It’s our favorite time of the year!! It’s the beginning of college application season! A time of stress, tears, questioning your entire life, stress, and more stress. In case it hasn’t been made clear by the previous sentence, college applications are stressful. However, there are ways to manage this stress in order to not only make the college application process more enjoyable and less dreadful, but to churn out better and more authentic results. Below is a list of just some of the methods you can use to prevent burn out from stress while applying to colleges.
1. Compare = Dispare
If you’re anything like me, then you’re likely in multiple group chats filled with high-achieving students where the hot-topic of conversation is college. While these communities can be helpful to make the college application process feel less lonely and potentially answer some of your questions, they can also drive one to compare themselves to their peers. Comparison harmful to mental health for a plethora of reasons, but perhaps the most prominent reason is that it leads one to fall victim to societal norms and expectations and causes one to hold themselves to unrealistic standards. Just because it is realistic for your best friend to finish their applications two months before the deadline, that does not mean that it is realistic for you. Different people have different methods of accomplishing their goals, and no method is superior, it is just a matter of finding what works for you.
2. Reward yourself!
Once you finish a section of your applications or write a draft of an essay you are pleased with, reward yourself! You deserve it! This can be in the form of eating your favorite snack, listening to your favorite playlist, watching your favorite TV show or preforming any act of self-care and self-love that you enjoy. Not only is rewarding yourself for a positive action fun to do, but it makes you more likely to repeat that action. This is an evidence-based psychological concept called operant conditioning.
3. Honor the Bare Necessities
This one is for those of you who are like me and get the suddenly urge to pull an all-nighter and blow out all of your applications on one sitting. Don’t. You will regret it. Not only will this tire you out to the point that your applications will not be the best they can be, but it will set you behind in your schedule since you will be burnt out and need time to recover before you can proof read, edit, and revise to the best of your abilities. NEVER overwork yourself to the point that you are denying yourself basic necessities including sleep, food, and social interaction. This is definitely easier said than done, but it can not be done until it is said.
4. De-brief and Reflect
It can be extremely helpful to talk through your stress. This can look many different ways for different people. If you have someone in your life who you are comfortable talking to about your worries, then by all means do so. However, for those of you who are prefer not or are not able to talk about your stress, fear not, as there are tools out there for you. For example, journaling can be a great way to process your thoughts about college (and life in general). Weather it’s through writing or talking, set aside a time to just complain, rant, vent, or word-vomit if necessary. Get everything out there in the open air, take a deep breath, and move on.
These tips are just skimming the surface of the complex body that is mental health during college preparation. While these are definitely a good place to start, you must tailor your routine to your own individual needs. You are the only one who knows yourself best and what works for you. Finally, there is no shame in going beyond this list and doing more activities to de-stress. In fact, it shows strength of character to know that you need more support.