I’m glad that you guys are here to learn about school life because I think that’s probably the hardest part for most people, even adults. So I’m glad that you guys are coming here to kind of learn how to fix that now so that you don’t have to deal with it as much later.

Meet the Counselor

Okay, so I’m just going to introduce myself. I’m Casey Ashcraft, a counselor here. I am a licensed counselor in the state of Missouri. I have my master’s in counseling from American Nazarene University, which isn’t too far away from here. I also have an emphasis on marriage, couple, and family counseling.

So my experience in working with counseling — it’s trauma, eating disorders, I work with college students, I work with low-income populations. Pretty much the only thing I haven’t done is substance use, but even then I kind of scratch the surface with that, which is something that’s very common with college students.

I’m a wife — been married to my husband for 10 years, we’ve been together for 13. Met in college originally. And I’m a mother to three kids. I have two girls and a boy so they keep me busy for sure.

Tip 1: Reduce Stress

Okay, we’re going to go off with some tips. I’m going to give you three tips to help with the balance of work and school.

First one is reduce stress. Can you think of something that would help reduce stress? Meditating — yeah. Can you think of something that would help? Being out in nature, outside, something that keeps you calm — yeah, absolutely. Those are both great answers.

So most presentations save the most important thing for last — I’m actually going to give that to you first. So this is going to be a little different and it might surprise you that a healthy lifestyle is the best way to reduce stress.

Healthy Lifestyle

Totally surprising. The best way is to develop good sleep habits. So 60% of students suffer from poor sleep quality. Some of this can be because a roommate keeps you up, a lot of times it’s from anxiety, sometimes it’s just from being overworked — there’s just too much to do. And poor sleep is probably the second highest reason for why people struggle with balance, because when you don’t sleep you can’t focus as well, your attention span is a lot lower, and you usually need other things to kind of help cope with that — so that would be energy drinks, social media, your phone, things like that. And so it can just throw off your balance completely.

And along with that is healthy eating. So obviously in an ideal world we would all eat vegetables and fruit and stay away from the fried stuff that tastes so good. The one thing that I think surprises most people is if you just limit caffeine in your day, that would take care of a lot of problems. So it’s not having no caffeine, just limiting it to a certain amount. Some people put limits on it like, “I will only have caffeine up until noon or one o’clock in the day,” because then that will help with the sleep problems as well. And especially sugar — sugar can also do the same thing. It surprises most people to find that caffeine actually increases anxiety. So if you already have anxiety, having a lot of caffeine and sugar on top of it — it’s like adding fire to gasoline, it’s just going to go up in flames. It’s not going to be a very easy way to get balance in your life.

Exercise

And exercise is the next one. So again it’s one of those things that we know we should do but we don’t. But it’s been proven to reduce anxiety and depression, it includes improved sleep, you have better endurance and mental alertness. So exercise and sleep can kind of go hand in hand here.

So healthy lifestyle is usually the one thing that would help the most, but this is the one thing that people neglect the most. They don’t take care of it.

So here are a couple of other things that kind of help as well — being present. It’s really easy in our technology days to get lost in being elsewhere, especially if you have anxiety. Your mind is just everywhere, it’s not ever where you’re supposed to be. So a way to handle this is mindfulness.

Mindfulness

So I want you to take a minute, take a couple of deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth. If it feels right you can close your eyes. But I just want you to focus on what you’re feeling in your body right now. I want you to notice any tension that’s going on in your body, any places where it feels tight, and also notice those things that feel good — because there are parts that you feel good still. Remember to breathe as you’re doing it. And while you’re doing that, why don’t you take a moment to notice the things going on in this room — notice what you can hear, what you can feel, what do you smell. Include all of your senses.

Go ahead and open your eyes. So that is a mindfulness activity, and this is something you can do anywhere that you’re at. You can take a minute to just feel where you’re at and it can help you feel more present when you’re with other people.

Meditation can also be a helpful thing — so you mentioned meditation. I think meditation tends to have a bad rap because most people think it’s just sitting on a rock humming to yourself, but that’s not exactly what meditation is. There are different types of meditation. So kind of what we were doing just now — that can be a form of meditation. If you want to focus on a word or a phrase, that can be a type of meditation. I find that the most helpful meditation is guided meditation, and so what it does is it creates a picture for you. So that could be imagining yourself in a place that’s really calm and soothing, that can be imagining your stresses just kind of floating away — if you wanted to make them into bubbles or sparkles or things like that. I found a really great podcast that helps with meditations really well — it’s guided meditations and they’re like 10 minutes long. So this can also help with sleep, so if you’re struggling to fall asleep at night, listening to one of the meditations can really help put your mind at ease.

Environment — so this is also one that kind of surprises people. Your dorm room and how it looks can affect how you handle stress. I don’t think people realize how much things in the room cause stress to us. If you’re ever in a room that’s extremely cluttered, things are everywhere, you can’t find things — you tend to be a little more stressed than if you’re in a clean room where you know where things are. And this is true for like a desk that you’re looking at — if your desk is clean, you know where things are, you know how to handle that. You’ll notice yourself being less stressed and probably more motivated than if your desk is a mess and you have to clean it before you do anything else.

Forest Bathing

Spending time in nature — so that’s also part of it. So they did a lot of experiments with this in Japan. They did a lot of research and they came up with this term that they call forest bathing. They found if you spend a lot of time in nature, especially among trees, it lowers your depression, your anxiety, and your stress levels. They didn’t give reasons for why that helps but they found that it does — it lowers your stress level overall. And so in Japan it’s a regular experience for people to go into nature on their lunch break and they come back to work feeling less stressed. They’ve also found that if you just stare at a picture of nature that can also help — it’s obviously not going to help as much as if you were in nature, but it still helps. So I added a picture of nature so you can benefit from that — less stress there.

Setting Reasonable Expectations

Set reasonable expectations — this is also part of lowering stress. And the biggest part of that is avoiding perfectionism. So I added a quote from Brené Brown — yes, Brené Brown. She did a lot of research on shame and vulnerability and she talks a lot about perfectionism and how it’s kind of like a heavy shield that we carry around with us. It’s something that we think is going to protect us but it actually keeps us from moving forward and being who we can be. And she also breaks down what perfectionism is versus healthy striving, which healthy striving is a good thing — this is something that we should work toward having. So healthy striving is self-focused — how can I improve. Perfectionism is other-focused — what will they think. And this is from her first book The Gifts of Imperfection where she talks a lot about perfectionism.

So along with perfectionism, sometimes you’ll encounter what they call imposter syndrome, where it feels like you don’t belong here and you’re just waiting until somebody finds out that you’re not supposed to be here. Which happens a lot especially with first generation students because they don’t really know what they’re doing as they go into it. And again, a lot of that is just our perception of what’s going on but it’s not actually there.

Asking for Help

So along with setting reasonable expectations, asking for help is a big part and almost everybody’s afraid to do it. But we have lots of resources here on campus that can help you out. So that’s tutoring services which is here in the library, the Writing Center is here in the library, and we actually have faculty mentors that can be helpful. We have quite a few and they are eager and willing to help. So if you ever need somebody, there are people that can help.

And also reward yourself — enjoy the time that you have with family and friends because they are your biggest support. So it’s good to spend time with them and make sure that you have time for them. And take the evening off, especially if you reach your goals — that’s a good way to spend your time. Because we’re not meant to just keep going at all times. We have to relax, we have to settle ourselves down, and it makes it easier to start the next thing.

Tip 2: Time Management

All right, tip number two — time management. Okay so these are the things that are going to help with time management skills. So first one is prioritize the work. You need to decide what’s important versus what is urgent. So not every assignment that you come across is going to be important — sometimes they’re just going to be urgent, there’s a deadline for it. And so you have to decide what’s important versus what’s urgent, and sometimes it’s both and sometimes it’s neither. So I think that’s probably the hardest part — trying to figure out what do I need to get done for sure and what can I let go. And not everything is important, because an easy trap to fall into is that everything is important and I need to get all of it done right now, which just creates a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety, and then nothing gets done.

Break down the work — so this is a great chance to kind of learn how you function when it comes to doing work. A lot of people don’t realize how much time it takes them to do things and so they either over or under plan for it. So if you can break it down into smaller pieces it makes it a little bit more manageable and it’s a lot less overwhelming.

I’m going to mess up the word but there’s a Pomodoro method — has anybody heard of that? Okay, so the method is about working for 20 minutes and then you take a five minute break and you do that two or three times and then you give yourself a longer break, say like half an hour. And this has been proven to be the most effective method when it comes to studying and getting work done. Because again we can only do so much at a time and so if you give 20 minutes of your time to work and then give yourself a break, you can get a lot more done than if you sat at it for a couple of hours. Okay so again this is kind of like using some rewards in that time to get it done.

Set deadlines — so you can set your own deadlines when it comes to getting things done. So like if you know you have something to do next week or in a couple of weeks, you can break it down and be like, “Okay, well I want to have this part of it done by this time.” Typically the hardest part of that is accountability. If we set our own deadlines it doesn’t feel real and then we don’t stick to it. But there are productivity apps that you can use to help with that. I know of one where it turns into a tree on your phone and if you disrupt it the tree dies, but the longer you stay off of it it grows. So that can be a good way to help with that. Or you can use family and friends too to help with accountability — so let them know what you’re planning and have them reach out to you about it. That’ll be the best way to get success with deadlines.

This last one is super important — setting boundaries. The hardest part for some students is saying no. It’s really easy to get caught up in what everybody else is doing and not saying no when you need to. And saying no is kind of like a muscle — you have to practice using it to get comfortable with it. And oftentimes we let fear dictate those boundaries. So if we’re afraid of what our friends will think, sometimes we will change those boundaries to fit what everybody else is doing. But that’s also a good way to kind of get off balance.

Tip 3: Use Your Support System

All right, number three — use your support system. And I’m going to talk about who’s in your support system when you’re here.

Family and friends is number one. They’re the ones who are going to see you the most, they’re the ones who are going to check in with you the most. They are good for support. So even if they haven’t been to college before, they typically know how important this is and so they’re going to be supportive, they’re going to help push you through school. And they can also help with accountability — so again if you tell them about deadlines that you’re setting up for yourself they can also help check in with that. Friends can be great for that especially because they have their own deadlines and that way you can have an accountability partner.

A counselor — so you can talk to me, we can talk through things that you’re having trouble with, especially if you’re having trouble finding a balance between all of it. You can come in, we can talk in a confidential matter, and I’m in Hodis room 121. It’s kind of tucked away in a corner but it’s here.

Career services and Student Access — which Student Access is the next one on the list. So they can help if you have a learning disorder where it’s hard to read or write, things like that. They can also help with accommodations for that and they are right next door to me in Hodis 119.

Faculty mentors — so I know this is the second time I mentioned faculty mentors but they are a completely underutilized resource. They want you to succeed and they’re going to help you. So if you can have faculty mentors, we also have peer mentors. I know that Casey Reid here in the library has “Get It Done” sessions so if you want help getting something done, she is a good resource for accountability. And there are various faculty that are designated mentors for that.

Okay so I wanted to include some inventories. So these are inventories that you can use to kind of see where your balance is. This first one will ask you some questions — it’s pretty easy — but it will ask about different areas of your life and then it will give you a percentage of how well that part is going in your life. So it’s a pretty useful one. The second one is from Brené Brown — she has a Whole Heart inventory and this one kind of helps with seeing how much of a problem perfectionism is in your life. So both of these are really good to kind of get a feel for what your life balance is.

So here’s a list of resources. Productivity apps — there’s RescueTime, Toggl, Freedom, and Trello. If you’re a to-do list type of person we have Any.do and Remember the Milk. And then if you like old school paper and pen type of things, Scattered Squirrel has a lot of great time management lists that you can go to and they’re in different colors, they’re different sizes — it’s a great resource which I don’t think most people know about.

Okay and this is just my contact information and if you have any questions I can answer them.

Bonus: Productivity App

Oh you can — since all the students at Avila have access to the Microsoft Office suite, there’s another app in there called Microsoft To Do and it connects with your Outlook calendar. So like if you add a to-do item in Microsoft To Do it’ll add it to your calendar on that said due date, so that way it’s in two places and you remember it and it’s all synced up with your Outlook and all that type of stuff. So that’s just another app if you’re interested. Yeah, very cool.

All right, that’s all that I’ve got for you. Awesome, well thank you so much. Go balance yourselves out, get something to eat, take it outside — it’s gorgeous. Get all the markers hit. Exactly. It’s going to be cold later this week. Enjoy it while you can. Exactly.