The Struggle is Real

As a student, I usually have a lot of projects and activities to accomplish in a short period of time. These piles up day by day especially with the number of subjects I enrolled. These deadlines can be overwhelming and stressful and can lead to breakdown or fatigue. There are multiple ways of coping with the stress that comes with being a student.  I would like to give some tips of my own, based on what I had experienced. Here are a few tips of advice to ease the daily struggle:

1. SCHEDULING – While cramming can sometimes be inevitable with last-minute announcements of tasks due too soon, we should try to prevent it as much as we can. Here, planning is very crucial. Make a realistic time frame and schedule your day-to-day work. Do not overwhelm yourself with ten workloads in a day. Do your work ahead so your future self can work on the other remaining tasks. Try to focus on what tasks are important and are urgent then work your way down to the smaller, easier tasks. Do not forget to include study or snack breaks in your schedule! We must our busy brains rest once in a while.

2. CLEAN & CLEANSE – Buildup of clutter can also mess with the peace in our heads. Sometimes it helps to have a little pick up of your space. It doesn’t need to be a major declutter. Freeing your desk space for work or even clearing up the storage of your devices also cleanses your mind of unnecessary clutter.

 3. FOCUS – Now that you have planned and cleaned, you could now focus on your tasks at hand. Try not to procrastinate and focus on the task at hand. Put all your brainpower into doing one thing at a time instead of doing multiple tasks at once. Multi-tasking doesn’t always put out the greatest outputs since your brainpower is divided into many different things. Quality over quality, always.

 4. REST – Stress does get a toll on you and your body. Productivity is a good practice but the amount of work could get overwhelming. While being on your work grind hours and hours per week feels fulfilling, do not forget to care about your body as well. Work earlier so you can get more sleep at night. Sleep resets the brain to gain more power for tomorrow’s workload. Breaks in between work are also important so that we have enough time to process everything and to avoid information overload. Snack breaks are also important. Intake of brain food like peanuts and raisins during study breaks give fuel for the succeeding hours. However, do not eat while studying! This allows the brain to focus on one thing at a time. Eating while studying will not help in digesting the information you are trying to attain. Lastly, let your eyes rest! Our eyes get stressed as well. Allow a few minutes of rest for your eyes between reading and staring at your computer or cellphone screen hours until the wee hours of the night. There is no one way of coping up with stress. Each one of us will have different ways of keeping ourselves sane. Hopefully, these tips will maybe inspire and influence your daily activities as a hardworking student.