Oftentimes students wait until they start feeling bad to take care of themselves. Our batteries need to be recharged throughout the semester. It’s not logical to wait to recharge after finals because the studying, exams and projects take a lot of effort by themselves. Here are three ways I have learned to reduce burnout throughout my first year along with a journal activity that is helpful if you’re a busy student.
- Create Balance in Life
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- Drink half an ounce to an ounce of water per pound you weigh.
- Know when to go to sleep based on your next day’s wake up time.
- It’s recommended to get seven to nine hours of sleep per night. If you want to have the full nine hours of sleep and you need to wake up at 7 a.m., make sure you go to sleep at 9 p.m.
- Find a way to move your body every day.
- When you exercise or move your body, your body releases endorphins (a.k.a. happy chemicals). This will help improve your overall mood during the day.
- Keep your environments clean
- Keep your home environments like your desk, kitchen or living room clean. If you go to a coffee shop or the library to study, make sure that the table that you are sitting at is organized. Every 30 minutes, take the time to reset the table by organizing your pens, closing notebooks you’re done with and putting away anything that you’re not using.
- Social Life vs. Personal Life
- Balance this by figuring out your personal social battery. Some people can be social butterflies during the entire week and not be run down, others can only hang out once a week. Depending on your own preference, make sure you are balancing your social battery. You can do this by checking in with yourself everyday. If you find yourself isolating, text a friend to hang out next week. If you find yourself tired of being social, cancel some plans so you can spend time with yourself. Remember, everyone is different.
- Implement Daily Routines
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- Morning Routine
- Implement habits that will get you ready for the day ahead. Examples of this are creating to-do lists, eating breakfast, making coffee or journaling.
- Night Routine
- Your nighttime routine needs to include habits that will relax you and/or get you ready for the next day. Examples of this are looking at your emails one last time, taking a shower or bath, watching a movie, looking at tomorrow’s schedule, calling a family member or reading a book.
- Weekly Routine
- Create specific days to complete your necessary tasks. Many people choose Sunday to do their laundry and go grocery shopping. You could also have a specific day to take care of yourself, hang out with friends or have time to relax.
- Morning Routine
- Organize your life aspects
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Being organized will help you be less stressed throughout each week. When implementing your routines, schedule in time to organize. You can organize each aspect by creating a budget for finances, using a planner for your schedule, labeling your notebooks, deleting old emails and creating specific spots for items in your household.
- Journal activity: understand your responsibilities
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I decided to do this journal activity when I realized I was struggling to remember the responsibilities I had within each aspect of my life. This activity was overwhelming at first but after completing it, I realized there was no way I could keep track of every single responsibility I had without writing it down in my journal, organizing my schedule and creating routines.
1. Write down the aspects of your life. Examples of this include finances, college, activity one, activity two, home, personal or work.
2. Underneath each aspect, write down your responsibilities for it. Examples of this for finances include investments, credit card, debit card, loans and budget.
3. Re-do this activity every semester or chapter of your life. Your responsibilities are always subject to change based on your leadership roles, courses, activities, work, finances, life events or environment.
Implementing these three strategies in your everyday life will help prevent burn out before each semester is over. Creating balance in your life allows you to take care of yourself while also finding time to hang out with others every day. Implementing scheduled habits into your daily and weekly routines will allow you to prioritize yourself. Being organized in different aspects of your life allows you to focus on your tasks at hand while having a clean environment. In order to know what to implement, balance and organize using the journaling activity is an easy way to see the aspects and responsibilities in your life all at once. I hope this article serves you well for the rest of this semester, next semester and beyond college.