
Dealing with Stress in College
College is less a cakewalk and more like a gauntletāunless youāre majoring in beer guzzling and skipping class, youāre going to experience some stress throughout your collegiate career. So how do you manage? How do you get past the stress to ensure your academic success?
In this blog, the CLEP study guide specialists at SpeedyPrep will give you tips for managing college-related stress so you can get good grades, avoid burnout, and enjoy your college experience.
Avoid social drama.
If youāre a traditional college student, parents send you to college to further your education and get a degree, but they also send you to college to grow up and have new experiences that help you evolve as a human being. Part of this āgrowing upā process is learning how to make new friends and be a social human beingāa task can be both enriching and distressing.
Having a healthy social life is important for being successful in collegeāyouāll meet lifelong friends and valuable professional connections. People from all walks of life will help you gain new perspectives to understand the world a bit better than you did before. But youāll also meet people that will stress you out and make your academic and personal life more complicatedāand those people should be avoided if youāre looking to be academically successful, socially satisfied, and stress-free.
Typical social dramaāwhether itās in the form of relationship quarrels, roommate fights, or party animal babysittingācan throw you off track of the real goal of college: to learn, grow, and get a degree. Avoid social drama when you can, and make sure your studies are your highest priority on a day-to-day basis. If you have to end friendships, change dorm rooms, or revamp your college lifestyle to achieve college success, then do itāitās worth the hassle in the long run.
Suffer with your friends.
Youāre going to find some great friends in collegeāthe ones that understand you, support you, and help you succeed in college and in life. These are the friends to suffer with.
Youāre going to have some tough times throughout your college career. Youāll face seemingly endless piles of homework and projects, youāll push your body and mind to the brink with a lack of sleep and excessive caffeine, and youāll spend countless hours feeling isolated and bored trying to finish schoolwork in your dusty dorm room. Why not spice up these moments by bringing your friends along for the ride. Thereās something about āsuffering togetherā that makes people closer as friends, and helps them become more productive and focused on the tasks at hand. Itās also much more difficult to throw in the towel on a project or homework assignment when there are people around you grinding all the way to the finish line. Thatās the kind of accountability and teamwork that grows friendships, improves grades, and curbs college-related stress.
Get some exercise.
You donāt have to run 11 miles or lift for two hours in the gym to reduce your stressāa little exercise can go a long way. Go for a jog around the block, do a few pushups, go for a swim at the local pool or reservoir, or take a hike in the wilderness to get the blood flowing and release some tension in your body and mind. Taking a break from your studying or schoolwork alone will reduce your stressāthe added exercise will give an endorphin rush that will promote mental acuity and a sense of wellbeing to propel you through your work for the day.
Take a trip.
Itās hard to understand and deal with your college-related stress when you work, sleep, eat, study, and socialize on campus. To escape your college-related stress, you will occasionally need to leave physical manifestation of that stress to feel at peaceāso pack up your bag, grab a few good friends, and head out for a weekend trip to anywhere. Heading to a new location will help you leave the stress of the college world behind, allowing you to try new things, eat new food, and see new sights. When you return, youāll feel refreshed and more energized than you were beforeāand thatāll be enough to propel you through midterms or finals, or at least help you get by until Thanksgiving or spring break. You donāt have to go on spectacular mountain adventure or a weekend beach getawayāany new and interesting location will be enough to keep your stress in check. Ā
Thatās it for part 1 of our series on managing college-related stress. Stay tuned for part 2, and check out our other blogs while you wait!
2 Comments
As a new student I can tell you that I had an overwhelming amount of anxiety at first because I didn’t use a computer in high school. I did learn some at my last job enough to be able to operate a computer a little bit. I have learned some on facebook as well and I am still learning sometimes I still get worried but I know there are tools to help and people to help teach me after all that is why I came back to school to learn. Everyone I have encountered has been very helpful makes me feel a little more at ease.
Thank you for the advise