Know and respect your limits. Overworking yourself will lead to crashing down and need for unproductive recovery times. It’s better to work slowly but consistently, both for your self-esteem and for your general productivity.
You are not weak for seeking help. Help has the goal of making you be on equal footing with everyone else, not give you an advantage. And, more than anything else, it says nothing about your personal worth.
Set yourself achievable goals. Stress and pressure will make your disability feel even heavier and more limiting than it already is, so give yourself some leeway by setting reasonable objectives.
You have the right to say no. No to friends who want to go out, no to family members who want to get a say in how you handle your time, no to a boss who wants to schedule you over time. It’s your choice.
Get good sleep hygiene. Even if you have a hectic schedule, try to go to bed and wake up within the same hour every day and set yourself a getting-to-bed routine that includes shutting down screens 30min to 1h before bedtime, relaxation time, and perhaps meditation. If you need to go to bed later than usual, do not try to calculate how many hours of sleep you will get, simply set your alarm and go to bed.
Use a routine. Routines make things less heavy for you and make it less likely to forget important things.
Try to eat healthy. It can be hard on a student budget, but things like beans and legumes can be bought in bulk for cheap and are easy to cook and nutritious. Over the weekend, you can cook batches of food that can be frozen so you have easily accessible meals on the go for 1-2 weeks.
Drink water. Avoid using caffeine if you can as it disturbs your body’s natural sleep-wake cycle and it can become addicting.
Exercise a little. It can be just short walks around the block or some gentle stretches. Whatever gets you moving around, brings a bit of fresh air and leaves you some time to think about something else than your studies is beneficial.
Try to avoid cluttering at all costs. This one is hard to do, but when you’re sick, accumulated clutter can really feel overwhelming. Should you ever find yourself unable to keep things clean, try cleaning the clutter little by little over a week or two instead of trying to tackle it all at once.
Getting Help From Your School
Contact your office of disability. Do it as soon as possible when you get registered to a new school to get the forms you have to hand out to your doctor to get accommodations.
Explain your situation to your teacher. No need to go full on as if they were your doctor, but explaining that you might need to miss out a little more often than the average student could help them be more understanding of your situation. Also name and explain the accommodations you are entitled to.
Meet with your disability counsellor. They are the ones in charge of deciding which accommodations are fair for you considering your abilities and limitations. Don’t hesitate to meet up again with them if you feel like you are struggling a lot more than your classmates, or if your professors are not collaborative.
Be aware of your options. You can have different accommodations to help you in class, like having a designated note-taker, the right to record classes, etc. Other accommodations are related to exams and assignments: additional time to hand out assignments, more time on exams, the ability to do exams in a separate room, the ability to use a computer (for people with dyslexia and other related disabilities), etc. Trust your disability counsellor to know what’s right but don’t hesitate to make suggestions.
Get financial help. There are grants specifically for students with disabilities. Governmental help can also be adjusted relatively to your disability, either with more money granted to you or a higher ratio of grants-to-loans.
Use the pomodoro method for school work. Your brain has limited energy expenditure. You will get more out of multiple hours of school work if you take frequent breaks to move around, drink water and rest your mind.
Plan assignments in advance. If you have a disability, chances are lack of sleep and stress have a huge impact on your ability to concentrate. If you plan your assignments in advance, you get to start working on them for short amounts of time every day instead of a huge burst, giving yourself time to review your paper before submitting and not being stuck with pulling an all-nighter.
Get a reduced course load. Even non-disabled students tend to prefer reduced course loads because it allows them a less stressful/fast-paced study planning and they have more time to fix mishaps.
Make your to-do list short and achievable. It’s way more empowering to be able to go through your whole list and do a little bit of extra than never finishing your lists.
Keep a back-up day per week. You never know when you might find yourself facing a bad mental health or physical health day and need some rest. Try planning your study and assignments in such a way that you have an extra day to complete them should you need to postpone work.
Ask for help from your teacher. It might seem intimidating, especially if you have anxiety and such, but teachers are there to help and they’ll be more lenient towards health-related mishaps if they know you’re a good student who genuinely wants to work. They’ll also be more likely to consider revising your grade should you end up a shy few points from passing.
These are very broad tips that might not be applicable to everyone. I know most of these helped me, so I hope they help you a little. I know you got this. 💕
