DS is a freshman and he is completely stressed out with the workload. His goal (unrealistic, of course) is to get straight-A’s, and he is on track to get at least 3 A’s out of 4 courses. But he is always working, always juggling, feels that it is impossible to do everything he needs to do, so some things fall by the wayside. He has stopped socializing on the weekends, and he spends all his time studying or writing papers. He’s taking mostly science classes so there are time-consuming labs; one of his courses has 12 hours/week of lectures, labs, and discussion, when the standard is 3 hours. I’ve suggested that he modify his goal and try for all B’s (his college recommends that freshmen take all classes pass/fail, but he is taking everything for grades), but he says that it’s either do the work/studying/papers or fail. If he studies, he does well. He got the highest grade out of 400 students in one of his science courses. But he does not have things under control.
He says that much of the time that he’s working, he is not accomplishing anything. For every hour he spends, he estimates that 20 mins are focused work. The obvious solution is to work hard and take breaks, but he’s not able to do this. He has started taking zinc supplements and fish oil, and he thinks they’ve helped. He may have ADD; we’ve gone to a really good assessment center (he had a complete educational assessment some years ago and it was very helpful, so we went back to the doctor there). He did a medication trial, but found that the medication helped at first, but quickly became ineffective, i.e., the first couple of days were great, but after that it didn’t do much. He has tried a different medication a couple of times. He took it a few days ago and was able to write a very dense paper for his philosophy class in 2 hours. But then he was not able to fall asleep for 18 hours, got only 4 hours of sleep, and felt the next day as if his brain was burned out (his description). So medication does not seem to be the answer.
I hate hearing him sounding so stressed. He was a good student in HS, with a similar pattern - studying “all the time” - meaning that he limited social life, but feeling that most of the time was not productive. Now the courses are much harder.
He does not drink at all or take drugs. He is a vegetarian, bordering on vegan (taking the fish oil was a big concession for him, but he felt desperate). He runs; he had been running an hour a day, because he needed to in order to focus at all. Now, since he started the supplements, he’s been able to cut down on the running. I think he runs every other day now, and of course he does a lot of walking all over campus.
Any advice?
Have a great Thanksgiving: he must be grateful to have you!