Now that we’re more than halfway through the semester (Can I get a heck yes?!!), you may start to feel like your stress is getting the best of you.
With classes, work, social life, sleep, and exercise all trying to take the top spot on your list of priorities, how do you manage them all effectively? Here are some tips to help alleviate the stress that comes with being a college student.
Create a Morning Routine
Whether it’s brewing that perfect cup of coffee, writing in your journal, going on a sunrise walk through the neighborhood, or simply just taking your vitamins, having a consistent morning routine can eliminate stress and anxiety that you may be experiencing at the beginning of the day. Life is full of unexpected events, but you can always count on your morning routine to make you feel happy, refreshed, and ready to take on the day.
Meditate
There are a variety of meditation practices out there to try – you just have to find one that works best for you! Meditation allows you to take some time to yourself at any point in the day to be mindful of your current thoughts and feelings. Often, we aren’t truly aware of how or why we are feeling a certain way until we allow our bodies and minds to be still for a period of time. By acknowledging our emotions, we enable ourselves to better manage our stress.
Limit Your Phone Use Toward the End of the Night
A lot of the information we receive today comes through our cellphones. Try to limit or avoid scrolling through social media like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook late at night. It’s easy to look at what others are doing, wearing, eating, or saying on social media and instantly become stressed that we are not doing the same as them. Create a night time environment that doesn’t include the stress that comes with comparing yourself to others over social media.
Start Journaling
Although at times we may think we completely understand our thoughts, we can often discover a lot about how we are thinking if we make our thoughts tangible. By transferring our thoughts to paper, it’s easier to see and understand what is stressing us out, how much is stressing us out, and what we can do to fix it. Problems and worries that exist in our minds are sometimes larger and more complicated there than if they were written down. Writing our thoughts challenges us to figure out what is truly making us feel stressed, anxious, or worried.
Plan Ahead
Stress can be caused by a lack of time to think or prepare for upcoming events. The best way to handle this is by planning ahead. There are so many things in life that are impossible to plan ahead for, so we might as well plan for the things that we know are upcoming. Being prepared for an event or assignment gives you more time in the future to spend on solving those unexpected problems that life throws at you.