THE health and wellbeing of the students at the Carlton College of Sport has always been an important priority, even more so now during the current COVID-19 situation. With all classes running online our primary focus has been keeping students engaged with content and improving motivation.
Learning or working remotely offers opportunities for students to adjust how they study however it also presents a unique set of challenges.
Club psychologist for the Carlton Football Club Tarah Kavanagh talked to our students about how to maintain their wellbeing and motivation while undertaking study from home. Find out below what advice Tarah had for students to improve their motivation and wellbeing during COVID-19.
Motivation
Motivation and energy can be quite low because they’re a bit bored and lacking motivation. There are other people in different boats who are suffering financially, or overworked and overwhelmed because they’re still working but having to do a lot.
If you’re feeling really flat and lethargic, it seems counter intuitive, but you have actually got to do more. You need to do more things that will stimulate your brain. Start to do new and novel activities and use this opportunity to learn something new.
If you’re at the other end and you’re feeling overwhelmed and stressed, it’s more about rest and recovery and doing things that sooth you. Making sure that you have boundaries, that’s really important.
Routines and health behaviour
What we’re finding at the moment is that there are no boundaries between work, school, play or rest and we don’t have good boundaries in terms of sleep.
Routines will help you to stay on track and will help you maintain your positive habits. People are overeating, oversleeping and forming some bad habits that won’t help with overall mental wellbeing.
Social connection
Social connection is a lot harder at the moment. People are adapting and are finding ways to communicate, but we’re not getting that deep social connection. We’re not getting the feel-good chemicals that rush through your body when you’re face-to-face with someone, so it’s a lot harder and it’s very draining.
When you are talking to people, try to have deeper conversations. Reach out to people that you don’t normally talk to. This will help to broaden your social connections during this time given that we’re quite limited to who we’re talking to at home.
Read more about Tarah’s work as Club Psychologist at the Carlton Football Club here.