Many college students are required to both attend school and have a job to maintain their livelihoods. I’m one of those people, and it can be incredibly overwhelming. It sometimes feels impossible to maintain your mental health when you’re constantly at work, school, or doing homework. However, I’ve found some strategies that help me feel more relaxed and give me time to do the things I love doing, despite the busyness of my schedule.
Set Boundaries at Work
I found it very important to make my situation clear to my manager when I was hired. It’s important that employers know you’re a college student, so you will be balancing your classes and job. Beyond that, it’s also important that they know this, so they’ll expect you to take periods of time off over holidays and the summer. However, that may not always be enough for a manager to be willing to give you time off to visit family, so I always make sure I request my time off months in advance, so they are more likely to accept it and have time to plan on who to schedule instead of me. Making time to see family and friends is very important to me, so I do my best to make it a priority.
Give Yourself One Free Day
Although this isn’t always possible, I try my best to create a schedule every semester that gives me one day where I don’t have work or classes. One free day can mean a lot of different things. It’s something you can rely on if you didn’t have time to finish something for school, if you need to clean your apartment/dorm (a clean-living space does wonders for mental health), or even if you simply want a day to relax and do nothing. The first semester where I had a job, I found myself either at work or school every day of the week and I got burnt out very fast. By implementing this free day into my schedule, my stress improved greatly.
Make Time for Things You Enjoy
Beyond giving myself one free day, I also always keep an eye out for ways to do things I love. Personally, going to concerts is something I find very relaxing, and it helps me reset when I’m feeling stressed. Because of this, I set aside money that I can use to spend on concerts whenever they may pop up. While this may seem impractical to some, it’s something that really helps my mental health, so I found a way to make it happen. Finding that thing that you love to do and making time for it is fantastic for your mental health.
Recognize the Impermanence of Each Day/Moment
Someone at work once told me that they accept the reality of a day at work before even getting there because that helps them get less frustrated at uncontrollable things that will inevitably be over soon. This is a piece of advice I didn’t expect to hold onto, but it has proved very helpful to me (as someone with anxiety). It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by school or work or just everything going on in your life now but accepting the reality of a difficult situation because it will eventually pass is a trick, I’ve been able to play on my mind that has helped me through many long, hard nights at work and difficult classes in school.
These are some of my personal tricks for maintaining work, school, and my mental health. They may work for you, but they also may not. I always try to find advice from others to see if it will work for me too, but everyone is different. What’s most important is that you find a means of balancing all the aspects of your life in a way that makes sense for you. Finding that balance is well worth it, I promise.