 Balancing mountains of work with a social life, part-time job and often times living away from home where you've got to learn how to do your own laundry and cook more than beans on toast can be difficult. It can seem impossible and a lot of students struggle with it. So how can you stay sane at university? What is up guys? Karma medic here and welcome back to another dose. Uni is tough. You've got so much to do and so much that can easily overwhelm you especially when the work never seems to slow down. It seems impossible for us to do everything and stay sane at the same time whilst doing it. Here are five things I've done to survive in university and keep my mental health and well-being in check whilst I'm there. Probably the most important thing that you can do is to take care of your health whilst you're at university. It's easy to leave home and get out of sync with your eating habits, your exercise and your sleep. If you can, try to eat well and do some sort of exercise even if it's just going outside for a short walk to get your shopping and try to make sure that you're getting enough sleep. And I know that saying these three things is probably impossible and there's that classic Venn diagram where it's like the side between sleep, social life and grades, so I've been there and I realize how hard this is to balance. We've all had those big nights out where you don't get enough sleep and then you don't eat well in the morning and before you know it, the whole kind of day is ruined where you're just in this sluggish mood and not feeling that well. And so if we can try to limit those times to not as often in the month or in the week or maybe only on the weekends then we can make sure that it doesn't affect the rest of our life too much. It's also worth checking in on how much sleep and exercise you're getting regularly. If you can incorporate it into your routine so that it just becomes second nature like a habit it can have honestly profound changes and differences on your mental health and even your academics and your grades. Find out whatever works best for you and try to have that in your routine as much as possible. Whether that's a really short walk early in the morning or a gym session late in the evening literally whatever it is incorporating some sort of exercise into your day and into your routine is immensely helpful. And if eight hours of sleep is something that's important for you in order to stay focused in your lectures and your studying then try and make that a priority in your routine no matter what. Of course a lot of what I'm saying right now is easier said than done but I think the more that you think about it and the more that you try to do it the closer to sort of that perfection you can get. And of course it's important for all of this to be balanced because you have a social life and keeping up your social life is incredibly important at university as well. Managing to go out and build relationships with other people, let off steam, relax and enjoy yourself is honestly equally as important as all the time that you spend studying and putting in that work in the library. And for every person that balance is gonna be different but what I'm trying to encourage is the thought pattern and the reflection on that balance so that you can do what's best for you and you make sure that you're keeping your priorities in check. If you start to realize that you're building any habits that aren't helping you achieve your goals maybe staying up too late or going out too much, et cetera you can identify those and you can work on them to better prioritize for yourself. Having a balance between your studying and your social life is incredibly important. You can't focus your whole life on studying and getting the best grades all the time because you're gonna be completely miserable and you'll miss out on some of the most important things about the university experience which is making good friends, networking, exploring yourself and exploring the city, the campus, et cetera. Friends are an integral part of having good mental health for so many reasons. You've got the mutual support, you have people looking out for you and you have people to talk about about the stresses of your life, your exams and your studying. Now that balance is gonna look different for every single person but what I encourage is for you to reflect on and think about how it is that you're balancing your social life with your academic life. If you're trying to eat well, exercise, get enough sleep, study enough, see your friends, go to societies and sports events all in the same week, it might just seem like a lot and it probably is. My advice is to prioritize well to make sure that you're doing enough of the things that you actually want to do. The things that make you most excited, things that you say yes about without even thinking twice. Whilst at the same time, reflecting on and not forgetting the priorities that you have in your life, probably going to be your academics and your studying because you're at university or whatever they are and whatever it is for you. The way that I see this is keeping your vitals, let's say sleep, exercise and eating in check is key. So you have to do those as much as you can. But at the same time, studying is key to you staying at university. So that's fairly important too. But at the end of the day, it's completely up to you how hard you work at university. You can kill yourself and study every single day in the library in order to come first in the year or that might just not matter to you at all. So you might choose to work less and just pass all of your modules and exams which is also absolutely okay. It all depends on you and what you want to get out of university and how much effort you want to put in for the value that you're going to get out. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you need to know what's most important for you so that you can come up with your own list of priorities and work towards them so that you're doing exactly what you want to be doing without being overwhelmed whilst at university. Following on from my previous point, knowing your limits and setting clear boundaries for yourself is also absolutely key. If you know, for example, that you need a minimum of eight hours of sleep in order to function well the next day, then that needs to be a clear boundary for you. It's obviously okay if that doesn't happen every now and again because life happens, but if it's becoming a regular thing where you're not getting enough sleep, you're not getting your eight hours, then you might need to reevaluate. I think it's valuable to sit down and reflect or even to write down exactly what it is that you need to function at your best, how you're managing with achieving those things at the moment and what could be improved if anything if you could. Something I used to do in the past is I would write down this list on a sticky note and I would just pin it up in my study area somewhere on the wall or on my monitor and it would be something that I could refer back to every now and again and I could check with myself and remind myself, are you doing all those things that you want to do that are going to make you function at your best? You might have a list that says something like sleep eight hours a night between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., eat nutritious food, do one hour of exercise, speak to another human or just clean up your desk, be in a tidy environment, whatever it is. And if you're having a bad day or you just can't seem to focus or motivate yourself, then you can always look at this list and you can check off all the things that you've done and think about, oh, hey, I actually didn't eat something nutritious today, I haven't tidied my room and it can sort of help you to reset and refocus. It gives you the opportunity to review where you're currently at and to adjust things going forward. It's often the case that we stay in these routines that aren't really serving us well until something bad happens, like a low exam grade or we burn out or something which can have a pretty negative impact on us. And this little list of things that I just used to write on a post-it note and stick on my wall, I feel like is a really good way to focus and it's a good way to avoid us getting to that point where we're not doing well because hopefully somewhere along the way we would have identified something that's not going so well and adjusted it or fixed it so it doesn't need something worse down the road. Having these sort of external cues or prompts in your life that can help you remember things that are important for you, I find really useful. And it doesn't have to be a written post-it note. It can be a reminder on your phone or on your calendar. It can be you calling up a friend or them being your accountability buddy calling you to check in on you. It can really be anything. One thing which I know can be really stressful is knowing how much to study, when to study and what method you're going to use. Are you gonna make notes? Are you going to do past paper questions? How much content do you have to get through and how do you attend all of your lectures whilst revising at the same time? I've addressed a lot of these questions in previous videos, but I think having a plan going into the start of term is incredibly useful. It takes all of the extra thinking out of the studying. You've already got a plan and a routine in place and now all you have to do is follow it. If you start every day not knowing what you're going to do, then you spend a lot of extra time choosing the plan for that day and then probably changing your plans throughout the day, which isn't ideal at all. Plus, if you've already made these decisions for yourself in a time in the past, then when you wake up on the day, you don't need to think about what you need to do or what you need to study. You just need to tell yourself what you're gonna do when you told yourself what you were gonna do when you made the plan to begin with. This eliminates a lot of the decision fatigue and inertia of getting started, which is often the hardest part. It's just getting started with the studying. Spending a little bit of time at the beginning of term or the beginning of the week or at the beginning of exam season, making these types of plans is great because then those plans themselves will just carry you throughout the rest of the term. Now, this doesn't mean that you can't change and reevaluate your plans. Of course you always can, but it just helps you get started. I cannot stress how important asking for help is and I'm not only referring to when you're in a crisis and you're in a time of desperate need. By the time you're in a crisis, often a lot of damage has been done and it's harder to solve your problem once you're there. Asking for help from others early on is really, really helpful. And what I always say is try not to worry about putting other people off or stressing them out about what they're gonna think if you ask for help, which is a lot of the times a barrier for people to reaching out to others. Think about how you would feel if your friend came to you in a time of need and wanted some advice or just for you to hear them out and provide them with some support. You'd want to help them immediately, right? You wouldn't even think twice. And so it's likely that they would do the exact same thing for you. And of course, don't forget about your family, your personal tutors, your university counselors. You know, these are all people that are available for help if you need it. Besides the personal struggles and the mental health aspect of asking others for help, from an academic side, asking people for help in the sense that you should be using all of the resources that are available to you. For example, asking students in the years above you for their notes or their past paper questions or speaking to tutors about your course, how to best study for upcoming exams, et cetera, speaking to your peers and your colleagues who are actually on your course and asking them how they're getting along with the material, what resources they're using to study, things that you might not be doing, which you might find helpful, et cetera. You should try to use all of the contacts that you have and reach out for help even before you think that you need it. Having an online community of like-minded people can also be really beneficial. If you're interested in joining a community of motivated people who are also supportive and caring of each other, then you might want to consider joining my Patreon, The Karma Club. We have live study with me sessions and loads of channels on the Discord where you can discuss anything from technology to random chats, relaxing, venting, apps, movies, TV shows, books, you name it. I think it's such an amazing community and I'm more than proud to have been able to make this and see it grow and see everyone interact in the way that they are. I think it's really fantastic. I'll leave a link in the bio, in the description if you'd like to join. Before I end this video, I just want to say that it's all right if you struggle and if you don't always feel calm, happy and productive. I want you watching on my channel to know that everyone goes through it. Even people on YouTube and Instagram who appear to always be super productive. I went through complete burnout after the USM least step one, you're not alone. It might be worth watching some of my burnout videos for tips about how to prevent burnout but also what to do if you're already there. But we've all been there and we all need help sometimes. And reaching out to other people is a great first step, something that I think is really, really important. So I just wanted to make that note before I end this video. All right guys, and that is it. Those are some of the best ways that I've found to stay sane whilst at university. I hope that you found this video helpful and that it's at least a gentle reminder to make sure you always take care of yourself first. And that's it. I'll catch you in the next one. Peace.