College can be a stressful environment for anyone. With the increase in responsibilities, change in eating and sleeping habits, lack of good time management skills, and lack of self-care. No one stands immune to stress; however, there are ways you can take to change the situation.
Are you already experience stress symptoms? No need to worry. Stress is common among young people, especially in college. However, how you deal with stress is an essential aspect of your healing process. Below are some tips to help you in managing stress in college and build your mental health.
Below are some pro tips to help you in coping with stress while in college. Pick up these activities as part of your daily routine:
Getting enough sleep
When you are living in a stressful environment, it is hard to fall asleep. Therefore, you deprive your body of time to repair, replenish, and restore itself. When under stress, the cortisol levels in your body increases. This is a hormone that majorly performs the stimulation of your body to remain alert and vigilant. Consequently, it leads to raising your body pressure and heart rate. Are you experiencing trouble sleeping lately? This is because of the altering sleep cycles due to stress.
How will sleeping reduce your stress? According to recent research, sleep helps significantly in reducing stress. When you adopt a regular sleep routine, it calms and restores your body. Therefore, you can increase your concentration. It further sharpens your grasp of concepts in class and improves your decision-making skills.
Proper diet
Did you know that the beef burger order you have at lunch in your dorm could be building your stress levels? The daily burger diet could be reducing your body energy levels, thus reducing the threshold of stress in your body. What does this lead to? With the reduced energy levels, it means you become tired easily, and as a last resort, you order more junk food to compensate for the lack of energy in your body.
We do not need to go into details of how the buildup of cholesterol in your body could be dire. With this eating habit, your body adjusts accordingly. Hence, you end up developing eating disorders that build up your stress levels. Throw the junk out, and try a healthy bite of vegetables, whole grains, and fruits.
Avoid stimulants
You have a morning paper, so what do you do? Take a cup of coffee or caffeine pills to help you burn the midnight oil. Unknowingly, the high caffeine intake in your body is detrimental to your overall health. When under caffeine, your body activates; hence it lacks time to restore your energy for the day.
Hence, you start feeling tired and exhausted in the end. You become susceptible to an energy crash and thus leave room for stress to buildup. Therefore, develop a healthy reading habit to avoid last-minute rushes that force you to take stimulants.
Seek external support
College students undergo a roller coaster of events that are bound to take a toll on their lives. Stress can emerge from trying to adjust to college life. When facing traumas while in college, it is bound to affect our mental state and affects our overall well-being. As human beings, we need an outlet to let all our frustrations in life.
Start counselling or build a support group. Hanging out with friends and specialising might help keep your mind from stressful events. Your support group can comprise of your family, friends, counsellor, and professor.
Pick up a hobby
Apart from attending classes, you should develop a hobby that takes up some of your time when you are not focusing on your studies. The health benefits of taking part in hobbies are that it reduces your body pressure and cortisol hormones. Furthermore, it leads to positive psychological states while leading to lowering depression levels.
When focusing on your body, you take a break from some of the stressful activities in your life. It can lead to reducing the feeling of being overwhelmed in your life. Hobbies provide a form of social outlet that helps you in connecting with other people. Pick up your hobby as an essay writer and document your life experiences in your diary.
Final takeaway
College can take a toll on you in terms of stress. Adjusting to college life while keeping up with your life is bound to be stressful. However, with these tips, it helps alleviate some of the stress.
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Image credit: Freepik
Peter Wallace has been an advocate for mental health awareness for years. He holds a master’s degree in counselling from the University of Edinburgh.
