Up at Northern Michigan University, we’re coming up on our last month of classes. This is exciting for some of us and stressful for others. Between applying for summer jobs, studying for final exams, and chipping away at those massive final papers, many of us are all too familiar with the mounting stress and sleep deprivation college students experience in these last few weeks.
According to WebMD, sleep deprivation in the short term can lead to decreased performance and alertness, stress relationships, and a higher chance of injury, while too much stress, according to Mayoclinic, can lead to anxiety, social withdrawal, angry outbursts, and depression.
A lot of these symptoms also feed off one another, like a bad symbiosis, which means wedging one night’s sleep out of the equation is especially bad news.
This is why it seems important to get a notion of where we’ll be at in a few weeks’ time, and how to keep bad habits from taking a toll on our mental and physical well-being.
Here are some things strategies that work for me:
1. Trying to pace myself.
This is the one I’m the least good at. Why pace myself, I like to ask, when I can watch nature documentaries now and replace my hands with coffee pots the last week of classes? However, planning ahead is an important skill to develop and a fair alternative to being swamped with expectations (held down in the muck by the calloused hands of deadlines).
If I’m good, I’ll look ahead on a schedule, ask professors if I can start on something early, and take a fairly free weekend to get a rough draft going. This way I’m not sleep deprived and starting from scratch the last week before summer.
2. Getting in touch with family and friends before and as the chaos unfolds.
Social engagement may seem unnecessary in the midst of the madness, but I think this one helps me out the most.
Going home, seeing family, spending time with friends, petting an ornery but compliant cat: these are all good things.
There’s research on this kind of stuff too.
As Sheldon Cohen, a psychology professor at Carnegie Mellon University notes, “Friends help you face adverse events. They provide material aid, emotional support, and information that helps you to deal with stressors. There may be broader effects as well. Friends encourage you to take better care of yourself. And people with wider social networks are higher in self-esteem, and they feel they have more control over their lives” (WebMD).
3. Cutting myself some slack.
If all the planning and balancing doesn’t work out in my favor, I don’t hate myself for not turning in an A worthy paper for every class. I try to be as attentive as I can to the needs of the professor, but also realize there are certain building blocks I can’t forgo (like an occasional nap after an all-nighter). Professors can also be a lot more understanding than you think they are. After all their years in school, I’ll bet most of them have been in your position before, and it doesn’t hurt to ask for extensions or extra credit after classes end.
In conclusion, balance is key to a hardy finals’ week. Stress is helpful in moderate amounts, but not to the extreme that we push it to in the homestretch. Don’t study to the point where you devolve into a nematode -- pet some cats, drink a healthy amount of coffee, and watch a couple nature documentaries.
