Positive Mental Attitude

Now that we are well into the spring semester, I'm sure most of you are starting to feel the pressures of homework, studying and midterms start to pile on. I know this is entirely true for me. Lately Ive been feeling like I am never going to have all of my homework done. Ive been really stressed out lately about all of the homework that has been accumulating, not to mention the fact that all of my classes decided to have midterms during the same week.

However, in my health class we have been talking a lot about positive self talk and goal setting.

Affirmations: Positive statements of description used repeatedly to create a positive self image.
Affirmations are used to help boost your self confidence and can also be used to calm the stresses that you may currently have on your mind. Using positive self talk, such as saying, "I am smart and will put my best effort into my school work" will actually help motivate you, making homework seem like much less of a burden. You can also use positive affirmations to help boost your self-esteem. If you are feeling down, try putting up sticky notes around your room, or on your mirror. Repeatedly reading  statements such as "I am healthy," "I am loved," "I am beautiful," "I am a good friend to others," "I am kind," "I am helpful," "I am reliable," "I am confident"... will help you focus on all your good qualities rather than the things you don't feel so great about, and soon the impact of the things you don't particularly feel great about will start to lose power.

Another tactic that might help take some of the stress away regarding schoolwork and studying would be visualization. If you have something on your mind that you keep worrying about, visualize every step, from beginning to end, that will take place in a successful completion of whatever it is that yyou are worrying about. Studies show that by practicing mentally, you can improve your success tremendously. So put time into mentally running through the steps of your up coming test: You walk into class calmly, sit down in the seat you always sit in, take out your pencil and take a deep breath calmly before the teacher hands you the test, look through the questions marking which ones should be easy for you and which ones may take a bit more time, go through once and do all of the problems you know right off the bat, next go through and try the harder problems, finally go through the exam again and check all of your work, breathe a sigh of relief that you completed the exam to the very best of your ability, turn your test in, gather your belongings and you're on with the rest of your day. Now that wasn't so bad was it?

I hope everyone is having a great spring semester so far. And don't stress too much about class work, you are smart, and you got this!