Education can really bring out the worst in your mental health because of the stress, lack of sleep and probably a bad diet. So I put together some things that really helped me during school and college.

1: Get Rid Of Toxic Elements 

I think in any place of education its easy to get wrapped up in the idea of having to keep someone in your life because you see them everyday, which leads to a downward spiral and ultimately makes you feel worse. Yes it's hard to get rid of these toxic people in your life but if someone is making school/college bad for you and just generally drains you, you have every right to distance yourself. Put yourself first and dont let people drag you down.

2: SLEEP

I never got enough sleep and in college I was probably down to 3/4 hours at some point, which meant that I was often late or miss lessons all together. Mental health can really make you emotionally and physically tired, so trying your hardest to get enough sleep is so important. Getting into a routine can making getting out of bed in the morning easier and makes trying to learn and revise so much easier. Sleep can also help to give your head a rest, which is so important. 

3: Let Yourself Rest

This goes in turn with the second point but by this I mean that it's important to give yourself some 'me' time. I used to use my frees to relax because I'm more of a night owl, which gave me a lot more energy for lessons during the day and allowed me to get a good few hours of revision in on the evening. If you're better at working during the day, you could do all your work in school/college and leave nothing for at home. It's important to work out when you work best and then work around it. Having the rest of the time for your own relaxation is so important because it helps you to balance your work loads and takes the stress away from your head.

4: Friendships

I know for me, when I'm having a bad time with my mental health I like to be around people; it helps to keep your mind away from your issues and can make you a lot more content. I found that doing school work and revision around plans with friends worked so well for my mental health and made me a lot less stressed because I gave myself that social time to really forget about everything else going on. 

Overall I'd really stress that you need to think about your own needs and the things you want to do. Dont sacrifice your mental health for things the college want you to do, for example I quit my extra curricular activity (debate team) in second year of college because it gave me too much anxiety. Also give yourself time to relax and recharge. Education is stressful and mental health problems can really drain you, so together it can be really hard but I did learn to just take everything at my own pace and give myself my time.

Hope this helped. Do you have any tips?

Sophie