Students starting or returning to university this September face the usual challenges of balancing study, work and socialising, alongside the uncertainties brought by COVID-19. Will some of your teaching be taking place online rather than in person? Are your types of assessment going to change? How easy will it be to socialise with other students?

This unsettling start to the academic year means that looking after your mental health from day one of university has never been more important. Below I share some personal tips that have boosted my own mental wellbeing throughout two years of studying!

Note: these tips can also be applied if you’re a distance learner! For more distance learning advice, see Rachael’s article on What I Wish I Had Known When I Started My Degree Online.

1. Prioritise

If you’re anything like me, your perfectionist streak means that even with deadline season in full swing, that niggling voice in your head is still telling you to make detailed notes on every chapter of set reading!

To stop your mental wellbeing going into a tailspin, make sure you’ve scheduled the most important, assessment-related work first and give yourself permission to let other tasks slide in busy periods.

2. Stop comparing

Comparison is a serious hazard to students’ mental health. There’s always that one super-organised person with an immaculate, colour-coded folder of notes who makes you feel like your efforts can never measure up!

However, see above – this seemingly ideal student may actually not have set aside enough time to start planning that important assignment or even get a good night’s sleep. Stay on your own path, keep your priorities clear and try not to get deviated by chasing the achievements of others.

3. Always have something to look forward to

It’s easy to get caught up in the endless cycle of lectures, coursework and exam swotting, but over time this single-mindedness will start to take its toll on your mental wellbeing. Make a conscious effort to have something nice planned every week – whether it’s a coffee date and catch up with a friend, a shopping spree or a film & takeaway night with flatmates.

If you’re worried about the social side of being a student, take a look at this article I wrote about my own (positive) experience of starting university as an introvert.

4. Give yourself some leeway

I was feeling on-edge and frantic in my first semester at university, which turned out to be caused by my excessively meticulous planning. Every minute of every day had been colour coded in Google Calendar, leaving no space for the inevitable spanners-in-the-works life likes to throw our way.

After a conversation with my personal tutor, I now have one day every week marked as a ‘buffer day’, where I can finish anything I didn’t get around to throughout the rest of my timetable. It’s a small change that has made me feel so much calmer!

5. Talk!

Universities are finally committing to making the mental health of their students a priority. 2020 marked the first University Mental Health Day, while the University Mental Health Charter is being developed into an award scheme recognising good practice. Wherever you’re studying, there will be a range of people who can offer help if you’re struggling.

Be flexible with the official procedures so they work for you. If you’re directed to speak to your personal tutor in the first instance, but you don’t find them especially approachable, try asking for a meeting with your favourite lecturer instead.

Keep speaking to your peers and course mates about mental wellbeing as well, sharing problems, tips and strategies. I’m going into the last year of my English Literature degree this September and I’m still figuring out what works for me! Looking after our mental health is a continuous process - we can always learn something from each other.

Plus any conversation we have that makes student mental health a more open topic, in universities, workplaces and homes, can make a huge difference.

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Written by Florence Edwards