As a student in high school, everyone would have some days where it was difficult to do anything and stay up all night to finish work and hand in assignments. These scenarios were all very relatable to me, but I took it in worse than most students would. I was a star student in elementary student, I did my work, got the best marks, and everything felt easy to me. Grade 9 and 10 were fairly easy as well where I did not need to put much effort school to get the best marks I wanted. Life felt easy, nothing to difficult that I could not do. Even some hard tests I would do great on if I studied for an hour. Around grade 11 is where it all hit, I was a burnout kid. Burnout kid meaning if I did not have the easy way out anymore, I could not do a test without studying very long periods of time (which was not very familiar to me). I hated school, the atmosphere, the stress, and anxiety it caused me to be a worse person both mentally, physically, and academically. Bad habits started to flood in, I would push my work to the due date in which it was assigned on. My mental health started to deteriorate, I would eat unhealthy food, and just not have a great time doing anything, I lost my interest in the things I loved to do. As my grades started flooded in, the more I become anxious. It was not the high grades I was getting before, I was doing worse in subjects I loved. My mentality towards school changes, I was not interested in learning anymore. I did everything in terms of memorizing and forgetting after a test of assignment, I did not have the same fun I had before in terms of learning. Anything I “learned” was boring or had a lack of interest of, nothing stuck in my head. Everything hit me like a truck, a reality check that not everything will come easy to me. I started having anxiety, where I would stay up all night doing my work that I put off, cried some nights because it was all too stressful to take in at once, my mind would go blank at times, and I put a lot of pressure on myself to the expectations I had for me.
I lost myself through all this work, I never took the time for myself, to treat myself. This took a toll on my mental health and directly impacted my social life and academics. Throughout this time, I also had major anxiety that caused me to become deprived of sleep, not being able to concentrate, and more. In school there were days where I did not want to be there, but I pushed through it. I become so scared, nervous (to the point of tears) to ask questions or talk to the teacher about homework or a simple task that I had to do. Keep in mind I am not a shy kid! This went on for months, but I knew I had to change for the better, it was not easy to overcome but it paid off in the end. To realize I needed to change myself to overcome this anxiety was one the biggest challenges I took to improve myself not only from an academic perspective but to improve my mentality. I knew I was in a bad place in terms of my mental health and it was time to switch things up. During my second semester I decided take a 180 in my life. I learned to take time for myself, bring up my “fear” of talking to teachers, and to love learning again.
I started to change my habits. I did not eat junk food, I gave myself dates to finish parts if an assignment or to break up time to study for a test. For example, I would not cram all the information for a test anymore, I would break up my week to study portions of what I needed to study. If there were 4 concepts that were prominent on a test, I would take 2 hours a day to fully understand concept. This would happen for four days, and at before the test I would review everything over again. This helped my sleep schedule, and I was not as stressed as before. I would not be stressed on whether I knew all the material like before where it was whether I memorized it or not. As per my sleep schedule I was sleeping at a normal time at 10pm or the latest 11pm, but before I slept at 2 or 3am condensing information into my head or finish catching up on homework assigned weeks ago. I started to talk to teachers, losing my fear, my anxiety. It took small steps, but it helped in the end. I also took time for myself, during pandemic I went out biking riding, going on walks with my family, talking to my friends on zoom, painting, or baking, I did everything I loved to do before. The bike rides that I took around heart lake conservation area or small creeks helped me to be free again, be free of anxiety and stress all these things that were pushing me down before.
My mental health improved so much, I started to be more active! My academics improved drastically. I learned to importance to take care of myself and overcome my anxiety towards to school and learn to love it again. More importantly I learned to love myself and not be put down by the pressures I made for myself. I learned that some things will not change who I am, but they help me be who I am and learn from. I had the help of my family and my closest friends along the way, without them I do not think I would have not made it this far! Many of my other classmates went through this as well where the pressures of school can come and take a toll on them, especially during this pandemic. During this pandemic is hard to see your friends, its hard to be motivated for school and some days I have felt that, but pushing yourself and having confidence that you will push through and get through it! Take some time to walk outside spend some time with nature or doing things you love. It can be small steps but it’s a step closer to breaking free of pressure and anxiety that you may feel!
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