3 Tips to Keep Up With Studies Through Life-Changing Events
BY SYLVIA KOHL
It’s often hard to keep up with your studies even while you are a regular university student. It gets even harder when you are going through some life-changing events. Stressful situations have a significant impact on your health and cognitive ability, so it’s imperative to find a way to deal.
What Are ‘Life-Changing’ Events?
Literally, ‘life-changing’ means ‘one notably altering a person’s life’. Insurance companies call them Qualifying Life Events (QLEs) and have a detailed list of what’s considered ‘notably life-changing’. The most stressful of those experiences are:
- Death of a loved one
- Divorce/marriage
- Moving (or some other sudden changes in circumstances that has a profound effect on one’s life)
- Disease
- Birth of a child
There are two essential things that every student must understand about life-changing events. One is that they don’t have to be bad to have a negative impact on your studies potentially. For example, the birth of a child, moving to a better residence, or getting married, are all happy events. Yet, they are stressful and will mess up with your study schedule.
The other important thing is that the majority of life-changing events are out of your control. Therefore, the only way to get through is to learn how to deal with them most efficiently. Developing coping mechanisms is essential as studies prove that stressful events are incredibly detrimental to one’s health. This undoubtedly contributes to why only about 60% of students graduate with bachelor’s degrees.
3 Practical Tips on How to Deal with Life-Changing Events
- Accept the Things You Can’t Control
Start with identifying the primary stressors in your life and rationally analyzing the measure of control you have. Be sure to take into account all factors. For example, it might seem like it’s possible to stop divorce of your parents proceedings through couple counseling. However, this will require equal investment from both sides. If negotiations fail, you must accept that you can’t bear the burden of sustaining the relationship.
As being rational and unbiased is almost impossible in this situation, you should see a counselor.
Your studies are something you can control. Therefore, you can benefit from using them as an anchor to focus on while trying to accept the inevitable.
- Take Up Meditation
It’s a scientifically proven fact that mindfulness meditation is useful for stress relief, coping, and reducing the symptoms of anxiety. There are numerous meditation techniques you should try to find the one that would work for you.
Note that you should always start with the help of a qualified and experienced guide. This will boost the efficiency of the procedure.
- Change Your Attitude
The way you perceive the issue affects the impact it has on your life. Remember that ‘life-changing’ isn’t necessarily bad, even when the event is adverse. Trying to see it from a positive angle will help you embrace more effective coping strategies.
The most effective trick for an ‘attitude switch’ is to see the problem as a step up in your education. You can also try to perceive it as not an end to your happiness, but as creating an opportunity for a new beginning.
No matter what happens, never forget that studies are necessary for your future.
Sylvia Kohl is an IT teacher with more than 8 years of professional experience. Her main spheres of interest are e-education and she convinced that learning process doesn’t stop after years in school and university.
