I am going to cover a different aspect of CAT preparation which very few people talk about or know the importance of it. However, I feel that it is one of the most important parts of one's preparation. This article revolves around the importance of mental health in CAT preparation. Although, I am no psychologist or an expert and this is purely based on my personal experience.

Good mental health helps you sail through difficult situations which at one point of time might have seemed impossible. When you are feeling down from inside, you don't feel motivated enough to carry out your normal tasks or follow your schedule. You are lying in your bed, contemplating all the thoughts that are not even real yet but you still live in that bubble that you have created because there's a different type of comfort in it.

Even the slightest failure/low makes you think that you are not good enough or you are not cut out for it. Having poor mental health automatically triggers overthinking which forces you to visualize scenarios which haven't happened yet or might not happen but nonetheless it makes you feel miserable. In these times it becomes crucial to have faith in yourself.

I don't remember much about my school education but I do remember vividly what my class teacher once said, "it doesn't matter whether you have faith in God or not but you just have to have faith in something, it can be a supreme power or your parents or anything but having faith helps you to overcome failure." It helps you to move on whenever something bad happens because you know there is some power out there looking out for you and this is just another obstacle even though it doesn't seem that way at that point of the way but eventually you'll get through it. As Zakir Khan beautifully says "Bade logon ke saath hota hai aise".

It is crucial to have one activity or so-called hobby which helps you escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life and helps you break the monotonous pattern of the routine life. For me it was Football. Whenever I used to step on the football field, I used to forget all the problems in my life for 90 minutes. Another way for me was watching football videos of Cristiano Ronaldo which used to uplift my spirits no matter how down or dejected or defeated I felt. No prizes for guessing my favourite football player. Surprisingly, I have been doing this since I was 12 years old. I made sure to play football one day before my exams including Boards, JEE entrance exam, or even CAT. Over the years, it became one of those habits which I never changed, for good. All I am trying to say is that find one hobby which creates this strong sparkling and spirited feeling and pursue it relentlessly.

Apart from having a hobby, having a person in your life whom you can share everything with, including your personal issues, low mock scores, disliking of a particular CAT section or a rant, in general, is an indispensable part of not just the CAT preparation but also life in general. It can be anyone ranging from your parents to your best friend. I was lucky enough to have one person in my life with whom I could share all this. I'd like to end this article with one of my favourite quotes.

“Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom.
How do they learn it?
They fall and falling,
they're given wings.”

― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

Abhinav Singh

CAT And Mental Health | Why We Shouldn't Let The Preparation Affect Our Mental Health