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UPSC Prelims 2025 Dates Announced: Essential Mental Health Tips for Every Aspirant
The Union Public Service Commission has released the notification for the Civil Services Examination. The application process for UPSC 2025 began on January 22, 2025, and the preliminary exam is scheduled for Sunday, May 25, 2025.
UPSC is one of the most sought after albeit challenging, exams in India. Every year, approximately 11 to 13 lakh students apply for the UPSC Civil Services Examination (CSE). However, the number of candidates who actually appear for the Prelims stage is significantly lower, around 50-55% of the applicants, with its passing percentage estimated to be around 0.2%.
The UPSC season is a time of hope, career uncertainty, expectations and intense competition, and during such times, anxiety and depression become unavoidable for the aspirants, if not, incumbent.
The high-pressure environment of the UPSC exam promotes poor mental well-being that causes stress, anxiety and loss of self-esteem, where years of hard work and expensive preparation are put at risk . The stress and anxiety that aspirants face is often a repercussion of social isolation for preparation, the fear of failing, the eternal pursuit of success that creates burnout and the unnatural expectations from society.
If you are one of the aspirants of the forthcoming UPSC exam, then here are a few ways that can help you strike a balance between your heart, health and mind.
The UPSC Exam preparation is often understood as synonymous with self-isolation and social disappearance, but the years of results have highlighted that people who actually are among the top rankers are the people who maintain priority studies and don't let it take over other things in life. Socialising helps you take a quick break to refresh, which helps to improve your efficiency.
The UPSC exam is a long journey of at least a year and during this time, it is important not to go silent. Talk to your parent, your friends or anyone who makes you feel heard. Confronting our emotions and having open conversations about the fears and uncertainty that we deal with helps us release anxiety and feel better.
A sound body indicated a happy mind. Overconsuming junk food, which is high in calories and fats, will make you feel low on energy and lethargic, which can affect your efficiency and productivity. If you eat a balanced diet, you will be able to feel better mentally and physically.
Don't give up on the things that you like. Successful people are not the ones who give up their interests only to achieve something else, but they are the ones who strike parallels between the two.
Know that you are a human being, and feeling any negative emotion is a part of life. Never be ashamed to express how you feel, like anything in this world, our emotions too, are temporal and we can't continue to feel one thing for the rest of our lives.
If you fail, be patient enough to try again but if you ever feel like that this decision is making you have any negative thoughts that can harm your life then you should move to the next one, it is not the only career that exists in the world and there are always greater things waiting for you.
If your mental well-being continues to get worse, then you should choose to go to a counsellor and seek professional help. If there's no shame in going to a doctor when you are down with fever, then how can seeking a therapist's help for our mental well-being be a thing of shame?
Everyone has their own opinion but it is up to us what we have to process from the world. You shouldn't listen to the hate, but focus on the positive side of life. People are just people, but we are the processors of our own mental well-being.
Remember - Failure isn't always fatal, and at times it's a redirection and not a denial. It's okay to feel upset,t but it's important to pick yourself up and seek things that make us feel valued and happy and that is the ultimate way to success.