being able to monitor your feelings and notice when you are starting to feel stressed and overwhelmed even if it was a slight one. This way, you can figure out how to bring back positivity to your mental health before you enter the excessive stage. It may sound challenging to write a diary to track your mental health, but you don’t have to write every day. Plus, it should probably be fun reading back your diaries in the future to remind yourself of the time you spent at uni.
- Writing articles
If you have the confidence to share your thoughts and feelings to the wider public, writing articles can be another format for you to use to organise your mind. You can write an article about your concerns and experiences, which will help you organise your mind by writing it out in words. In fact, you don’t even have to write anything personal or negative. Just writing an article for fun and sharing what you enjoy doing can help. It sounds unrelated to organising your mind and coping with your stress, but stepping out and forgetting about being stressed out and overwhelmed for a while can help you clear up and eventually organise your mind. Then, you might end-up finding yourself being able to easily bring back positivity to your mental health, compared to being stuck to your stressed and overwhelmed feelings all the time. Also, you can feel better by getting likes from readers.
These were the 3 different forms of writing I use to organise my mind and bring back positivity to my mental health when feeling stressed and overwhelmed with life. One last note, although I shared these forms on the assumption of writing by hand because that is what I usually do, you can do the same thing with typing if you are more of a typing person!