It can be hard to stay focused during the first few weeks of school, underclassmen are tired and stressed, and upperclassmen are burned out and eager to leave. In addition to second-semester woes, the minimal daylight hours and cold weather can contribute to seasonal depression. With all that stacked up, it’s hard to stay motivated enough to do school work and extracurriculars. Here are some tips to boost your energy and cure your back to school blues.

1. Self Care

Sometimes it’s important to treat yourself to a nice warm bath. Get yourself some fancy Lush soap and some face masks from Target and allow yourself optimal time to have a long bubble bath. Aside from baseline self-care, also take some time to make you feel physically okay. If the gym has your muscles crying in pain, get yourself a nice muscle run and bask in the tingling. Alternatively, if you find it helps more, make yourself a small ice bath. Doing small things that make you feel peaceful and relaxed are sure to make you feel less stressed and/or burned out.

2. Make a Routine

Making a habit or routine can help a good deal with the loss of motivation. If you regularly make a plan, like doing your homework for 45 minutes starting at five o’clock, and stick to it, it’ll slowly start to feel like less of a bother and more like a normal part of your day. In addition, giving yourself a normal proper bedtime will make you feel more refreshed in the morning and make it easier to fall asleep at night. For example, being in bed by nine and putting your phone down at eleven will give you a good 7 hours of sleep. 3 hours a night for sleep is not enough and definitely won’t give you the energy necessary to make it through the whole school day.

3. Be Productive

Even when there’s nothing going on that you can do to keep busy, like homework or extracurriculars. Being productive is important to maintaining your energy level throughout the day. If you’re sitting in study hall with nothing to do, clean out your binders, organize your school things, tend to your cuticles, anything that isn’t just sitting on your phone for 42 minutes. If you’re at home, clean your room, clean out your dresser and gather some things for Goodwill, make a dinner from scratch, do some grocery shopping, anything that keeps you moving and on your feet so your energy level doesn’t drop until it’s supposed to.

4. Think About the Future

Not in a scary way, but remind yourself that getting out of this exhausted funk has a purpose, and your future could depend on it. Plan some ideas, ie, what you want your dorm or first apartment to be like, find travel plans between your current location and the colleges or potential jobs you’re looking at. Keep an eye on what’s ahead of you, and yes, you probably should do your Calc homework if you want to go to that specific school of your dreams. School is an integral part of achieving high in your later years, and nothing keeps you motivated like actively remembering school will affect the rest of your life. On second thought, thinking about the future is always scary.