5 Habits To Enhance Your Mental Health in College

Throughout the past two years I’ve been paying more attention to my mental health. I’ve never felt more drained mentally than I have been for the past two years. I had to find out how to enhance mentally, so that I would be able to perform at a productive level.

Here are 5 habits that I have picked up that enhance my mental health daily as a college student:

Set a daily schedule.

Every night I would plan out the following day. This helped me to have direction as soon as I woke up. Setting a daily schedule will keep your mind at ease because you already know what you need to do for that day.

Avoid burnout.

I used to push myself to limit before I begin to pay attention to my study and homework habits. To avoid burnout, I stopped staying in the library for 5-6 hours every night; instead I set aside 2 hours a day to be focused on specifically homework and studying. This helped me to be more productive in the long run. My grades were better too.

Find activities that you love to do.

An activity that I thoroughly enjoyed throughout the semester was intramural basketball. I got to hang out with friends and play the sport I love. Find activities that will help you destress.

Get 6-8 hours a sleep a night.

This is a big one. I didn’t realize how important sleep was until I wasn’t getting any. Sleep is so crucial to being productive in college. Your mental health will improve significantly with just this small change. People try to make getting 3 hours of sleep trendy, but it is reckless and does not make you look more productive.

Talk to someone if you are going through any kind of depression or anxiety.

You don’t have to go through it alone. Find someone to talk to. Most campuses have hotline numbers that you can anonymously talk to someone and they can help you. Please reach out for help. You will get through it.

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