As the summer ends and the school year starts back up again, it becomes essential to mentally prepare yourself for the semesters to come. As you transition from your fun and freeing summer to the structured demands of academic life, it is important to prepare you and your mind to get you to tackle your upcoming school year head-on.
Here are 3 simple back-to-school mental health tips to give you a smooth transition back into school.
Tip #1: Plan Your Weeks
Returning to school can feel chaotic, especially if you have had tons of leisure time over summer break for the past several months. The new semester calls for new classes, new professors, and a new schedule. With this also comes more lectures, assignments, and tests!
As you head back to campus, getting a handle on any sense of overwhelm or anxiety these things may bring you is important. How do we manage this feeling of being overwhelmed and anxious? We begin to plan.
Getting in the habit of planning your weeks is essential to setting yourself up for success. Planning your weeks allows you to set out times to work on your assignments, study, and tend to your responsibilities.
Planning your weeks will help you feel relieved because you will always be aware of any upcoming due date or event.
To ease your mind and anxiety, it is in your best interest to plan out your weeks to become the most efficient student you can be.
Tip #2: Ask for Help
Classes, campus directions, assignments, and tests are just a few of the many things you will need to account for, especially in your first several weeks back to the academic year. These factors can affect your mental health and easily allow you to crumble under the pressure of all these responsibilities. Still, it is important to remember that you do not have to handle everything on your own.
Asking for help from a mentor, peer, professor, or student can make a huge difference in the levels of pressure and anxiety you may be feeling during this time. It is vital to begin seeking support early on rather than later because it allows you to prevent small issues from getting out of hand. Asking for help also allows you to maintain your emotional well-being during the busy times that come with the beginning of the semester.
Remember, if you have any questions or concerns about classes, professors, campus, or opportunities, do not shy away from asking for help. You are not alone; often, there are others with the same exact questions as you.
Tip #3: Set Realistic Goals
As you begin your endeavors into the academic year, it is only natural to cultivate high expectations and big goals for yourself. While creating expectations and goals for yourself is great, you want to make sure these expectations and goals are manageable for you.
Creating goals that are too large to manage can lead to burnout and high amounts of anxiety. Studies even show that experiencing burnout is likely in first-year students. This is why it is important to prevent it from manifesting in the first place.
To help prevent burnout, overwhelm, or anxiety, it is essential to focus on setting realistic and practical goals instead of huge goals you may never be able to complete. You can begin writing down clear and concise short-term and long-term goals you want to achieve. An example of this is writing down which tasks you would like to complete this week, and instead of choosing 10 tasks, choose 4. This way, you know you can get a good amount done while not overworking yourself.
When setting goals for yourself, it is important to account for your energy levels, social life, interests, and other responsibilities, so that you can maintain better mental health. Most of the time, when we set goals, it is enticing to cultivate a grand goal to reach in a short period of time. Although we believe it is possible to achieve at the moment, as the days go on, we begin to realize that we bite off more than we can chew and forget other aspects of our lives that need our attention.
Setting realistic goals by breaking down large goals into smaller, more actionable steps can help you stay motivated. This way of setting and completing goals helps you stay motivated and excited because completing each small goal provides a sense of accomplishment as you achieve it while also assuring you that these small goals are leading to something larger.
It is also important to remember to be flexible with your goals. It is completely fine to adjust them as needed based on time, energy, or challenges that arise.
When you set achievable goals, you are more likely to create a more structured plan for your success and ultimately make the transition back to school more manageable.
Keeping Up with Your Mental Health
Returning to the groove of classes, homework, tests, and new responsibilities can overwhelm any student. The transition from a relaxed fun summer to a structured academic year brings new tasks, plans, and priorities.
Although this can be a stressful time for many, there are a few key strategies for planning for a new semester and stress management for students to make your year a smooth one. Asking for help so you do not need to take on problems alone and setting realistic goals that are achievable for you instead of leaving you drained are all ways that can offer you a calmer year where you feel ready to tackle any challenge to come.
