When I was a kid, I always got a bit stressed, just before the beginning of September. It was hard for me to shift gears from lazy summer mode into intense, driven school mode.

Eventually, I figured out a strategy for making the transition as smooth as possible, and having a great school year. By the time I got to University, I even found myself looking forward to the fall term of school.

Here are my five tips for minimizing your stress and maximizing your success, as you go back to school:

1.  Take care of your health: Make sure you get enough sleep, eat your vegetables, and keep up the exercise you enjoyed throughout the summer.
2. Calm your mind: Try yoga, meditation, or visualization exercises to help you shift from low to high gear.
3. Create a workable schedule for study and assignments: I found that carving up my time into slots for reading, writing and the rest of my life facilitated my ability to get everything done.
4. Carve out time for a personal life: In medical school, there was very little time for anything but school, but even then, I made a point of spending time with the people in my life. Meaningful social connections are deeply fulfilling and have a significant stress-lowering function.
5. Eliminate distractions and maximize your ability to focus on your assignments: Shut off the radio or ipod, unless it’s quiet, instrumental, background music; put away your phone so that you’re not constantly tempted to answer texts or read emails, and shut your door, so that people know you’re working and respect your study time.

If you follow these five tips, you should ease into your school year with a lot less discomfort, and be able to achieve a good degree of academic success.