Managing Stress at School

If you’re in school, you know that it’s a stressful time because in addition to the academic pressures, you’re dealing with many other pressures including your own and other people’s expectations, financial pressures, maybe even worries about the future career that you might have. So this is a critical time for you to develop healthy habits and practices in coping with those demands. It’s important to set good boundaries around the activities that you know help you to feel healthier and more at ease. So this includes things like taking time to tend to your physical health and your relationships and your mental health. But striving to find more balance in your life can also tend to feel like another obligation, so just remember that sometimes it’s okay to unplug just for the sake of unplugging. Now, speaking of unplugging – social media is a way that many of us keep in touch with the people who matter to us (and that’s really important) but social media also has a downside and that is that the more time we spend on it, the more we can feel stressed and anxious – especially when we’re seeing depictions of other people’s lives that make them seem so much happier and better off than we are. Also, too much social media use can impact your grades, studies show, so try to engage in social media in moderation. Also, consider trying mindfulness meditation. It’s a practice of paying more attention to your present moment experience and as a result, worrying less about the future. Now, some amount of worry can be helpful. After all, it’s probably worrying about how you’ll do on your final that causes you to study harder for it. But if you practice mindfulness meditation, there’ll be more focused and attentive to what you’re doing so that you can use your energy in a productive way rather than wasting it on excessive worry.