A new school year brings fresh energy, but it also brings the familiar pressures of examinations, applications, and the everyday demands of supporting young people through them. Self-care is too often treated as an afterthought, squeezed in once everything else is done. In truth, it is the foundation that makes everything else possible. Below are two short sets of practical tips: one for school counselors, and one to share directly with students. Neither list is exhaustive, but each is grounded in the evidence and intended to be genuinely usable, not just aspirational.
For School Counselors
School counselors are frequently asked to do more with less: high caseloads, administrative duties, and exposure to other people’s distress. Protecting your own wellbeing is not indulgent; it is what allows you to keep showing up for the students who need you most.
- Protect your own time – Guarding your time is one of the strongest protective factors against burnout and compassion fatigue. Treat it as non-negotiable: set a clear boundary around opening and responding to emails during time with family and friends, and take a moment each day to remind yourself that you are doing your best.
- Draw a clear line around administrative tasks – Where possible, resist the drift of scheduling, testing coordination, and clerical work into time that should be spent with students. If this is not within your control, raise it with school leadership as a workload issue, not a personal failing.
- Build a peer support network – Compassion fatigue thrives in isolation. A regular, informal check-in with a fellow counselor or other staff members, even fifteen minutes over coffee can make a meaningful difference to how sustainable the counseling role feels.
- Learn to recognize compassion fatigue, not just burnout – Burnout builds gradually from exhaustion and workload; compassion fatigue can arrive more suddenly, from sustained exposure to others’ pain. Notice if you feel emotionally numb, unusually cynical, or find it harder to feel empathy than usual, and treat this as a signal to seek support, not a personal shortcoming.
- Model the self-care you teach – Students notice when the adults around them practise what they preach. Being visibly (if modestly) intentional about your own boundaries and wellbeing reinforces the message that self-care is not optional.
- Advocate for sustainable caseloads – Recommended student-to-counselor ratios exist for good reason. Where your caseload significantly exceeds them, document the impact on your capacity to provide meaningful support and raise it formally — this is a structural issue, not something to absorb quietly.
- Build in micro-recovery between sessions – Even two or three minutes between meetings or conversations with students and parents to breathe, stretch, or simply sit in silence helps prevent emotional carry-over from one conversation into the next.
- Give yourself permission to say ‘not today’ – You cannot pour from an empty cup. If you are running on empty, it is better to reschedule a non-urgent meeting and protect your capacity than to show up depleted for every single one.
- Be kind to yourself with positive affirmations – Remind yourself of the experience, knowledge, passion, and effort you invest in supporting students and parents every day. Try writing one positive affirmation each morning and reading it aloud before opening your emails. It can make a genuine difference to your mindset and sense of self-worth.
- Carry out an honest end-of-year self-review – Take time to assess how you might work smarter, not harder, in the year ahead for example, by creating podcasts or newsletters, making use of additional support where available, and connecting with peers through WhatsApp groups or events. Whatever you decide, keep doing the amazing work you are already doing.
For Students
Examinations, university applications, and the pressure to have it all figured out can make this period feel relentless. The good news is that self-care does not need to be complicated or time-consuming. These tips are drawn from strategies that have been shown to genuinely help — not just sound nice.
- Question the stress, don’t just fight it – Instead of telling yourself the exam will define your entire future, try asking: is this actually true? A single result is one data point, not a verdict on your worth. Practising this shift in the weeks before an exam can meaningfully lower anxiety.
- Use the five-minute breath reset – Before an exam, an interview, or a stressful conversation, try three to five minutes of slow, deliberate breathing. It sounds simple, but it measurably reduces the physical symptoms of anxiety and helps you think more clearly.
- Try exam journaling – Spend ten minutes writing freely about what is worrying you before a big assessment. Getting worries down on paper, rather than carrying them around in your head, frees up mental energy for the exam itself.
- Build a realistic study plan, not a punishing one – A staged revision plan that includes rest and review, not just study, replaces the vague dread of feeling unprepared with a concrete sense of control. Having a plan matters as much for your mind as for your grades.
- Treat sleep as part of your preparation – Pulling all-nighters before an exam does more harm than good. Good sleep supports memory, focus, and emotional regulation, so treat it as seriously as you treat your revision timetable.
- Stack small wins – Confidence is built through mastery, not motivation. Break big tasks (like a personal statement or a revision topic) into small, completable steps, and notice each one you finish. It genuinely helps.
- Don’t go through this alone – Talk to friends, family, or a school counselor about how you are really doing, not just how your revision is going. Strong connections are one of the most protective factors against stress during this period.
- Have a plan for the waiting period after – The anxiety doesn’t always end when the exam does. Make plans for the days after submission. Something active, creative, or simply enjoyable, so the waiting period doesn’t become its own source of distress.
- Be kind to yourself with positive affirmations – It is easy, during exams and applications, to focus only on what is going wrong. Try writing one honest, positive affirmation each morning — about your effort, your progress, or simply your own worth beyond your results — and read it aloud before you start your day.
- Connect with your school counselor early – Reach out to and build a relationship with your high school counselor as early as possible. They are there to support you, and they bring real knowledge and experience that can make a genuine difference during this period.
Neither list will remove the pressures of the year ahead, but small, consistent practices, for counselors and students alike, can make a genuine difference to how that pressure is carried.
About the author
Hamza Mahoney is a qualified psychotherapist currently pursuing a PhD. He holds an MSc from the RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dublin, and a First-Class Honours degree in Counselling. With almost 15 years of experience working with students and educational institutions, he has delivered presentations on scholarships, university admissions, global career pathways, and safeguarding, and has developed career assessment tools and alumni engagement initiatives to strengthen institutional impact.
Hamza has supported students in progressing to a wide range of fields, including medicine, veterinary science, engineering, performing arts, fine arts, directing, sports sciences, and business, with many gaining admission to leading institutions including Ivy League and Russell Group universities.
