Stress is an inseparable aspect of a student’s life. In 2005, researchers from Sweden carried out a study at the Karolinska Institute Medical University in Stockholm. As it turned out, the students in their first year of medical studies were mostly stressed about the workload and lack of feedback. In their third year of studies, the students had worries about future endurance and pedagogical shortcomings. In their final year of studies, they rated both of those factors very highly.
   The study showed something we were already aware of: students experience the highest levels of stress during their first year of studies. That’s because they are facing an entirely new, more demanding educational environment. They have more classes to attend, more studying to do, more papers to write, and more tests/exams to take. It seems as time is not their friend, so they are constantly under pressure of deadlines.
    Academic Stress Seriously Affects a Student’s Life
Students from all around the world are facing the same troubles. A study from 2015, carried out at the New York University College of Nursing, showed that students start accumulating stress from their high-school years. Noelle Leonard, PhD, senior research scientist at NYUCN, explained: “School, homework, extracurricular activities, sleep, repeat – that’s what it can be for some of these students.”
If it was just temporary stress linked to their studies, it would not be so serious. This pressure, however, affects their academic engagement and lifelong stress coping skills. As a result, it may lead to mental health symptoms and substance abuse.
    Students have to attend classes, take tests, and complete projects. There’s no question about that. The fact that there are too many activities involved is a problem, but it’s not something that a student cannot affect. The only proper solution lies in time management. With slight changes of the lifestyle, the busy student will start coping with the pressure. Over time, they will develop a better immune system against stress.
   10 Tips for Students: How to Manage Your Time
The way you get through your years at high school, college and/or university will influence your entire life. Now is the best time to start acting, so you’ll eliminate the consequences of the stressful life that your studies impose. The important thing to remember is that there is a solution. In fact, there are multiple solutions you can combine together. We’ll suggest 10 of them.
   1. Make Priorities and Sacrifices
No matter how hard you try, you’ll fail at something. You cannot have the best grades in all courses, achieve the best results with all written projects, and be a great friend to everyone in all situations. A busy life means making priorities and sacrifices. Sometimes you’ll have to miss out on a party because you’ll have to study. Sometimes you’ll have to delegate a project to a thesis writing service because you’ll have to work on another, more important research paper.
   You’ll improve your time management skills from the moment you start setting priorities. Write lists of tasks. Recognize the most important ones and focus on them. Plan your time in a way that allows you to complete few less important tasks in between, but don’t despair if you cannot achieve everything. You’re not and you cannot be perfect. You can still find solutions to do well in your studies.
   2. Develop Good Studying Habits
Binge studying is a common practice among students. It means covering a huge portion of the studying material throughout a short period of time before a test or exam. This is a bad habit, since it negatively affects your ability to retain information. Harvard researchers proved that the opposite technique, called spaced education, has a much more meaningful impact on information retention.
   This means that you need to space out your studying sessions over a longer period of time. That reduces the levels of stress, since you don’t have a close deadline hanging over your head. Plus, you have more time to repeat what you’ve learned.
   Start studying for at least one hour every single day. One hour is nothing compared to the entire days of studying you’d had to go through if you avoided this consistent schedule.
   3. Quit Smoking
What does smoking have to do with time management? A lot! First of all, this bad habit takes away significant portions of time throughout your day. Instead of being focused on studying or on an assignment, you’re thinking about the next cigarette break. Then you fight the urge for a bit, and then you cannot help yourself and you move away from the task. When you return to the task after the break, you no longer have the same level of focus.
   Smoking is a distraction, but it’s also a habit that increases your stress levels. You might feel that a cigarette relaxes you, but that’s your mind tricking you. In fact, researchers found that smoking actually increases stress by boosting the levels of cortisol and prolactin, also known as stress hormones.
   4. Get Your Sleep!
You feel like you could do more if you only slept less? You’re wrong! Sleep deprivation seriously affects your productivity levels. Yes; you’ll have more time on your hands, but you won’t have the strength to effectively use that time.
   Get at least eight hours of good night sleep. You have the rest of the day to organize in a way that fits all your tasks and leaves you with spare time on your hands.
   5. Stay Away from Social Media
You decide to take a break from studying and you think the best way to use that break is to check what’s going on on Instagram? That’s not the best thing you could do. Your social life is important, especially during your years as a student. But don’t try to replace it with social media activity. You’re spending too much time in front of the screen anyway, so it would be good to step away from it.
   Use social media only when you have nothing more important to do. If this is a break in between studying, it’s much better to take a power nap.
   6. Take Regular Short Breaks
If you’ve ever been looking for time management tips, you probably came across something called the Pomodoro Technique. It’s a productivity-boosting technique based on the principle that your brain needs brief breaks in between working sessions.
  The creator recommends 25-minute working sessions followed by 5-minute breaks. After four working session, he recommends a longer break of 20 or 30 minutes.
   7. Meditate!
With so much to do in a single day, you might think like this activity would be a waste of time. No; it’s not a waste of time. With meditation, you practically gain time. That’s because a proper meditation technique teaches you to focus on the current moment. You become fully aware of what’s going on, so you can easily focus on the task at hand.
   Meditation takes only 20 minutes a day, but it gives a lot in return. Harvard researchers found that mindfulness meditation had the power to ease anxiety and mental stress.
   8. Start Fighting Procrastination
The procrastination habit is one of the biggest enemies to productivity. You know you have an important essay to write, but you keep delaying the work for tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes yet another tomorrow, and that pattern keeps developing until you’re absolutely out of time and you start panicking.
   Developing and following a schedule is the only way to fight this habit. Use Google Calendar to mark all deadlines and plan how you’ll complete the tasks within the time you have. Then, stay true to that schedule and don’t allow yourself to become a victim to distractions!
   9. Fight Online Distractions
Speaking of distractions, the Internet is the worst! You need the Internet for your studies, so you cannot isolate yourself from it. You can, however, stay away from distracting websites, such as social media, Bored Panda, and Distractify.
   Use a distraction blocker as an extension on your browser. StayFocusd is a nice one to try.
   10. Consider How Your Current Actions Affect Your Future
The present moment sets a track for your future, and that’s not philosophy. It’s a practical thing. If you complete this important assignment today, you’ll have more free time on your hands tomorrow. Such a mindset changes your entire approach to studying.
   When you don’t feel like taking a lecture, completing a paper, or studying, imagine you’re looking back on that moment from the future. You have plans for a particular career, right? This very moment will affect the journey towards that point.

   No matter how challenging your studies seem in the beginning, students always manage to get through the term. The stress levels are high, so it’s okay to feel tired and confused sometimes. With proper time management, however, you’ll change your lifestyle and you’ll make yourself more resistant to stress factors.