Dealing with school

Hi and welcome to my first real post on this blog! I've gotten quite a few questions that readers are looking to receive answers for. I'm so thankful you guys are taking initiative and seeking my advice! The first topic I decided to discuss is one that affects almost every teen: school. Throughout this blog ill be talking on how to organize your school schedule, how to deal with the stress and pressure schooling always seems to come with, where to get help if you're having issues in class and more.

So first things first, lets talk about how to organize your school life in order to stay up to date on all your homework, projects and classes in general. When I was in grade school and even my first semester in grade 9 I always did my work the second I received it and tried to finish as fast as I could in order to save myself some homework. When I was in grade 7 and 8 I would actually do all my homework in advance on the Sunday night so for the rest of the week I was really free to do whatever I wanted. Well that all sort of changed when my second semester of grade 9 started. I was so swamped with not only homework, projects and test, but also with the school play, my school jazz band, school soccer and my personal travel soccer team that I started to get lazy and skip on some homework. Well, even though most, including myself sometimes, believe that homework is just busy work given by our teachers it actually has a very important role in our learning of a subject. Many researches have shown that students who do there homework on a daily basis retain more of the information and have an overall higher success rate then a student that rarely does the homework assigned. Knowing that, I started to kick my butt and study and finish off all my homework.

I managed to get myself organized after seeking advice from friends, websites online and adults such as teachers and my parents. Some of the best ways I've found keep you organized and up to date are:

• Writing down my homework on my phone calendar and setting alarms to remind myself of what I need to get accomplished.
• Separating my various subjects in different binders and the using dividers to organize the multiple units in each class.
• Keeping important pages or documents marked with a sticking note or by a highlighter to have easy access.
• Planning what time ill do what work to maximize organization.
• Typing a revue for each unit on a document (I prefer Google drive) so I have access to all the important information I need. Also this tactic will help when studying for exams because you'll have all your notes in one organized place.

Obviously there are many more ways to stay organized but I've found these to be the best for me since I tend to be a forgetful person and I like having access to my documents from anywhere (phone, computer...)

Next up is how to deal with the stress and pressure of school. I've found that many students feel pressured by their parents who push them to keep a high academic grade or even the student themselves that set a high bar  for their success rate. I, myself, am very guilty of setting a high, sometimes unrealistic, goal for my academic grades because I don't know what I would like to become in the future so I'm trying to achieve high grade in each subject to keep all future career paths open and not be limited by some bad grades. Now I'm not saying setting a goal for yourself is bad, never, because it helps push you and drive you to success and gives you a challenge. What I am saying that you should try hard to keep your goals realistic and possible with some effort while still giving a challenge.

The effects of stress

According to Amy Shapiro, Dr. Nancy Heath ( a student and a  professor at McGill University  in the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology), "Adolescent stress is often a risk factor for poor mental health outcomes such as anxiety and depression". This means we as teenagers need to try and keep our stress levels at a minimum.

Over the last couple of years, I have found out so many ways that help me relieve stress and to give you more exemples because not everybody will distress the same ways I do, I've look online and asked around and I came up with the following list:

• Listening to music: this will help calm yourself down and proceed doing your work with a clearer thought process.
• While working on a project, break down the big picture and take things one step at a time. Trying to completely everything at once will only cause you to over think and essentially think more about quantity and not quality of your work
• Never procrastinate: this will only amplify your stress when you realize how much work you have to get done to meet a nearing deadline.
• Take a break: pushing yourself to hard all at once can cause serious headaches and a negative attitude towards your work. When you start to feel overworked, save your work and take a short walk taking deep breath to calm down and relax your mind.
• Make sure to get enough sleep: I personally tend to stay up late and wake up early in order to finish assignements (cough cough its 1:30 in the morning right now) but I'm trying to push myself to get more sleep time in order to function better and think clearer on a daily basis.
• Make time for fun: it very important to live  balanced life so if you see that you're too stressed out, take some time and go run around outside with some friends or siblings, or read a book and relax a bit.
• Don't be scared to ask for help: I always try to do things on my own and not have to rely on others but I have learned that asking for help isn't saying your any less capable of doing something, it is merely stating that you are human and sometimes you'll need help in life.

Just like before, these obviously aren't all the ways you can destress but they cover a wide variety of possibilities.

That's the end for this post. If you would like more advice on this topic or would like me to do another post with more tips leave a comment below or contact me by email (allib.blogs@gmail.com). If you have another topic you would like me to discuss you can also leave a comment below with your question/topic or contact me by email if you would prefer to stay anonymous.

What I used as inspiration for this post:

• http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/10227.html
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/27/academic-pressure-5-tips-_n_2774106.html
• http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/teen-stress-our-schools
• http://www.teenhealthfx.com/answers/tips/10-ways-to-de-stress-your-life.html
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/09/06/stress-relief-that-works_n_3842511.html
• My family, friends and teachers

Until next time...