Opinion: How mindfulness can help relieve college application stress

Academic life can be a stressful experience. For students like us, there is a great deal of information to absorb as well as deadlines to meet, plus the pressure of the student’s mind swinging from the past (regret or reflection) to the future (worries or fantasies that are yet to come), which can cause stress and anxiety. This can keep students from focusing on their studies and enjoying what’s going on in the classroom.

Students who are dealing with their mental health and don’t know how to balance their job and study have several common reactions to stressful situations, including behavioral, physical and psychological.

According to a study released by the American Psychological Association, it may be difficult for college students to balance their time between academics and their personal lives. Students struggle with anxiety and despair. According to the CDC, 7.1% of children aged 3-17 in the United States have diagnosed anxiety.

Finding your independence is one of the perks of being a student, but it can also be stressful what you need to know to stay calm.

If you are struggling with your mental health, it’s important to seek help. Speak to a counselor at your school and ask what kind of mental health support and resources they can offer. L.A. County residents can access free online talk therapy, message boards and individual coaching at lacounty.iprevail.com. If you are in any type of crisis or experiencing painful emotions, text HOME to 741741 to reach the Crisis Text Line. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is also available 24/7 at 800-273-8255.

In your day-to-day life, following mindfulness techniques, organization techniques and communicating your needs and thoughts can help to minimize stress.

1.Mindfulness Techniques: Mindfulness can be practiced anytime and anywhere. It has a very simple concept: just live in the present and forget about all past and future. Just give your 100% to whatever you are doing and come out of the thoughts of past activities or future planning.

Basically, the benefits of Mindfulness can be broken down into three main parts: Action, Breathing, and Centering (ABC).

• Action

Essentially moving your body, it could be anything yoga or sports. Let’s say Yoga– you’re guided into specific poses while moving through coordinated sequences of postures triggers a part of the brain that reduces the stress and pain response and increases the pleasure centers and mental activity.

• Breathing

In this part you pay close attention to your breathing when you’re doing yoga. Specific actions combining with breathing trigger certain parts of the brain that affect your energy level, mood, and mental abilities.

• Centering

This leads to the most important part of what yoga is all about: Centering. What does THAT mean? It just means that when you pay attention to your breathing during yoga/action/movement, you stay focused on the task at hand. You really don’t have time to think about your homework when you’re moving from Upward Facing Dog into Downward Facing Dog! It’s about staying present.

2. Organization Techniques: Plays a big role in organizing your thoughts and mental state. Time management helps stay organized and decrease stress. Many times, stress is related to unclarity of open items or 99% done items. Listing them out and taking care of them helps release the unnecessary stress.

3. Communicate your needs & thoughts: Be kind to yourself and express your mental state to teachers, parents, friends. Don’t hesitate to pull out from the activities if things are overwhelming. We do have examples from Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka who has prioritized their mental health instead of medals.

These coping strategies can help attain optimal physical and mental health. Just to summarize the objective is to establish a clear, calm, and internally focused state of consciousness being present to whatever is going on around you without judgments or judging yourself or other people.