Tips On Looking After Your Wellbeing When Assessments Start Looming

There are pot noodles on your desk, an extra strong coffee, and three textbooks open at different chapters. It’s time for assessments! Assessments are notoriously the time of year where any wellbeing habits you have formed start slipping away. Sleeping and even eating schedules often become a lot less regular in the face of looming deadlines, but this is unfortunately the perfect recipe for your stress levels to skyrocket. Here are Laura’s tips to maintaining wellbeing during assessments.

Tags: Wellbeing Tips and Tricks, Exam Tips and Tricks

I’m not going to tell you that you should be doing a two hour morning and evening routine and cooking complicated meals for lunch and dinner. There are more constraints against your free time when you are snowed under with assessments.

However, wellbeing doesn’t have to be all or nothing. I have found that what you do with breaks of even fifteen minutes can really turn a study session around, as well as boost your mood.

Many of you might be familiar with the pomodoro method: where you study for 25 minutes and then take a break of 5 minutes. When I first tried the method out, I spent my breaks checking my notifications, and felt far from rested when I went back to work.

If you spend most of your time looking at a screen when studying, think about which screen-free breaks you can take. I like to spend my shorter breaks with all my devices switched off, as I often return to my work feeling more refreshed.

Without a phone in your hand, you can turn something as simple as making a coffee into a mindful practice. Leaving your phone in another room or listening to music momentarily pulls you away from the Tabula notifications and reminders flashing on your screen.

Moreover, limiting social media use is scientifically proven to boost your wellbeing. While it is unrealistic to recommend deleting all social media, deciding to take just thirty minutes without your phone gives you space to find more creative and refreshing breaks.

If you are studying in the Library, the Breathing Space is a perfect place for a screen-free refresh. It is located on the first floor of the main Library building and is accessible day and night. Its lo-fi music and air-con make it a calming sensory space, allowing you to escape from your studies without even having to leave the building. Its leisure reading section offers relaxing books that you don’t need to memorize!

Spending your break in the Breathing Space is sure to calm your mind more than doomscrolling.

Exercising is another wellbeing tip I was tired of being told while studying. Just the idea of a run after spending hours writing essays, exhausted me. It’s okay if you are not a fan of intense cardio during assessments! Exercise doesn’t have to be a painful chore.

Planning an hour or more to travel to the gym and back may be hard when you’re working on something due the next day but playing a follow-along video on YouTube takes less than a minute. Even standing up from your desk in the Library and moving to another floor can serve as a refreshing change of scenery and a way to stretch your legs. For example, you could move from a silent study area to a collaboration area if you need to work on a group project.

Walking for just a few minutes can help reduce the tension you have been storing in your body from hunching over a computer and worrying about an assignment.

My two favourite types of online exercises are dance workouts, and Tai Chi. Although it might initially feel a little silly dancing in your room in front of your textbooks, it boosts your energy, trust me!

Studies have even shown that dancing is an effective treatment for depression. What I love about short online exercise videos is that they are often very accessible. Many channels offer variations that include seated workouts, and there are many low-impact options available.

If you don’t want to put on your dancing shoes, Tai Chi is another great exercise for overall wellbeing. It originated in ancient China and combines motion with meditation. It therefore helps your mind and your body, and is incredibly accessible, as it involves mostly gentle movements.

Everybody talks about the importance of making study planners. However, it is not just the studying that counts. I have found that planning breaks and placing as much importance on them as studying is key to looking after your wellbeing. Carve out time for your hobbies and friends, even if you have to schedule it. Keeping up with your hobbies is a way to maintain your identity so that it that isn’t defined by your results, because grades can sometimes feel all-consuming.

You may be thinking that there is no time for enjoyable things during assessment periods. However, your breaks can be as short as meeting a friend for coffee or taking a walk around Tocil Wood. Adding a small bit of novelty into your day can break the monotony of writing thousands of words on the same topic.

Try not to spend your breaks worrying that you aren’t being productive. You are not defined solely by your academic or professional achievements. Ultimately, resting is productive. Approaching your work with energy and a sense of wellbeing is likely to improve its standard, as well as preventing burnout.

Lastly, don’t suffer in silence. If it seems like nobody else is struggling with their wellbeing during assessments, it is likely because they have not shared this with you. This is why talking about it is so important – having a chat about your anxieties can help you realise you are in it together. Remember that assessments are never more important than your wellbeing.

If you feel you could use some extra support, please reach out to Wellbeing and Student Support. There will always be someone to listen.