Being a college student is hard; there are a lot of things that can cause us to feel lost or feel mentally down on ourselves. We have to learn to adjust to a new schedule every year and every semester.
Along with this, you have to learn to manage time, family, and friendships, and figure out how to make new bonds along the way. All of these things can be extremely mentally draining, especially when you don’t have the skills to manage all of these things.
Learning how to take care of ourselves and our mental health is something that we must do to ensure that we can be physically healthy as well. One way to make sure that we support our mental health throughout school is making sure that we take time for ourselves. This means that we have to take a minute to step away from the computer and school for a while, whether it is an hour or a whole day, and just be.
During this time, for ourselves, it is important to do something that we enjoy. This can be anything that you enjoy doing that may help calm you down. For example, taking a long walk, watching a movie, going to get coffee or lunch, or even spending time with friends are great activities that will help you decompress a little bit. By doing this, we can step away from the stress and just enjoy being a college student without the work.
Another way that we can make sure we are supporting our mental health throughout school is making sure that we recognize our feelings and talk about them with people that we feel comfortable with, whether these people are family or friends. This is essential to supporting our health because if we bottle up our emotions, it can take a toll on us. We want to let people that we care about know when we are stressed or feeling down that people are aware of what is going on.
Along with this, we must take time to get enough sleep. Sleep is a very important part of both our mental health and our physical health, which is why it’s important to prioritize it. Making sure that you get around eight hours of sleep a night can allow you to wake up feeling refreshed to start a new day. If you lack sleep, you will wake up feeling more stressed than you need to be, simply because you are tired.
Finally, another thing that I have learned to make sure I am supporting my mental health is making sure that I use my resources and practice the skills that I was taught. For example, I go to therapy every week to talk about my feelings and what is bothering me, or how my anxiety is throughout the week. I think that this helps a lot with managing my mental health during school because I have someone to discuss anything that I am feeling without feeling like I am a burden. There are resources on campus that can be utilized for this exact reason.
Another thing that I have learned is that we have to use mindfulness skills and practice these skills. One thing that I have learned to do is to use a cold or warm compress to help with my anxiety. This is really simple to do anywhere. When you feel yourself getting anxious, you can put an ice pack on your face or go to the bathroom and splash cold water on your face. This helps to stimulate your brain to focus on something else, allowing you to calm yourself down during a stressful or anxious time.
Finally, another thing that I like to do when I can is get sour candy for when I am anxious. This does the same thing as the cold compress does because it causes your brain to focus on something else and calm you down as well.
Throughout college, it is important to make sure that we are taking care of our mental health because it can be a real game-changer.
