Maintaining Holistic Wellbeing
A new entrant to any university can be an enthusiastic and energetic person but on the other side he has to face many challenges and stresses finding difficult to keep up his mental and physical health in a good shape. For every new student a university is a new place, really different from his/her high school and this drastic change in life sometimes creates difficulties and stresses for the young ones, to face these challenges, you must have to take charge of your wellness both physically and mentally by adopting some certain techniques. Just putting too much hard work in your studies and getting good grades is not the only way to succeed, your life success is correlated to your physical fitness, high self-esteem, mental strength and the skill-set you possess. You must have to follow some useful instructions to obtain holistic wellbeing as below:
- Socially Connected
- Resilience
- Gratitude
- Healthy eating
- Full sleep (7 to 8 hours)
- Time Management
- Exercise (on Daily Basis)
- Stress management
- Meditation, connection with God
- Self Compassion and Self-Esteem
- Right Career planning
Common Stressors at University:
Every student entering into university life feels a great change, very different from high school and though change is good but most of the time it is accompanied by some stresses and challenges. At COMSATS the academic session is quite rigorous and the university sought for the social, personal, emotional and intellectual growth of every student that’s why freshmen have to face many challenges as following:
Academic stress: New students are too terrified by the semester exams, surprise quizzes, hectic assignments, lengthy projects and their narrow deadlines, sometimes they cannot keep up the fast pace and feel stressed.
Time management: In the beginning, time management is the greatest issue to co-op with the fast paced life style of CUI, freshmen have to keep track of their academics, extra-curricular activities, social commitments and time to take proper rest. They have to learn to take care of everything for themselves and how to maintain balance in their work, academics, social life, sports activities and relaxing time, which is basically a skill and most students need to learn that, the sooner they will learn, the better be able to get rid of stresses.
Conflicts with room mates: Students coming from far away towns and residing at hostels, face many problems of adjustment at new place specially with their new room mates.
Homesickness: Another common stressor for the students coming from far away towns, living in hostels and finding short time to visit their homes, is homesickness, especially in case of girl students
Financial Stress: Students who have less financial resources or doing odd jobs to make both ends meet, may face stress but CUI is offering generous scholarships for needy students.
Family Stress: Over ambitious parents sometimes place extra ordinary expectations from their children causing unnecessary stress. They may think that they are helping them but many times it creates higher level of stress. Moreover, families are not perfect, these imperfections can lead to an overload of stress on the student. It happens more often, in case of some broken families.
Social Stress: Freshmen face many difficulties in communicating with their professors, class fellows and other staff members. Girls feel shy to talk to boys and sometimes boys too.
Choosing the right career: At start, students choose a subject to study but during studies they find the subject just opposite of their expectations and start getting bored of it or feel perplexed when to decide any specialization field. Only a few students are clear minded about what to do exactly, most of the students are indecisive over what to major in.
Peer pressure: This is another kind of stressor as students can face peer pressure for multiple times throughout any single day in college, in each class, the cafeteria, and in the dorm room, they talk to others who pressurize them to skip their responsibilities to attend a party, concert or other activity.
Other stressors include personal competition, competition with others, personal pressure to show high performance, social anxieties, heavy workloads and lesser time to rest and relax.
Students feel stressed when they get too little sleep, a poor diet and even from having too much downtime. Being expected to speak up in class, being disorganized and having a fear of change can lead to anxiety among students.