By Ashleigh Lowe, W*SS Undergraduate Programs & Events Intern
November is typically a stressful time in the Fall Semester. Finals are just around the corner, so we are often inundated with an increased amount of assignments, projects, and exams. This November has been particularly stressful as we are just coming out of election season. The additional stress of worrying about whether or not abortion rights in Michigan will be secured with the reelection of Gretchen Whitmer and the passing of Proposition 3, has been extremely tiring.
As students, we experience a significant amount of stress, particularly toward the end of the semester. High levels of academic stress can negatively impact one's mental health. While it is easy to live in auto-pilot mode, it is important we gain awareness of the behaviors we engage in as we regulate our stress levels. As our stress levels increase we may find ourselves using more negative self-talk. Self-talk is the voice we all hear in our heads that helps us make decisions and solve problems. Self-talk can profoundly impact our mental health and shape how we think and feel about the world. When we treat ourselves negatively, we can develop a lower sense of self-confidence and self-worth. Additionally, we begin to accept any negative circumstances we are facing as an unchangeable fact. However, if we treat ourselves with kindness and compassion, we can develop a higher sense of self-worth.
During finals season, we may notice negative self-talk appearing in several different ways such as filtering, polarizing, or developing a fixed mindset. Filtering causes you to focus on the negative aspects of a situation and filter out the positive aspects. During finals, this could mean focusing on how much work you have left rather than how much you’ve accomplished. Like filtering, polarizing only focuses on the negative. If you are polarizing a situation, you are viewing it as completely negative, which means you are ignoring any nuance or complexity involved. Lastly, a fixed mindset is when you set limitations on yourself and your ability to gain new knowledge. You may doubt yourself when reviewing or learning a difficult topic. However, in all of these scenarios, it is important to remember that reality exists beyond our thoughts and we are capable of more than we believe ourselves to be.
Working against negative self-talk requires patience. It can be emotionally toxic to force ourselves to be happy all the time, so we can’t just simply switch our negative thoughts to positive ones. Instead, we can try to treat ourselves with more compassion daily and question negative thoughts. One way of doing this is by talking to ourselves how we’d speak to a loved one because, hopefully, we love ourselves too. A necessary step in changing our way of thinking is by giving ourselves grace. It can also be helpful to start thinking in patterns of growth rather than limitation. For example, when encountering a challenging topic, instead of saying, “I’ll never understand this,” try saying, “This topic is really challenging, but I’m getting better at solving these problems.”
I have also included some meditations and affirmations that can help us think of ourselves more compassionately:
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