Attending college full time requires a bit of adaptation when it comes to managing your time, and part-time college students with full-time jobs and families can experience a great deal of stress in their daily lives. Stress has a tendency to sneak up on you without your even realizing it is there. Stress is a feeling to which we start to become accustomed. So, how do you know you’re stressed? Some of the symptoms associated with stress are:

• Anxiety
  
• Constant headaches
  
• Tense or aching muscles, particularly around your shoulders and neck
  
• Dental issues associated with grinding of the teeth
  
• Feeling irritated or overwhelmed
  
• Loss of sexual desire
  
• Increased use of alcohol
  
• Pessimistic attitude
  
• Overeating
  
• Memory issues
  

If you are suffering from a number of these symptoms, you may need to take a second look at how you manage stress in your life. Stress is not something to be taken lightly; it is a major factor associated with many illnesses and diseases, such as:

• Insomnia
  
• Depression
  
• Diabetes
  
• High blood pressure
  
• Heart disease
  
• Obesity
  
• Accelerated aging
  
• Heartburn
  

Creating a balanced lifestyle is a great way to begin minimizing stresses in your life. Managing your activities and organizing them in a fashion that makes the most of your time is one the keys to eliminating factors associated with stress. Take a few minutes to write down all the activities in your daily life, and then divide the list into two groups: internal balance and external balance.

The internal balance list items pertain to activities that affect your overall health, heart, and mind. The external balance list items pertain to your family, friends, and career. Having an equal balance between internal and external can greatly contribute to stress reduction. But balancing time is not always an easy task. It is best to utilize some sort of scheduling method to help you manage your time. There are many scheduling apps available for exactly this purpose. Find one that works best for you and begin organizing your daily activities.

While attending college, some of the top reasons students are stressed out have to do with money. To ensure your college experience is a positive one, make sure you are financially prepared. If you are certain that money will be a concern once you begin attending college in the fall, try sacrificing some of your summertime freedom to obtain a job that will work well with your college schedule. It is always best to start to eliminate stresses associated with money early; attending college itself will demand much of your time.

Procrastination is one of the biggest contributors to stress in my life as a student. At the very least, I’ve learned to designate time once a day to review course material or assignments that are due later in the week. Even if I don’t complete the assignment or actually work on it on any given day, reviewing it provides me with fuel for thought. While I’m exercising or cooking, ideas will pop into my head pertaining to the assignment’s requirements. Understanding the weekly coursework early on will give you an idea of how to manage your time, which will ultimately help you to better organize your time and to make you a better student.