Surviving your college education will test your ability to manage emotions and avoid stress. You will face challenging academic tasks like analyzing a lengthy cultural identity essay example or writing a highly technical research paper. You may need to coordinate with your rowdy classmates to finish a project. Whatever academic task you may face, there is a possibility for you to develop tension and anxiety that can affect your productivity. To help you, here are five management techniques to avoid stress as a college student.
Stressed students may feel overwhelmed and demotivated which results in unproductive behaviors. These feelings may come from failed tasks, large workloads, or personal problems. Failed tasks may make you feel like a failure. Large workloads can easily overwhelm you and cause you to panic. Other personal problems can take away your focus from important tasks. To help you manage your emotions, you can try to develop a sense of accomplishment. A sense of accomplishment can boost your self-perception and overall mental health.
If you are a creative individual who likes to write, draw, paint, or sing; you can utilize these activities to provide you with a sense of accomplishment. Try to write a reflective essay and express your feelings or paint a simple landscape of your favorite scenery. These simple tasks will allow you to focus your mind on an enjoyable activity and garner a sense of accomplishment. Additionally, the tasks will not feel like chores or work which means you will not need to give 100% effort. Simply enjoy the activity and allow your mind to relax.
Aside from creative activities, a stressed college student may find it relaxing to play video games. This activity will not only distract you from the sources of tension but also provide a sense of accomplishment. Video games, even the simplest ones, require their players to accomplish an objective. Accomplishing a video game objective can help you feel a sense of accomplishment as you clear different levels and finish tough challenges. The relaxing ambient sound in some games may also help manage tension.
A stressed college student may tend to stay in bed for a whole day. They will lack the energy to move or even do simple tasks. This makes them unproductive, hence can then lower their self-worth. If you exhibit this behavior, find a way to gather the energy and go outside. Look for a place, such as a park, where you can view natural sceneries. Some studies have revealed that being around nature can help individuals manage and avoid stress. Consider spending a few minutes to relax outside and appreciate nature.
If you are a college student, your university campus will likely have a place similar to a public park where trees and plants are abundant. When you are feeling tensed and anxious, visit these places to unwind. However, if you are in an area where there is a significant lack of trees and plants, consider taking the bus and visiting a community park. The bus ride can help you contemplate your problems and the community park may provide relaxing scenery.
Disconnecting from a hectic social and professional life is a good way to avoid stress. Our smartphones, televisions, and other devices have allowed us to continuously receive information that can cause anxiety. News reports tend to detail crimes that showcase the cruelty of people, while social media allows egotistical figures to flaunt their wealth to normal citizens. Disconnecting from these information sources, even for just a whole day, can greatly benefit your mental health.
Disconnecting will require you to turn off your smartphone, laptop, and other gadgets. You will need to control yourself and avoid temptations. You can spend the day reading a book, visiting a park, or doing leisure activities like writing or painting. While disconnecting from society, try to enjoy and appreciate solitude. Learn to understand the value of being alone and the benefits that it can provide. Additionally, disconnecting does not mean that you should be completely alone. You can find a friend to help you disconnect from the outside world. You can talk about your feelings and enjoy the company. This way, you can improve a social relationship while also taking steps to avoid stress.
Also Read: Top 4 Stress Management Tips for Students
Overwhelming tasks and responsibilities can lead to high-stress levels and a cramped mind. College students are common victims of these factors since they take multiple classes and must submit various projects with limited deadlines. The overwhelming feeling of a large workload can lead to procrastination and laziness, which results in low productivity. This is common in college students since they think that they have enough time for leisure activities. If you have this mindset, consider organizing your thoughts and responsibilities to ensure that your workload will not overwhelm you.
College students can keep a journal or planner where they will list down their responsibilities. This will allow you to create a visual representation of your tasks and perform better planning. Try to identify the difficult tasks relative to their deadlines. This will allow you to prioritize more complex and urgent projects. With this method, you can assess whether the deadlines will allow you to spend extra time with leisure activities. Having this knowledge can help you avoid stress from urgent academic tasks and make you more productive.
Aside from your responsibilities, you should also organize your thoughts. This can help manage your emotions and perform introspection. Organizing your thoughts will simply require you to write down your ideas. The ideas can be your plan for a particular subject or an end-of-day reflection. Whatever they are, developing the habit of organizing your thoughts will allow you to become more productive and composed.
When thinking about steps to avoid stress, you may disregard the importance of physical health. According to experts, regular exercise can lead to decrease stress, increased self-esteem, better sleep, boosted brainpower, and lower anxiety. Physical activities can help stimulate the brain and improve productivity. Your brainpower can increase which will allow you to accomplish complex tasks easier. You can also develop better self-perception as you continuously get in shape. Low anxiety and improved self-esteem will allow you to perform better in groups and build stronger social relationships.
Taking care of your physical health will also include a proper diet. You will need to avoid eating large amounts of unhealthy food and start observing your food intake. However, it is important not to obsess about your diet and physical activities. You do not need to micromanage your calorie intake or perform extreme exercises unless you find the practice enjoyable or more beneficial. Instead, you should aim to develop a habit of eating healthy foods and exercising regularly. Try to develop consistency through manageable 10 to 15-minute exercise and eating vegetables daily. Once you incorporate these practices into your daily routine, you can then proceed with longer exercises and a stricter diet.
Managing stress can help college students be more productive in both their academic and social lives. Following the management techniques in this article to avoid stress can greatly improve an individual’s quality of life. They may begin to appreciate the simple things in life, develop self-awareness, and prevent problems from overwhelming them. If you are a student suffering from stress, consider these 5 stress management techniques and make your academic life better.
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