Don’t underestimate the physical and mental stress of learning. College is basically a full-time job.
The general rule of thumb is that any hour you spend in the classroom, be that a virtual or physical learning environment, will correlate with two hours of homework.
This means that a student taking a typical fifteen-hour-a-week course load may spend forty-five hours a week total on school.
Accelerated programs of the sort that you might find in many education, social work, or health care-related fields can be even more time-consuming than that.
Getting a degree becomes even more challenging to your mental and physical health when you are balancing professional or personal responsibilities as well.
Bottom line? It’s never easy to get a degree. It is doable, provided you’re willing to take care of yourself.
In this article, we take a look at how you can respect your mental health while chasing your next credential.
Schedule Self-Care
First, it’s important to specifically block off time for self-care. While the phrase has become somewhat loaded, it’s a legitimate psychological consideration that can recharge your batteries and improve your overall health.
Productive self-care behaviors are optimized to harness your brain’s chemistry to promote overall wellness.
There are two commonly recognized types of well-being: eudaimonic and hedonic. Hedonic behaviors include things like eating a fattening meal, consuming alcohol, watching television, and even having sexual contact with a consenting partner.
Hedonic behaviors should in no way be considered bad, provided that they are pursued in an appropriate context. That said, they are less productive for your psychological well-being than eudaimonic behaviors.
Eudaimonic behaviors are designed to improve your emotional baseline with lasting habits that physically reduce the stress in your body. That stress, by the way, does have a very literal presence in your mind.
It takes the form of cortisol, a chemical your body needs to remain productive and alert. However, when present in excessive quantities, cortisol creates feelings of stress, anxiety, and even depression.
You can manage your cortisol levels with simple, healthy habits like reading, spending time outside, exercising, meditating, or yoga. Obviously, the busier you are, the harder it will be to make time for eudaimonic behaviors.
To that end, there is an old saying that might apply: everyone should meditate for 10 minutes a day unless you don’t have the time, in which case you should meditate for 30 minutes a day.
The idea, of course, is pretty simple. The less time you have for self-care, the more you need it. Habit stacking is a relatively easy way to exponentially improve your mental health.
Even just taking a ten-minute walk in your neighborhood before going off to work in the morning can make a big difference.
Prioritize Sleep
Getting seven to eight hours of sleep per night is a deceptively difficult, but highly impactful way to keep gas in your tank.
Remember that burnout is one of the biggest threats to both your education and your overall well-being.
If you genuinely can’t get extra sleep because you are staying up late with homework every day, that’s one thing.
However, consider hidden ways that you might be losing time throughout the day before you give up on getting a full night of sleep.
For example, if you are spending a couple of hours per day on social media or Netflix, that might be time better put into rest.
Establish Realistic Expectations with Your People
Whoever those people might be—friends, parents, children, a romantic partner—the folks you interact with the most in life should understand that you are going through a short-term but intensive change that will require their support and understanding.
That may mean that your life partner handles more of the chores and responsibilities around the house.
It might mean that your friends get used to you skipping out on Thirsty Thursday for a while. You can define your own boundaries.
The important thing is that you both recognize things are changing and clearly state those intentions to anyone who might find it relevant.
This will both renew your commitment to education and potentially increase the support you should receive from your community.
Be Open to Reevaluating Your Bandwidth
You might sign up for an MSN program expecting to complete it in two years, all while working a job as a nurse and taking care of your children.
Perhaps you’ve even thought out what each semester will look like and developed a plan for tackling all of your responsibilities. The timing works. The workload might not.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed constantly, it may be a good idea to scale back your coursework. Not only will this protect your mental health, but it will also increase your long-term odds of succeeding within the program.
No one will ever ask you how long it took to get a degree. The value is simply in having one, completed in a timeline that works for you.
Give Yourself Time to Adequately Prepare
There is a fine line between working hard and working foolishly. Our culture puts a big premium on dogged determination, but there’s also a lot to be said about thoughtful work.
When it comes to completing a graduate degree or preparing for a standardized test like the NCLEX or the LSATs, you don’t want to rush through the requirements as quickly as possible.
You want a deep and impactful learning experience that you will carry with you for the rest of your career.
Work hard, but do it in a way that will allow you to experience the impact of your education.