How to Manage Your Mental Health During Your Work Placement Year

Choosing to undertake a work placement during your studies offers a wonderful opportunity to sharpen your skills, gain real-world experience, and make new professional connections. But despite its benefits, taking on a placement role can feel overwhelming at times, often requiring a change of pace and plenty of new tasks and responsibilities to get used to.

It goes without saying that you need to take care of your mental health when starting on this new part of your academic journey. Here, we share some of the ways to manage your mental health while working on placement.

Take care of your body

A healthy body supports a healthy mind, so it’s important to make sure you get enough sleep, exercise regularly, and eat a balanced diet while on your placement. You need all the energy you can get to make the most of the experience, and consuming nutrient-dense foods will help you to do just that – the best part is, you don’t have to splash the cash to afford healthy snacks. Likewise, even a short walk on your lunch break will help to get your body moving so you feel refreshed and ready to work.

Practising good sleep hygiene will ensure that you get enough quality rest – make sure your bedroom is dark and quiet at night, and avoid screen time an hour or so before bed for restorative sleep.

Stick to a daily schedule

Work can easily pile up and start to feel stressful if your time isn’t well managed. By sticking to a regular routine with the help of a schedule, you can take a lot of the guesswork out of what you should be doing and when – freeing up more headspace and allowing you to focus all your energy on the task at hand. While there may be some parts of the day that you have less flexibility such as while you’re at work, you can focus your schedule on the parts of the day when you do have more control, to help make your responsibilities work for you.

When creating a schedule, remember to fit in plenty of downtime. A successful schedule is a manageable one, that allows you to fully switch off after the working day is done.

Maintain social relationships

Homesickness can be a real issue if you’re studying or working away from home. While you may feel busy with lots on your plate, even a five minute conversation with a loved one each day can help you to feel more connected to home, put your thoughts into perspective and keep you feeling motivated.

Research has found that 94% of students feel homesick during the first ten weeks of their studies, and this is likely to only be magnified when adding placement responsibilities into the mix. Maintaining a strong social support system is essential whenever you undertake something new, whether it’s first starting university or embarking on a placement further into your studies.

Seek mental health support

The first steps to boosting your mental health are to look after your physical health, organise your schedule, and stay connected with friends and family – but what should you do if you need a little extra help?

Many students benefit from seeking professional mental health support, from a counsellor or other healthcare professional. Speak to your university about how they can help you with this before you begin your placement, to set yourself up for success.

Author bio: Sasha Reynolds
Sasha is a student advisor who supports various mental health initiatives. She supports students to thrive from the start of their studies through to the moment they graduate, with plenty of academic guidance and advice.