Don't panic, they say.....
Good Afternoon everyone :)
Today's post will be about how NOT to panic during the IB and how to avoid it.....
Well there's the simple answer to this, which would be... just stay home and study and do ALL of your work and you'll be fine. However, sometimes as all IB students will understand, you get stuck between a rock and a very hard place. In translation this means, I want to have a social life and do well in school but still manage to fit in some sleep somewhere here AND manage all of this without stressing.
In all honesty, achieving this goal is like a distant dream as an IB student. Its something that we just deal with because we know that in two years were going to be done and we will... eventually have our social life back. There is a way of juggling everything all at once however many find this difficult, I am one of those many.
I did well in my first year of IB, it was tough but manageable and I still had a social life and sleep. However, the second year I returned to school I was slacking a lot as I had very negative energy and a pessimistic outlook on everything. I was lacking sleep and got sick a lot due to the lack of sleep, I missed many classes and couldn't catch up. I started to lack in concentration, couldn't seem to stay awake as I was sleeping in two phases and was drinking 6 cups of tea and coffee a day.
I am telling you all this so that this does not happen to you. I regret being so negative about coming back to school as it really caused me to fall behind in my studies. I have wanted to share this story with you so that you can avoid any of this happening to you. There are a number of important things that will help you through tough weeks where your colour-coordinated calendar has 3 major deadlines scheduled in one week.
So what can you do to make sure that you don't fall behind even if the week has been unbearable and you just want to collapse on your bed?
THE most important thing to keep in mind is:
SLEEP - Yes, I said the word! The thing most IB students lack!
Let me explain firstly - My average amount of sleep in the first month of school this year was 4 and a half hours a night and sometimes even less. I would come home and take a 2 hour nap and stay up most of the night to do work as I could not concentrate during the day.
Please, do NOT do this. It will eventually cause your whole body to be physically and mentally exhausted leading to a total burn-out (which is what happened to me). I can tell you from experience, you need your sleep, it is the most important part of your day.
When my headmaster explained the reason why we should get at least 7 hours of sleep a night I was quite shocked to hear why.
Through this diagram it will show you why sleep is important:
REM is the kind of sleep that the body needs in order to re-vitalize itself and if this sleep is not obtained our bodies cannot function at their full potential. We need to go through all 5 stages of sleep multiple times in order to function to our full potential.
I have downloaded an app which allows me to see how well I am sleeping called 'Sleep Time' which is free and monitors my sleeping patterns and can then tell me the quality of my sleep. I now keep track of all of my sleeping habits which has really helped me concentrate on actually sleeping and making sure that I get enough hours a night. The looks something like this (definitely worth downloading):
