How to Create a Master's Thesis: Dealing With Paper Stress

• Introduction

Stress is the bane of essay writers, and nothing can be worse than writing a master's thesis or other major thesis. This can be a big deal, so it is important to make sure your stress levels are managed. If left unchecked, stress can make you anxious, exhausted, and unable to do anything productive. The toll it takes on your physical, mental, and emotional health is immense, and it will make your performance suffer. Therefore, what you need to do is make sure that you keep your stress under control, and there are some strategies that will help you do that.

• Strategies

Thankfully, there are some things you can do in general to reduce your stress level. First, make sure your body is healthy. An hour of exercise in the morning can do wonders for when you write your paper in the evening. Drink enough water, and eat brain foods- sugar is not going to help your stress levels. In the same vein, do not overdose on caffeine with too much coffee or an entire energy drink- this does not help your performance. Get enough sleep, and make sure to take periodic breaks.

• Studying Time Schedules

Humans are not really designed to work for large periods without rest. Scheduling is important here, you cannot just expect to take ten hours straight and get this done right away. A good practice for a marathon is alternate work and rest, 45 minutes of intense work followed by 15 minutes of resting, and no more than 3 hours per day of work. If you do not follow this, you risk burnout, immense amounts of stress, and abject failure.

• Compartmentalization

This is related to time scheduling above, but realize that the biggest factor for stress is trying to do a paper all in one setting or in a very limited amount of time. This is never good. What you need to do is to break up the paper into small work sessions over many days, letting you get the work done in time without cramming, which causes plenty of stress. In addition, the way to do this is compartmentalization, or breaking the paper down into small, discrete steps. Give yourself time to do research, write an outline, then a rough draft, then two more drafts. This should give you time to share your essay with peers, teachers, and tutors, and you can work on a small chunk of the essay each day.