Midterms are stressful, and they can be draining when you have so many. Although it is important to study and make sure you’re going to do great on these tests, it is also important that you make sure you’re doing great in your personal life too. Don’t forget to prioritize YOURSELF too! Here are a few ways to make sure you’re keeping up with your self care during a stressful time such as midterms:
Stay Organized
It is important to make sure that all of your due dates, test dates, and extra curricular meeting dates are in order so you don’t miss anything. I personally think that missing a due date or event is more stressful than preparing for it. I stay organized by using a planner, a google sheet, and the google calendar app. I write down all of my assignments in my planner and on a spreadsheet. I enter all of my event dates into my planner and google calendar. This is beneficial because no matter where I am I can access at least one of these resources! If I am at a friend’s house and am wondering what time I should leave since I have a meeting that day, I can just pull out my google calendar on my phone. Staying organized will relieve stress and help you be successful!
Enjoy your Free Time
When I have free time, I like to hang out with my roommates, read a book, call my friends and family from home, or go to the gym. When my roommates and I all have free time, we like to all spend time together in our living room and just relax. I also love to read, when I am spending alone time, you can almost always find me reading. Reading relieves my stress and it allows me to let my imagination go off and visualize the book I am reading. Calling my family and friends at home always gives me a sense of comfort and it is nice to talk to them about things going on in our lives since we are at a distance for the time being. Whenever I am feeling stressed I know I can always call my mom and it will make me feel better! Going to the gym everyday helps me clear my head and it sets a great start to my day. Getting exercise is proven to help release stress! It is important to do the things you love doing in your free time because this is time to focus on YOU!
Self Care
I like to do self care in the mornings and nights in order to help me feel refreshed. Taking care of your body is important, especially during a stressful time. If you had a long day but you still have to do homework when you get home, take a shower and throw on a face mask after. When you’re doing your work you’re still caring for yourself by letting the facemask sit on. This is an example of something that will make you feel relaxed while still being productive. Another thing I like to do is have a routine for every morning and night. For example, when I am getting ready to unwind for bed, I always make sure I do a small amount of self care. If I have a lot of free time at night, I will add more steps to my routine that I may not do every day such as a hair mask or a face mask. Self care will allow you to relax, let some of that stress go, and it will make you feel clean and refreshed.
Vision Boards
Vision boards are a great way to visualize what you have to accomplish in both work and your personal life. I run my sorority’s Instagram, so for example if I wanted to create a post for one of our events but I was unsure of the color schemes and poses I wanted to have incorporated into our post, I can look on pinterest and get some ideas so that way when I am ready to upload, I have a board full of ideas that I initially was interested in. As for personal life, if midterms are coming up and you want to visualize how you’re going to handle accomplishing the stressful week, you can make a vision board. I would add pictures of my favorite books, someone studying, a test score of a 100, and pictures that correlate to success. You can even set your computer background as the vision board you’re currently focused on, that way you see it everyday!