Staying Well at LSE LSE Student Counselling Service

1. Staying Well at LSELSE Student Counselling Service • This presentation looks at: • Being a student at LSE • Challenges that lie ahead • Tips for coping skills • Stress management skills.

3. Common challenges in starting at LSE: Academic challenges Social challenges. Tips for success. Part 1: Starting at LSE

4. Academic challenges • Overwhelmed with material • New style of learning • Independent critical voice • Anxiety can lead to procrastination: • We may disguise avoidance by being busy • We may find things to do that are interesting, but don't contribute towards the main goal

5. Social challenges 1/2 • Meeting new people • Keeping contact with people from home • Balance of work and leisure

6. Social challenges 2/2 • Loss of familiar • home, friends, family, routine • Coping with loss, after initial excitement subsides • Depression and anxiety • Cultural isolation • Relationships and Identity • Financial difficulties

7. There is a natural grieving reaction associated with change extremely common often in first weeks can occur when leaving home, but also later (eg after Xmas break) Social Challenges:Homesickness

8. The Academic strategies Reading strategies Use SQ3R: Scan, Question, Read, Review, Recall Develop a positive relationship w: fellow students. Academic adviser relationship

9. distance from home high expectations/ sense of anticlimax time to adapt to culture, language, lifestyle work overload and low control over it. most people come through homesickness and go on to do well and enjoy their time Homesickness is associated with

10. Talk to someone - others feel the same Call home but also get involved here It’s not disloyal to to enjoy yourself! Be realistic about what to expect Balance work and leisure Time to adjust You don't have to get everything right straight away Food and sleep PEER SUPPORTERS Tips for adjusting socially

11. The context for studying What are you really doing here? Part 2: Tips for dealing with challenges that lie ahead

12. Ambivalence? Independence Relationships Being a student Studying at LSE Your course Career

13. Trying to please others Being a perfectionist Feeling under pressure to do everything right Setting yourself impossible targets Repeating anxiety, stress, fear of failure … The family/ historic context for your success … Underlying dynamics

14. Dynamics of study, work, life ... Current relationships Past relationships Relationship with LSE or course of study or work or …

15. Under Pressure? What pressures are you under as a student coming to LSE From others From yourself Are these pressures realistic or excessive?

16. Practical ways of dealing with study challenges Part 3: Coping Skills

17. Practical approaches • Revise study skills • see LSE Learning World on Moodle • Time management skills • Set realistic and achievable goals • Short term targets, longer term strategies • Recognise your achievements • Talk to others, ask for help and support

18. Concentrate and focus on the task … • Concentrate on the task, not the outcome • Break down huge activities into small manageable tasks • Remember past successes • Time for breaks • space to breathe and think • mind maps, scribble ideas • go for a walk, talk out loud

19. Part 4:Stress Management Skills

20. Stress Management Skills • Physical, behavioural, cognitive… • Regularly switch off • Schedule some kind of physical activity • Good self care • Sleep, diet, caffeine, alcohol and nicotine • Time out without guilt • Acknowledge anxiety, rather than denying it. • Ask: ‘are my negative thoughts realistic?’

21. Challenging negative thoughts • Imagine them under test in a Court of Law • Identify the negative thought (I can’t do this course, I’m going to fail…) • Ascertain the evidence For and Against • Am I making a ‘thinking error’ • Propose a more reasonable alternative thought

22. Thinking errors • All or nothing thinking • Discounting the positive • only seeing the negative side • Over-generalizing • ‘If it happened before it will happen again’ • Believing a catastrophe will happen • Emotional Reasoning • ‘If I feel it then it must be true’

23. Part 5: Advice and help

24. Sources of advice and help Academic Adviser Departmental Staff Disability and Wellbeing Service Student Services Centre LSE LIFE Learning World Student Union and Advice Centre Medical Centre Mental Health and Wellbeing Advisors Don't wait until problems have grown impossibly large It’s OK to ask for help earlier

25. LSE Student Counselling Service • Free and confidential • Mainly short term counselling • Book appointments in advance • See Website for • Stress management handouts • Self help resources • Relaxation MP3’s

26. Two example workshops • BUILD CONFIDENCE FOR ACADEMIC WRITINGThis presentation looks at ways of thinking about the task of writing, with advice and tips to help manage blocks and unhelpful fears.It will include a range of management techniques for dealing with common writing difficulties, such as procrastination and perfectionism. • Managing Perfectionism workshopThis workshop looks at common difficulties with excess perfectionism, and will cover a wide range of practical approaches to help you manage your studies. It will include a look at common myths and how to overcome self-defeating thinking errors..

27. Groups Therapy groups: • Open-ended Therapy Group Themed groups: • Stress Management Group(3 weeks) • Self Esteem Group(3 weeks) Places on all groups need to be booked in advance. Please see the website, Call Ext 3627, visit KSW.507 or email student.counselling@lse.ac.uk.

28. Transition can be stressful, but also allows us to grow as a person. Imagine looking back in five years. Ask for help. Student counselling website Final thoughts