Middle Years

Taking care of your wellbeing after challenging times.

Taking care of your wellbeing during and after stressful and challenging times is a great skill to have and to develop. For our students the examination period last week may have been a stressful and challenging time, so now the exams are over it is time to reflect upon what they have learned, but also enjoy having successfully completed a stressful and challenging time. 

Professor Felicia Huppert defines wellbeing as “feeling good and functioning effectively” and I like this simple definition as it offers a theoretical and operational view of wellbeing.Feeling good revolves around the balance of positive vs. negative emotions being tipped in the positive emotions' favour. It is not about the absence of negative emotions but rather the balance between positive and negative emotional states and being able to deal with the inevitable negative emotions when they arrive.  Functioning effectively is about how individuals can deal with and respond to the ups and downs of everyday life and be able to identify and productively respond to painful, unpleasant, and unwanted situations.

Some tips to help feel good and function effectively after your exams:

1. Savour the feelings of accomplishment after the last exam was completed along with celebrating any successful results. 
2. Put any negative results into perspective and set a goal to improve for that subject in the End of Year examinations. 
3. Exercise—Sports training and games are important and offer a great way to boost the feeling-good aspects of well-being.
4. Share – help celebrate other people’s successes. 
5. Avoid devaluing your accomplishments – celebrate them, especially when others acknowledge your achievements.

Hopefully, some of these tips will be useful for our Middle-Year students, helping them feel good and function effectively after their exams last week.