Managing The Stress of 1L
As a 1L, I’m still figuring out how to navigate law school and manage the stressors that come with being a law student. Between staying on top of your readings, outlining, and keeping up with your extracurricular activities it’s easy to get overwhelmed. While it is no secret that law school is a ton of work, it’s important not to let law school take over your entire life. It’s necessary to find a healthy balance between law school and other aspects of your life to maintain your mental and physical well being. Here are three things you can do to better manage your stress levels and improve your overall performance:
1.Do Things Aside From Law School
You’re probably thinking: why would I focus on anything other than law school when I’m stressed out about law school? I thought the same thing when I was given this advice. Before coming to law school, I always heard from upper-years about the importance of taking frequent breaks and doing activities that are completely unrelated to law school. Constantly being behind a desk and doing readings can leave anyone feeling drained and burnt out. It’s important to find a healthy release to help you relieve some of the everyday stressors that come with being a law student. My biggest worry before coming into law school was that I would not have any time to take breaks with a demanding schedule. The truth is that you need to make the time. Every week I incorporate time in my schedule to keep up with my hobbies and take a break from rigorous studying so that I’m not overworking myself. Personally, I’ve found that going on walks and doing yoga has had a drastic positive impact on my mood by allowing me to mentally check out of school for a period of time and focus on my well being.
Connecting with your friends and family for social support can also be an excellent way to cope with the stress of law school. Spending time with my friends who aren’t in law school helps me disconnect and take a mental break by focusing on something else other than the insane amount of pages I have to read. Even something as small as going for a 5-minute walk to get some fresh air and a change in scenery can help you de-stress. Whatever your release is, finding the time for it in your schedule will help you recharge and prevent you from burning out.
2. Staying Organized & Maximizing Your Productivity
Juggling several important tasks and deadlines at once can often be overwhelming and often leave you feeling like you have no idea where to begin. I find myself putting off tasks that I find stressful or time-consuming. But the longer that we put off our responsibilities, the more daunting they become and the stress builds up. One thing that helps me minimize my stress level is keeping a daily to-do list. In law school, you often feel like there is so much to do but not enough hours in a day to get to everything on your to-do list. Instead of writing a master list of everything I had to accomplish for the week, I started to write out a list of daily tasks that I need to complete each day. This helped me prioritize any upcoming pressing deadlines and helped me stay on top of any upcoming tasks. Another way to stay organized and minimize your stress is by setting frequent goals for yourself. Goal setting can help you identify a clear purpose and direction and help you when you are prioritizing your tasks. Planning ahead and staying organized can help you maximize your productivity and avoiding the built-up stress of leaving your tasks to the last minute.
3. Accept What You Cannot Control
A big part of managing your stress is accepting the things that you can not control. The first step to this is figuring out what you can control. During my undergrad, I was spending a lot of time focusing on the things that I couldn’t control. Ultimately, I found that this made me more anxious because I didn’t know what to expect. I realized that sometimes all you can really control is the effort that you put in and your attitude. While I can’t control the questions that will be put on my final exam, I can control how much time I choose to put into preparing for it in advance and ensure that I prepare efficiently. Another thing that you can control is identifying when you’re struggling and taking steps to reach out for help. At the beginning of law school, I would find myself avoiding concepts that I was struggling with in a course, which ended up adding to the stress of not understanding it in the first place. By taking steps to reach out to my classmates and my professor for clarification I was able to relieve some of the built-up stress that I had. Focusing your energy on things that you can control as opposed to the things you can’t control can help you redirect your focus and better prepare you to face the unexpected.
While we cannot often control our stressors, we can control how we deal with them. The key is to figure out ways that can help you find a release that works for you to manage your stress productively and healthily.
