As part of mental health awareness week our fabulous Editor James Cain at Innovate My School has published my article today on combating student stress through communication.
I am always happy to donate to this website which is a really brilliant tool for teachers and professionals within the education sector.
I hope my followers will enjoy reading my latest piece, link follows:-
http://www.innovatemyschool.com/ideas/combating-student-stress-through-communication
Hello to all those students facing exams this week. You can do this you know your subject you’ve done the cramming all that is left is to keep calm, rested and focused.
Over the coming weeks keep healthy, don’t give up the exercise infact it’s a good time to try something new..but nothing too energetic.Yoga is excellent as aside of the exercise you will learn useful breathing techniques.
Meditation and practising mindfulness to stay in the moment, enjoy it rather than fear it.
As tempting as partying and drinking may seem this will be of no use whatsoever who want’s to arrive for an exam with a hang-over anyway? Alcohol is not the best relaxant trust me.
Try using the aromatherapy head gel strips they are amazing for clearing the head whilst revising. Most good chemists stock them for around £3.00 for a pack of four.
Drink plenty of water but not too much that you need to leave the examination room unless it is absolutely necessary. We all know that when we are nervous our system goes into over-drive.
You’ve got this. Good luck.
A lot of my coaching work with my dementia clients and their families is obviously based around memory and sharing positive memories.
Smooth radio were doing their top 500 songs at the weekend; as Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’ bellowed out of the radio I remembered that very hot summer of 1976, age 18 driving around Devon with my first boyfriend in his mum’s white mini. He later died a very young age of cancer.
Everybody has a story to tell and as I was discussing this weekend music often is the background to our lives and hearing a piece of music we can remember when and where we heard it. This can of course make us feel melancholy if the music brings back sad memories but what we don’t always appreciate is that sometimes that pain needs to come to the surface and letting go of our emotions is a positive thing.
I heard somebody say recently that ‘memories are the scripts of our soul’ as Aristotle famously quoted and believed. As such our pain and joy associated with those memories must be equally embraced.
For anyone feeling sad about a loved one they have lost try and balance it out by remembering something really funny they did as they would want you to go on living and laughing.
I will end today’s blog remembering my amazing Mother leaving the room, dancing as she did, singing ‘Bring me sunshine’ and of course she did.
So for many students it is now full on revising leading up to the exam period. As always I am mindful this is a very difficult time for many students of all ages. The key is to get plenty of rest and keep hydrated. To ensure that the cramming sessions are broken into realistic chunks with time off for regular exercise if possible as that really helps cognitively. Remember to include relaxation and treats into your schedules.
Treats don’t necessarily mean a bagful of chocolate; as your complexion may be more sensitive to and likely to react in skin break-outs brought on by stress at this time, but regular intake of water will really help with this too!
A bit of pampering girls is always a good idea, whether this be a manicure, a new hair style or if the budget runs to it maybe a massage. A break away from the laptop to the cinema may be just the break you need along with Ben and Jerry’s ice cream obviously.
Seriously, now, keep focused but mindful and if you are feeling really stressed talk to somebody, if this isn’t your parent, talk to a tutor, or pastoral care they will always be supportive and may have some excellent tips that are really easy to implement on a day to day basis. Many colleges and universities have all sorts of stress buster ideas and schemes so find out what yours has to offer and make ultimate use of what’s available.
Please don’t suffer in silence but avoid taking on other student’s stress -it is easy for others to make you feel stressed it can be contagious.
I will be posting regular tips throughout May and June so keep following. I will be invigilating again this summer so I see fully appreciate how stressful it can be for many students. I will be posting little tips for ‘on the exam day’ too.
Keep calm, focused and keep positive.
Well done to the younger Royals for speaking out about bereavement and mental illness. Increasing awareness and the importance for people who are sufffering to talk will definitely help take the stigma away from these subjects which have been taboos for far too long. Like their mother Diana they are using their positions to do great and positive work.
Sharing their own experiences of their own bereavement journey in losing their own mother is both personal, brave and will, I am certain, help many people struggling to come to terms with their own loss.
Both princes show great compassion and are extremely humble when talking to representatives of support charities who are so often run and indeed started up by people who have experienced their own tragic loss or on-going mental illness.
The pain which we cannot see in others, often concealed well, certainly needs as much awareness and funding as any other worthy cause.
We all too frequently use the term ‘glass half empty/full’ when really we may be identifying a friend or colleague’s viewpoint as negative or positive. To a certain degree that is true but on a much deeper level a lot of what we achieve and/or fear in life is down to whether or not we are problem thinking or outcome thinking.
Most of us as we become adult take on board that in life we have to take responsibilities for our actions and make positive steps to achieve our goals and lead a happier life.
It all sounds so simple but for many of course that is not the case. So many people have fixed stumbling blocks which prevent them from getting on with their life and realising their ambitions and dreams.
If our negativity is in relation to our career prospects then telling ourselves we will never improve our situation or get that better paid job is problem thinking whereas if we look realistically at learning new skills to secure that position ..we are outcome thinking.
As I have said only recently when chewing the cud with a special somebody…the brain really is like a sponge and the more we learn the more confident we become.
I know I am fortunate in that I have never lost the hunger to learn new things but for those that are struggling consider seeking some NLP Life and Work skills counselling as that dream may easier to live and closer than you think. As for those stumbling blocks they can be knocked down, walked around or even jumped over..now there’s encouragement for a Monday morning eh?
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